GOP Reviews Assembly’s Law Contracts

Newly empowered Assembly Republicans are moving to curtail contracts with a small San Francisco law firm that since 1983 has received more than $4 million in legal fees to work on behalf of the Democratic majority.

Under former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), attorney Joseph Remcho was awarded the lucrative contracts to represent lawmakers on such thorny election issues as reapportionment.

As they review the way Assembly business was conducted during Brown’s record 14 1/2-year reign, Republicans complain that the ex-speaker kept them in the dark about the extent of Remcho’s billings, which they describe as excessive.

“I don’t know what kind of lawyer he [Remcho] is, but he’s one hell of a businessman,” said Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), one of two lawmakers overseeing ongoing audits of Assembly finances.

In an interview, Firestone said he plans to review “the propriety of the payments and the advisability of spending that much money on contracting out” for legal services.

The legal bills are among many millions of dollars of expenditures--ranging from office remodeling to computers--that GOP lawmakers have reviewed since they took control of the Assembly in January.

Republicans are rankled about Remcho’s contracts, especially because Assembly Democrats employed him with taxpayer funds to oppose causes championed by conservative lawmakers.

Remcho’s close link to Assembly Democrats “feels a little like cronyism,” said Mark Watts, chief of staff for Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). As Republicans consider future legal counsel, Watts said, “we certainly would go somewhere else to get a competitive price and a fresh perspective.”

Brown, now mayor of San Francisco, could not be reached, and P. J. Johnston, Brown’s spokesman, said the mayor is “not going to comment on their latest hit pieces.”

Remcho shrugs off the criticism, saying, “Our rates are certainly not the kind of rates you’d expect to see if you were dealing with cronyism.

“If we had cronyism here, I could have been billing at $350 an hour. . . . I had to negotiate these contracts,” said Remcho, adding that he does not believe he has charged the Assembly more than $250 an hour.

Remcho, who still has a case or two to wrap up for the Assembly, said the GOP leadership has every right to contract for its own counsel. Indeed, the Assembly has retained the San Francisco law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro to provide stopgap legal services until members decide how to handle long-term legal needs.

“I’m under no illusion that I’m [the GOP’s] fair-haired boy,” said Remcho, whose firm also represents groups that are often aligned with Democrats, such as the California Teachers Assn. and the Consumer Attorneys of California.

Remcho’s firm also represented Democrat Kathleen Brown’s unsuccessful 1994 gubernatorial campaign. As a pilot, Remcho flew Brown to several campaign appearances as she stumped the state.

Remcho, 51, a Harvard law school graduate, landed in Sacramento in the early 1970s as a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union. Within a decade, he attracted attention handling a landmark school finance case that sought to reduce district-by-district variations in basic school funding.

A few years later, Remcho said, Assembly Democrats approached him about an issue involving the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative district lines.

“I made a pitch to Willie Brown, who I had no prior contact with,” Remcho said in a recent interview. “He heard me out and took a chance.”

The meeting has led to slightly more than $4 million in business for Remcho and his firm since 1983, according to a spokesman for the Assembly Rules Committee. In the past four years, the Democratic-controlled state Senate has paid Remcho another $1 million for legal work, state controller’s office records show.

Among the tasks Remcho has fielded for the Assembly are challenges to parts of Proposition 140, the voter-approved term limits initiative, redistricting battles and a separation-of-powers dispute with the California Public Utilities Commission.

Jonathan Coupal, director of legal affairs for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said the Assembly required little accountability of Remcho’s bills. “What’s at issue here is whether public monies were spent wisely,” Coupal said.

Remcho, who is regarded by allies and adversaries as a brilliant litigator, defended his fees. He noted that he once represented the Assembly without fee on a challenge to Proposition 73, a voter-approved campaign finance reform measure.

Remcho said Rules Committee staff insisted that he bill the Assembly at a discounted hourly rate. Currently, Remcho said he charges the Assembly $100 less an hour than he receives from private clients.