When Public Service Tests Family Ties

Consider the plight of the California political spouse. While legislators frequently enjoy royal treatment, junkets to foreign lands and the heady sense of charting the state’s future, their partners mostly stand in the shadows, weathering the hidden costs of public life.

They watch as family savings that might have bought a ski cabin or child’s college education are sunk into all-or-nothing campaigns. They endure scrutiny from the press and, in some cases, frightening threats from angry constituents.

During election years, they stuff envelopes, walk precincts, shake a zillion hands. When the campaign ends, they typically stay behind to manage the household, tuck in the kids and wonder whether it’s all worthwhile.

“It’s not a very easy thing,” says Leo Briones, whose wife is Los Angeles state Sen. Martha Escutia. He should know. When the Legislature is in session in Sacramento, it is Briones--a political consultant--who drives one son to preschool and karate lessons in Los Angeles while also caring for the couple’s newborn boy.

Family stress has always been a certainty in politics, and the whirl of controversy engulfing President Clinton has reinforced this in a vivid way. In the California Legislature, family life has its own distinctive strains, and term limits may be making things harder than ever.

In decades past, many lawmakers moved their families to Sacramento rather than live apart while the Legislature meets Monday through Thursday for nine months of the year. A lifelong career in state politics was possible then, so relocating made sense.

Today, however, legislators know they will be forced from office later if not sooner--and many spouses have careers of their own. As a result, the vast majority opt to keep their families rooted in their districts.

The shorter tenures born of term limits also intensify the Legislature’s draining work schedule. With a maximum of six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate, lawmakers are tempted to overcommit--to public functions, legislative assignments--and often pay a price at home.

“We’re men and women in a hurry to make our mark,” explains Assemblyman Jim Cunneen (R-San Jose), who commutes home nightly from Sacramento when the Legislature is in session--a two-hour drive. “The consequences for your spouse, your family, can be painful.”

For the most part, the political world doesn’t much care. Indeed, the Legislature keeps no official record of lawmakers’ family status--nor does it track trends in marriage, divorce and parenthood among its members. Although families are welcome at such special events as members’ swearing-in ceremonies and summer picnics, they are otherwise mostly officially ignored by Sacramento.

Tips on How to Cope

This year, however, the Assembly took a small step toward changing that situation. For the first time in memory, the lower house sponsored a seminar for the spouses of incoming legislators on how to deal with everything from security worries to the inevitability that summer vacations will be spoiled by budget stalemates.

“It was very helpful,” said Helen Nakano, whose husband is Torrance Democrat George Nakano. “The message that stayed with me was, ‘Be flexible and always buy refundable plane tickets.’ ”

Dr. Esther Reynoso, wife of Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim), appreciated the tips but remains anxious about how her husband’s absence will affect their children, ages 2, 4 and 6.

“It’s a concern,” says Reynoso, an obstetrician-gynecologist for Kaiser-Permanente, “because the kids like their daddy to tuck them in at night, they like to roughhouse with him. And when I’m doing homework with our oldest, he’s always been there to distract the other two.”

As the year unfolds, spouses can get support from a nonpartisan group called PALS, founded in 1919 by three political wives. And the Capitol’s upperclassmen are always generous with advice. Rod Pacheco of Riverside, the Assembly’s Republican leader and a father of four kids--two in diapers--offers this morsel for his rookie colleagues:

“You need to keep your eye on what’s most important and remember that on your deathbed, you won’t be wishing you’d spent more time at work.”

No one is forced to enter politics, of course, and along with the professional and personal stress come some pretty enticing perks.

The annual salary for legislators, recently raised, is $99,000. In addition, lawmakers receive a $118 per diem for each day the Legislature is in session to cover living expenses--tax-free income that totaled about $30,000 last year.

Other benefits include a cellular phone, $400 a month to lease a car and government drivers who chauffeur legislators around the capital on business. Also covered is one round-trip air fare a week between Sacramento and home.

And belonging to the Legislature can be fun.

“It’s great to sit around over dinner, talking policy or strategizing,” says state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough). “It’s an intoxicating environment. But it can be fatal in the personal sense if you’re not careful.”

Speier has witnessed that dynamic more than once. As a legislative staffer in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she watched marriages crumble and children grow resentful of absent parents.

Such domestic tragedies, she says, are spawned by a Capitol culture in which legislators are surrounded by obsequious lobbyists and servile staff who cater to their every need. Egos can swell, distorting a person’s perspective.

“It’s an unreal world, and it’s very dysfunctional,” says Speier, a widowed mother of two who commutes 100 miles to and from Sacramento each day. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, “there were lots of affairs, divorces. It made me vow to try to avoid the after-hours socializing, to make sure this institution didn’t break down my family.”

Influx of Women Is Working Changes

Although it’s impossible to take a poll on adultery, the capital’s legendary fraternity-house atmosphere has clearly changed over time. For one thing, it’s not a fraternity anymore. This year, a record number of women are serving in the Legislature--10 in the 40-member Senate, 20 in the 80-seat Assembly.

In the lower house, the number of married members has grown as well. A decade ago, 78% were married. This year, 84% are, according to a Times survey. Seven Assembly members are divorced or separated; 80% of members have children.

