Sacramento Bracing for Takeover by Democrats

After he was elected governor in 1974, Jerry Brown didn’t know what to expect when he got a lunch invitation from outgoing Gov. Ronald Reagan.

They had traded insults during the campaign, but now that history had thrown them momentarily together, Reagan chose to make light of it. Lunch was a hamburger and Coke, the same frugal meal that candidate Brown had recommended as appropriate for lawmakers dining with a lobbyist.

Today, the same office where Reagan and Brown once passed the catsup is about to pass from outgoing Republican Gov. Pete Wilson to Democratic Gov.-elect Gray Davis.

Beyond the clumsy personal encounters, the task of turning over control of the world’s seventh-largest economy and the nation’s biggest nonfederal bureaucracy is a gargantuan assignment.

And by the account of those involved, Davis is starting from scratch. He has not announced a chief of staff or a transition team, for example.

Hundreds of decisions await Davis when he returns from a five-day vacation this week--and all will be closely watched. For starters, California’s governor has control over more than 2,000 appointed positions, about half of which are likely to turn over quickly.

The change is so massive that it typically spikes the real estate market in Sacramento. “We’ll be saying, ‘Welcome to Sacramento, you wonderful people,’ ” said Frank Cook, a local real estate agent with fond memories of the boom days of previous transitions.

In addition, barely eight weeks from now, Davis will be sworn into office Jan. 4, host an inaugural bash, give his first State of the State address and issue a proposed $80-billion-or-so budget for the next fiscal year no later than Jan. 10.

“There are thousands and thousands of Democrats who have been waiting for 16 years, who are ready to go to work,” said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).

Davis’ most loyal supporters, some dating back about 20 years, will gather at his behest in Sacramento this week to discuss how the governor-elect should proceed.

They are certain to consider the prospective choices for top offices, many of whom are already in the Capitol rumor mill. But so far, there do not appear to be many front-runners.

Davis is a loner by reputation, and he admittedly keeps few friends. He is also famous as a demanding boss who has had a higher-than-average turnover rate during his tenures as state controller and lieutenant governor.

That difficulty is coupled with high expectations from groups that supported him and the ambitious benchmark he set for himself last spring by pledging in the primary campaign that his appointments would exceed the unprecedented ethnic and gender diversity that Jerry Brown achieved.

Aides say Davis has not contemplated many of the upcoming decisions, although campaign strategists had told him for the past three months that he was certain to win the election.

“There were a couple of occasions when I and others said, ‘Gray, you really ought to start thinking about transition’--and he chewed me out,” said Dave Rosenberg, a Yolo County supervisor who was Davis’ deputy in the Brown administration. “He thought it was presumptuous, and maybe it was.”

The result is that Davis now faces a mountain of work. And meanwhile, his office and those of his friends are being flooded with thousands of job applications from across the country.

“I’ve got a briefcase full of them,” said Rosenberg. “I’ve been handed resumes, I’ve been faxed resumes, I’ve gotten calls from people who want to play golf with me, and I shoot in the 200s.”

Jumping On the Bandwagon

Meanwhile, throughout Sacramento political relationships are rapidly forming around the incoming chief executive.

Cruz Bustamante, the first lieutenant governor to be elected from the same party as the governor in 20 years, has asked Davis for special authority to handle state infrastructure problems.

And Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), who endorsed one of Davis’ opponents in the Democratic primary last spring, said he is “hitching myself to [Davis’] wagon.”

“I’ve never had this much power in my life, man,” Villaraigosa said. “I don’t mind being No. 2.”

Outside the Capitol, interest groups of every kind are scrambling to extend their best wishes.

At the California Farm Bureau, directors have offered any assistance they might provide in hopes of making up for their campaign endorsement of Davis’ Republican opponent, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

“We’ve made the offer, and I would think someone would pay attention to that,” said John Peace, the bureau’s political director.

For now, though, Davis said he is taking things slowly.

One day after the election, he told eager crowds to expect few major announcements in coming weeks. He described his approach as meticulous and “methodical.”

First, Davis said he will decide his education policy and then hire the people best capable of implementing it. Next will be health and welfare policy, he said. And so on, through transportation, prisons, environment, trade, commerce, agriculture and more.

Historically, transition styles have varied as widely as the personalities involved.

Four days before Christmas 1974, Brown aides said they had not made a single new hire for their administration. In contrast, Wilson named his top three officers one day after the election in 1990.

It is too soon to tell how well the Wilson and Davis staffs will work together. Democracy’s peaceful transitions require at least some cooperation between the outgoing incumbent and the incoming victor--even when they are archrivals.

Some aspects are personal and minor.

Reagan installed a shower in the governor’s office, then Brown put in a refrigerator. The next governor, George Deukmejian, retiled the shower. Today, it is essentially a storage area for Wilson.

Will Davis want to replace the Deukmejian-era blue carpets and drapes now hanging in the Ronald Reagan Cabinet Room (its official name)? That isn’t known yet, but Wilson has offered to change the carpets before he leaves.

Divvying Up Transition Tasks

Then there are major decisions.

Preparation of the next state budget is already underway. The finance staff still works for Wilson; the budget will be presented in January by Davis.

Wilson promised his cooperation in a congratulatory telephone call that reached Davis on the tarmac at Fresno’s airport the day after the election. Aides said the two also agreed to have dinner together in the near future, although no date was set.

Wilson’s staff has been preparing for the transition for the past three months. Lawmakers last summer budgeted about $550,000 for the operation of a transition government during the next two months.

Some of the money has been spent for an 18th-floor suite overlooking the Capitol that is equipped with 55 desks and telephones ready to be staffed jointly by Davis and Wilson personnel.

Every state department has also prepared telephone book-size “Transition Binders” intended to provide Davis’ incoming staff with mission statements, program details, revenue sources, pending litigation, federal regulations and a highlight of every decision that must be made in the next 90 days.

“The Wilson administration is committed to ensuring that the office of the governor-elect has all the appropriate information to . . . assume duties on 12:01 a.m. Jan. 4, 1999,” George Dunn, Wilson’s chief of staff, wrote in a memo to department chiefs two days before the election.

Still, some political strain would be typical for a transition.

Wilson is planning to fill every vacancy in the state’s judicial system before Davis takes over. And although the governor’s staff denies it, Democrats are worried that the lame-duck Republican is quietly locking in regulations and spending plans that the Davis group would oppose.

Wilson is expected, for example, to launch a legal challenge to Proposition 5, the Indian gambling measure passed by voters last week. Davis is opposed to a state challenge.

But Democrats have also been playing politics with the transition.

On the chance their party would win the election, Democrats in the state Senate held up confirmation of at least 90 Wilson appointments during the past year. As long as the positions are unconfirmed, Davis can withdraw the appointments.

The stalled appointments include five Wilson choices for UC regents, two trustees for the California State University board, two members of the state labor relations board, which will decide on overtime rules and other issues, and 36 prison wardens.

Davis’ upcoming selections are anxiously awaited by an audience looking for signs of the next governor’s direction. So far, he has said he will pursue a politically moderate path. Now he’ll be watched to see if his decisions match his rhetoric.

“He’s got to go to work,” said Dick Gable, professor emeritus of political science at UC Davis. “It’s not enough to just lay out, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’ ”