Gray Davis to Wilson: ‘Come Home, Governor’

Seizing on a holiday news vacuum, Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis tweaked Republican Gov. Pete Wilson on Monday for campaigning for President in New England and Iowa while California heads into its fourth day of the new fiscal year without a budget.

“Come home, governor,” Davis told a Capitol news conference that drew four television news cameras and a dozen reporters and columnists, far more than a lieutenant governor usually gets.

Monday was a slow day at the usually hectic state Capitol. Indeed, there was no sense of urgency over the lack of a budget or the lack of a governor. The state Senate met briefly, but the Capitol was essentially deserted for the extended Fourth of July weekend.

Since Monday was Davis’ 58th day as acting governor this year, reporters asked him why he had waited until now to chide Wilson for his absenteeism.

He said the lack of action on the budget sends the wrong signal to the business and financial world--that the state does not take its fiscal responsibilities seriously.

“Let’s act like adults. . . . This is his responsibility,” Davis said of Wilson. He said the governor should “stay here and lead this state.”

Davis said he had offered his own ideas for a budget agreement in informal talks with some legislative leaders over the past weekend. He added that he was not threatening to use his power as acting governor to embarrass Wilson, but wanted to “get his attention.”

“I think he’s going to get the idea,” Davis said. “I think he’ll put it [the budget] into high gear.”

There was no immediate response from Wilson, who was in Iowa for the first of two Independence Day parades Monday and today.

But the governor’s press office was ready to tweak back. Spokesman Paul Kranhold gave reporters a copy of a Nov. 18, 1979, newspaper story in which Davis, as chief of staff to then-Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., defended Brown’s travels in search of the presidency.

On Monday, Davis said his experience as Brown’s top aide convinced him that a governor could not adequately run the state and seek the presidency at the same time.

Wilson says that, after his visit to Iowa, he will remain in Sacramento until the state budget is approved. But his aides said that does not preclude the governor from taking some quick campaign trips away from the capital.