Gray Davis Staff Allegedly Mixed Politics With Job

SACRAMENTO —  Several former employees of state Controller Gray Davis say that when he was an assemblyman he used legislative staffers on state time to help wage his successful 1986 campaign for statewide office.

Davis denies the charges. The Times has learned that the state attorney general’s office is investigating to determine whether there have been any violations of laws against using state employees or resources for political purposes.

The former Assembly and campaign aides told The Times that members of Davis’ legislative staff, while on the state payroll, placed calls to campaign contributors, prepared letters soliciting or acknowledging political donations and performed other campaign duties in his legislative offices as well as his campaign headquarters.

One of Davis’ state employees, for example, used an Assembly computer during normal working hours to produce hundreds of letters over a period of several months as part of an effort to raise money for Davis’ campaign, these sources said.

California courts have consistently held that the use of state employees on state time for campaign purposes, if deliberate, constitutes a misappropriation of state funds, prohibited by California’s century-old public embezzlement statute.

Anonymity Asked

The former Davis employees making the charges--many of whom continue to work in the political arena--agreed to be interviewed by The Times only on condition that they not be identified. Some of the current and former staffers have been interviewed by attorney general investigators or warned that they might be by a lawyer hired by the Friends for Gray Davis campaign committee.

Several other Davis aides dispute the charges and argue that Davis took great pains to avoid violating the law.

Davis also emphatically denies the allegations.

“The rules in my office regarding separation of campaign and state staff duties were explicit,” Davis said in a written response to questions from The Times. “It was made very clear to staff that no campaign business was to be conducted on state time. Staff were told if they wanted to volunteer any time for the campaign, they must do so on their own time, off of state payroll. This meant that the individuals were instructed to volunteer after hours, on vacation time, or on uncompensated time or on personal leave of absence off of state payroll.”

Davis added that two checks he deposited with the Assembly Rules Committee--one for $1,100 in April, 1986, and another for $1,026 in October, 1985--would cover any non-state expenditures made “if, despite all these precautions, any individual failed to observe the rules.”

Four former Davis employees contacted by The Times, however, acknowledged that they worked on various Davis campaigns while on the state payroll, in either the 1986 race or earlier legislative races. These individuals expressed regret for their activity, recognizing that in general it is illegal for state employees to work on campaigns on state time.

“I don’t like what I’ve done,” one of those ex-aides said. “I knew I was a state employee, working on state time, in a state office, using state phones.”

The former employees say Davis had to have been aware of their campaign activities.

‘A Tight Control’

“Gray kept a tight control over everything, from every check written to every order given,” another former employee said.

Davis, 44, has clearly emerged as one of California’s most formidable Democratic politicians after serving four years in the Legislature and winning election to statewide office last year. With a reputation as a tireless worker and an aggressive campaign fund-raiser, he has, according to his staff members and former legislative colleagues, a driving ambition to become governor.

The use of legislative staff in election campaigns is a widespread practice. Legions of Assembly and Senate employees, for example, poured into Southern California in May for a special election to fill a vacant Senate seat.

While critics deplore the use of legislative workers partly because it gives an edge to incumbents, experts on the law say that state-paid staff can legally do campaign work on their own time. They also note that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between legitimate legislative work and campaign business and that it is easy for politicians inadvertently to violate the letter of the law or to take advantage of ambiguities to improve their election chances.

In any event, local district attorneys and the state attorney general, themselves elected officials, have generally been reluctant to pursue such cases. And legal experts note that a successful prosecution can be extremely difficult.

Several former Davis aides said Davis’ use of legislative staff for his 1986 campaign was, in their view, extraordinary and demonstrated blatant disregard for the spirit of the law.

As the 1986 controller’s race began to accelerate with the approach of the November election “it got to the point where propriety went out the window,” said one of Davis’ former legislative employees. “We didn’t have a choice. We had to do it (work on the campaign).”

Davis’ press secretary, Karen Caves, insisted that no Assembly employees were ever required to do campaign work.

Other former Davis aides also deny these allegations and defend the new state controller as a man of high principle, someone meticulous about separating campaign activity from state business.

“We spent over $1 million on campaign overhead,” argued Davis’ former campaign coordinator, Noel Gould. “We had no reason to use anybody but campaign staff to do campaign business.”

Called a Taskmaster

Other individuals who worked on Davis’ legislative staff acknowledged that they spent substantial amounts of time on campaign activities last year, but insisted that they were always careful to give their state work all the hours that were due. And virtually every Davis employee interviewed, both those who served on his Assembly staff and those who worked on his campaign, said Davis is a severe taskmaster, who demanded far more than 40 hours a week from those he hired.

