Wilson’s Key Task: Handling Prop. 187

Because of political skill and blind luck, Gov. Pete Wilson now has been given a rare opportunity for a fresh start as California’s governor. But to cash in on his second chance, he’ll need to begin implementing Proposition 187 in a way that does not further polarize the people.

The last thing Wilson or California needs is more strikes by public school students, angry marches by protesters carrying Mexican flags--or worse--and the inevitable backlash.

New beginnings are unprecedented for second-term chief executives. With or without term limits, it always has been assumed that any governor would be too beat up politically and burned out personally to run a third time. So a governor was an instant lame duck upon reelection and destined to become prey for vultures. Even Ronald Reagan limped through his final years in Sacramento.

But Wilson is an aberration. He already has been perceived as a lame duck. Indeed, he was pronounced a political corpse just 22 months into his Administration. Now, with an enormous comeback reelection victory, he is healed.

Unlike his first term, Wilson will be dealing with a Legislature where power is shared by Republicans. Lawmakers have tempered their anger at his helping to pass term limits. And he won’t be facing a fight over legislative redistricting, always the bloodiest battle of the decade.

With the California economy on a slow mend and the GOP controlling Congress, Wilson actually will have more muscle starting his second term than he did on that first, rainy Inauguration Day.

That’s the way it looks in theory. In the real world of governing, however, 187 poses potential pitfalls.

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For one thing, 187 passed by a landslide. And the people who backed it--even if their main motivation was to “send a message”--will be looking to both Washington and Sacramento to control illegal immigration. But Wilson cannot seem too heavy-handed or he will rile 187’s opponents, including millions of non-voters.

In fact, some Wilson advisers privately had speculated before the election that the governor would be better off if 187 lost.

“Implementing it will be divisive,” one adviser said. “The governor will need to cool the atmosphere. But there’s been such exaggerated political hype that no matter what he does will be misconstrued (in the Legislature). There could be enough mistrust to create gridlock. If cool heads don’t prevail, 187 will be Pete Wilson’s lodestone.”

Wilson’s first task of his second term, therefore, will be to try to heal the wounds inflicted by the painful battle over 187.

Both sides accuse the other of tearing those wounds and both are correct. Wilson, for the most part, was bashing illegal immigration --not immigrants . But his aggressive seizure of a hot issue and instinct for the jugular frightened many Latinos. And their anxieties were heightened by some self-serving politicians on the other side.

At a post-election news conference Wednesday, the governor said some of the right things. The new law will be implemented “in a way that does not discriminate,” he vowed. “There is no room in California for bigotry.”

Everybody enrolling in a public school or seeking government health care, he declared, will be asked to prove they’re a legal resident--not just people with brown faces.

But on Election Night, listening to Wilson’s widely televised victory speech at a Los Angeles airport hotel, I kept waiting for some overture to conciliation, a few words of reassurance to the frightened watching at home. The governor may have thought he was offering that, but in his Marine cadence, the words were spewed as raw meat for the GOP faithful cheering on every sentence.

“What people need to understand is this issue was never about race,” Wilson said in part. “It is not fair to shortchange the education of our own children or the health care of legal residents.”

He concluded--in an obvious reference not only to President Clinton but to anti-187 Republicans William J. Bennett and Jack F. Kemp--”We don’t need lectures from people outside California.”

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Wilson ran a near-perfect campaign, focusing on the winning issues of crime, immigration and jobs. He also got lucky: A GOP year, a recovering economy and a surprisingly weak opponent.

Now, ironically, he and Clinton sorely need to cooperate for their own self-interests. Wilson needs more federal immigration funding to balance state budgets. Clinton needs to carry California to win reelection in 1996.

And Wilson--although he’d never admit it--needs Clinton to win reelection. Then there would be an open race for the presidency in the year 2000--when the then-former governor will be age 67 and free to run.