New Lawmakers Making Their Marks in Assembly

She arrived in the Capitol green and eager just six months ago. But on this warm May day, Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson is already presiding over the Legislature’s lower house.

From a podium high above the Assembly floor, Jackson clicks smoothly from one bill to the next. A lawyer by training, she is calm, professional--and fluent in parliamentary jargon.

When chatter breaks out among members wandering the floor, she bangs her gavel twice. “Members, there will be order in the house!” she calls, bringing her unruly colleagues to immediate attention.

This is heady stuff for a woman who hardly knew how to cast a vote in December, but now has won the honor of becoming the first of her freshman class to lead the Assembly in full session.

“It was only about 45 minutes, but it felt like a year,” Jackson, 49, says later.

That baptism under fire--an opportunity bestowed by Assembly leaders to showcase Jackson’s cool, precise demeanor--underscores her rapid rise in Sacramento’s new ruling party, the Democrats.

By contrast, Ventura County’s other first-term Assembly member, Republican Tony Strickland, is traveling a rougher road in search of recognition and a record on which he can run for reelection next year.

Like Jackson, the 29-year-old former legislative chief of staff has risen quickly within his own party. But he has little real clout since there are only 32 Republicans in the Assembly, but 47 Democrats.

“The hardest part,” he said, “is that a lot of your ideas just go nowhere.”

That is a core distinction when tracking the paths of Jackson and Strickland in their first six months as state lawmakers.

Both are standouts in a freshman class of 27--a group thrown pell-mell into the fray because under term limits no Assembly member can serve more than six years.

Jackson chairs a committee on environmental safety, is a member of three other committees and a variety of subcommittees. She was appointed by Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa to the Coastal Conservancy, a plum for a representative from the oceanside counties of Ventura and Santa Barbara. Her package of bills is substantial--spanning issues such as domestic violence, toxic pollution and gun control.

Strickland ranks even higher in his party, and is among the inner circle of top Assembly Republicans after helping Scott Baugh topple minority leader Rod Pacheco in a nasty revolt last month.

He is the Republican point man on the powerful Health Committee considering health-maintenance organization and nursing home reform, and he sits on the Assembly budget, judiciary and insurance committees.

Baugh has pegged Strickland as a key party strategist and fund-raiser for the elections of 2000. “Health is a juice committee,” Baugh explains.

But Jackson’s party has the votes. So she stands at the podium of the ornate Assembly chamber as Strickland rocks quietly in his chair below.

Jackson works the Assembly floor gathering votes for Villaraigosa, while Strickland cools his heels and ponders ways to make a name for himself as a member of the opposition.

Just now, Strickland is working his greatest opportunity of the session.

Republican leverage is limited to budget and tax measures that require a two-thirds vote. Democrats are six votes short of that super-majority. So they need Republicans to pass a state budget, as promised, by the June 15 deadline.

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Strickland is pushing hard on his biggest and best idea--one he believes is so appealing that both parties will eventually embrace it, or face the wrath of voters.

He wants to use a piece of the state’s $4-billion budget surplus to cut the tax on gas $404 million a year--about three cents a gallon or $39 annually for the average motorist. The gas tax is especially burdensome, he argues, because an excise tax that is part of the base price is taxed again by a levy on each sale--an onerous tax on a tax.

Strickland’s proposal was dismissed summarily in committee two weeks ago, as Democrats voted the party line to kill it, 5 to 2.

But three days later, Baugh touted Strickland’s bill as a cornerstone of the platform Republicans will take to the table during budget negotiations in the weeks to come.

“Like this gas tax, you will see policies advocated by Tony Strickland talked about up and down the state,” said Baugh, 36, a conservative from Huntington Beach. “He will be viewed in his district as a tax fighter. And if you know him, he’s a very nice, engaging man. He comes across as a gentle giant. He’s a great legislator in the making.”

*

In Sacramento, as in Washington, the size and location of a lawmaker’s office are a sure sign of power and prestige.

And, by Capitol standards, both Jackson and Strickland have been quartered just fine.

The view from Jackson’s tall fourth-floor window is all towering elms and weeping willows. On warm evenings bands play concerts on the steps below.

