Senate GOP Under New Leadership

Sen. Dick Ackerman has the urbane sense of humor that helps when you are a member of a perpetual political minority.

The Fullerton Yacht Club that he founded and is commodore of is based in his very landlocked hometown, more than 20 miles from the Orange County coast. The name he chose for his Catalina 42 sailboat, Free Ride, is an allusion to the fact that he did not have to give up his state Senate seat when he ran for attorney general in 2002 and was clobbered by the Democratic incumbent.

On Monday, Ackerman (R-Irvine) launched his new cruise as Republican leader of California’s Senate, which has been controlled by Democrats since 1971. A conservative Republican who has been in the Legislature for a decade, Ackerman, 61, was voted in by his colleagues and is expected to follow the philosophic tack of his predecessor, Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga -- taxes bad, private business good -- but with a stylistic imprint that differs from that of the hulking, gregarious Brulte.

“He’s not a glamorous type of person, if you know what I mean,” said A. B. “Buck” Catlin, a fellow Republican who served with Ackerman on the GOP-dominated Fullerton City Council, where Ackerman served as mayor. “Dick was very able to form a consensus with people; I think that’s one of his strengths. He’s very smart, he can focus the issues very quickly.”

Beneath a quiet demeanor, Ackerman is a fierce partisan fighter, current and former colleagues say. Jan Flory, a former Democratic councilwoman, said that after she crossed the city’s Republican congressman a few years back, he enlisted Ackerman to drive her out of politics.

“He gleefully came into the fray to take me out, and did they ever,” she said. “Like a tumor. It was five ‘hit pieces’ in the five days before the election.” In campaign mailers, Flory said, the GOP twisted her votes to make it seem she wanted to loosen prostitution laws and place drug treatment centers near schools.

Still, Flory said that Ackerman had finesse when it was required. “He always looks at the big picture and he knows how to work both sides of the aisle if he has to,” she said.

Though he is considered a committed conservative whose antitax views grew out of his training as a business lawyer and Chamber of Commerce head, Ackerman has sometimes placed politics before ideology. In 1994, for instance, Ackerman -- already off the City Council -- rushed in to help four former colleagues who were facing a recall election because they had supported an increase in the local utility tax.

“It took a lot of courage to defend people who were for raising taxes,” said Catlin, who was recalled anyway. “He’s willing to say what he thinks.”

Ackerman said the battle, which he counts as his most significant political defeat aside from the attorney general’s race, was one of principle. “They had raised the utility tax, but in my opinion they shouldn’t be taken out of office,” he said. “The recall process was intended for gross mismanagement.”

Ackerman was elected to the Assembly in 1995 and then the Senate in 2000. During his tenure, he has been known more for his opposition to Democratic initiatives and to Gov. Gray Davis than for particular pieces of legislation.

Of the laws he has written, a number focus on privacy. They include a 1999 law that made it illegal to use a hidden camera to film the underwear of unsuspecting women, an activity known as “up-skirting,” and a 2002 law that increased penalties against credit card thieves.

Several of his initiatives this year focus on the home: One would protect homeowners from excessive foreclosure costs, and the other -- known as the “bunny bill” -- would allow homeowners to poison rabbits that are nibbling their plantings.

It is in association with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that Ackerman is now likely to play his most significant role in Sacramento. Though the Republicans hold only 15 of 40 seats in the Senate, they become major players in the state budget process because any tax increase requires two-thirds support of the Legislature.

In a statement Monday, Schwarzenegger called Ackerman “a strong leader and a great person. ... I look forward to working closely with him.”

Ackerman will now be one of the “Big Five” -- the governor and majority and minority party legislative leaders who negotiate the state’s spending plan. Some senators say replacing Brulte, who was a party leader for a decade, will be a difficult challenge, but the outgoing minority leader says Ackerman will be fine. “Sen. Ackerman has served as the Republican budget conferee for the last two years and, frankly, has been making hiring decisions for the last four months on all of our staff, including our fiscal staff.”

Ackerman’s other big responsibility is to attempt to gain some ground in the November elections. The GOP plans to try to pick up one or possibly two seats, but even that would leave them far away from holding real power in the Senate.