Panel OKs Bergeson for State Board of Education

Former Orange County lawmaker Marian Bergeson withstood a barrage of attacks on her record and alleged insensitivity to minority children Wednesday to win a key round in her battle to be confirmed as a member of the State Board of Education.

The Senate Rules Committee voted 4 to 1, with Sen. Joe Baca (D-Rialto), organizer of the campaign against Bergeson, the lone dissenter.

The nomination of Bergeson, a Republican from Newport Beach, now moves to the full Senate, where she needs a two-thirds majority to win confirmation. A vote is expected before the end of the session next month.

Bergeson, who served 16 years in the Legislature as an assemblywoman and then as a senator, was appointed to the board last year by Gov. Pete Wilson. She had served two years as his secretary of education.

In a surprise move, Gov. Gray Davis kept Bergeson on the board as part of an appointment-trading deal between the two chief executives.

The deal did not sit well with Latino activists and labor unions, who saw Davis’ election as a chance to have more of a voice in education policy issues.

Fifteen speakers, most of them Latino, attacked Bergeson Wednesday as being out of touch with the needs of minority children, especially those who need help in learning English.

“She’s an enemy of our kids,” said Rocio Ortiz, a parent who delivered part of her testimony in Spanish. “She’s an enemy of minorities. She’s an enemy of civil rights.”

Bergeson earlier had defended her record, pointing out that she did not support Proposition 187, the initiative that banned illegal immigrants from a California education, because “‘children who are here belong in school.” A court has thrown out most of the provisions of the ballot measure as unconstitutional, including the education ban.

She noted that she did not back the voter initiative last year to end bilingual education.

But she said she did vote to end affirmative action because it placed the burden of educating children where it belongs--on the primary grades, not the college level.

Bergeson, who served a partial term as an Orange County supervisor, is no stranger to the hot seat. While in the Senate, she was appointed by Wilson as state superintendent of public instruction. But in a bruising confirmation battle in 1993, the Assembly rejected her nomination.

She contends that current critics are rehashing the same old complaints, which she said are not justified.

During her legislative career that ended in 1994, Bergeson became known for her education legislation. She also found that her moderate views were often at odds with those of the conservative faction of the Republican Party.

“Do you find it as amusing as I do that in the last few weeks, people have tried to portray you as a right-wing zealot?” committee member Sen. John Lewis (R-Orange) asked Bergeson.

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) characterized the opponents’ testimony as “a reflection of a deeply held concern about problems in the school system.”

But blame for those problems doesn’t necessarily lie with Bergeson, Burton said after the hearing.

Despite being rebuffed by the committee, Benjamin M. Lopez of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation said the activists would redouble their efforts to defeat her confirmation in the full Senate.

The Rules Committee hearing was “a good first step toward a showdown on the Senate floor,” Lopez said. “We’re going to up the pressure.”