Her large private office is rich in wood. Her chief of staff, Teresa Stark, a former aide to Villaraigosa, also rates a private office.

“Not bad, huh,” Jackson says with a sly smile.

Strickland’s accommodations two floors below are more cramped. Yet a door from his private office opens onto an open-air wooden deck, a rare luxury. His chief of staff, Sean Kent, formerly an assistant state treasurer, has an office too.

If an office suggests the nature of its occupant, then the differences between Jackson and Strickland are starkly apparent.

*

Above family photographs, Strickland hangs an “America Is Reagan Country” poster and photos of himself with the conservative icons of his adolescence--Reagan, Ollie North, Ed Meese and William Bennett. On display too is a picture of Strickland with actress Heather Locklear, a resident of North Ranch, in his 37th Assembly District.

A life-size cardboard gas pump dominates the room, offering a “$400,000,000 GAS TAX CUT.”

Strickland is particularly fond of a mounted quotation by Teddy Roosevelt: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the area . . . who at worst if he fails . . . at least fails while daring greatly.”

Then there are Strickland’s Taco Bell Chihuahuas: He collects them because they remind him of the little dog he has left at home in Thousand Oaks.

“Yeah, I’m a big kid,” Strickland says. “I always have been. And I’ll be that way until I’m 80.”

By contrast, Jackson hangs emblems of her immigrant and Democratic roots above her family photos.

Featured on four walls are grandfather Joe Rosen’s gold-embossed “Patriotic Series” of historic American documents in Old English script.

Rosen fled the Russian pogroms in the late 1800s. He was later spotted on a Boston basketball court by a New England philanthropist, who sent him to art school. Then for 50 years, Rosen hand-lettered in Latin every graduate and undergraduate degree awarded by Harvard University.

*

Jackson also displays an invitation her grandmother received to Frank Delano Roosevelt’s second inauguration in 1937. Her grandfather had tutored FDR Jr., Jackson explains.

The only suggestion of Jackson’s own life is a book on the corner of her desk: David Halberstam’s “October 1964.”

A baseball fan as a kid, she was at Yankee Stadium during the 1964 World Series when Mickey Mantle homered into the upper deck to win the third game. “He hobbled to the plate and we were concerned he couldn’t make it,” she recalled. “Then he homered to break Babe Ruth’s World Series record. He hit two more after that for a total of 18. That record still stands.”

The love of sports is a unifying passion for Jackson and Strickland. At 6-foot-5, he was a Whittier College basketball star; at 5-foot-2, she was a New England junior tennis champion.

But even here, their perspectives differ, as shown by their take on a recent encounter with disgraced baseball star Pete Rose at Burbank Airport.

The lawmakers were catching their Sunday night commuter flight back to Sacramento when they spotted Rose, who is banned from baseball for gambling.

Strickland hurriedly pulled off his Baltimore Orioles cap and got Rose to sign it. “It was pretty neat,” Strickland said.

But Jackson stayed put. “All I could think was that the poor guy looked like a lost man. He was sitting by himself on the floor of the airport terminal.”

*

It’s crunch time in Sacramento.

Assembly members are pushing hard for passage of their bills by a June 4 deadline. Otherwise the bills will languish until next year, or perhaps die altogether.

This sudden demand for attention packs committee calendars with hundreds of potential laws, and places a premium on quick and clipped analysis. Bills with no chance to pass are hardly discussed.

All 17 of Jackson’s bills have passed committee, in part because she is a Democrat, but also because colleagues say she crafts bills that hold up under fire.

By last Friday, four Jackson bills had passed the full Assembly and moved to the Senate.

Two reflect her background as a family law attorney: One would require that couples be given a fact sheet on the rights and responsibilities of marriage when they take out a license. The second would extend the time a longtime spouse would receive alimony.

The other two bills mirror Jackson’s interest in reducing ocean pollution. One is particularly relevant to homeowners at Rincon Creek, she says, since it would require them to fix or replace leaking septic tanks. The second bill mandates the use of pipelines, instead of tankers, to move oil from ocean fields to the mainland.

