A Road to Home Sweet Home

At last, a means is at hand to end a long-standing embarrassment for California, the nation’s most populous and wealthiest state: the lack of an official home for governors. Senate Bill 1091, by Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento), would create a nine-member Governor’s Permanent Residence Commission, composed of legislative leaders and administration officials. Between now and June 30, the commission would study and make recommendations on space, a design, a site and a way to raise money for a mansion.

Ortiz’s bill passed the Senate 40 to 0 and the Assembly 67 to 6. It is carefully crafted to comply with two major conditions that Gov. Gray Davis established earlier in the year: that no public money be spent on a mansion and that no construction start during his first term. Davis should have no qualms about signing SB 1091 into law. No one can accuse him of trying to build a palace for himself.

The problem of providing California governors with a suitable mansion has bedeviled state officials since the 1950s. The last official residence, a creaky 19th century Victorian eight blocks from the Capitol, was abandoned by Ronald and Nancy Reagan early in 1967 and was turned into a state historic park. A new California rancho-style home was financed and built in the remote suburbs by Reagan friends and given to the state, but Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. refused to live in it when he succeeded Reagan. The ranch home was sold, leaving a fund now amounting to $3.1 million to help build a new mansion. Since 1983, governors have lived in a suburban home owned by a private foundation.

California governors have gone without an official home long enough. Davis should sign SB 1091 and firmly direct the commission to get the job done.