State Democratic Chiefs Laud Labor : Roberti, Brown Cite Its Crucial Role in Election of Green

SACRAMENTO —  The Legislature’s top Democratic leaders declared Monday that Gov. George Deukmejian’s decision to eliminate the state’s worker-safety program and hold the line on education spending galvanized an angry army of political volunteers--including 2,000 from organized labor--that handed Democrats a big victory in last week’s special state Senate election.

In back-to-back, emotion-charged speeches to a state labor convention, Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti of Los Angeles and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco said the election of Democrat Cecil Green is evidence that the Democratic Party can win without abandoning traditional constituencies such as labor unions or liberal social programs.

Roberti, who rarely is profane in public or private, twice used a barnyard obscenity to describe the Republican governor’s decision to scrap the Cal-OSHA worker safety program, and then declared: “We taught him a lesson. . . . We ran the Cal-OSHA blue pencil right down his throat.”

‘Woe to Republicans’

“The pendulum is swinging our way, and woe to the Republicans who don’t recognize that . . . and don’t see that people want some social services as well as efficient government,” Roberti told nearly 700 California Labor Federation delegates.

Brown, who described state Republicans as “shell-shocked” by Green’s defeat of GOP Assemblyman Wayne Grisham, said the outcome was “clearly reflective” of a national trend that enabled Democrats to capture the U.S. Senate last November.

Green, who was sworn into office on Monday, won his seat in a kind of political Cinderella story, beating an incumbent Assembly member and former congressman who was initially considered the favorite in the conservative blue-collar district that includes portions of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

To celebrate Green’s election, supporters on Monday handed out green carnation boutonnieres and corsages to Senate members, whose chamber desks were decorated with boxes of green frosted doughnuts. On Election Day, Democrats offered a dozen free doughnuts to each resident who voted, and hundreds of thousands were given away in a boon to local doughnut shops.

Important Test

The election was an important test for both parties, with each hoping to hold the reins of power in 1990 when legislative and congressional districts will be redrawn. For Democrats, it was particularly significant since they control both houses of the Legislature now but have been experiencing a steady statewide decline in voter registration.

As illustrated by the remarks of Roberti and Brown, the victory dramatically changed the mood of the state’s top Democratic leaders, who, after several defeats in last November’s legislative races, said they would rethink party positions and perhaps move more to the political right. Some political analysts urged Democrats to distance themselves from traditional constituent groups such as labor unions.

But on Monday, Brown said labor’s strong role in Green’s election and the voters’ willingness to reject a candidate strongly supported by Deukmejian indicates that no major re-evalutation is needed.

An estimated 2,000 labor union volunteers walked door-to-door on behalf of Green for weeks before the election, campaigning against elimination of Cal-OSHA and Deukmejian’s reluctance to provide more money for education. Hundreds of legislative employees--both Republicans and Democrats--also converged on the district during the final days of the high-spending campaign.