With No Apologies, Watson Fights On

By JENIFER WARREN

March 16, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO —

Diane Watson is not one to mince words:

“I’m a liberal, big-spending, Democrat, female African American,” she declares. “Take me or leave me. That’s who I am.”

As her words suggest, Watson--a five-term state senator from Los Angeles--is an in-your-face politician. Forget delicate diplomacy. Forget charm, schmooze and tact. Watson, a former schoolteacher, behaves as though she knows best. Cross her and you could wind up in the corner, heartily scolded, with a dunce cap on your head.

This professional style is a reflection of who Watson is--a black woman in what remains a white man’s world. The issues that move her most deeply--the needs of the poor and dispossessed--are not always high priorities for senators whose votes she covets. Sometimes, she finds that hollering is the only way to get heard.

This year, Watson will be yelling more loudly than ever. In the coming months, California will overhaul its welfare system, threatening principles she has spent almost 20 years fighting to defend. Although term limits mean Watson is in the twilight of her legislative career, the looming welfare fight may well be her most crucial battle yet.

As co-pilot of a committee reshaping California’s welfare policy, Watson, 63, is likely to be an influential player in what will be a contentious debate. She will be on the left flank, arguing that the state’s most fragile people must not be hurried recklessly off the welfare rolls in the name of reform.

Watson’s core argument--that people are not on welfare by choice but because they have no other prospects--is not a popular one. Still, she is prepared to go down fighting, defending her vision passionately until the end.

“Before we start tearing things apart, we have to remember that . . . these are human beings we’re talking about--children,” Watson said in an interview. “We cannot let them get run over by those who are attacking welfare just to appear tough and rough.”

To understand Diane Edith Watson, one must understand the area she has represented since 1978. Wedged between Wilshire Boulevard, Inglewood, the Los Angeles River and the Westside Pavilion, the 26th Senate District includes wealthy pockets such as Ladera Heights and Hancock Park. But it is better known for its poor.

One in four residents lives below the poverty line, and 18% are on public assistance--compared to 4% countywide. The median household income is about $25,000 a year. Large employers are few.

“Diane Watson does what she does because she knows the pain and desperation and hard times in this community,” said Sweet Alice Harris, founder of Parents of Watts. “She never had a silver spoon in her mouth. She is in touch with the problems and always there to help.”

Yet Watson’s reputation is mixed. Her constituents worship her, saying she acts from the heart and is always there to lend a hand. The senator volunteers as a mentor in local schools and donates clothes to the needy. And her aides moan good-naturedly about the phone calls they get from Angelenos who bump into Watson in the supermarket and extract a promise of help.

“If anyone has a broken wing, she’ll take them in,” one staffer said. “She believes the best about everybody. She hears a sob story and she can’t resist.”

Critics, meanwhile, say her liberal views and reluctance to strike compromises that conflict with her principles limit her influence in Sacramento.

“It’s fine to perch on the moral high ground,” said one legislator who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But if we all did that, nothing would ever get done. To be productive, you need to play the game.” Watson’s inflexibility, the lawmaker said, excludes her from most of the political horse trading beneath the Capitol dome.

Watson insists she is effective. “I am here to represent my beliefs and my constituents, and I do that,” she said. “If I had played the game differently, I wouldn’t feel good about myself.”

Watson was born and raised in her Senate district, in a middle-class neighborhood just a mile from the house where she now lives. Her father was an LAPD officer, a strict man who was quick to use a switch to keep his children in line. When her parents divorced, Watson--7 at the time--secretly rejoiced: “He taught us to obey authority, but life got happier once he left.”

After the split, Watson’s mother worked nights as a mail sorter and rented out a room to help make ends meet. Watson and one of her sisters cooked, tended their two younger siblings and studied--hard.

“I may not have been that smart,” said Watson, who graduated from Dorsey High School, “but, oh my, did I work! I was driven to achieve.”

Drive is something Watson has in abundance. Her days are long, with sleep limited to four or five hours a night. She has never married, so work--and the related functions that can clutter a politician’s life--is all-consuming.

To stay on stride, Watson lives an impeccably healthy life. She starts each morning with a smoothie made of papaya juice and protein powder, and she sips hot water throughout the day--no soda or coffee allowed. Colleagues who favor junk food say she rides them mercilessly about their sinful ways.