Strickland voted against three of the four bills, favoring only the oil pipeline requirement.

A Jackson resolution urging a permanent ban on new offshore oil drilling has also passed the Assembly and been sent to President Clinton. Strickland abstained.

“To me, the real issue this year is what we’re going to do to correct problems that haven’t been addressed by Republican administrations,” Jackson said. “To correct the flow of pollution into our water. To protect schools near farmland from pesticides. Many times, the laws are there, they just weren’t enforced.”

Strickland has had less luck pushing his 13-bill legislative package--one that includes educational reform, a Ronald Reagan auto license plate, and tax breaks for farmers who donate food and gun owners who install trigger locks.

Strickland’s top two bills were killed outright in committee, and a third will be held back until next year.

*

One Strickland bill sponsored by a business in his district has passed without much debate. It would raise the maximum fee dance studios are allowed to charge for lessons from $3,750 to $6,600 to reflect inflation since the last increase.

And Strickland almost sneaked one of his featured bills out of committee, when he persuaded one Democrat to cross party lines to vote for his Kali Manley bill.

That bill, a response to the weeklong search for the slain Oak View 14-year-old in December, would have required a lawyer to disclose the location of a missing person even if that information came from the lawyer’s client. But it finally lost on a 4-4 vote.

Strickland’s top bill of the session--his gas tax cut--lost despite his argument it was an unjust double tax that especially hurt the working poor.

“Your motivation is commendable,” said Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee. “But we’re talking about a $450-million impact.”

That leaves Strickland to work his conservative agenda as a spoiler on controversial Democratic bills, or through budget negotiations.

“I’m not discouraged,” he says repeatedly. “I’ll keep on working hard.”

And he has been effective. He bottled up a bill by powerful Democrat Robert Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) that would require health-care plans to provide birth-control pills to women, as they do sterilization and abortion services--and Viagra.

He accomplished this by adding an amendment that exempted employers, such as Roman Catholic institutions, from the law if they are ethically opposed to contraception. Because of their beliefs, some Democrats also backed that “conscience clause.”

Strickland finally let the bill pass after Hertzberg promised to take up the issue later as the Assembly and Senate craft a final law.

“I have Bob Hertzberg’s word that he will work on a conscience clause,” Strickland said. “In government, we have to respect religious views.”

Jackson was not pleased: “My position is that I don’t want my employer to exercise my reproductive rights for me.”

*

For the most part, however, it is Jackson who has had her way in the Assembly.

That is due in part to her close relationship with its top Democrats--a bond highlighted in private chats and public demonstrations in recent days.

When Jackson had an unexpectedly hard time getting a bill allowing cities to license handguns through a Democrat-controlled committee, she sought help from Villaraigosa.

“Mr. Speaker,” she said as he approached in a Capitol hallway. That formality prompted him to smile and give her a hug. Then they walked--his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist--for a quiet chat.

“I feel a little bit sideswiped,” she said to him. The speaker offered his help. In the end it wasn’t necessary, since all five Democrats on the Public Safety Committee backed the bill despite heavy lobbying against it by the National Rifle Assn.

The respect for Jackson was emphasized when Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley (D-Santa Cruz) pulled her aside 10 days ago and asked if she was ready to preside over the full Assembly. Already Jackson is being groomed, he said, to be a top Democrat in the Assembly.

“It’s important in this term-limited environment to cultivate future leadership talent,” said Keeley, in only his third year himself. “I wanted her to step into a role that tested her with virtually no notice, and by all accounts she passed with flying colors.

“Overall, I’d say, she’s an intelligent, poised member who has taken like a fish to water around here,’ he said. “My sense of Hannah-Beth is there are no limits on her.”

So go the mid-session appraisals of Jackson, and generally of Strickland as well, though the jury is still out on whether Strickland is a good lawmaker or just a skilled operator within his own party.

For sure, say colleagues from both parties, Jackson is a player to be reckoned with.

“Hannah-Beth is very liberal, but she’s doing a good job,” said Rod Pacheco, the deposed Republican leader. “She’s extremely bright and very nice. She represents her constituents extremely well. And she’s true to her convictions.”

