THE STATE : THE ALLEN SPEAKERSHIP : ‘Pros’ Prepare the Way for Citizen Legislators

The election of Republican Doris Allen as Speaker did not signal a historic breakthrough for women in politics. Nor did it mark, as anti-Allen Republicans insist, the ascent of a Benedict Arnold to the Assembly’s top post.

But the tumult and posturing surrounding Allen’s ascension is not just another round of sandbox politics in Sacramento. The appalling events that paralyzed the Assembly last week exposed some harsh political reality: the Republicans lack the experience, let alone the inclination, to govern effectively. And the Democrats lack the votes to do it, even if they wanted to try.

That presents a dilemma, because the new fiscal year is fast approaching and serious budget negotiations have yet to begin. Gov. Pete Wilson has been seriously distracted by his wobbly presidential campaign. Only the state Senate has been doing much legislative business.

But Assembly Democrats like it that way. In fact, that’s what made the deal with Allen so tantalizing. Publicly, Democrats trumpeted their “historic” support of the state’s first woman Speaker. But it was the arithmetic of power--not gender politics--that drove their bargain.

The Democrats delivered their 39 votes to elect Allen because she was the one Republican, male or female, who would pledge to uphold the Assembly rules adopted as part of the power-sharing agreement brokered last January by former Speaker Willie Brown and GOP Leader Jim Brulte. Under that agreement, committee memberships were divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, virtually guaranteeing that no controversial bills--and little legislation, period--would get out of committee.

Now a definite minority, Assembly Democrats know they cannot deliver on an activist agenda. They also know they can prevent Republicans from dismantling programs dear to Democratic hearts if the rules and the Speaker are on their side.

Part of what scared Democrats about Brulte was the threat that he would use the power of the GOP majority to reconfigure the agreed-on committee structure. If Republicans controlled committee memberships and chairmanships, the Democrats rightly figured, the minority would no longer be able to block distasteful GOP legislation--such as Assemblyman Bernie Richter’s anti-affirmative-action bills--from making it to the Assembly floor.

Democrats also feared Brulte’s electoral prowess. He is widely credited for engineering a GOP Assembly majority in the ’94 elections. With Brulte in the Speaker’s chair, the potential to raise the resources to sink more Democratic candidates would be greatly enhanced.

By contrast, Allen would encounter heavy turbulence if she raised money to defeat her Democratic benefactors. Maintaining committee parity also means Democratic pleas for campaign contributions cannot be ignored and Republicans cannot monopolize political money.

But absent support from her own caucus, Allen is going to have to build her political apparatus from the ground up--and there is little time for her efforts to bear fruit. Is it any wonder Democrats can be seen cruising the Assembly chamber wearing goofy grins? By engineering Allen’s victory, they have been able to checkmate Republicans’ electoral clout--at least for a while. Even more astonishing, Democrats have managed to turn back the political clock and deconstruct the Republican victory of 1994.

The Republicans are far from heroic figures in this tragicomedy. Facing the fiasco of Republicans lobbing parliamentary spitballs at one another on the Assembly floor, Allen described the GOP strategy as: “Let’s embarrass the Speaker [by] playing little boy and little girl games.”

She’s right. But it’s important to remember that fights over procedure are really fights over policy and power. That’s something the Democrats have understood all along.

Allen has played revenge games herself. Now they’ve landed her on the front lines. And the view from there can’t be pleasant. At loggerheads with her own caucus, she faces a recall campaign--and the daunting task of having to corral 54 votes, from Republicans and Democrats, to pass a budget.

She hasn’t yet built the staff necessary to navigate the rapids of budget politics. The Republican side is so light in legislative experience--and there is so little trust between the new Speaker and her GOP colleagues--that Allen has brought back former GOP Assemblyman Gerald Felando to serve as a senior adviser. (while in the Legislature, Felando was one of the few Republicans who sided with Speaker Brown against a challenge by insurgent Democrats.)

Many Sacramento denizens agree that much of the current craziness is a product of term limits. Some observers look at recent events as simply the death-rattle of “professional” legislators--politicians who have little stake left in an institution they’re being forced to leave. Some hope that new--and more--civil legislative norms will develop once the embittered “old guard” is replaced by “citizen” legislators.

Maybe so. But what if the current legislative instability is the precursor of government by term-limited lawmakers? What if six years is simply not enough time for legislators to do governance? What if leaders’ short tenure can’t allow them to build the political base necessary to lead?

Reflecting on last week’s turmoil, freshman Assemblyman Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles) observed, “We had the budget [waiting to be debated], but we ended up talking about the arrangement of chairs.”

That’s not surprising. Budgets are hard; seating charts are easy. And, unfortunately, governance in California has become a lot like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.