Still a Public Face : Retired From Senate, Ed Davis Finds His Legend Trails Him to Morro Bay
MORRO BAY — Almost anywhere he goes in this postcard-pretty fishing town, people do double takes. In restaurants and grocery stores, they squint at his face--that big, rubbery, registered-trademark face . Where have they seen it before?
Was it on TV or in the newspapers after he oversaw the fiery shootout between the Los Angeles Police Department and the Symbionese Liberation Army?
Or when he urged that skyjackers to be hanged at airports on mobile gallows?
Or when he cracked that a political foe was “about as exciting as a mashed-potato sandwich�
Eventually, they figure it out.
“In my mind I’m seeking joyful obscurity . . . but I couldn’t go into a house of assignation here without my wife finding out about it,†said a chuckling Ed Davis, one of Morro Bay’s newest residents, adding that he is recognized here at least once a day.
Davis, 76, officially retired Sunday from the state Senate, where he represented the 19th District for 12 years. He switched to a career as a Republican politician after a nine-year stint as Los Angeles police chief, capitalizing on his law-and-order image to win election in a conservative district stretching from Northridge to the Santa Barbara County line.
Davis has lived in Morro Bay, on the coast west of San Luis Obispo, since September, when he was stricken with phlebitis and briefly hospitalized. He and his wife, Bobbie, share a custom-designed home featuring art-covered walls, electric towel warmers in the bathrooms and eye-popping views of towering Morro Bay Rock.
And he has wasted little time settling into the rhythms and rituals of private life.
He regularly downs oyster shooters (raw oysters in shot glasses) at a local restaurant. He watches “Monday Night Football†with his old crony, celebrity strongman Jack LaLanne, a fellow Morro Bay resident. And he enjoys quiet dinners with Bobbie, as Spanish guitar music pours from an expensive stereo system.
It is a comfortable, even elegant conclusion to a 57-year public career in which Davis evolved from arch-conservative poster boy to a maverick who confounded right-wing backers by becoming a Senate supporter of environmental causes and job rights for gays.
“He went to Sacramento as a conservative and became a moderate,†said Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), a longtime colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“He’s very traditional. He’s almost aristocratic. If he lived in England, he’d be called Sir Davis,†said Lockyer. “You can imagine Ed being a colonial administrator in India in 1840. But a very compassionate one who tried to do well.â€
In an interview last week, Davis recounted his legislative triumphs and bemoaned his failures, renewed his attacks on the religious right and urged the GOP to recruit more ethnic minorities and gays or face political fossilization.
During his reign as police chief in the turbulent 1960s and ‘70s, he gained fame for his controversial law-and-order comments, including his remark that skyjackers should be hanged at airports after being convicted “with due process of law.â€
Twice, he held news conferences with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth because he was under court-imposed gag orders not to discuss legal cases.
He once told the Los Angeles City Council that he wanted money for a submarine to intercept seagoing dope-smugglers--which he now insists was merely a prank on then-Councilman Tom Bradley, a former police lieutenant turned LAPD critic.
After losing a bid for governor in 1978, Davis won his state Senate seat in 1980. He began sponsoring pro-law enforcement bills, including ones to extend the death penalty and reverse court decisions limiting police powers.
But despite his arch-conservative reputation, Davis displayed a distinctly independent streak in Sacramento.
In recent years, he consistently topped other Republican senators in vote rankings compiled by the League of Conservation Voters, often joining liberal Democrats in backing pro-environmental legislation.
He angered many conservatives in 1984 by voting for AB1, a bill intended to ban job discrimination against gays and lesbians that was vetoed by then-Gov. George Deukmejian. In 1990, Davis rankled fellow Republicans by announcing that he would no longer vote en masse with them against Medi-Cal funding for abortions for poor women.
Nonetheless, with his courtly manners, stentorian voice and endless store of colorful LAPD anecdotes, the white-maned Davis remained a popular figure among his Senate colleagues.
Asked what he thought were his greatest Senate achievements, Davis pointed not to any legislation but to his role in the bitter 1986 campaign against state Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, who lost her bid for reconfirmation.
As his major failing, he cited his efforts to limit damages in civil lawsuits. He blamed trial lawyers and their campaign contributions to Democrats, who dominate the Legislature, for repeatedly torpedoing his bills.
Davis, who describes himself as a “pedigreed WASP,†reiterated his long-held view that the Republican Party is in danger of withering away unless it opens its doors to more blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans and gays.
“When you see the cross-section of the Republican Party, you don’t see America,†he said. “If the Republican Party wants to be the majority party, it must be like a church. The church is supposed to open its doors to all sinners, not just Anglo-European people.â€
He saved some of his sharpest vituperation for the religious right, saying it has done “almost irreparable harm†to the GOP.
He called prayer in school “sort of a dumb idea†and took potshots at Christian-right stars such as Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, mocking the latter as someone who “didn’t draw ants†in his recent presidential campaign.
He ridiculed the GOP’s championing of “family values,†saying it was nothing but religious intolerance aimed at gays and other minority groups.
“That was such a display of idiocy,†he said, referring to the party’s showcasing of the family-values theme at its Houston convention last summer. “They tried to frame it as family values, but all it was was a bunch of vindictive hatred . . . that didn’t sell to the American people.â€
How does he feel about not having the bully pulpit of the Senate anymore?
“I’m delighted,†he said, adding, with typical candor, that the Senate was “the worst job I ever had.â€
He said he developed phlebitis as a result of sitting through lengthy legislative hearings and that he was so busy he had to tell his children to go through his appointments secretary to make dinner dates with him.
During the hectic final days of each session, he said, he and other lawmakers often worked 18- and 19-hour days. He also cited the strain of flying between Sacramento and his district on weekends and the high cost of maintaining two homes.
“You don’t have time to shine your shoes,†he said. “You don’t have time to launder your clothes. . . . I don’t think the public recognizes that. They think of it as a fun sort of job, where you sit back and act as God. It isn’t. It’s a hard, working, tough job.â€
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
