Steady as He Goes--Davis Proceeds With Usual Caution

There are plenty of visions for San Francisco’s $1.5-billion plan to replace an aging span on the world-renowned Bay Bridge.

Mayor Willie Brown wants to make sure there is room for a glitzy development of hotels and restaurants on Yerba Buena island. Oakland Mayor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. wants an international design competition so the structure will be a work of art.

Gov. Gray Davis wants it cheap and sturdy.

“I have two needs,” Davis said recently. “That the bridge be safe, and that it be cost-effective.”

As California’s new governor approaches his 100-day report card, the state is learning just what he meant during last year’s campaign when he described himself as moderate, pragmatic, methodical--even boring.

Although his speeches are about “higher expectations,” Davis has worked hard to lower the ones set for his administration.

His first budget proposal in January was a timid step--just slightly different from the last version filed by former Gov. Pete Wilson. And beyond education reform, Davis’ inaugural speeches gave few hints about pressing issues like health care, transportation, water resources and the environment.

Within weeks, teachers were upset about his education reform plans, labor groups were threatening a strike over salary issues, and environmentalists were leery of his handling of a bellwether water decision.

But today, the complaints have been tempered. And the closely watched skirmishes so far have sent a clear message about Davis’ modest and pragmatic style--the kind that builds sturdy bridges, not visionary ones.

The governor eventually approved a temporary 5% raise for state workers, less than half of what the unions initially requested. And despite teachers’ complaints and some compromise amendments, his education package shot through the Legislature and into law.

“Stylistically, he gets a strong A,” said a ranking Republican state senator, Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga). “He has rhetorically positioned himself in the center of California politics, and he has been willing to slap at his critics on the left as well as the right.”

Brulte said he would lower Davis’ grade on substantive policy decisions to “a strong B” because his effort has been limited to one legislative initiative--education--and Republicans believe he watered down his original plan to appease Democratic critics.

But like Brulte’s, most impressions of Davis are still fluid. Business groups are wary, for example, of some of the labor representatives appointed to top jobs in the administration.

But they have been encouraged by Davis’ speeches linking hopes for education and social improvements to a strong economy and a thriving business community.

“I think so far, his actions mirror his words,” said Alan Zeremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “He has indicated he would execute a moderate course, and I think he has done that.”

Recently, business groups have cheered his decision to slowly phase out the unhealthful gasoline additive MTBE and his private but publicized rebuke of a Cabinet secretary who sided against farmers in litigation over water rights.

At the same time, however, those decisions have caused concern among environmentalists although Davis has selected leading conservationists for top administration jobs.

“People are still confused by it all,” said Michael Paparian, lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “It may be that it all turns out to be very consistent . . . but we are still waiting to see how all of the pieces fit together.”

The rebuke revealed a private side of the governor that is well-known to longtime associates: that he is a controlling, autocratic and temperamental boss.

The governor is a confessed micromanager who insists on approving seemingly low-level hires and all public statements made by administration officials. He has issued warnings to staff throughout the administration about talking in public or to the press without his permission.

“I think it is helpful if my appointees understand where I am coming from because they were not elected,” Davis said in a recent radio interview. “I was elected and their job is to reflect my views.”

Insiders say Davis’ rigid management style is cumbersome, causing decisions to be delayed while they await his approval. They are uncertain whether such a hands-on approach is realistic for the chief executive of the world’s seventh largest economy.

But most say it is still too early for such definitive judgments. The 100-day benchmark, April 14, is an arbitrary but traditional measure for executive lawmakers.

It was long enough for President Clinton to become defensive about his handling of several issues in 1993. And it was a time of mixed review for Wilson, who faced a record state budget deficit in 1991 and complaints about his slow progress.

Davis, however, is clearly enjoying the start of a career he has long desired. His recent speeches have been more relaxed and confident than the robotic, tentative displays in January.

The administration also is buoyed by opinion polls showing that the governor still enjoys the kind of support that produced his landslide election last November. The San Francisco-based Field Poll reported last month that Davis’ job rating is the highest since Jerry Brown took office in 1975.

The governor’s staff has been so eager to boast about his achievements so far that reporters were recently given a 10-page draft list of them. It includes:

* Approval of four education bills aimed at improving reading skills, teacher evaluations, a high school exit exam, and a ranking system to identify and assist poor-performing schools.

* A meeting in Mexico City with President Ernesto Zedillo that was highly symbolic for California’s Latino population and prospects for trade.

* Final agreement with the federal government and Pacific Lumber Co. to purchase America’s largest remaining privately owned old-growth redwood forest near Eureka.

* A new outreach program that makes the top 4% of students at each high school eligible for admission to the University of California.

Davis also counted as achievements the state worker pay raise, a rapid response team he assigned to delinquent Y2K computer repairs, and his role in getting federal aid for citrus farmers who suffered a January freeze.

Now the governor is in the midst of a campaign-style media blitz to advertise his achievements. He is expected to discuss his first months in office during a news conference this week.

Recently, he scheduled public events in the northern and southern parts of the state to sign each of his four education reform bills separately. And he began a series of meetings with Capitol reporters, attending lunches with Sacramento newspaper bureaus and private, off-the-record dinners with columnists.

The get-acquainted sessions have spanned personal and policy issues.

For the record, the governor’s lunch of choice is a turkey sandwich on dry wheat bread with a crisp leaf of lettuce and a bottle of water. And the quickest way to animate his conversation is to ask about his golf game (he was a prize-winning player at Stanford University).

Davis has also been defiantly dismissive of critics, calling them “whiners” even when they come from his own party.

“People can yell and scream and complain all they want, but I am going to move at my pace,” he said of complaints about his slowness in filling administration jobs. “No harm is occurring, and we will get to them in due course.”

Davis frequently credits President Clinton as a model and pioneer for his style of moderate Democratic politics. But watching Clinton, Davis has also decided to try to avoid some of the president’s early problems.

The governor says voters were not ready for Clinton’s plan to push an ambitious universal health care plan, and that is one reason Republicans scored a major victory in the 1994 election. As a result, Davis has decided to move much more slowly.

It is also a lesson he is trying to teach his Democratic colleagues.

“Friends, you have given me the opportunity to write a new chapter in the history of California: the era of higher expectations,” the governor recently told Democrats gathered for their annual state convention in Sacramento.

“Throughout my campaign for governor, I made it clear that I am a moderate and a pragmatist,” he said. “Our fellow citizens are sick and tired of extremism in the defense of ideology.”

What’s unique about Davis’ speech is that he is referring to extremism in both political parties. So far, his message has been received politely.

His challenge is whether it will remain so when the honeymoon is over.