Capitol leaders past and present: Look to the good old days

How do you solve dysfunction in the California Legislature? Let them count the ways.

Former Gov. Pete Wilson recommended more booze. Former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said more backroom dealings and less open government. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, the subject of ethical questions over lavish campaign spending habits, said newspaper reporters need to temper their coverage.

As for former Senate President Pro Tem John Burton's suggestion? Bond with colleagues, as he once did at a strip club with former state Sen. Lou Cusanovich.

"The purpose of this story is, you got to know people," Burton said, provoking laughter Tuesday from 400 political insiders at a Sacramento luncheon organized by the Public Policy Institute of California, a research nonprofit based in San Francisco.

Five California political leaders, past and present, gathered at the PPIC event to discuss how to make the California Legislature more effective. Their conversation ranged from serious to bawdy and at times felt more like a roast than a think-tank luncheon.

It came as a brusque contrast to the opening slide presentation, complete with graphs, given by PPIC research fellow Eric McGhee. His study noted that in September, only 34 percent of Californians approved of the Legislature's performance.

Wilson, a two-term Republican governor from 1991 to 1999, said the Legislature is dysfunctional when it gets too partisan. He blamed discord on a lack of the kind of collegiality that existed when he was in the Assembly in the late 1960s.

"It may have something to do with the fact that when John, Willie and I were all in the Assembly, there was a great deal more drinking in the Legislature," Wilson said to laughter and applause. "These guys, the teetotalers, need to lighten up a bit."

Burton, a liberal Democrat termed out of the Senate in 2004, likewise attributed problems to a lack of relationships among lawmakers. He recounted how legislators connected over daily lunches and dinners sponsored by lobbyists until post-Watergate political reform efforts limited meal contributions to $10 per legislator per month.

In one case, Burton said, he and Cusanovich, a Republican, bonded while eating dinner at an establishment where there was a topless dancer.

"You find out your kid plays Little League baseball, you find out that your daughter's in ballet, you find out you have things in common," Burton said. "But then something called Proposition 9 came in and said nobody could buy anybody anything more than $10 per month per person."

Burton also blamed Proposition 13, which restricted property taxes in California in 1978, for draining state resources and instilling a rigid no-tax philosophy in Republican lawmakers.

Núñez took issue with the two-thirds vote requirement to pass the budget, blaming it for gridlock in Sacramento.

But the Los Angeles Democrat, who has been frustrated with news stories detailing lavish use of his campaign account, took issue several times with Capitol media coverage. He said Californians who believe in their government need to gain perspective on the process.

"Really take a step back and give this institution a bit of a break," Núñez said. "Because I think people are coming at us with a hammer these days, and let me finish by this, especially the print media. And I don't mean this as a direct criticism, but we know it's been losing a lot of market share. So what needs to happen in order to sell newspapers is you've got to tighten up screws."

Brown, the Democratic self-dubbed "ayatollah of the Assembly" who ruled as speaker for nearly 15 years before term limits forced him out, blamed open government laws passed in the 1970s for stifling legislative budget negotiations.

"Unfortunately, much of that is done now where everybody in the world can see," Brown said. "When Randy Collier was the chair of the Senate Finance Committee and I served as the chair of Ways and Means, we had a private arrangement of the conference committee writing the budget. ...

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• Call Kevin Yamamura, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5548.