Johannessen Is New Veterans Secretary

Newly retired Sen. Maurice K. Johannessen, who twice broke with fellow Republicans to cast the deciding vote for Senate approval of Gov. Gray Davis’ state budgets, was appointed Tuesday as secretary of the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs.

Davis announced the appointment of Johannessen, 68, former chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, at a ceremony where Johannessen was applauded by veterans in white caps and by department employees.

But Davis had scarcely administered the oath of office to his fourth secretary of veterans affairs in as many years when senior GOP Sen. Ross Johnson of Irvine denounced the appointment as a “pure political payoff” for Johannessen’s budget votes.

He said Johannessen’s decision to break ranks with Republicans and join Democrats “means we now face a $30-billion budget deficit.... We should call him the $30-billion man.”

Senate Republicans were miffed the first time Johannessen cast a vote for Davis’ budget, in 2001. But the vote last summer so angered them that they ousted him from their private strategy meetings and wouldn’t let him back in.

In response to reporters’ questions Tuesday, Davis and Johannessen insisted there was no link between the former senator’s votes and his appointment. They said they had not spoken of the appointment until last week.

Davis said he selected Johannessen, a Shasta County supervisor who first was elected to the Senate in 1993, not for specific votes he cast but because of his “spirit to solve problems and rise beyond partisanship.”

Senate leader John L. Burton (D-San Francisco), who helped derail two previous veterans secretaries appointed by Davis, said he believed Johannessen would be confirmed. He predicted that he “will clean up a department that has had problems.”

Charles Parnell of Clovis, California commander of the American Legion, praised the appointment. He said that there’s “always politics” in filling top government jobs but that Davis had “selected the best man.”

For years, the department has been overwhelmed by controversy, ranging from costly bookkeeping failures to the death three years ago of a World War II soldier who choked on his broccoli lunch at the Barstow Veterans Home. Later the same facility lost its accreditation, an action that forced it to shut down for months, turn away applicants and lose millions in federal Medicare payments.

The department’s defenders say that the Barstow facility has returned to good standing and that other agency problems were addressed under the previous secretary, Bruce Thiesen. He was not confirmed by the Senate but recently returned as the department’s No. 3 manager.