A Survivor’s Pride and Perseverance

“What people have to remember about Willie,” an admirer and ally once told me, “is that when he was a boy in Texas, he worked in a barbershop cleaning up. And the white men would tip him with quarters. They’d drop the quarters in the spittoons and he’d have to dig in after them.

“He came to terms with his pride and dignity because he needed the quarters. He learned early to mix with the grime to get what he needed. He’s a survivor.”

Willie Lewis Brown Jr. caught the first bus out of town for San Francisco the day after he graduated from Mineola Colored High School in 1951.

“He got a basement apartment that was cold,” continued the ally, Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles). “He could get by without a refrigerator because he could put his milk and eggs on the windowsill. He learned to cope.”

Brown eventually graduated from Hastings Law School. But the legal establishment of 1950s San Francisco wasn’t opening any doors to black kids from rural Texas. So he made a living defending pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers.

He also did legal work for a church that was a center of civil rights activism. And there he launched his political career, beating a white assemblyman in a Democratic primary--an assemblyman backed by then-Speaker Jesse (Big Daddy) Unruh.

Brown’s first act in Sacramento was to refuse to vote for Unruh’s reelection as Speaker. That landed him in Unruh’s doghouse for a couple of years, but they ultimately became soul mates.

“Jess Unruh taught me one thing,” says Brown, now 60. “Remember--today’s enemy may be tomorrow’s friend.”

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It’s a lesson pertinent to the current speakership fight, Brown says, because Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga never learned it. If he had, maverick Assemblyman Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar might not have bolted the GOP, become an independent and voted for Brown over Brulte.

Horcher got in Brulte’s doghouse two years ago when he defied the GOP caucus and accepted Brown’s offer of a coveted committee vice chairmanship. After that, Republicans treated Horcher like a stray mutt. Brulte will argue he actually protected Horcher from worse wrath, but Horcher says thanks for nothing. So there’s a 40-40 deadlock for Speaker.

And Brown again is trying to cope and survive.

He is attempting to entice Republicans with a smorgasbord of power-sharing options, conceding the need for more cooperation and bipartisanship in a closely divided house.

“He’s like a moving target,” Brulte asserts. “One day he says one thing; the next day another.”

Brulte has a point.

On Dec. 7, Brown told the San Jose Mercury News: “I don’t anticipate holding on (as) Speaker through even 1995.” In fact, he envisioned “prior to the spring of ’95 (becoming) Speaker emeritus.”

On Dec. 12, Brown told me “the best way to do it would be to have Democratic control for ’95. A Democratic Speaker and a Republican (No. 2) Speaker pro tem. Half the (committee) chairs Democrats, half Republicans. The vice chairs would be chairs in waiting. On Jan. 1, 1996, it all switches. Goes just the reverse.”

Two days later, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that if he’d been reelected Speaker, he would have announced his resignation effective March 20, his birthday. And the next day, he told Times editors that in negotiations with Brulte he’d promised to step down in July. Brulte disputes that, saying the surrender offer was for 1996.

Clearly, Brown is flexible--as long as he still is called “Speaker” for awhile.

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Brulte and the Republicans are having none of it. They don’t trust Brown and believe the voters don’t either. They think the public is less interested in seeing the Assembly organized than Brown bounced as its leader.

And they’re hoping moderate Democrats hear that message from constituents over the holidays, then return on Jan. 4 and refuse to take any more heat for Brown.

Brulte’s offer has never varied: Republican officers and narrow GOP control of all 25 committees, with a handful of friendly Democratic chairs.

“It’s not a question of who’s charming,” Brulte says of the fight. “It’s a question of who’s in touch with the voters. That’s why Republicans will win.”

Brown already has been Speaker 14 years, twice as long as anybody--twice as long as Unruh. He has been a particularly effective leader the last two years. Nobody questions his ability to cope and survive.

In this battle, he may be judged less on whether he can cling to power than on how he handles himself in giving it up. This time, it’s the dignity that will be most important.