Centrists gain Assembly edge

by Dan Walters 

(Published June 6, 2000)
Democrats hold strong majorities in both houses of the Legislature, but a distinct ideological division has emerged that is increasingly frustrating to liberal activists.

Historically, the Assembly's Democrats have been more liberal than their counterparts in the state Senate, who tended to be older and less ideologically driven. But legislative term limits and the effects of a 1991 court-ordered redistricting, which created more "swing" districts in the Assembly that could be won by either party, have generated a Capitol role reversal.

The Senate has become more liberal in recent years, personified by the unreconstructed, 1960s-style liberalism of Senate President Pro Tem John Burton. Concurrently, the Senate has become the more powerful of the two houses because term limits have severely diminished the Assembly speaker's once-total authority over politics and legislation.

Democrats briefly lost control of the Assembly to the Republicans in the mid-1990s -- thanks to those swing districts created by the state Supreme Court in 1991. To regain and hold Assembly power in the last two election cycles, Democrats had to wrest seats from Republicans by fielding a new generation of centrist candidates.

The effects of the past two Assembly elections are now evident in the power now being wielded by pro-business, socially moderate Democrats, with newly elevated Speaker Bob Hertzberg setting the tone. Hertzberg and his newly anointed legislative traffic cop, Rules Committee chairman Dennis Cardoza of Merced, founded a Democratic bloc that solicits campaign funds from corporate interests by promising to protect employers from attacks from the left.

The effects of the Assembly's centrist orientation were evident last week in the defeat, either directly or indirectly, of three high-priority liberal legislative drives. The United Farm Workers Union, gay rights organizations and personal injury attorneys -- three of the Democratic Party's most active interest groups -- suffered setbacks as the Assembly faced a deadline for moving legislation out of its original house.

The UFW's long-cherished goal of making farmers legally responsible for working conditions maintained by labor contractors crashed as the union's measure and its nominal author, Assemblywoman Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, found only rejection during what was described as a raucous closed-door meeting of Democrats. Opposition from pro-business and farm-area Democrats doomed the measure.

Liberals and gay rights groups suffered a similar fate under similar circumstances, even after they merged several bills extending rights enjoyed by so-called "domestic partners" into one measure, also authored by Romero, and made some changes to make it more palatable to Democrats from conservative districts.

The personal injury attorneys and their liberal allies, including patients' rights groups, had hoped to expand a very limited right to sue health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that was enacted last year. The proposed legislation would have prohibited the HMOs from requiring enrollees to submit treatment disputes to arbitration. HMO and business lobbyists mounted a full-court press against the bill and it, too, died without a vote.

A major factor in all three liberal defeats was the strong signal from Gov. Gray Davis' lobbyists that he didn't want liberal bills to reach his desk. Thus, a centrist Assembly and Davis now form an internal bloc against the Senate, where liberals still reign. And Hertzberg is the broker for deals between the Senate and Davis not only on legislation but on budget appropriations -- a role he's already played on a package of state money for schools.

©2000 Sacramento Bee