Governor to Go Out With Another Fight

With two years left in his term as governor--and perhaps his 30-year career in elected office--it looks like Pete Wilson has decided to go out with a fight.

This time the issue is welfare reform. And as the Legislature’s Democratic majority begins its historic effort to design a new social safety net, key leaders are already dismissing the governor’s plan as a declaration of partisan war--not a starting point for good-faith negotiations.

“I’d put this in the category of unrealistic and confrontational,” said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica). “This governor has chosen to make welfare another wedge issue--demonizing the poor and daring anyone to support them.”

As Wilson enters his homestretch in Sacramento--what he calls the fourth quarter--his well-worn battle gear is already both scarred and decorated. In his six years, the governor has ruled over a hostile Legislature and politically divided state with a style that is often marked by confrontation rather then compromise.

It wasn’t always that way. When Wilson took office he was cast as a moderate. He created the California Environmental Protection Agency, boosted prevention programs for the poor and appealed to Democrats to help overcome Republican opposition to his budget.

“I think he came here wanting to bring everybody together and compromise,” said Assembly Republican Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). “Now I think Pete Wilson believes when he takes a stand, he gets things changed.”

Other Capitol observers say his approach hardened during some enormously difficult times in his first term--when California faced a severe recession and a series of disasters.

“He’s been, in many ways, a captive of economic forces beyond his control,” said former Democratic Assemblyman Phil Isenberg. “The recession was five years of budgeting that was always very limiting and very shrill. . . . I don’t know that he’s ever recovered from that completely.”

Whatever happens in his last two years, California is already a much different place than it was when Wilson started as governor in 1991.

He has managed an economy through recession and expansion that saw the state lose and then recover more than 800,000 jobs. He helped pass a three-strikes sentencing law that will profoundly change the criminal justice system. He contributed to a dramatic reshaping of the state’s political landscape by supporting term limits for state lawmakers and winning a court-ordered remap of political boundaries that were favorable to the GOP.

Most recently, he championed two highly controversial ballot measures that have prompted landmark court battles about whether to end public benefits for illegal immigrants and whether affirmative action programs should be halted in government hiring and contracting.

Finally, after years of incremental change, Wilson now stands as the most powerful individual in the historic redesign of the nation’s largest welfare state.

Some of the battles have been epic. And as Wilson’s legacy is written, political watchers say the governor’s place at the forefront of so many controversies has taken a substantial toll on his public image and jeopardized his ability to get credit for accomplishments.

By several measures, Wilson enters his last two years in an enviable position. The economy is running well, he is able to dedicate substantial funds to popular needs like education, and the crime rate has dropped to its lowest point since 1968.

Typically, that kind of good news is reflected in the popularity of a chief executive. But that hasn’t happened for Wilson.

In an October Times Poll, only 44% approved of Wilson’s performance in office while 47% disapproved. In the independent Field Poll last September, barely a quarter of the respondents said the governor was doing a “very good” or “good” job.

“I think his hard side just overtakes him,” said pollster Mervin Field. “He has a hard side and another side that’s less hard.”

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For that reason, this was the year that many Sacramento watchers wondered what kind of agenda Wilson would issue in his annual budget proposal and State of the State speech.

For the first time since taking office, he appeared free from many of the political pressures of another pending campaign. Also, it seemed one last chance to change his place in the history books by softening some of the hard edges developed in recent fights.

It is testimony to the mixed messages he has sent about his own personal values that Capitol observers were uncertain whether Wilson would continue the hard line he developed during recent campaigns or return to the moderate approach he demonstrated on taking office in 1991.

But last month, Wilson’s approach to welfare reform ended any speculation about whether the governor would try to leave office with a kinder, gentler image.

Wilson’s reform plan would create one of the nation’s most demanding welfare systems with mandatory work requirements and schedules significantly more strict than the landmark federal bill President Clinton signed in August. Most notably, he would limit able-bodied welfare recipients to one year at a time on public assistance.

Wilson rejects criticism that his plan is heartless. On the contrary, he says the debilitating dependency fostered by the current system is more heartless. And he believes the only way to end it is with tough rules that convey the hardships and responsibilities that many people face in the work force.

Wilson says he knows his welfare plan has made Democrats unhappy. “They’re trying to characterize me as Scrooge--cold, unfeeling,” he said.

“I’ll tell you what I think is callous, what I think is cruel,” he said. “That is to continue a system that has actually promoted the formation of fatherless families and all of the terrible, the monstrously unfair circumstances that that produces for the children of those families.”

Wilson said in a recent interview that he is still considering a second bid for the White House in 2000. But he also said he knows his ambition depends on improvement in his popularity.

He is hoping that after the heat of campaigns like those for Propositions 187 and 209 have cooled, his intentions will be better understood and his popularity will rise.

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He complains that he is wrongly portrayed as being anti-immigrant when his push for Proposition 187 was aimed at illegal immigrants. He also contends that his plan to end affirmative action is designed to help heal racial divisions--not inflame them--by treating each group as equal.

“I think [opponents] have tragically poisoned the well,” Wilson said in an interview. They are “guilty of doing a terrible disservice--less to me than to people whom they have misled . . . that [Propositions] 187 and 209 were racially based when in fact both were an effort to achieve fairness for all legal residents of California regardless of race or gender.

“I can’t apologize and won’t for doing what I am convinced is the right thing to do,” he added. “If you pretend that problems don’t exist and don’t address them, they will simply fester and grow worse.”

Wilson complains that California is too big for even a governor to communicate with the population--especially over the vocal protests of many opponents. At the same time, many of the governor’s allies say he has often done a poor job of communicating his own message.

“His public image, I think, has suffered because he’s had to be the person who said no a lot,” said Sal Russo, a GOP consultant in Sacramento. “Governors want to do things and they sometimes forget they have to spend a lot of time telling people what they are doing. . . . I think Wilson suffers from that--a tendency to do the job and not brag about the job.”

Behind the scenes, Wilson is known in Sacramento as an exhaustive researcher. But he is not considered a visionary. His decisions come more from the brain than the heart. And they are more pragmatic than ideological.

As a result, legislative veterans have learned that his decisions are also subject to change.

If Wilson were an ideologue, for example, Senate Leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) would be more worried about the governor’s rigid commitment to his welfare plan that Democrats plan to change.

“I think he intends to be a tough negotiator and make the best deal he can from his philosophical perspective,” Lockyer said. “I intend to do exactly the same thing.”