*

Jackson showed her grit during a tough debate over her gun-licensing bill in committee. Two Republicans lit into the proposal, with Jim Battin (R-La Quinta) later declaring it “Hannah-Beth’s crazy bill.”

“I hadn’t been jumped on in that fashion before,” Jackson said later. “They wanted to see if I could be intimidated. But I’m not going to back down.”

Battin said he wasn’t trying to intimidate Jackson.

“She’s a smart lady, and I like her and listen to what she says,” he said. “But I simply don’t agree with what she says. She is one of the most liberal members in the Legislature, and that’s quite a statement too.”

Battin, a member of the Republican leadership under both Pacheco and Baugh, has also had opportunity to size up Strickland.

“Tony’s a hard worker and a bright guy and a true believer,” said Battin, who was on Pacheco’s side in the leadership battle. “He’s going to be more of a leader as time goes on. We need people like Tony up here.”

And what does Pacheco think of Strickland, who sided with Baugh?

“I never lie to the press,” Pacheco said. “Given the circumstances it’s inappropriate for me to describe his performance.”

Strickland will not discuss his vote against Pacheco--who angered some Republican colleagues by calling them “the three stooges” in print--except to say the party is now unified behind Baugh, who is generally viewed by both parities as less combative than Pacheco.

*

As Jackson and Strickland settle into their new lives as the makers of law in the nation’s largest state, they discover there is a price to pay.

Six months into their inaugural year, Ventura County’s political bookends say the lessons learned during Assembly orientation in November are serving them well--and still may be all they have in common.

Those lessons: Be nice, work hard, never lie and set aside time for your family.

“I truly believe that 95% of this job is being able to work with people,” Strickland said. “We find common ground where we can, and when we can’t we still respect each other’s views.”

Jackson and Strickland say their typical work day begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends about 10:30 p.m.--or when they empty their in-baskets preparing for the next day’s work.

“A big lesson is you can’t know everything about everything,” Jackson said. “But that’s a lesson I’m still trying to learn. I’m in Sacramento to work.”

*

As both have adjusted to their new roles, they’ve also grappled with the emotional price of being away from home four days a week.

Married only 1 1/2 years, Strickland said he still calls wife Audra, a Ventura teacher, two or three times a day just to say hello. “That’s the toughest part of this whole thing,” he said. “But I set aside Sundays just for us.”

Jackson says husband George Eskin, a retired Ventura lawyer, “is a very proud partner in this Sacramento adventure.” But 15-year-old Jenny has mixed feelings about losing so much of her mom to lawmaking.

“She’s proud, but she also wants to make her mom dance,” Jackson said. “She asked me the other day, ‘Do you really think you can make a difference?’ And I told her, ‘Yes, I know I can.’ ”

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About This Series

“County Report: The Making of a Legislator” is a series describing the education and maturation of Ventura County’s two new legislators. This installment chronicles the rise of Assembly members Hannah-Beth Jackson and Tony Strickland to positions of power within their parties while pushing opposing political agendas.

Laws Proposed by Ventura County’s New Assembly Members

Hannah-Beth Jackson

Democrat, 35th District

AB 17--Firearms: State Preemption

Repealing current law that keeps local governments from passing ordinances that regulate the licensing of firearms.

AB 384--Sales and Use Tax: Prepayments

Simplifies payment of sales and use taxes for businesses by eliminating the confusing reporting and prepayment requirements that businesses face. (Sponsor: Board of Equalization)

AB 389--Community Colleges: Work-Force Training

Encourages public-private partnerships that will increase the number of people in specialty nursing and other industries with shortages of qualified workers, such as high-technology. (Sponsor: California Nurses Assn. and California Healthcare Assn.)

