Brown Asks for 5 TV Debates With Wilson

Democrat Kathleen Brown on Thursday proposed a series of five televised debates with Gov. Pete Wilson during the fall campaign; Wilson agreed there should be debates but said the number should be negotiated.

Brown, the state treasurer, proposed in a letter to Wilson that she and Wilson meet five times around the state, beginning in Wilson’s hometown of San Diego the evening of Sept. 25.

“You and I owe the voters of California a full and public airing of our views on the issues that affect the lives of all of us,” Brown said.

She proposed that all five be televised statewide. During the Democratic primary election campaign, Brown agreed to three debates but would not allow all of them to be broadcast statewide.

In response Thursday, Wilson campaign chairman George Gorton wrote to Clint Reilly, his counterpart in the Brown campaign, to remind him that they already had agreed, almost a month ago, to begin debate negotiations.

“In your previous correspondence on this subject, you indicated that your team was going to contact ours during the week of July 12, but I understand that that did not occur,” Gorton told Reilly. “Let’s see what we can do to bring them together.”

Wilson has designated Chip Nielsen, a Sacramento and Mill Valley lawyer, to be his campaign’s chief debate negotiator. Brown has a five-member negotiating team led by Los Angeles lawyer Kim Wardlaw.

Brown proposed that the five meetings be in the Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno and San Francisco television markets, as well as in San Diego.

In her letter, Brown suggested that she and Wilson hold their first session for one hour in San Diego before “a nonpartisan group.”

Gorton said in his response: “The governor strongly believes the public would benefit from statewide television debates that involve representatives of the political press corps.”

The Brown letter did not indicate whether she intended that reporters be present to ask questions. That is the sort of issue that often becomes a subject of pre-debate negotiations.

Wilson campaign spokesman Dan Schnur said the governor has not yet committed to a specific number of debates.

In the primary, Brown faced Democratic challengers John Garamendi and Tom Hayden in three meetings: a regionally televised session in Sacramento, a statewide-broadcast debate from San Francisco and an afternoon meeting on radio station KABC in Los Angeles.

Wilson held one rancorous radio debate with his late-starting GOP opponent, Ron Unz.

Wilson debated his 1990 Democratic gubernatorial opponent, Dianne Feinstein, once on statewide television. Attempts to arrange a second debate failed.