Weighing Wilson

Pete Wilson has done considerable good for California during his eight years as governor, but that does not mean he leaves California a better state than when he took office Jan. 7, 1991. The Wilson years are marked by political achievement in areas such as welfare and education reform, but they also are shadowed by a legacy of social division and missed opportunity.

To his credit, Wilson adroitly guided California through the worst economic recession in half a century and helped Californians recover from an extraordinary series of disasters that included droughts, floods, fires, earthquakes and the worst urban rioting since the 1960s.

There’s no question that California is stronger economically than ever as the Republican governor prepares to yield his office to Democrat Gray Davis on Jan. 4. Wilson deserves a measure of credit for California’s economic revitalization although it’s impossible to quantify the impact a state government has on macro-economics. Certainly the governor’s overhaul of the worker’s compensation system and targeted business tax cuts helped spur recovery. And now, California is well into a federally mandated restructuring of welfare--a problem that had eluded solution for decades--and the state finally is moving ahead with education reform.

But the lasting image of the Wilson years in many minds will be a grainy black-and-white television commercial that ran hundreds of times during Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign. Viewers saw ghostly images of illegal immigrants dashing across the border into California. In a foreboding voice, the announcer says, “They just keep coming.” The ad was in support of Proposition 187, a measure to cut off state aid to illegal immigrants, including schooling for their children. It became the keystone of Wilson’s campaign.

The proposition passed and Wilson was reelected in spite of protests that the Proposition 187 campaign carried strong racial undertones. Wilson vehemently denied that charge, as he did later as a champion of Proposition 209, which abolished affirmative action programs.

It would be risky and unfair to second-guess Wilson’s motives for pushing the measures. But there is no question that these exploitative election campaigns sharply divided Californians. They appealed in particular to white voters who resented the fact that California was becoming a state of diverse populations, to voters who were open to the suggestion that California’s problems were caused by the newcomers.

Resentment, in fact, was a common quality of Wilson’s style. There was a villain behind every issue, it seemed. In crime, it was the “thugs.” In fiscal battles, it was the Democrats who wanted to spend your money rather than give it back in tax cuts. In education, it was the bureaucrats, the teachers and their unions standing in the way of progress. On economic matters, it was both unions and those who would strangle California with environmental and other regulations.

This is not the style Californians expected when they first elected Wilson in 1990. He had campaigned as a compassionate conservative with a vision for a future California carefully guided through growth management and environmental protection. Voters expected forward-looking programs of investment in children’s health and prenatal care for all women.

But the recession hit like a hammer just as Wilson took office, presenting him with a stunning $14-billion budget deficit in his first year. With little option, Wilson developed a bailout plan with Democrats that included both massive tax increases and budget cuts. Later, he was bitter--and rightly so--that conservative Republicans vilified him for the tax increases and Democrats berated him for the budget cuts.

Wilson hunkered down for the rest of the term, trying to dig the state out of recession. As a spectacular recovery came about, yielding $6 billion in budget surpluses over the past two years, many hoped that Wilson would return to the enlightened promises of his 1990 platform. The state had gone for years without adequate investment in its aging infrastructure. The state parks were deteriorating. Irreplaceable natural resources were being lost. Local government budgets had been decimated by state raids on property tax receipts during the recession, and services were declining. Unmanaged growth continued virtually unchecked.

Sadly, Wilson remained a dour, combative governor, using his veto power to the full in getting what he wanted. Rather than diverting much of the surplus to long-standing needs, Wilson insisted on tax cuts, presumably to polish his image for a possible campaign for president in 2000. He did, however, preempt Democrats on the growing issue of education reform, committing significant amounts of surplus funds for the public schools, beginning with money for class-size reduction. This, in fact, may be the most positive part of Wilson’s legacy, even though he had been prodded by Democrats for years to boost school spending.

As a tough negotiator with an instinct for popular issues, Wilson was an effective governor in many ways. Still, a staggering amount of work remains to be done. Most regrettable perhaps is Wilson’s style. Its result was to pit Californian against Californian rather than bring them together in a renewal of the spirit of the Golden State.