AB 391--Spousal Support

Alters the current legal guideline that provides for spousal support for half the duration of a failed marriage by extending the payment period when the marriage was longer than 10 years. (Sponsor: Family Equity Coalition)

AB 558--Domestic Violence Prevention Education

Requires that domestic violence education be taught in grades 1-12. (Sponsor: California Alliance Against Domestic Violence and the Junior League of California)

AB 604--Controlling Pollution

Sets goals for a long-term reduction of certain types of pollution, such as sediment from forestry activities and runoff from new urban development. (Sponsor: California Assn. of Environmental Health Administrators)

AB 606--Victims of Crime: Payments

Includes children’s counseling as a service paid for by the state Victim Restitution Fund. (Sponsor: Consortium to Prevent Child Abuse)

AB 610--Health Care Coverage: Children’s Cancer

Helps children with cancer get the vital health care they need while they are receiving treatment for their disease, even if they are enrolled in clinical trial programs health plans consider experimental. (Sponsor: Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation)

AB 612--Armories: Homeless Shelters

Requires the state Military Department to make some state armories, including one in Oxnard, available as emergency homeless shelters. (Sponsor: Santa Barbara County)

AB 885--On-Site Sewage Treatment

Forces replacement or repair of leaking sewage systems such as septic tanks in coastal areas. (California Assn. of Environmental Health Administrators)

AB 887--Tobacco Settlement: Access to Health Care

Directs a portion of California’s tobacco settlement dollars to support the state’s community clinics and health centers. (Sponsor: California Primary Care Assn.)

AB 889--Marriage Fact Sheet

Requires distribution of a fact sheet on the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage to couples as they take out a wedding license.

AB 1052--Child Care Initiative Project

Makes permanent a public-private partnership intended to increase the availability of quality child care. (Sponsor: California Child Care Resource and Referral Network)

AB 1280--Oil Spill Prevention

Requires oil pumped from fields in state waters be transported by pipeline instead of tankers to reduce the chance of spills.

AB 1282--Teacher Credentialing: CBEST

Requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to improve the state basic skills proficiency test for teachers and to give the test more frequently and in more locations. (Sponsor: Commission on Teacher Credentialing)

AB 1284--Stalking

Provides stalking victims with greater protections by forcing a hearing where the victim may testify before the alleged stalker can be released on bail. (Sponsor: Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury)

HR 20--Permanent Ban on Further Offshore Oil Drilling

This resolution calls on President Clinton and Congress to permanently ban new oil drilling along the California coast.

Tony Strickland

Republican, 37th District

AB 35--Death Penalty

Increases the penalty for rape and child molestation by granting judges the discretion to impose a death penalty for a second conviction of these crimes.

AB 156--Trigger Lock Incentive Tax Credit

Creates a tax credit up to $75 for people who purchase trigger locks for their guns.

AB 287--Food Donation Tax Credit

Provides a tax credit for growers who donate agricultural products to food banks and charities. (Sponsor: California Emergency Foodlink)

AB 296--Delinquent Tax Penalty

Lowers the penalty on delinquent tax returns to 5% per month, rather than the current immediate penalty of 25%. (Sponsor: Franchise Tax Board)

AB 401--Income Taxes: Child Care

Provides a $300 tax credit for child-care expenses for each child under age 13.

AB 648--Dance Studio Lessons

Increases the maximum fee a dance studio may charge for lessons from $3,750 to $6,600. (Sponsor: Arthur Murray Dance Studios)

AB 657--Classroom Teacher Excellence Recognition Pilot Program

Establishes a pilot program in eight districts to pay bonuses to excellent teachers.

AB 783--Class Size Reduction

Part of a package that expands the existing class-size reduction program from early elementary grades into middle schools.

AB 1019--Boy Scout Bill

Allows minors to do volunteer work on a construction site with parents’ permission.

AB 1064--General Assistance: Limitations

Establishes a five-year lifetime limit on general assistance benefits.

AB 1060--CalWORKS Compliance

Prohibits CalWORKs recipients not complying with their welfare-to-work plan from receiving any aid increases, including cost of living.

AB 1286--The Kali Manley Bill

Requires an attorney to report any information on a missing person to law enforcement even if that information comes from the lawyer’s client.

AB 1315--Ending Double Taxation on Gas

Ends current state practice of levying a sales tax on the excise tax that is included in the base price of gasoline, savings motorists $404 million a year.