The Fight’s Over, and It Goes On : The reelected Speaker will face the challenge of a deeply divided Assembly

After 50 days of bruising negotiations and the failure of countless back-room deals, the Assembly has a new Speaker. Surprise: He’s the old Speaker, Willie Brown.

His reelection may represent the San Francisco Democrat’s most stunning victory since he became Speaker in 1980. But the anger that the protracted speakership fight generated on both sides of the aisle means Brown now faces perhaps his greatest political challenge ever. He must restore some semblance of bipartisanship to a house deeply divided: The final vote, at 1 a.m. Tuesday, was preceded by threats of political revenge, blistering attacks and one member physically restraining the Assembly sergeant-at-arms. If Brown, his Democratic colleagues and the Republican members now so profoundly angry at one another fail to make amends, all Californians will be the losers.

Brown’s narrow reelection--40 to 39, along party lines--followed the Democratic ouster of a key Republican. The Assembly voted to dump Republican Richard Mountjoy of Arcadia, who in a twist of events was elected to the Senate and reelected to the Assembly in November. The frustration of Assembly Democrats over Mountjoy’s refusal to vacate his seat in the lower chamber and take his Senate seat was understandable. He could not continue as a kind of half-Assembly member, half-Senate member.

Brown’s victory also followed the failure of Republican Jim Brulte’s bid for the speakership. The Rancho Cucamonga lawmaker lost because he couldn’t completely unite the ideologically fractured GOP caucus; Brown played the political game with more skill.

Brown’s hold on the speakership may be brief; a special election to fill Mountjoy’s seat along with recall efforts launched against former Republican Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar, now an independent, may give the GOP a majority in the Assembly by the summer.

The power-sharing arrangement that cooler heads from both parties sought made much more sense than the tumult we’ve witnessed. To a degree that arrangement has been put in place, with 26 committees, and their chairmanships, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. We hope it works, for the sake of California. Otherwise the anger that exploded this week could simmer for years.