Davis Is Simply Giving the People What They Want

It doesn’t get much better for a California governor than it is now for Gov. Gray Davis.

No calamitous floods or droughts. No earthquakes or riots.

No tax increase. Unlike most of his modern predecessors, Davis has not had to face up to an unpopular tax hike his first year as governor. Pete Wilson left him a budget surplus and the economy is perking.

Davis’ poll numbers are high. A recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 51% of the people rate his job performance as excellent or good; only 9% think it’s poor. Correspondingly, 61% say “things in California are generally going in the right direction”; just 34% believe the state is on the wrong course.

A prolific political fund-raiser, Davis is on pace to rake in $40 million by the time he faces reelection in 2002. The special interests already are assuming they’ll be dealing with this Democrat in a second term.

He’s the undisputed ruler of the roost in California politics and government. If Davis doesn’t like a piece of legislation, he forces the author to change it. If a bill gets to his desk that he still quibbles with, he pries a promise from the author to fix it during the next legislative session. Otherwise, he’ll just veto the measure.

“I don’t want to sign a bill that takes me northwest if I want to go north,” Davis told me.

Democratic lawmakers were used to going south under 16 years of Republican governors, so they’ve been happy to follow in any direction Davis wants to take them.

The governor got virtually everything he asked for from the Democratic Legislature this year, starting with a centrist education reform package. Mostly what he wanted was modest, measured steps, from labor advancement to HMO reform. That meant bridling liberal legislators.

Last week, Time magazine gave him an adoring five-page spread headlined, “The Most Fearless Governor in America.” Capitol insiders guffawed and gagged. But millions of Americans undoubtedly saw the article and were influenced.

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Fearless? To the contrary, one characteristic that has made Davis so successful has been his healthy fear of the voters and willingness to defer to them rather than liberal special interests. More accurate descriptions would be shrewd, pragmatic and cautious. Fearless centrist is practically an oxymoron.

Even some Davis aides admit the magazine’s headline was “over the top.”

Not Davis, however. “I loved it,” he says. “About time somebody gets it.”

He’s serious. “There’s a little journalistic cul-de-sac in Sacramento,” he continues. “They all judge me against the aspirations they have for a governor, or [former campaign rival Al] Checchi’s overly ambitious agenda, or the agenda of the paid advocates whose job it is to extract taxpayer money for their programs.”

In Davis’ view of himself--and nobody’s really arguing--he has fought tenaciously for the middle course he promised, sometimes disappointing political backers such as labor and pleasantly surprising business.

He has sought consensus and shied away from conflict. That’s different than being fearless. But whatever. By any definition, Davis has been effective, though less than bold.

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“The other day, I was talking to some labor leaders who were upset because I didn’t sign every bill they wrote,” Davis says. “That’s part of their style. If they’re not screaming, then they feel you’re not paying any attention to them. You’ve got to factor that in. But that’s true of any advocates.”

The governor last Sunday night finished signing 1,286 bills and vetoing 232, cutting $1.3 billion from proposed spending.

“I liken some of these bills--all well-intentioned--to going to a smorgasbord,” he says. “Everything you look at is good. But if you eat it all, you’ll die. You have to be selective.”

Davis has told people privately that he’s afraid Republican George W. Bush will be elected president and cut federal aid to California. Publicly, he asserts that regardless of who is elected, the state is bound to receive fewer federal dollars because of budget-balancing.

Privately, the governor also has expressed fears about a future recession. “I’m not afraid,” he tells me, “but I’m not a fool. I’m not going to commit us to a spending program that requires an outlandishly buoyant economy.”

Notes Democratic consultant Darry Sragow, who was Checchi’s campaign manager: “He’s doing something very simple. He’s figuring out what the voters want and doing it.”

Davis is enjoying lofty heights. And given the economic and political climates, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the only direction he can go is down.