Capitol luminary Ken Maddy dies

By Mike Lewis

Bee Capitol Bureau (Published Feb. 20, 2000)

Former state Sen. Kenneth L. Maddy, a career legislator, horse racing enthusiast and respected and popular politician, died early Saturday after a 14-month battle with lung cancer. He was 65.

The one-time Republican candidate for governor, who represented the Central Valley for nearly 30 years before term limits forced him out of office in 1998, died shortly after midnight in his room at Sutter Memorial Hospital following months of intensive radiation and chemotherapy.

In an outpouring of grief, friends and former colleagues mourned the loss of a powerful GOP leader and deal maker who earned the respect and trust of conservatives and liberals alike.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown Jr., a veteran politician known for his unflappable cool, began crying as he recalled Maddy.

"Make sure you include in whatever you write about this exceptional human being that first and foremost he was an incredible man, an incredible friend to all of us," said the former Democratic Assembly speaker, who sparred and laughed with Maddy for 26 years in the Legislature.

Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, called Maddy his "personal hero."

"He was man of grace and enormous gifts," Davis said in an interview.

Maddy's death marked the end of a bittersweet year in which friends and colleagues rushed to honor him after hearing that the non-smoker had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. California State University, Fresno, founded a Kenneth L. Maddy Institute for the study of politics. The University of California, Davis, renamed its veterinary school's equine laboratory after the senator.

Davis, who declared a state "Ken Maddy Day" last fall while in Fresno for a conference, said he had a tough time keeping his composure at the podium as he thought about the reason behind the hurried tributes.

"There are only a few things that evoke that sort of emotion in me: veterans, my wife and Ken Maddy."

On Saturday, Santa Anita Raceway stopped all racing and betting for a period of silence in Maddy's honor. At Belmont Park his death coincided with the first anniversary of the Ken Maddy Stakes.

Maddy's fiancee, Marie Moretti, was at his bedside when he died. "Ken was a wonderful person," she said. "What all of his friends say, that he changed their lives, it's true. There are so many people who love him.

"Like me."

Born Kenneth Leon Maddy in Santa Monica and raised with his sister Marilyn nearly in the shadow of Hollywood Park, Maddy's first love as a child was horse racing.

In his youth, he mucked stables, groomed horses and later worked as a "hotwalker," the low-paid help that walks the horses after races to cool them down.

He played college football at Fresno State College and he served in the Reserve Officers Training Corps.

At Fresno State, he met and married his first wife, Beverly Chinello. His father-in-law, who ran a Fresno law firm, asked him what he was going to do with his life.

"I looked at him and I said, 'Law school,' " Maddy said with a laugh in an earlier interview. "What was I going to say?"

He graduated from UCLA law school in 1963 and moved back to Fresno. The local Republican Party came calling in 1969. Maddy ran for the vacant 32nd Assembly District seat.

Sal Russo, one of Maddy's closest friends and his longtime GOP political adviser, walked precincts for Maddy's opponent in that race.

"It didn't take me long to realize I backed the wrong guy," Russo said Saturday.

In a district with only 31 percent registered Republicans, Maddy took 57 percent of the vote. He would hold the district for eight years and his 14th District Senate seat for an additional 19, even through several reapportionments designed by Democrats to diminish the influence of Republican votes.

In 1978, Russo persuaded Maddy to enter the Republican primary for governor against Attorney General Evelle Younger, Los Angeles Police Chief Ed Davis and San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson.

Maddy, whose candor was an occasional political liability, opposed popular Proposition 13 as bad policy and once admitted in an interview that he had twice tried pot. He finished third in the race with 18 percent of the vote -- besting the San Diego mayor.

"Ken had not only brains and guts, but heart," former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson said. "It wasn't just his dark good looks, the ready smile and laugh, but that great heart that made him so personally magnetic and one of the truly great legislators of the 20th century."

Said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, a Democrat: "One of the worst things to happen politically to the people of California was Ken Maddy not being elected to the office of governor. He would have been one of the best we've ever seen."

But under the pressure of politics and his long stretches away from Fresno, Maddy's first marriage foundered, ending in 1980. One year later, he married Norma Foster, Foster Farms heiress.

Through his legislative career, Maddy wrote hundreds of bills (45 for the horse racing industry). He directly negotiated seven state budgets. He said he enjoyed bringing diverse groups together.

In Sacramento, Maddy could often be found at his second office, the corner booth at Frank Fats, where steaks and political deals were cut at the same tables. Seldom was he there without one of his best friends, former Sen. Bob Beverly, R-Manhattan Beach.

"For 30 years, he was about the closest friend I had," Beverly said. "He was loyal to me and I to him."

While Maddy enjoyed more political success than most Sacramento lawmakers, he never recovered from the sting of two bitter political defeats. The first came when then-Gov. George Deukmejian passed over an expectant Maddy to appoint then-Rep. Dan Lungren as state treasurer when the job became vacant midterm. Lungren, intensely opposed by Democrats, ended up losing the appointment.

The second came on Aug. 24, 1995, when Orange County Republicans, led by millionaire businessman Rob Hurtt, ambushed Maddy in a caucus meeting and ended his eight years of Senate GOP leadership on a 9-7 vote.

Maddy's career plateaued even though he was courted for other state and federal offices.

Last year, he joined Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm, as a partner and senior vice president.

He also began to put more time into his personal life, his horses, golf and his family. After his second marriage to Foster ended in 1998, Maddy remained close to his stepchildren and grandchildren.

Cattle baron John Harris, co-owner of several race horses with Maddy and one of the former senator's oldest friends and political supporters, said his friend was looking forward to seeing one of their young horses run, an aptly named "Cut the Deal."

"I thought he was going to beat this thing," Harris said, his voice cracking.

Maddy is survived by his mother, Anna Thomas, and his sister Marilyn Brazell, both of Citrus Heights; his son, Donald Paul Maddy; daughters Deanna Hose of Sacramento and Marilyn Geis of Fresno; six stepchildren; five grandchildren; and 13 step-grandchildren.

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