Brown Says Luck Quashed GOP’s Speakership Plans : Assembly: Democratic leader derides Brulte as a victim of ambition. The Republican responds angrily.

Assembly powerhouse Willie Brown, in a wide-ranging interview Thursday with Times editors and reporters, said the maneuvering that denied Republicans leadership of the Assembly earlier this month resulted not from his legendary political skills but from “pure, unadulterated luck.”

And, in remarks sure to ratchet up the level of rancor developing between the former Speaker and the GOP leader seeking to replace him, Brown criticized Assemblyman Jim Brulte as a man captive to his own errant ambitions who is refusing to bend for the good of the Assembly.

“Mr. Brulte, he hasn’t hit the wall. He still thinks he can win the speakership,” Brown said, clearly delighted at the recent turn of events. “Apparently, the month of promising the world that he was going to be Speaker raised the level of expectations among Republicans so much so that they are irrational. . . . They really thought their time had come and when it became apparent their time had not come, they became really angry.”

Brulte returned the sentiment in kind, angrily denouncing Brown in a telephone interview from his Sacramento office as a man willing to do anything to retain the speakership. Technically, there is no Speaker at present because the Assembly has deadlocked 40 to 40 between Brown and Brulte.

“The voters of California overwhelmingly voted for change,” Brulte said. “And there are two candidates for Speaker. One, Willie Brown, represents the status quo. The other, Jim Brulte, represents change.”

Brown and Brulte also disagreed over the terms of a deal that Brown said he offered the Republican leader to solve the Assembly’s leadership dilemma. Brown told The Times that he promised to step down as Speaker in July, after the state budget is enacted, and give the job to Brulte. Brulte said Brown only promised to turn the job over at the end of 1995. Either course, Brulte said, is unacceptable to Republicans.

In other comments during the one-hour interview in Los Angeles:

* Brown said he would support lending state money to newly bankrupt Orange County if it is necessary to keep police and fire agencies and the schools afloat. But he noted with some glee that he looks forward to the pleas of the very Orange County legislators who have turned a deaf ear to bailout requests from other areas, including Brown’s own earthquake-ravaged San Francisco in 1989.

* He described Republican Gov. Pete Wilson as potentially a “very strong” GOP nominee for the presidency in 1996, and said his own party was in such disarray that it could no longer figure out the most basic of political calculations--the makeup of its constituency.

* In tones more bittersweet than defiant, Brown said racism has stalled his political climb, which he said he had hoped could end at the presidency.

“I had to make the hard decision that the speakership was where I would spend my energy and my time and make my contribution,” he said. “I could not even consider any other alternative that I might foresee as equal to my skills simply because of the level of racism that exists in this state.”

Brown said Republicans had consistently made him a “hate object,” putting him on the ballot figuratively although he has never officially ventured outside his safe San Francisco district. He said his race contributed to their success in demonizing him, comparing it to former President George Bush’s use of a black convict to slash at Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988.

“It’s very easy for a guy in Chico to make me out as an evil person,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of racism in the system, particularly in those isolated places where . . . there’s no diversity. And when someone up there says Willie Brown is evil, just look at him, you automatically get Willie Horton or you automatically get somebody who is awful. That makes it very difficult.”

He acknowledged, however, that he has contributed to his own political pigeonholing with his extravagant lifestyle and freewheeling verbiage.

“I am not an ordinary person by any stretch of the imagination,” he said, and then issued a wide grin. “I work at not being ordinary.”

The speakership, and titular control of the Assembly, was thought to be in Republican hands after the returns came in from November’s elections. The GOP won 41 seats, a bare majority that could have delivered the top job. But a month after the election, events took a dramatic turn.

In a showdown vote in the Capitol, all of Brown’s Democrats backed him, giving him 39 votes. He was able to block Brulte’s ascent when Republican Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar, asked for his vote, banged his fist on his desk and shouted “Brown!”

The move stunned Republicans, who thought they had Horcher’s vote and who claimed that Brown had bought him off. Horcher subsequently announced that he is leaving the GOP to become an independent, and Republicans are mounting a recall against him.

But Brown said he knew he had Horcher’s vote a month before it was cast.

“It was pure, unadulterated luck,” he said. “I had nothing to do with Mr. Horcher’s decision. Mr. Horcher came to me in early November, after the results became very clear, and he said if you are a candidate for Speaker, I will support you.”

