Spoilers, Left and Right, Haunt Davis’ Honeymoon

When Gov. Gray Davis strolled into a hotel banquet room near the state Capitol to address a meeting of the Sacramento Press Club, it was obvious that the “honeymoon” was in full swing. The new governor’s inaugural and State of the State addresses had gone over well. His budget proposal neatly balanced his new initiatives with holdover ideas from Pete Wilson’s time. Davis engaged in a friendly colloquy with the assembled journalists over the frequency of his news conferences. At first, he hinted at a conference every couple of weeks. But when pressed to take a position on domestic-partnership legislation and other issues related to gay rights, Davis jokingly suggested that perhaps “once a month is more like it.” The exchange reveals a small but important truth with which Davis will have to come to grips: Honeymoons end.

There is no shortage of suspects, usual and unusual, capable of short-circuiting the bonhomie of a new administration. So who will be the skunks at Davis’ honeymoon garden party?

At the top of the list is that selfsame Capitol press corps. In addition to their institutional mandate as watchdogs, veteran Capitol reporters have an extra incentive to hold Davis’ feet to the fire. Before he became the poster child of moderate pragmatism, they knew Davis as a relentless publicity hound, willing to say whatever it took to win converts on his long road to the governorship.

Davis’ reputation energizes the desire of Capitol beat reporters to call the new governor out whenever he slips. Animosity between Davis and influential Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters is palpable. Walters has ragged Davis for every infraction, no matter how slight, and Davis, in turn, mockingly calls the columnist “Gov. Walters.”

Among potential Republican troublemakers is Assembly GOP Leader Rod Pacheco. The initial spin on Pacheco’s elevation to the leadership was that it reflected the party’s desire to moderate its image, especially among Latinos. By temperament, however, Pacheco is a battler: a former prosecutor who seldom misses a chance to recount his success in capital cases. Pacheco already has had his nose tweaked by his Democratic counterpart, Assembly Speaker Antonio R. Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), who rammed through rules that constrained the GOP’s ability to influence legislation. Such slights will strengthen Pacheco’s resolve to keep Davis from the Holy Grail of first-year governors: an on-time budget.

Pacheco’s blocking tactics will likely be aided by another Republican troublemaker: Simi Valley Assemblyman Tom McClintock. The eminently quotable hard-core conservative was the man who added “car tax” to last year’s budget lexicon when he proposed the elimination of the vehicle license fee. The idea gave the GOP crucial leverage with the Democrat-led Legislature. The conservative GOP caucus will likely look to McClintock to come up with another headline-grabbing tax proposal to use as a bargaining point come budget time.

Pacheco and McClintock aside, there aren’t a lot of high-profile Republicans interested in taking on Davis. Accordingly, many Capitol observers believe Democratic liberals will be a bigger problem for Davis, forcing him to slide left to protect his base.

Sensitive to this charge, Democratic legislators in both houses have gone out of their way to show how united they remain behind Davis, insisting they are pragmatic enough to know when to say “when.” But there are some well-posi tioned Democratic officials who, either through ideology or ego, can give the new governor plenty of trouble.

Senate President Pro Tempore John L. Burton (D-San Francisco) is known as a skilled deal maker whose generational simpatico with Wilson helped smooth the way to a budget last year. But Burton is also a legendary loose cannon, blustering with ego and a liberal soul who refuses to stay under wraps. Within days of Davis’ election victory, Burton suggested that one of the first changes he hoped to see was a signature on a domestic-partnership bill, the very issue that caused Davis to squirm at the Press Club gathering. Burton isn’t casting an eye toward any other office, and his ego won’t permit him to be rolled into moderate complacency by any governor.

Another Democratic senator lurks as a potential problem for Davis. With failed runs for governor and mayor of Los Angeles, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) will devote his last two years in the upper chamber to one of his enduring passions: environmental protection. As chairman of the Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee, Hayden will, for the first time, be working with a kindred spirit in the administration, Resources Secretary Mary D. Nichols.

Nichols can be expected, at least in her heart, to support most of the environmental initiatives Hayden will propose. This relationship presents a problem for Davis, who worked mightily during the campaign to reassure the state’s business and agricultural communities that he was not an underground Greenie. Nichols already has generated private hand wringing among business leaders, and a Nichols-Hayden tandem could be a tag-team headache for a governor trying to chart a centrist course.

There is one other potential Democratic irritant lying in the weeds: Delaine Eastin. Davis and the superintendent of public instruction are, to put it charitably, not close. An upwardly mobile pol who is sometimes seen as having her own designs on the governor’s chair, Eastin publicly supported multimillionaire Al Checchi in the Democratic primary. She even appeared in a Checchi TV ad.

Since his election, Davis has made it abundantly clear that he will not share the education portfolio with Eastin. His first Cabinet appointment, Education Secretary Gary K. Hart, never got along with Eastin when the two were in the Legislature. Eastin may project the appearance of being a team player, but on the night of the State of the State address, she publicly doubted the feasibility of what could be Davis’ most popular education proposal: a competency exam for all exiting high school seniors.

Although the job of schools chief is more bully pulpit than policy-maker, Eastin could improve her standing with another institution with cool gubernatorial relations: the California Teachers Assn., the state’s largest teachers union. An avid publicity hound herself, Eastin could be tempted to stick a finger in Davis’ eye if she felt CTA would back her.

The above mentioned are not the only people who could spoil Davis’ honeymoon. But there will come a time when even Davis’ friends will make him wonder whether Republicans are the enemy.