Davis Will Lose His Capitol Office Quarters--Again

For the second time, Democrat Gray Davis is being evicted by a Republican governor from a choice first-floor office suite in the state Capitol.

Gov. Pete Wilson needs the office space Lt. Gov. Davis planned to occupy for his own staff, press secretary Sean Walsh said Wednesday. The space had been occupied by former Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy.

When he received the eviction notice about three weeks ago, Davis privately protested but finally agreed to the move because the governor is the landlord of the Capitol’s first-floor office space, said Garry South, Davis’ chief of staff.

“It was our strongly expressed preference to stay in the Capitol,” South said. “They made it equally clear to us that they wanted the space. The reality is (the governor) controls the first floor.”

South and Walsh said Davis, who had begun the move into the lieutenant governor’s office space across the corridor from Wilson’s suite, will search for new quarters near the Capitol. They said Davis would be out in about 45 days.

For Davis, who served as state controller for eight years until winning election Nov. 8 as the lieutenant governor, the rolling out of the unwelcome mat is a repeat performance.

In early 1987, then-Gov. George Deukmejian, a Republican, gave the Capitol office space that had been occupied by state Controller Ken Cory to McCarthy, a Democrat. The controller’s headquarters was moved to a new high-rise about 10 blocks away.

But Davis, then newly elected as state controller, said he wanted his personal headquarters to remain in the Capitol because “I can’t do the job if I’m out of the information loop.”

A nasty public tiff between Deukmejian and Davis persisted for months. Finally, Davis gave up and moved his principal office out of Sacramento to a $3,500-a-month suite on Wilshire Boulevard near Beverly Hills.

The move gave the politically ambitious Davis ready access to the news media in the state’s political hub and to many of Davis’ key political contacts and campaign supporters.

Walsh, the governor’s spokesman, said Wednesday that Wilson wants some members of his own staff moved to the Capitol from various other offices around Sacramento.

South said he doubted the flap between Davis and Wilson would cause long-term tensions. “I think the taxpayers expect both of them to work together where they can and that’s what Gray intends to do,” he said.