Brown Reign as Speaker in Jeopardy

Cheered by erasing the Democratic majority in the Assembly, Republicans said Wednesday that they are poised to oust their longtime nemesis, Speaker Willie Brown, and take control of the lower house for the first time in 25 years.

With the help of more than $800,000 pumped into key races in the closing days before Tuesday’s election, Republicans knocked off four incumbent Democrats, picked up at least four open seats previously held by Democrats, and were losing only one from GOP ranks.

As a result, the party lineup in the Assembly appears temporarily deadlocked at 40 to 40, jeopardizing but not necessarily scuttling Brown’s speakership, according to Democrats who in the last legislative session outnumbered Republicans 47 to 33.

The decisive factor for Brown could be the outcome of a race in the Long Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula area that remains unsettled. Democratic Assemblywoman Betty Karnette, who won a surprise victory two years ago, led by 64 votes, but GOP leaders predicted that a count of several thousand absentee ballots would make Republican Steve Kuykendall, a Rancho Palos Verdes councilman, the victor and give them a majority in the Assembly.

“I fully expect that Republicans will take control” when all the votes are counted, said Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, a onetime advance man for George Bush who became GOP leader two years ago.

Marcia Ventura, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County registrar and recorder’s office, said the official vote canvass will begin today and must be completed by Nov. 29. She said the next update may not come until Monday.

As grim-faced Assembly Democrats gathered for lunch at a Sacramento steakhouse, Brown, one of California’s most powerful politicians and a symbol of everything Republicans loathe, conceded that his record 14-year speakership is in danger. But, he said, “I’m going to try to get it out of jeopardy.”

“I anticipate, unless there are 41 persons gone some other place--I will be Speaker,” a subdued Brown later told a crowded Capitol news conference. “My job was not dependent on my success in seats as long as I have (the votes),” said Brown.

Asked whether he can deliver the votes to keep his post, however, Brown would say only that “I don’t think anyone else has 41.”

Democrats also lost ground in the state Senate but held on to their majority, ensuring that President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer of Hayward will remain at the helm of the Senate.

The new lineup will apparently be 21 Democrats, 17 Republicans and two independents. That would be the fewest Democrats since 1974.

The biggest Democratic defeat was dealt to Sen. Dan McCorquodale of Modesto, who represented suburban Silicon Valley for much of his 12 years in the Senate and was running in a newly reapportioned San Joaquin Valley farm district. In an expensive race, McCorquodale was defeated by Republican Richard Monteith.

In another San Joaquin Valley district, freshman Sen. Phil Wyman (R-Hanford), a bedrock conservative, was narrowly ousted by Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Fresno). Costa had lost to Wyman in a special election last year. And in the Los Angeles area, Sen. Ralph Dills (D-El Segundo), first elected to the Assembly in 1938, survived the stiffest challenge of his career.

But attention in the Capitol on Wednesday was focused on the fate of Brown, one of the nation’s most powerful African American public officials. For years, the liberal Brown has been a favorite election target of GOP candidates.

If the Republicans take the Karnette seat, they will have a majority of 41 votes in the Assembly, at least until Assemblyman Richard J. Mountjoy (R-Arcadia) resigns to take a seat in the state Senate that he won Tuesday in a special election. He also won reelection to the Assembly.

Brown said that any challenger will need to secure 41 votes to oust him.

To get the magic 41 votes, Republicans would need Mountjoy to stay in the Assembly long enough to vote for Brulte. Under Senate rules, Mountjoy has a “reasonable period of time” to move to the upper house, apparently allowing him to back Brulte in a speakership fight in December. Mountjoy said he would favor Brulte.

But even if Mountjoy moved to the Senate, the lineup would favor the GOP by a 40-39 margin--paralleling a situation that Brown faced in 1988 when he was challenged by a group of dissidents known as the Gang of Five and the house had only 79 members with one vacancy.

At that time Brown barely won a fifth term because of a provision in the state Constitution that allows election of a Speaker with a majority of those actually holding office, meaning that Brown was able to win the Assembly’s top post with only 40 votes.

Brown’s fate is cloudy even if the Democrats hold on to the Karnette seat and neither party begins the next legislative session with a majority.

Brown claimed Wednesday that, in a deadlock, Assembly rules provide that the most senior member serves as the Assembly’s temporary Speaker until the impasse is broken. The member with the longest service in the Assembly happens to be Brown himself. But Brown said that, under that scenario, his duties would be limited to presiding over the election of a Speaker, without any other functions.

Speculation in the Assembly was rampant about potential defectors among the Republicans who might side with Brown in a nasty fight over the speakership. Among those whose names were being mentioned was Assemblyman Paul Horcher, a maverick Republican from Diamond Bar.

Horcher would say only that he intends to vote in the best interest of his district. Brown said he had not talked to any Republicans about taking any actions that would help him remain in the post he has occupied since 1980. Brulte refused to discuss the issue.

Another scenario had Assemblyman Phil Isenberg (D-Sacramento), a longtime Brown ally, being drafted by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to become Speaker in a compromise. Isenberg said Wednesday that he would reject such a maneuver.

In recent years Brown has forged an alliance of convenience with Gov. Pete Wilson, helping him to enact highly unpopular state budgets, reform workers’ compensation laws and pass tax credits sought by California manufacturers.

Brulte credited the success of Republicans in Tuesday’s voting to strong and well-focused candidates, the ability of the GOP to nearly match Brown’s fund raising from special interests and the national trend against Democrats.

“Any of those factors missing and we wouldn’t be where we are today,” said Brulte, whose party members are scheduled to meet in Sacramento today.

Brulte refused to attack Brown. “I’m not aware of any Democrat who could have done better than the Speaker,” Brulte said in an interview.

Brown, meanwhile, said he was mystified by the trouncing suffered by Democrats, nationally and in California.

The Speaker said “it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense” that Democrats were punished for doing what they thought the voters wanted. He cited the improvement of the national economy, more police on the streets, enactment in California of the “three-strikes” law and other tough anti-crime measures.

In particular, he mentioned the defeat of first-term Assemblywoman Julie Bornstein (D-Palm Desert), who some in the Capitol thought was being groomed by Brown to succeed him as Speaker.

Other Democratic losers included veteran Assemblyman Bob Epple of Cerritos and first-termers Margaret Snyder of Modesto and Tom Connolly of Lemon Grove.

Republicans also picked up seats that had been vacated by Democrats in Fresno, Santa Ana, Ventura County and the Salinas area. Democrats appeared to be comfortably ahead in a Stockton area seat that was vacated by a Republican.

Special correspondent Gordon Dillow contributed to this story.

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