Along with the changing complexion of the Legislature have come political reforms limiting the amount lobbyists can spend to entertain legislators. Before such restrictions, politicians enjoyed unlimited free drinks and dinners--often by just signing a lobbyist’s name to a tab.

“In the past, playing around was just part of the life,” said one former lawmaker who recently left office because of term limits. “It still happens, but not as much and not in such a public way.”

Though that particular hazard may have diminished, many threats to family health remain. Most difficult, legislators and their spouses say, is the physical separation required of the job.

When the Legislature is in session, most lawmakers from distant districts spend Monday through Thursday in the capital, usually in apartments they share with a colleague or two.

“In the past, a lot of members brought their families up with them, but you rarely see that anymore,” says Tony Beard, the Senate’s chief sergeant-at-arms since 1981. “To survive this life, a family has to be exceedingly understanding and just hang in there.”

Lawmakers strive to stay connected by phone, fax and e-mail, but it’s not the same as being there.

“It’s pretty basic--you just miss your husband,” says Wendy Baugh, who is married to Republican Assemblyman Scott Baugh from Huntington Beach.

“It’s lonely,” agrees former Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), who left the Legislature after an unsuccessful run for Congress last year. “You end up going to a bunch of receptions and eating hors d’oeuvres all week because you don’t want to sit at a counter by yourself.”

For families with children, separation can be especially tough--sometimes unacceptably so. Former Assemblyman Ted Weggeland, for example, resigned in 1996 because of the strain. He noted that his brother, who lived near the couple’s Riverside apartment, used to frequently check on the assemblyman’s pregnant wife and 2-year-old boy.

“It got so my son thought my brother was his father, even called him Da-da,” Weggeland said at the time.

Cruz Bustamante, the former Assembly speaker just elected lieutenant governor, recalls the torment he felt when his daughter Marisa, 5, began to cling to him and sob every time he left his Fresno home to return to work.

“When she starts thinking that Sacramento is a bad word, an evil place that takes Daddy away, it’s pretty rough,” he says.

Escutia has a 3 1/2-year-old son, Andres, and a month-old boy, Diego. Her legislative burden is particularly heavy because she chairs a Senate committee.

“I think any woman who works and also tries to balance a family life feels guilt,” she says. “For me, it’s the day-in, day-out cute little things they do that I miss. But if I had another job, I’d be a lawyer doing the billable grind, 70 hours a week. I might see them even less.”

To bridge the geographical gap, Escutia calls home three or four times a day and looks forward to e-mails from her husband and mother-in-law, who cares for the boys while Briones is at work.

Escutia also schedules as much of her work as possible in Los Angeles. She says she turned down a chance for a leadership post when she was in the Assembly, knowing it would have meant more time away from home.

Other lawmakers cope by returning home during the legislative week. Assemblymen Wally Knox and Hertzberg, both Democrats from Los Angeles County, fly into Burbank on Tuesday night and return to the capital on a 7 a.m. plane Wednesday. That way, they’re not away from home two nights in a row.

Knox thought long and hard before he ran for office in 1994, largely because of the family-life perils of politics.

“I don’t buy the theory that quality time makes up for just being around for all the boring, everyday things that happen in families,” he says. “You can’t make up for your absence by buying a lot of ice cream.”

By going home Tuesday nights, though, Knox can help with homework and read with his daughters, Aviva, 14, and Tamara, 9.

Many legislators say they religiously block out time for family. Pacheco, for instance, refuses to attend any political events on Sundays. The only exception, he tells his staff, “is if the Pope dies and I’m giving the eulogy.”

State Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) calls the school district each fall to make sure special events--like daughter Jennifer’s recent band concert--are on his calendar far in advance.

Even at Home, a Loss of Privacy

When the Legislature is out of session, lawmakers’ lives can almost seem normal.

But living in the public spotlight is another reality of politics, one that some spouses and children lament. O’Connell’s daughter gets frustrated when constituents recognize her dad and interrupt their occasional dinners out at McDonald’s.

Linda Ackerman, wife of Assemblyman Dick Ackerman (R-Fullerton), notes that “people hold you to a higher level of accountability when you’re an elected official.”

“And if something happens, like I run a red light and have an accident, it all winds up in the paper,” she says.

Former state Sen. Rob Hurtt’s son, Spencer, had just such an experience. When he crashed his father’s state-owned sports utility vehicle into the back of a pickup truck outside Barstow in 1995, it made headlines, although it was hardly a spectacular wreck.

Sometimes, being in the public eye carries more serious consequences. Former Los Angeles state Sen. David Roberti was a target of death threats and other harassment for months because he co-sponsored a bill to ban assault weapons.

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), one of the few lawmakers who has moved his family to Sacramento, said that decision was influenced by threatening phone calls he got in 1996.

“A local paper printed my phone number and urged people to call and harass us, which they did,” recalls McClintock, who has two young children. “After that, we wanted the kids out of the political maelstrom.”

Despite the toll politics can take on families, Escutia and others say it’s important to have parents with small children in the Legislature. On issues such as child care, education and health care, lawmakers with families can “relate to the concerns of our constituents, because we’re living those things.”

And despite the groaning, it’s not all negative. Linda Ackerman, who has grown children and lives in Sacramento with her husband during the legislative session, calls their capital tour “an enlightening midlife adventure.” And as a bonus, she says, “I’ve overcome my fear of flying.”