A New Mantle for Nunez

Fabian Nunez, a 37-year-old former union organizer, takes charge of the California Assembly today in time to deal with a big budget shortfall, primary elections, a new governor and a public more attuned to state government than it has been in years.

Nunez (D-Los Angeles) will be sworn in as the 66th Assembly speaker today. He takes a seat with the governor and other top legislative leaders at the table of the “big five,” where major conflicts are often resolved. A disadvantage for Nunez may be inexperience: He has served in the Legislature only 14 months.

“I’m looking at the future with a lot of enthusiasm,” said Nunez, who described himself as “totally humbled” by his new job. “These are trying times, but I’ll tell you, it’s times like these that create leaders.”

He will be the boss of the Democratic majority in the 80-member house and determine which members get the best offices and committee assignments.

Nunez will also catch blame if Democrats lose seats to Republicans in the November elections.

His biggest challenge as speaker will be California’s budget. Without more borrowing, the state will run out of cash in June. By July 1, the Democrat-dominated Legislature and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must patch a $14-billion shortfall with either new taxes or cuts to government services.

Outgoing Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) predicted that budget negotiations may go more smoothly this year than they did last summer under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. Wesson kept the Assembly in a marathon 29-hour session to find enough Republican votes to pass the budget.

But Schwarzenegger “will have the power or the ability to move certain Republican members in the Senate and the Assembly,” Wesson said, “and that’s a dynamic that we have not had in the five years that I’ve been here, in the two years that I’ve been speaker.”

Wesson said that he had included Nunez in some budget talks late last year with Schwarzenegger and predicted that the two would “hit it off.”

“I know [Schwarzenegger is] working to create a relationship with Fabian,” Wesson said. “That’s going to happen.”

Another conundrum awaiting Nunez is reform of the state’s workers’ compensation system. The premiums that employers must pay to cover their workers for on-the-job injuries have doubled or tripled in many cases, without commensurate improvements in worker benefits.

Nunez also must cope with legislative elections next month and in November. Republicans, buoyed by the recall of Davis and election of Schwarzenegger, are geared up to win a few more seats in the Assembly and Senate. They now hold 32 of 80 Assembly seats and 15 of 40 seats in the Senate.

“This has jazzed up the Republicans, jazzed up their ability to raise funds,” said Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the Target Book, a nonpartisan election guide. “This year they’re pretty sure they’re going to have enough funds to target every place they want to target. And that will be a first in quite a few cycles.”

Nunez, the son of a maid and a gardener who moved to San Diego from Tijuana, has been immersed in politics and union organizing since he graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont.

During his three-year stint at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, union membership swelled and labor became more involved in Assembly and Senate races.

Nunez organized walks and phone banks and dispatched union members to work on political campaigns, said Mike Garcia, head of Los Angeles-based Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union.

“He was out on the streets with the workers, and he was in his office on the phone, banging away on these politicians,” Garcia said.

As director of governmental relations for the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2000 to 2002, Nunez tried to influence the Legislature and the education bureaucracy in Sacramento for the second-largest public school district in the nation.

Though some Republicans have expressed wariness of Nunez’s strong union background, he and Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) share relative youth -- McCarthy is 39 -- and regular basketball games.

“Fabian and I, coming in as freshmen, we had built a relationship outside of [the Capitol],” McCarthy said.

“We have philosophical differences, but we have a relationship that respects one another and where we come from and, I believe, a true desire to say ... let’s build a trust between one another [so] that we can actually tackle a big problem.”

Inside the Assembly chambers, Nunez’s fellow Democrats are clamoring for more cooperation with Republicans.

Nunez said he and McCarthy have been talking since they were first elected in 2002 about ways to dampen the rancor in the Assembly.

“If you have bipartisan cooperation at the leadership level,” he said, “it makes it that much easier to work.”