Davis Advisor Named to Lead Shriver’s Staff

California First Lady Maria Shriver named as her top aide Tuesday a former senior official to ex-Gov. Gray Davis, the Democrat her husband tarred in the 2003 recall campaign as the symbol of ineffectual government.

Daniel Zingale, who served under Davis as the link between the governor’s office and the vast state bureaucracy, will be the new chief of staff to Shriver, a Democrat. He will return to the governor’s suite of offices on the first floor of the Capitol, this time surrounded by many Republicans who labored to oust Davis.

Zingale has also been an unpaid political advisor to state Controller Steve Westly, who is a major candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2006.

Zingale, a longtime gay rights advocate, supports same-sex marriage. The governor has said he will veto a gay marriage bill passed by the Legislature in the session that concluded this month.

“My commitment regarding equal marriage rights is a matter of public record,” Zingale said in an interview. “I would welcome an opportunity to have a dialogue with the governor on that and a wide range of other issues.”

Zingale said there would be no awkwardness in his new job, saying he is happiest working in a bipartisan atmosphere. He cited his work on behalf of AIDS patients and his role as founding director of the state Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates health maintenance organizations.

“I’ve had lots of great jobs,” said Zingale, who will be paid $123,255 a year. “The best experiences were the ones where I got to rise above the partisan divisions and work toward reform that benefited people in their daily lives.”

As first lady, Shriver has put Democrats in influential posts. Her press secretary, Terry Carbaugh, is a Democrat, and unpaid advisor Nancy McFadden worked as a senior advisor to Davis.

“The coordination of my office and the office of the first lady is extremely important,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to working with him [Zingale] as I take action to reform and rebuild for the future of the state.”

Davis, in a telephone interview, said Zingale may now be in a position to help shape the Schwarzenegger agenda.

“I’m not suggesting his views will carry the day always or most of the time,” Davis said. But the Democratic agenda is “in safer hands with Dan inside the administration rather than outside.”

As for his intentions in the 2006 campaign, Zingale was circumspect. Would he vote for his new boss or his old friend Westly, if Westly were to win the Democratic nomination?

“You don’t really think I’m going to talk about that before I talk to my mother about it, do you?” he said.

A spokesman for the controller said that Zingale and Westly have not been “in communication in a long time.”

“I’ve not talked to Steve about this, but I would think that Steve would wish him well,” said Jude Barry, Westly’s campaign manager.

Zingale succeeds Donna Lucas, who will serve as a senior advisor to Shriver and deputy chief of staff to the governor. Zingale said he intends to resign from the five-member Agricultural Labor Relations Board, on which he served as one of three Davis appointees at a salary of $114,000.

Last year, Zingale advised aides of former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevy, who resigned in a scandal in which he conceded to having an adulterous affair with a man.