Pringle Isn’t Crunched Yet

Curt Pringle, remember that guy? Don’t read much about him anymore. Used to be the Assembly speaker. That was, oh, a few weeks ago.

Careers can die quickly in politics.

One month you’re holding the second most powerful job in state government and your future is unlimited. The next, you’re holding the bag for losing Republican control of the Assembly. You’re hearing post mortems and watching a burial crew.

Hold on. Stash the shovels. Interment would be premature.

Despite wide speculation he’d be dumped, Pringle last month was reelected Assembly Republican leader by acclamation. Although the GOP now is in the minority, it’s not by much. Republicans have 37 seats to the Democrats’ 43. That means Pringle will have to be dealt with on any bill requiring a two-thirds vote, which is most of the important stuff.

He has been slowed and he’s lying low, but Pringle still is in good health politically. And, at age 37, he’s just a kid.

In fact, the Garden Grove lawmaker says he may run for Rep. Bob Dornan’s old congressional seat in 1998, assuming Democrat Loretta Sanchez’s upset victory over Dornan withstands an investigation of alleged voter fraud.

“I’ll figure it out in the next two or three weeks,” Pringle said in an interview. “But I probably won’t tell anybody [for a while].”

Pringle also has other career options: He could run for the State Board of Equalization seat now held by Republican Ernest Dronenburg, who will lose his job because of term limits in 1998. He could run for the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Or, despite being “termed out” himself, he could stay in the Assembly if a federal judge tosses out term limits, as many expect.

But a campaign for statewide office--like controller or treasurer--now is less likely. “Things are a little different than they were six months ago,” the former speaker notes.

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Everybody agrees the GOP’s biggest problem in 1996 was that Bob Dole was a dud. But Pringle says he doesn’t “buy into” another widely held thesis: that U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich frightened voters.

His explanation for why many California Republicans did not bother to vote--thus triggering the defeat of some Assembly Republican candidates--is that President Clinton claimed victory early.

Hardly any Republican pro thinks that’s the whole answer, or even a big part of it. Ask one, and you’ll probably hear that Pringle spread his money too thin, financing candidates with little chance of winning while shortchanging potential winners who lost. That gets chalked up to inexperience, overconfidence and an unwillingness to tell colleagues “No.”

“I’m learning stuff as I go along,” he concedes.

Democratic candidates beat up Republican Assembly members for voting with the NRA to make it easier legally to pack around handguns. But Pringle contends that nobody lost because of a pro-gun vote. Nor, he says, did Republicans suffer from other bizarre bills that Democrats tied to an “extremist” GOP agenda: paddling graffiti vandals, repealing the motorcycle helmet requirement.

Anyway, he says, “I can’t run the place with a whip. I can’t tell somebody what they can or cannot bring up on the floor.”

Beyond that, he adds, the last Legislature “had as many successes as you’ll see in a decade”--reducing class sizes, increasing competition among electric utilities, establishing an earthquake insurance authority.

Pringle is not much into mea culpas. It was just a lousy year for Republicans. No argument there.

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Now, Pringle says, Assembly Republicans should “focus on a very clear agenda” that emphasizes job creation. “I don’t think the economy will be as strong in ‘98, so economic issues will play a lot better,” he predicts.

“We also need to devote a lot more energy to issues important to women,” he adds, mentioning education and the environment. “Some people on our side don’t like to talk about the fact there are issues of greater value to female than male voters. We need to not be patronizing, but to show some philosophical movement.”

Here’s a tip: Those issues include guns, family leave and abortion, things the GOP trips all over.

Also, says Pringle, “We’ve got to figure out how to deliver our message to Latinos. We’re for economic opportunity and strong social values. We’re not anti-immigrant.”

Which brings us back to Dornan’s old congressional district that the assemblyman shares. Pringle seems to think he can beat Sanchez in her first reelection race. Dornan beat himself, he says, and 1998 should be a good year for the GOP.

Pringle is a fatalist. He understands luck and timing and has been up and down. He won’t be disappearing.