Panel Rejects Governor’s UC Nominees

Hoping that Democrat Gray Davis will be the next governor, a Democrat-dominated Senate committee Wednesday refused to confirm three of retiring Gov. Pete Wilson’s nominees to the UC Board of Regents.

President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, told the three at a hearing that the action had nothing to do with their merits or qualifications for the prestigious 12-year posts.

Instead, he said, it is the committee’s new policy to withhold approval of gubernatorial nominees whose appointments would extend into the term of the next chief executive, who will be elected Nov. 3.

“We think that the [next] governor should have the opportunity to make the appointments,” Burton said. He ordered the regent nominations shelved without a vote.

He made clear that majority Democrats on the committee hope that Lt. Gov. Davis will defeat Republican Dan Lungren and appoint regents acceptable to Democrats.

Rejected were Ralph Ochoa, a Sacramento lobbyist who headed a Democrats for Wilson gubernatorial campaign committee in 1994; Republican Carol Chandler, who farms in the San Joaquin Valley community of Selma; and Republican John F. Hotchkis of Pasadena, a partner in a company that manages international investments.

For Wilson, the committee’s failure to confirm his nominees raised from three to five the number of regent appointees whom the Senate has rejected, a record for any California governor. Democrats have long accused Wilson of politicizing the UC governing board, especially with his support for eliminating affirmative action programs at the nine-campus university system.

In 1994, the Rules Committee rejected Lester Lee, a Silicon Valley businessman who became the first regent in a century to be denied confirmation. Last year, the Senate followed up by rejecting regents Chairman Tirso del Junco, a national Republican Party activist.

Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh lambasted the Democrats’ action as a naked political power play that threatens “the long-term governance implications for the state. It is gravely disturbing.”

Before the hearing, Wilson was asked Wednesday at an appearance in Fresno about forecasts that his nominees would be sunk for partisan reasons.

“It’s a real corruption of the confirmation process,” he said. “The only thing they should be concerned with is the actual qualifications of the candidate.”

Seats on the powerful Board of Regents are among the most prized patronage plums that a governor can hand out. The 12-year terms are four years longer than the maximum for governors and allow a governor’s policies to continue long after the chief executive leaves office.

The appointments of Ochoa, Chandler and Hotchkis stirred controversy from the outset. Chandler and Hotchkis were named Nov. 22, only hours before the regents voted on a Wilson-opposed plan to provide health care benefits to the domestic partners of unmarried UC employees. Ochoa was nominated two days earlier.

The three voted with the governor against the proposal, which passed by a single vote. Their votes angered gay activists, who called on lawmakers to reject the nominees.

Regent appointees can serve up to one year without Senate confirmation. The terms of Ochoa, Chandler and Hotchkis will expire shortly after the Nov. 3 election.

But Burton said that if Atty. Gen. Lungren is elected governor, Senate Democrats may decide that Wilson’s “known quantity” nominees are superior to anyone Lungren would appoint.

If Davis wins, however, Democrats will not give Wilson’s nominees a second look, Burton said.

The Legislature will adjourn Aug. 31 and not reconvene until Dec. 7. Senate aides said it would be possible for the Senate to confirm Wilson’s nominees in December, provided that the governor withdrew their appointments and then renominated them.

Meanwhile, the appointments of two dozen other Wilson nominees are due to expire before December for lack of Senate approval.

Also in jeopardy are 78 unconfirmed Wilson appointees whose terms will expire during the first eight months of next year.