The former Speaker said that Horcher also sought him out six months ago and discussed his desire to become an independent, but that he had counseled him that it would cost him his election in the Republican district.

Brown contended that it was the Republicans’ own treatment of the ever-maverick Horcher that prompted his vote, and nothing else.

“If they walked into a room of this nature and the only seat available was next to Horcher, nobody would sit in the chair,” he said. “I could not assign any Republican to sit next to him on the floor. They just wanted to ostracize him; they wanted to destroy him. . . . He was really angry. I’ve never seen anybody as angry. And his motivations were greater than any that could be generated by greed.”

Horcher, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, drew the enmity of his Republican colleagues in 1991 when he cast the deciding vote for a controversial state budget that raised taxes. Ultimately, Brown said, their treatment came back to haunt them.

“If you’ve learned anything from me, you know not to mistreat your enemies,” said Brown, who has accumulated both enemies and friends with abandon during his record 14 years as leader of the lower house.

Brown said he has tried to negotiate a way out of the leadership impasse with a carefully crafted plan meant to give Democrats nominal control of the Assembly next year and Republicans control thereafter.

He said that under his plan, incumbent Democratic chairs would keep their positions, and Republicans would become vice chairs. Brulte would become Speaker pro tem, the second-ranking position, and Brown would be Speaker. Party leaders would drop their “majority” and “minority” tags and become, simply, the Democratic and Republican leaders. Influential committees would have equal representation from each party and would split financial resources down the middle.

The former Speaker said he offered to turn over the speakership to Brulte after the next state budget is enacted, probably in July. At the end of the year, he said, Republicans would take over the committees for the final year of their term.

“Unfortunately, the response has not been forthcoming yet, because he (Brulte) is still fixed in his mind that he’s got to justify . . . the great promise of November that fizzled in December,” Brown said. “He’s so focused on the speakership.”

In a telephone interview, Brulte’s response was etched with acid.

“Do you really believe that crap?” he asked.

The Republican leader said Brown had never told him he would leave in July, but did mention leaving at the end of the year. He is far from being fixated on the speakership, Brulte said, instead throwing that description at Brown.

“Being Speaker of the Assembly was never a goal of mine,” he said. “I understand that it has been Mr. Brown’s life for 14 years. I just happen to be the Republican who for the first time in three decades led his party to victory.”

Brulte also said Republicans remain unconvinced that Brown is committed to bipartisanship.

“Given his 14 years as Speaker, where he has never exhibited bipartisan consideration, where he has never believed or exhibited power sharing, I told him I thought Republicans had every right to be very skeptical of his born-again belief,” Brulte said.

While Brulte is hardly alone in his belief that Brown wants to continue to wield the Speaker’s power, Brown concentrated his remarks Thursday on intimations that he is sick of the grind and wants out soon.

He confirmed that, before Republicans made their surprising gains in November, he had planned to step down as Speaker on his 61st birthday next March. But he also indicated that, given the renewed Republican strength, he will not defer gently.

“I would never do that,” he said. “I would never do that even if there were only one Democrat left. I care about things. I care about choice. I care about school funding. I care about freedoms that you enjoy. I don’t want this place to be a fascist state, and I really don’t appreciate know-nothings doing the kind of damage they can do. So I am going to struggle even if there’s only one of me. I’m going to struggle at every turn.”

In remarks directed to his own political party, Brown acknowledged that Democrats are in a struggle of their own, given the national sweep of Republicans into office.

Asked what the election results said, he replied that “it says that the Democrats do not know their constituency.”

“I couldn’t tell anymore who the real Democratic constituency is,” he added. “It’s no longer the old one that elected me.”

Brown credited Republicans for their ability to “reach inside our operation” with issues such as the anti-illegal immigration Proposition 187, which unified Republicans and divided Democrats.

He also expressed confidence that Gov. Wilson, with whom Brown shares a love-hate relationship, had his eye on the presidency, despite the governor’s protests to the contrary.

“Their agenda was not the governorship. Their agenda was the presidency,” Brown said of Wilson’s team. He brushed aside claims from some Republicans that Wilson would never seek the presidency because if he won he would have to turn the state over to Democratic Lt. Gov.-elect Gray Davis.

While Brown said he was optimistic that Democrats could win California, he was less than enthusiastic about President Clinton. “Yes, I think he will be the nominee,” he said. “Should he be the nominee? I have got to believe that he will answer that himself. But I think if he chooses to run, he will be the nominee.”