While Davis and Burton Bicker, Edison Awaits a Rescue Measure

“We’re going to get it done,” Gov. Gray Davis pledges. “We will find a way. One way or the other, we’ll get it done.”

It is a bill to rescue Southern Cal Edison from looming bankruptcy. Such a measure died in the state Senate early Saturday just before the 2001 legislative session ended.

Crusty Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) wouldn’t even allow a floor vote. “We didn’t want to embarrass the governor,” he proclaimed, contending the bill had only seven supporters. Burton definitely was not one: “It would have been a rip-off of residential people to help big business and bail out a corporation.”

So the dogged Davis announced he’ll call the Legislature back into special session. “I’m thinking of Oct. 1 or 2,” he said late Saturday in a phone interview.

“I’m a New Yorker. We get things done. Whether we’re going to split the bill, divide it into 60 pieces, I don’t care.”

The comment just hung there. Strange: A California governor boasting about being a New Yorker, even if he was born there and didn’t move out here until after grade school. Californians certainly have gotten things done in Sacramento--Pat Brown, Earl Warren.

Davis clearly had been preoccupied with the terrorist attacks. So preoccupied--holding several TV events, mainly relating to victims--that the governor may not have devoted enough time to cajoling and coercing lawmakers about Edison.

Ridiculous, insist Davis staffers. In fact, says press secretary Steve Maviglio, “The governor called Burton a number of times, and he didn’t respond. Once he was handed a note and replied, ‘I’ll give the governor an answer by carrier pigeon.’ ”

Commented Davis: “No question, there were times when he played hard to get. And frankly, he’s been that way since I’ve been governor. I mean, that’s just John Burton.”

Davis and Burton did confer a couple of times last week. But obviously, this is a very strained relationship between a governor and a Senate leader of the same party.

It’s not unprecedented. When Democrats controlled the Capitol in the early ‘60s, Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh feuded with Gov. Pat Brown. Like now, it was the legislative leader who was the most agitated. Unlike now, the leader then thought the governor was blocking his career.

Currently, unlike the ‘60s rivalry, there’s a sharp philosophical conflict between the liberal Burton and the centrist Davis. And, as with any intraparty squabble, there’s probably some turf jealousy.

Whatever, the politician controlling the Edison issue is not the governor. It’s the Senate leader, in his fifth decade as either a state legislator or congressman.

Tall and athletic. Political to the bone. Gruff. Impatient. Profane. But somebody who often exudes warmth.

“He’s a lovable, irascible character,” Davis says. “He’s a Damon Runyon figure. He’s got his good points and his bad points, as do we all.

“I wouldn’t do what he does, frankly, which is everywhere he goes he has to have a cell phone. I’ll be in a meeting with him, his cell phone rings and he gets [upset]. . . . To some extent, he creates his own problem by carrying that cell phone everywhere.”

The Edison issue, Burton told reporters Friday night in language that cannot entirely be printed here, “has been a giant pain. . . . At times I actually lost my temper. And . . . the governor’s probably having nightmares.”

I asked Davis, why not just let Edison go bankrupt, as PG&E; did? “That’s what John asks me all the time,” Davis replied.

Davis’ answer: The goal is to get Edison credit-worthy so it can resume buying electricity and the state can stop. Also, the Edison bill assures continued generation of significant alternative power. Plus, in bankruptcy, Edison might be forced to sell assets to creditor-gougers who would not be regulated by the state. Nobody yet knows who will wind up owning PG&E; assets, such as efficient hydro power.

And face it: If a second big utility goes under, both California and the governor will take a hit in prestige.

But Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) spoke for many colleagues when she remarked it’s not her job to make a company credit-worthy.

Bowen pushed a resolution through the Senate declaring that there’s no longer a “severe energy shortage,” and the official state of emergency “is at an end.” This would reduce the governor’s power, but the resolution wasn’t taken up by the Assembly.

“They’ve got their head in the sand,” Davis says. “I’d be thrilled if the emergency was over. I don’t know what they’re drinking over there in the Senate.”

But if Davis really is going to get it done, he may have to buy Burton and the Senate a round. Maybe a round of favorite-bill signings.