Speaker's Rearranging of Assembly Is Lesson in Power : Capitol: With seating assignments, committee appointments and office budgets, Brown shows what it means to be at the head of the pack.

By DAN MORAIN

Jan. 1, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — Assembly Speaker Willie Brown is quick to make it clear that he alone is in charge of his house. As he tells his members when he notices them chafing at his rule, only the lead dog gets a change of scenery.

Known for his shrewd use of power, Brown didn’t take long to give the unusually large freshman class of 27 new Assembly members--and any other member who needed a reminder--a lesson in what it means to be at the head of this pack, and at the rear.

After a brutish election in which his party swept to victory, Brown began the introduction with the basics--seat assignments in the Assembly chamber. Since the 1980s, Republicans have been bunched on one side of the aisle and the Democrats were on the other.

But as he enters his record 13th year as Speaker, Brown decided to rein in his partisan house by upending the old order. When legislators return for the 1993 session on Monday, Republicans and Democrats will be dispersed. Liberals will sit by conservatives. Some of the most outspoken Democrats will be positioned close to some of the most vocal Republicans.

Republicans grouse that the 14 freshmen Democrats have veteran Democrats as their seatmates, presumably to teach the newcomers the ways of the Assembly. Not so with the new Republicans. GOP freshmen, for the most part, are seated next to other Republican freshmen.

“The rules of the house vest the majority with a great deal of authority--almost dictatorial authority,” said Assembly Minority Leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga). “We’ll sit where we’re assigned, and we’ll continue to represent and speak out on behalf of Californians. We’ll let the Democrats be petty.”

The seating has made for some potentially uncomfortable, even explosive pairings. Curt Pringle, an Orange County Republican who returned to the Assembly by winning election in a new district, will sit directly behind Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove). Umberg beat Pringle in an election two years ago.

“I knew it was a slap by Willie,” Pringle said, laughing it off.

Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico) isn’t quite so amused. “I’m 61, I’m elected to the state Legislature, and I’ll be damned if they don’t ask me to sit in the back of the bus,” he said. Richter is paired with Larry Bowler (R-Elk Grove), another outspoken freshman. They are directly behind one of the most blunt Democratic jawsmiths, Steve Peace of Chula Vista.

“Willie is trying to tweak everybody,” said Richard L. Mountjoy (R-Arcadia), a combative conservative who will sit next to Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), one of the house’s peacemakers.

Brown said GOP leaders used the old seating arrangement to “keep members from exercising independence.” The new seating, he contends, will “give the floor the same diversity as the rest of California,” and ensure that members from different parties get to know one another.

“I want to literally eliminate the specter of partisanship,” said Brown, adding that the new seating is a return to the arrangement that existed when he arrived in the Assembly in 1964. While “95% of what we do is not partisan,” he said, “we have the reputation of being partisan 95% of the time.”

The seat assignments are only part of the lesson that might be called Power of the Speaker 101. Minority party members traditionally are appointed vice chair of standing committees. This time, Brown passed over all but a handful of Republicans when he selected vice chairs, bestowing the posts on freshmen Democrats instead.

Brown also trimmed annual operating budgets for the 27 freshmen to $175,000. Senior members receive $200,900. The cut is not a big deal for the 14 Democratic freshmen. Because they are in the majority party, they benefit from the larger committee staffs of the Democratic-controlled Assembly. Because the GOP is the minority party, its staff is smaller, so Republican freshmen won’t have a similar backup.

The Democratic leadership also decreed that freshmen who want state-leased cars must take money out of their operating budgets, another move that has upset Republican freshmen. In the past, this perquisite came on top of the operating budget.

“It’s intriguing that at a time of cut, trim and squeeze, the conservative, tax-cutting Republicans are worried about their cars and their operating budgets,” said Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco), a close friend of Brown’s and chairman of the powerful Assembly Rules Committee.

Many of those Republicans campaigned specifically against Brown, sending out mailers attacking the San Francisco Democrat and tying their Democratic Assembly opponents to his leadership.

Brown, who is African-American, called some of the mailers “extraordinarily racist,” singling out one sent on behalf of Bowler, the conservative Elk Grove freshman who, by the way, campaigned against the state paying for legislators’ cars.

The bright red broadside opened with a bad picture of Brown and the words, “I can pass or kill any piece of legislation. There ain’t no reason for standing on principle or any of that. . . . “ Brown said the use of slang and an unflattering photo was designed to “milk whatever bigotry” exists in the electorate.

Result: Brown placed Bowler in the Capitol’s worst office, a charmless, tiny and windowless two-room job, separated by a thin wall from the sixth-floor cafeteria. From his desk, Bowler will hear the whine of an industrial-size freezer and the clank of a dishwasher.

“I guess,” Bowler said of the campaign mailer, “he takes it personally.”