State Chamber Gives Davis Passing Grade

The way Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, sees it, the business lobbying group didn’t do too badly under the new Democratic administration in Sacramento.

Zaremberg assessed the most recent legislative session at a meeting Tuesday of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley. The roughly 60 members of the business community who attended the meeting at the Airtel Plaza Hotel were eager to hear Zaremberg’s recap of how the chamber fared in a capital where Democrats occupy the governor’s office and both legislative branches for the first time since 1982.

He said that, of the 30 bills the chamber opposed, Gov. Gray Davis signed six and vetoed three. Still, he said, that’s not such a bad record.

“I think Gov. Davis said during his campaign that he wanted to be a moderate,” said Zaremberg. “Labor, they didn’t win everything, we didn’t win everything. They didn’t lose everything, we didn’t lose everything.”

Zaremberg, who joined the California chamber in 1992, said part of the chamber’s current strategy is to target fewer bills than in the past, and learn to read the writing on the wall.

He mentioned, for example, the controversial measure signed in July by the governor that requires overtime pay when workers put in more than eight hours in a day.

Organized labor, which backed the measure, said the bill would help broad groups of employees, particularly temporary hires who often must work more than eight hours a day but less than 40 hours a week. Republicans attacked it as an example of big government seeking to control the business decisions of private employers.

Supporting the measure was part of Davis’ campaign platform.

“This was one of those things that, after a while, we realized it was going to be signed and we tried to make the best of it,” said Zaremberg. “It’s just reality.”

Zaremberg said he thinks the administration “probably pays more attention to the voice of labor and the trial bar” than his Republican predecessors. But, he added: “That doesn’t necessarily mean he follows their lead.”

On balance, he said, things turned out fairly well.

“Last year, we can look back and say, working with the governor, it was a good year,” said Zaremberg, whose group serves as one of the main lobbyists for business statewide. “Except in a few instances in health care, I don’t think there’s anything business can look back on and say, ‘It’s going to make it harder to do business in California.’ ”