Cast Changes Alter Drama in Assembly

The California Assembly had become a day care center for unruly politicians with nobody in charge. Willie Brown’s explanation for this as he recently packed up and left was that the voters--and many reformers--had gotten what they bargained for.

A 1990 ballot initiative that imposed term limits was the main culprit, the former speaker opined at a parting news conference. Another contributor, he added, was the state Supreme Court’s 1992 adoption of a “fair” redistricting plan that gave Republicans and Democrats an equal shot at winning a majority of seats.

Republicans did win a one-vote Assembly majority in 1994 for the first time in 26 years. But they never could get their act together to control the house. Democrats elected three straight speakers of their choosing--Republican Brian Setencich of Fresno being the last--and the Assembly fragmented into chaos.

It’s “what the people of the state of California dictated would [become] reality,” the newly elected San Francisco mayor declared. “The voters said they wanted constant change . . . inexperienced people [in office]. . . . With all that comes an absence of institutional memory, an absence of experience, an absence of [legislative] colleagues’ relationships.”

“Maybe you should stop describing it as turmoil,” Brown told reporters. “You pushed for a long time [for] reapportionment to be equal. Well, that’s the formula for what you’re currently getting, and I wouldn’t describe it as chaos. I would describe it as the answer to your prayers.”

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But Brown’s comments weren’t all caustic. He also was vaguely upbeat about his beloved legislative house. “In every new challenge there are new people, new thought processes and new rules,” he said, “and it may be that the people who follow us will develop their own methods . . . and be equally effective.”

Later, I cornered Brown as he was about to step into the legislators’ private elevator for a final ride to the Capitol garage. I asked him to elaborate on his view of the Assembly’s future.

“You need to have a different measuring stick,” he said. “It eventually may very well be as productive as it needs to be. You’re going to have a collection of talented people who will be in a hurry to make an impact. . . . They’ll be into collective leadership. You’re not going to have one guy negotiating the budget; it’s going to be 10 guys.

“I think the system will survive,” he concluded. “I don’t think even the people can destroy the system. I’m optimistic.”

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Not surprisingly, Gov. Pete Wilson disagrees with Brown’s assessment. It wasn’t term limits or a fair redistricting that messed up the Assembly last year, he asserts. It was the ability of Brown, “who is extremely bright and astute,” to “exploit” Republican weaknesses.

And it was policy change, not political chaos, that voters wanted, the governor said.

Realizing that his own political comeback hinged on GOP control of the Assembly, Wilson last month began pressuring Republican lawmakers to elect their own speaker. So did state party Chairman John Herrington. Some Assembly members denounced this as outside interference, but the tactic kept them in line.

Wilson’s message--personally delivered again at a GOP caucus Wednesday morning--was that Republicans had an obligation to exercise power. “We worked like hell to get a Republican majority,” the governor recently told me. “They owe it to the people from whom they asked campaign contributions . . . to see to it that a Republican is elected speaker who will have as his first responsibility the moving of the Republican agenda.”

So after a year of frustration and failure, Republicans finally used their one-vote majority Wednesday to seize control of the Assembly. They did this by voting to turn over virtually all house power to a GOP-dominated Rules Committee. The GOP caucus will name the committee chairman--and this could be the speaker if it’s a speaker the Republicans support.

As Wilson noted, Setencich was “simply in an untenable position. You really can’t be secure as a leader--unless the position is meaningless and sort of a sinecure--without the backing of your own people.”

In the end, it was Setencich’s political inexperience that cost him. When he stubbornly refused while presiding to allow Republicans to even propose the rules changes, the GOP--finally having its act together--simply removed him from the podium.

Willie Brown was nowhere around to help.

But Brown had been a prophet. In this new year, there indeed were new thought processes, new rules and new methods. None the former speaker would have advocated, but every one he would have admired.