Assembly Mess Just Fine With the Democrats

Name your adjective: bizarre, juvenile, inept. . . . Or your verb: diddling, flailing, posturing. . . . They all aptly describe the present character of the once-renowned California Assembly. It’s a mess--both ugly and laughable--but you shouldn’t blame this one on Willie Brown.

For one thing, he’s no longer the Speaker. A Republican is.

At least, Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) is a registered Republican. The fact that only one, maybe two, of the other 39 Assembly Republicans accept her as their leader, well, that’s a GOP problem. Brown and his 38 Democrats wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gridlock is their game.

Using skills honed by decades of political maneuvering, Brown and his lieutenants on June 5 executed the classic divide and conquer strategy. Dealing with an angry Allen, dean of the GOP, these veteran games-players shattered the GOP novices born of term limits.

Democrats elected and co-opted the first Republican Speaker in 25 years.

So, sure, this is Brown’s handiwork. But no rational person--least of all a pol--should be surprised or offended. This is what Brown does and always has done, his raison d’etre : He protects Democrats and their causes against Republicans.

It’s the two-party system. Right now, in the Assembly, Republicans have an edge in numbers. But Democrats are ahead in political talent.

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As pundits search for Brown’s legacy, one big piece of it seems very clear: While the California electorate was becoming increasingly conservative, he was maintaining the Democrats’ majority in the Assembly and holding the line against GOP legislation.

This is particularly impressive when you consider that statewide, the Democrats’ registration advantage over Republicans dropped from 18 points in 1980 to only seven by 1992.

Brown merely used the legal tools handed him by the system--a system authorized, at least through acquiescence, by the public. He became adept at raising millions in campaign dollars from special interests and finessed a partisan redistricting for the 1980s. And nobody could match his legislative skills.

“I love the business of making rules and regulations . . . orchestrating statutes . . . the interplay between politicians from all over California and from all persuasions,” he recently told me. “And it is something that I’ve mastered and I can do in my sleep. And I still have fun doing it.”

If you’re a partisan Republican, Willie Brown is somebody you love to hate.

“They hate me now more than they ever did,” Brown commented to reporters, grinning and looking as if he were about to duck, just after he finagled Allen into the speakership.

But if you believe in such Democratic causes as more money for public schools, protection of the environment and health care for the poor, you should thank Brown. He has blunted the GOP onslaught.

“For 15 years, I was the Democratic Party for the Legislature. Literally,” Brown says. “Through 12 years of hostile [GOP] governors and 12 years of hostile [GOP] Presidents, through the business of reapportionment and the business of term limits, I always maintained a majority. I take credit for that.”

Nobody ever said Willie Brown was modest.

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But Brown need not be modest about his performance as party leader as Democrats cling to dwindling power in the Assembly.

He pulled off probably the final coup of his legislative career--surrendering the speakership to a Republican on Democratic terms--by keeping Democrats loyal to him. None jumped ship as the vessel listed badly.

“Willie has always delivered for us,” explains Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), a Brown insider. “He brought the [Democratic] Caucus this far, against all odds. Why take your best player off the field?”

Last January, just after Brown had worked his magic and recaptured the speakership, he said the Democrats’ focus this year would be on “making sure a ‘contract with California’--a la Newt Gingrich--doesn’t become a reality.”

The goal was gridlock. And so far Brown and his Democrats have achieved it. Whether that’s good or evil depends on your political view.

There also is an “end game”--the 1996 elections. Brown is trying to maneuver Democrats into position to recapture the Assembly. That’s why he has insisted on retaining the power in committees to kill Republican bills. It’s good public policy, in Brown’s mind, but it also attracts campaign dollars from special interests. That’s also why he and Democrats have fractured the GOP and sent it into disarray.

Don’t blame Brown if Republicans let him get away with it.