Six feet tall in heels, Watson is a striking figure, with long, expertly manicured fingers that slice through the air when she speaks. Unlike nearly every other state lawmaker, she lists her home phone number. And she is refreshingly candid: How many politicians would volunteer in an interview that they once helped a niece sign up for welfare?

In her pre-Sacramento days, Watson was a schoolteacher. She vaulted into politics in 1975, winning election to the Los Angeles Board of Education. Those were difficult days, marked by hostility over her defense of mandatory busing to achieve integration.

In 1978, Watson won her Senate seat with 70% of the vote--a preview of the next four slam-dunk elections to come. Her 83% victory margin in 1994 was the highest of any state senator.

Over the years, Watson has introduced more than 800 bills, most addressing the needs of women, children and families. Laws sponsored by Watson prohibited arbitrary psychological examinations of rape victims and assured that their sexual history is inadmissible during trial. Other bills led to training for police officers on domestic violence and barred psychotherapists from having sex with patients.

Since 1981, Watson has chaired the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Her accomplishments include the creation of California’s controversial anti-smoking campaign, which has been credited with cutting smoking rates dramatically.

But Watson’s tenure has not been free of speed bumps. In 1988, she was fined $2,000 for failing to disclose a loan from a health care lobbyist. She was also accused--and later cleared--of using state funds and legislative staff to prepare her doctoral dissertation.

Watson’s most painful professional moment, however, may have been in 1985 when Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), now the Senate’s president pro tem, attacked her: accusing her of engaging in “mindless blather” that was hindering the Senate’s work. The two have a good relationship now, but for a time Watson refused to accept Lockyer’s apology, declaring, “My voice will not be silenced.”

Many senators condemned Lockyer for his outburst, but some colleagues say Watson herself can be an intellectual bully.

“I like Diane personally, but she has told me to shut up at least 20 different times during hearings,” said Sen. Raymond N. Haynes (R-Riverside), a conservative member of the health committee. “Pushing her philosophy is more important to her than treating people with respect.”

Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay), who says he is fond of Watson, left the health committee after four years because “Diane wouldn’t let me speak.”

“Diane is all hugs and kisses in the Senate lounge, then she bludgeons you in the committee room,” Leslie said.

It is not only senators who have felt the sting of Watson’s tongue. In January 1996, she lashed out at Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, chastising him publicly for the dearth of blacks in the upper ranks of his staff. Another time, Watson suggested that UC Regent Ward Connerly--an affirmative action foe who is black--married a white woman because he “wants to be white . . . [and] has no ethnic pride.”

Watson’s admirers defend her forceful style, saying it is evidence of her commitment to beliefs she holds dear.

“Diane is not bashful--in fact, she can be confrontational,” said Sen. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte). “But she says things that need to be said. This work is not always about being cordial. It’s about getting your point across.”

Unless term limits are overturned in court, Watson will be forced from office next year. But that does not mean she will leave public life: She is angling for an ambassadorship or a consul general post in Africa or the Caribbean.

First, however, there is the task of welfare reform. Watson sees her role as “the conscience” in the debate, reminding people that despite Gov. Pete Wilson’s rhetoric about “welfare recipients being idle, promiscuous and other evil things, they deserve our help.”

While many conservatives accuse those on public assistance of taking advantage of aid to avoid work, Watson believes most people want to work but lack the training, child care and job opportunities to do so.

“I’ve got to be the one standing up for them, for all those voiceless, powerless ones,” Watson said. “I want that to be my legacy. That’s what matters, more than anything else.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Watson’s District at a Glance

The 26th Senate District, represented since 1978 by Sen. Diane Watson, has the highest proportion of welfare recipients in the state. As co-chair of a legislative committee that will help shape the state’s welfare reforms, she is in a position to help her constituents. Here is a comparison of her district’s 746,963 residents with the rest of Los Angeles County:

Median income:

26th: $25,167

L.A. County: $34,965

Less than high school:

26th: 37.6%

L.A. County: 30.0%

With public assistance:

26th: 18.4%

L.A. County: 4.0%

Below poverty level:

26th: 24.0%

L.A. County: 15.1%