Hanging Up Her White Hat--for Now

It’s not easy, nagging for a living. But for the past eight years, that’s what Ruth Holton has done.

Holton is executive director of California Common Cause, the inveterate good-government group. It is her job to cry shame when politicians break the legal and ethical rules.

A few entries from the Holton files:

* The insurance commissioner fails to report $327,000 in campaign donations? Holton is quick to scold.

* A state senator lets his teenage son take a government car on vacation? Holton loudly disapproves.

* California’s agriculture secretary awards state contracts to companies with whom he has personal ties? Holton demands an investigation and gets one.

“Ruth holds up a mirror to behavior in the political arena,” said former Assemblyman Phil Isenberg of Sacramento. “She embarrasses people who ought to be embarrassed.”

To the relief of critics who view her with dread, Holton is now moving on. Burned out by a life of constant confrontation, she plans to depart from her post in February, leaving the capital without its most vigilant, credible watchdog.

Articulate and ever-cheerful, Holton, 37, is going out at the top of her game. She spent the last year piloting the successful push for Proposition 208, the landmark campaign finance reform measure approved by a surprisingly large margin of voters in November.

Unless overturned in court, the measure will impose new limits on campaign donations and dramatically change the way candidates run for state and local office.

While the victory was sweet--and marked the biggest achievement for California Common Cause in years--Holton says she is tired of being the political conscience of the capital. She has yet to land a new job, but hopes to work on behalf of children or education reform, in the Bay Area or on the East Coast.

“It’s not easy, always being the enemy,” Holton said. “I’m a person who actually likes to be liked. . . . In this job, I get yelled at a lot.”

The reason is clear: When Holton is not calling elected officials on the carpet for their transgressions, she is trying to reshape the political world in which they live. Most lawmakers are not interested in change. Frankly, they’d prefer that she just butt out.

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“In Sacramento, people make a career out of using money for power, and a lot of people don’t want that boat to be rocked,” said Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (R-Poway). “Ruth Holton is behind rocking the boat, and a lot of people hold that against her.”

Indeed, though Holton’s gracious demeanor makes her difficult to dislike, some lawmakers loathe the organization she represents. They sneer at the group--calling it “Common Curse”--and would never vote for a bill carrying its stamp of approval, although voters on California ballot initiatives have often acted just the opposite.

Holton--the Common Cause lobbyist as well as its executive director--has been fiercely upbraided by hostile legislators while testifying at hearings. And she has received innumerable phone calls from politicians furious at her comments about them in the press.

“Most of the time, they just want to vent, so I sit there and let them,” Holton said. “The key is to not take it personally. . . . You develop a thick skin.”

In the beginning, Holton found the role of the white-hat crusader an uncomfortable one. The daughter of a diplomat, she was unaccustomed to being aggressive and was “not raised to question authority.

“At first I had a real hard time being persona non grata,” she said. “Filing complaints against elected officials, saying things I knew would hurt someone, even if that person deserved it--that wasn’t easy. It’s still difficult. It has never been something I take lightly.”

Her admirers say such angst makes her all the more deserving of respect. She is not one who rubs her hands with glee when elected officials misstep, they say, or who looks forward to giving a politician a public rebuke.

“She doesn’t take cheap shots,” said Tony Miller, former acting secretary of state and a colleague on the campaign for Proposition 208. “People roll their eyes when you say Ruth Holton, but they know she’s not mean-spirited. They know she does not abuse her power.”

Holton also appears to live by the standards she sets for others. Unlike most lobbyists, she does not attend political fund-raisers, believing that her presence would suggest an endorsement of the host--a no-no for a nonpartisan organization such as Common Cause.

And during the Proposition 208 campaign, she refused to accept a sizable donation from a gambling interest.

“We needed the money, and some people thought we should accept the donation,” Miller said. But Holton would not take a handout from special interests whose political influence she routinely attacks.

Colleagues say one of Holton’s greatest talents is keeping her cool while engulfed in constant, white-hot controversy. Lisa Foster, a Common Cause board member, remembers Holton’s “classy” handling of an encounter the two of them had with then-Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar).

“She was introducing me to some of our allies in Sacramento, and when we walked into Katz’s office he just started screaming at her,” Foster recalled. “He finally stopped and she calmly explained her side of the story. Then he apologized. I was quite impressed.”

Assemblywoman Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey), who has worked with Common Cause on legislation, says such screaming is rarely directed at Holton personally: “People may gripe a lot about Ruth’s mission, but they don’t gripe about Ruth.”

Born in Washington, Holton was raised around the world as her father traveled from nation to nation in his job with the foreign service.

She attended George Washington University and has been in the “good guy business,” as she calls it, ever since graduating with a master’s degree in education administration from the University of Chicago.

Her first job in Sacramento was as a lobbyist for the California Children’s Lobby. Though she viewed campaign finance reform as “esoteric,” she signed on with Common Cause in 1988.

As executive director, Holton manages an annual budget of $250,000 and a staff of two. Her office--located in a building called the “do-good ghetto” because its low rents attract nonprofit organizations--has mismatched, donated furniture and fickle heating and air-conditioning.

Holton has a nice view of the Sierra from her ninth-floor windows, but she was forced by economics to bring her own personal computer to work. Until recently, she had to borrow a fax machine several flights down.

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Common Cause was founded in 1970 by John Gardner, who served as secretary of the federal Health, Education and Welfare agency in the Johnson administration. Membership peaked at 300,000 during the Watergate era and now stands at about 250,000. There are chapters in nearly every state; California’s is the largest.

The group’s mantra is “open, honest and accountable government.” Toward that end, Common Cause has battled to reduce the influence of special interest money in politics.

In 1990, Holton scored her first big victory when voters approved Proposition 112. The measure saddled California lawmakers with the strictest ethical standards in the nation, making it illegal for them to accept fees for speeches and limiting gift-giving by lobbyists.

As she prepares to leave Sacramento, Holton has reflected on the place she leaves behind.

While she remains fundamentally an optimist, her time at Common Cause has convinced her that the political process is often very different from “what you learn in school, where there’s a rational reason why bills die or get passed.

“Sometimes,” she said, “it’s just a case of an Assembly member having a candy bar at the wrong time so their sugar level is too high and they throw a tantrum and won’t vote for a bill.

“There are lots of things that happen that have nothing to do with the merits,” she said. “It’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way it is.”