Republicans Lose a Strong Leader After a Tumultuous Era

Amid the usual mid-May Capitol commotion over a governor’s budget revision, an era quietly ended this week: the era of Jim Brulte, Republican leader.

Brulte, 48, of Rancho Cucamonga, stepped down as long planned from his pivotal perch as Senate minority leader. He was replaced by Sen. Richard Ackerman, 61, of Irvine, whom Republican senators selected for the post last fall.

It was all very smooth -- in sharp contrast to the era that lasted more than a decade.

This was an awkward era of institutional transition -- from a Legislature of career politicians without term limits to a Legislature of career politicians with term limits.

Brulte is a good example. He’s a career pol who acquired the bug as a 10-year-old slapping on bumper stickers in Ronald Reagan’s first race. He became an aide to U.S. Sen. S. I. Hayakawa, an advance man for Vice President George Bush and chief of staff to the assemblyman he succeeded in 1990.

Brulte was elected the year voters imposed legislative term limits. When he was termed-out of the Assembly, the careerist ran for the Senate. He’ll be termed out there this fall and plans to seek a seat on the state Board of Equalization in 2006.

Term limits or not, most politicians keep running.

The transition era ends this year when the last of the really old-timers are sent packing by term limits. Many of these are burned out and won’t run again.

Lawmakers get six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate -- a total of 14. Brulte favors reducing the total to 12 and allowing a lawmaker to spend it all in one house.

“Six years in the Assembly is not enough,” he says. “There’s a learning curve.”

Brulte was elected Assembly Republican leader in his third year. If he’d been a freshman, he says, and the governor had been a Democrat instead of Republican Pete Wilson, “I guarantee you they [Democrats] would have pantsed us.” (Today, both the Assembly Republican leader and the Democratic speaker are freshmen.)

Brulte got pantsed anyway by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. It was one of the ugliest sights ever seen in the Capitol.

As Republican leader, he brought his party back from a 32-member minority to a 41-vote majority. But my lasting memory of Brulte will be his trying to explain to a small group of reporters at a GOP convention in the fall of 1994 why winning 41 seats in the upcoming election could be his “worst nightmare.”

Only after the election did we understand. Brown had bought off one Republican, Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar, with charm and a committee vice chairmanship to retain the speakership for himself. Later, Brown sweet-talked the late Doris Allen of Cypress into political treason, and she was installed by Democrats as a puppet speaker. Both Horcher and Allen were recalled by Republican voters.

Brulte still insists there’s nothing he could have done -- no amount of cajoling or coercing -- to secure Horcher’s vote. “Some people just have weak character. I guarantee, I’ve thought about it more than anybody else.”

Probably the best compliment ever paid Brulte came from former Democratic Assemblyman Phil Isenberg of Sacramento, a Brown confidant. “We didn’t want to turn over the speakership to the most talented Republican in the Legislature -- Jim Brulte,” Isenberg conceded.

Democrats recaptured the Assembly after Brulte left as GOP leader. In 2000, he was elected Senate minority leader.

The “biggest thing” he has learned, Brulte says, is that “governors really matter. Legislators respect, react to and ultimately reward strong chief executives. Somewhere in government, there has to be an adult.”

And while many Democrats are denouncing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget dealing with outside interests -- not allowing lawmakers at the negotiating table -- Brulte defends it.

“He’s making it easier to pass a budget,” Brulte says. “This Legislature has been dysfunctional for the last five years. It’s incapable of making tough decisions.”

Another lesson Brulte says he learned -- perhaps from the Brown beating -- is that “a minority that stands together can have a huge impact.... If you pick the right fights and win, you don’t have to fight that often.”

The main fight Brulte picked in the Senate was against higher taxes. More than anyone, he gets credit -- or blame -- for denying Democrats a tax hike. He even threatened last year to campaign against any Republican who voted for a tax increase.

His most disastrous bill was energy deregulation in 1996, passed unanimously by both houses. But Brulte says he was named the author at the last moment. Anyway, the bill was produced by the Public Utilities Commission, and Wilson vowed to veto any major change. “The Legislature had little running room.”

He also authored a little-known “save the baby” act:

“A new mother, rather than throwing her baby in the dumpster, can take it into a hospital within 72 hours, no questions asked; 53 babies have been saved. Kids were turning up dead. That’s the one I’m most proud of.”

Brulte has been a classy, affable, effective minority leader in a transitional era that -- until very recently -- has been known for chaos, gridlock and bad decisions. The era won’t be missed. Brulte will be, except maybe by Democrats.

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George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.