Bipartisan Praise for Retiring Russell

It was after midnight of the last night of his 32 years in the state Legislature, but even as the clock was running down, Newt Russell had not run out of questions.

Oblivious to the antsy legislators milling about awaiting their getaway, the veteran senator from Glendale rose and posed a query that was incomprehensible to anyone who had not read the fine print of the matter at hand.

It was a quintessential Newt Russell moment.

In a career spanning three decades, the rock-ribbed, fourth-generation California Republican always read the fine print and made a career out of tending to details others eschewed.

And while many of his efforts on behalf of state pensions and Senate rules weren’t the showy stuff of headlines, the victories won while playing defense in a Legislature almost always controlled by the opposing party added up to something.

Moreover, Russell’s reputation was as impeccable as his exacting work habits, and when he left the Capitol at the end of the session because of term limits, he received bipartisan accolades for his integrity and his character.

“I doubt you could get a single legislator to say a bad word about Newt Russell,” said Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay). “His respect level has got to be as high as it gets on the floor.”

Even Democratic Senate Caucus leader Richard Polanco is a big Russell fan.

“He’s a class act,” said the legislator from Los Angeles in an interview. “A perfect gentleman, well-liked and respected and a real champion in the area of issues for children.”

The Democratic candidate seeking to replace Russell in the Senate attests to Russell’s reputation in the 21st district.

“He was accessible to people,” Adam Schiff said. “He was someone they could talk to, even if their views were different than his.”

Talking to people and achieving consensus was Russell’s way. As the leading expert on pensions, Russell’s legacy to the state includes an actuarially sound state pension system, which he guarded against excesses till the end.

Russell’s legislation put an end to pension inflating by eliminating the practice of converting perks, such as car allowances, into salary just before retirement. He also spearheaded a successful effort to protect retirees from having their pensions eaten up by inflation by funneling unanticipated state interest income to them.

The Russell prescription for consensus involved an open process where everyone got together and had a say, “instead of plotting, planning and power plays,” said state pension specialist David Felderstein.

Although the 69-year-old Russell is as baffled as anyone about why he took on such an arcane specialty, he recalled that “it always bugged me that bills would come up granting a pension to some nice bureaucrat but with no analysis of costs.”

Pensions were not Russell’s only unusual specialty. He was also known as the “conscience of the Senate,” a title bestowed on him by colleagues for his dogged efforts to keep the Legislature as free as possible from procedural shenanigans and sleight of hand.

“It just bothered me to have someone taking advantage of the rest,” Russell said. “Some might call it nit-picking. I call it close and discriminating evaluation of the issue. . . . The Lord gave me a peculiar calling.”

A necessary one, though, leaving other senators wondering what they will do without Russell’s determination to keep them on the straight and narrow, even when the legislator seeking to skirt the rules is a fellow Republican.

“We might need a designated Newt Russell next year,” said Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco).

Russell was in the family insurance business when he got the political bug after volunteering in Richard Nixon’s 1960 campaign. After narrowly losing his first Assembly bid, he was elected in 1964, becoming a member of a freshman class that included legislative legend and now San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

When a safe GOP congressional seat opened up in 1968, Russell sought to move up but withdrew from contention at the behest of Gov. Ronald Reagan, who prevailed upon Russell to stay in the Assembly, where Republicans had just gained a majority.

In 1974, after reapportionment meshed two districts, Russell lost a bitter primary race by a few dozen votes to former Assemblyman Mike Antonovich.

During that campaign, Antonovich tarred Russell with just about the worst thing said about him during his career--that he was suspiciously friendly with the enemy. The specific charge was that Russell had gone on a Jamaican vacation with then-Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti, a close friend.

After characteristically rejecting bonus pay to “lame duck” legislators because he deemed it “improper that taxpayers should pay for services not rendered,” Russell was out of office for all of 10 days before an opportunity arose.

A state senator had resigned midterm to become lieutenant governor and Reagan called a special election. Russell’s opponent was former Los Angeles City Councilman Art Snyder, who this week pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money-laundering charges.

Reagan repaid Russell for party loyalty by endorsing him in the primary, and Russell was soon back in the Capitol as a state senator.

A religious family man who steered clear of the lure of wine, women and song in the Capitol, Russell fought in vain to keep pornography off cable TV but succeeded in banning the manufacture and sale of drug paraphernalia.

When he was not legislating, Russell was often practicing his faith. Not only did he organize and hold together a bipartisan Wednesday-morning Bible study group for legislators, he prayed for political friends and foes during sessions.

Beyond that, Russell was a “meat and potatoes” GOP legislator who carefully tended his bills, said his longtime chief of staff, Kay Lentz.

When he was being wheeled in for heart-bypass surgery early this year, Russell gave directions until the last possible moment and called to check on his bills as soon as he was out of intensive care and had access to a phone.

Sen. Leslie recalled tiptoeing into the hospital soon after the operation and expecting to find Russell incapacitated. Instead he was talking to his wife, Diane, about a park problem in his district.

Russell sees nothing unusual about such dedication, but is somewhat uncomfortable about publicizing it, claiming an “anathema to public breast beating” or otherwise seeking the limelight.

“It’s just not my nature,” he said.

Not that he is unmindful of the public impression he makes. Just the opposite is true.

“When people look at us, we’re government,” he said. “What they think of our conduct is what they think of government.”

Russell disagrees with the public perception that many legislators are less than sterling examples of public service.

“Most people up here, even those I don’t agree with politically, are dedicated to what they feel is the best public interest,” Russell said.

But despite his lengthy and rewarding tenure in Sacramento, Russell is a supporter of term limits as a safeguard against the trappings of office, though not the six and eight years that are now the law in California.

“The tendency unless you are careful is to slowly come to the conclusion this place is run for our benefit and we are indispensable,” Russell said. “It’s awfully easy to rationalize how we conduct ourselves . . . in a way that wouldn’t be understood by the public.”

Russell acknowledges, somewhat ruefully, that he came to Sacramento thinking he would change the world. He will now settle for a more modest legacy.

“What I’d like to say is I’ve made things better because I’ve been here,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

State Sen. Newton R. Russell

21ST DISTRICT / R-GLENDALE

* YEARS SERVED: State Assembly, 1964-1974

State Senate, 1974-1996

* FAMILY: Wife Diane, three children, six grandchildren.

* KEY LEGISLATION: Authored legislation that created CAL-OSHA, required state pension fund to be fully funded and forced 70 state employees to repay accidental salary overpayments.

* FUTURE PLANS: Seeking appointment to state commission.

* EXIT LINES: “Rules are to protect us from ourselves.”