With a Raft of Legislative Wins This Season, Nunez Proves He’s No Kid

Fabian Nunez could be easy to overlook. He’s the Assembly speaker, but has the appearance of an eager young staffer. Although pushing 40, he’s still smooth-faced, slightly built and pleasantly deferential. A bartender might demand to see his ID.

This L.A. Democrat didn’t even make the list of 100 “most powerful people in Southern California,” as opined last month by The Times’ West magazine.

And that seemed weird, given the power of the office to directly affect every Californian.

The speaker appoints all Assembly committee chairmen and members, fills scores of seats on state boards, including the Coastal Commission, and is a University of California regent. Plus, there’s the license to co-write the lawmaking agenda and negotiate with the governor.

But even Sacramento insiders, behind his back, call Nunez “the kid.” Or used to.

It’s doubtful that moniker will be heard much anymore -- not after last week’s conclusion of the legislative session.

Beyond the fact that this was one of the most productive sessions in recent times -- especially for Democrats -- it was the biggest year personally for an Assembly speaker since, well, whenever. You’d have to go back many decades.

Those juvenile looks are deceiving. Nunez has turned out to be tough-minded, energetic, politically astute and tenacious.

Count ‘em up: He was the lead author of landmark bills to cap greenhouse gas emissions, create a discount prescription drug plan for the uninsured, clear the way for telephone companies to offer TV services and hand his pal, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, some power over the L.A. Unified School District.

It doesn’t stop there: Nunez was the lead author of the education and flood-control bond measures that are part of the huge public works package on the November ballot. And he was the main negotiator with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of a minimum wage hike.

Nunez may have defined a new role for term-limited speakers: a role not just aimed at retaining power for himself and his party, but also pointed toward personally enacting public policy; one that not only looks after his caucus, but his own legacy.

“It’s dramatically different than any speaker going back to Jesse Unruh,” says former Speaker Willie Brown, the San Francisco Democrat who held the powerful post longer than anybody, 14 1/2 years.

Nunez already has carried far more pieces of major legislation than Brown ever did as speaker.

Brown spread around the glamour bills to fellow Democrats while helping them negotiate behind the scenes.

“Being speaker is prestigious enough,” Brown told me. “You’ve got to give your members the major bills so they will be supportive of your leadership. That’s the way you get them to buy in.... You only step in and do those things that become impossible for others to do.”

Brown’s most memorable bill required motorists to buckle up with seat belts. “Nobody else would carry it,” he says.

His good friend Bob Moretti of Van Nuys was an effective speaker for four years when Ronald Reagan was governor. His principal contribution to public policy was negotiating welfare reform with Reagan. “Nobody else wanted to,” Brown recalls.

After Moretti, Brown says, Speaker Leo McCarthy of San Francisco “got in trouble for kind of ignoring the membership when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate. Everything became about Leo.” McCarthy was ousted and Brown elected.

There have been eight speakers since Brown was routed by a brief GOP takeover in 1995.

Some have shown promise -- particularly Villaraigosa -- but their growth was stunted by term limits. None was speaker for more than about two years.

Nunez has benefited from relative longevity. This is his third year as speaker and he doesn’t intend to relinquish the job for another two, when he’s termed out in the Assembly. “By this time in 2008, I’ll be handing the baton over to somebody else,” he said in an interview.

That may sound optimistic, since the Assembly never lacks for ambitious, impatient politicians. But Nunez does seem to have a good hold on the post.

He has studied past speakers, Nunez says, and chosen as his “model” Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh, who held the job for seven years while Pat Brown and Reagan were governors, and legislators were a hard-fighting, hard-playing bunch.

“I’m most impressed with Unruh,” Nunez says. “Willie was masterful at the art of politics. Unruh knew the politics well, but he really cared about the policy. And he figured that somewhere in the midst of all the running around and the staying up late at night and having fun, there was a seriousness to this, which meant that you had to improve the lives of the people.”

“That’s perfect,” says Bill Boyarsky, who has written a biography of Unruh that’s scheduled to be published next year by the University of California Press.

But Unruh’s biggest bill -- the milestone Unruh Civil Rights Act -- was enacted before he became speaker.

He pushed a lot of unglamorous school improvement bills as speaker, Boyarsky says, “because he thought the way to improve peoples’ lives was to improve their education.”

Why did Nunez break with tradition and carry so many major bills himself?

For one thing, Nunez says, other Democrats balked at sponsoring legislation that would help the Republican governor run for reelection. But “I saw this year as an opportunity,” he says. “The governor was looking for friends. He was looking to get things done. We could improve the quality of life for people we care about.”

Second, the speaker adds, people asked him to carry bills that seemed to be stuck and going nowhere: He cited the global warming and TV measures.

Third, time is precious under term limits. Once he had solidified his speakership, Nunez says, “I felt it was time for me to do something. I’m not going to hold this job forever.”

And no, Nunez insists, he’s not plotting to eventually replace Villaraigosa as mayor. “I don’t have a big interest, to be honest with you, in being mayor of Los Angeles.”

Whatever. That’s for the future.

For now, Nunez belongs on any list of 10 most powerful people in California -- south and north.

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