One of those who acknowledged her campaign activity is Susan L. Grivas, who was a legislative aide in Davis’ Capitol office. Grivas confirmed that she performed some campaign duties while still on Davis’ legislative staff, but said she always made up the time later in the day whenever that happened. Grivas, who now works in the controller’s office, said she was careful to do campaign work only while on leave, vacation or “uncompensated time.”

She acknowledged that she often followed Davis to his campaign headquarters in Southern California. “Assembly business doesn’t stop because a candidate for office goes to a non-state office,” she said.

“If some urgent campaign business came up during the day, I might have taken an hour or two to help stuff envelopes and make up the time at the end of the day,” she said.

However, one campaign worker told attorney general investigators of being present when Grivas placed calls for Davis from his Beverly Hills legislative office to campaign contributors, sources said.

Grivas said she might have done so. “Yes, that is absolutely, definitely a possibility,” she said, but if so, it was on uncompensated time.

The use of state offices and phones for campaign purposes is generally illegal, according to attorneys familiar with the state’s campaign law. However, the same authorities say the incidental use of a state phone in a campaign would probably never be prosecuted. It would be impractical to require an elected official to run to another office if a conversation with a constituent turned to campaign fund raising, said one lawyer. A number of elected officials, including Gov. George Deukmejian, maintain private lines paid for with campaign funds in their state offices to be used for campaign purposes.

Checking Phone Records

Davis pointed out that his campaign had a long-distance charge card that could be used to avoid billing the state for campaign-related toll calls. However, the attorney general’s investigators are checking phone records for the state phones in Davis’ Assembly offices, sources said.

Like Grivas, Davis’ Southern California campaign fund-raiser and former Assembly administrative assistant, Joann Ruden, said she spent time at campaign headquarters while still a full-time state employee, but insisted that she gave the state its full due. “I would never, never take anything away from the state that I owe,” she said.

One Davis campaign volunteer told The Times that Ruden and other Davis Assembly employees reported almost daily to the candidate’s West Los Angeles campaign headquarters during the general election campaign.

The volunteer, as well as other sources, also contended that another full-time state employee, Audrey Rodriguez, regularly worked on Davis’ campaign financial records in his Beverly Hills legislative office.

Rodriguez, who was Davis’ field representative through the end of his term as assemblyman last year, referred questions about her activities to Joseph Remcho, a San Francisco lawyer hired by the campaign committee to monitor the attorney general’s investigation. Remcho said that if Rodriguez had done some campaign work during daytime hours, she would have made up for the time lost to the state during the evening.

According to James C. Gross, treasurer for the two principal Davis campaign committees, Rodriguez took over the main campaign financial record-keeping duties last July when Davis was trying to reduce his campaign expenses.

Gross estimated that the bookkeeping requirements took 10 to 12 hours a week and perhaps more as the November election neared in what was a high-spending campaign. (Davis ended his $5-million controller campaign with a $700,000 deficit that he finally erased with a fund-raising drive this year.)

“I assume she did most or all (of the campaign work) at home, late at night,” said Gross, who reviewed the required financial statements before they were submitted to state election officials.

Questions about Davis’ use of his state-paid staff for political campaign purposes come at a time when state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp is still conducting an investigation into post-election activities by a Davis-appointed transition team, intended to help the newly elected state controller plan his inauguration and prepare to assume the office.

The investigation, prompted by a story in The Times, has centered on calls made on state phones last December in the transition team’s Sacramento office to a number of Davis’ campaign contributors.

Delicate Political Problem

For Van de Kamp, the investigation of Davis presents a delicate political problem because he and Davis are likely rivals for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1990. Some fellow Democrats could accuse Van de Kamp of using his post to damage a potential political opponent.

Davis, in responding to the latest charges, asserted that the earlier allegations of wrongdoing “have proven to be unfounded.” His attorney, Remcho, also said Van de Kamp’s investigation “is just about over, and (investigators) haven’t come up with anything.” However, Chief Assistant Atty. Gen. Steve White said, “The investigation is not concluded, and we will not comment on it until it is.”

There are signs that the investigators are checking on activities in Davis’ Los Angeles area offices as well as in Sacramento. At least two former Davis aides in Southern California have talked to the attorney general’s investigators.

Other present and former Davis associates, when contacted by The Times, said they are nervous about cooperating in an investigation of one of the state’s most prominent politicians. The nervousness is compounded, they added, by Remcho’s efforts to determine ahead of time what they might say to investigators.

One former Davis employee, who refused a reporter’s request for an interview, is so troubled at the prospect of meeting with the attorney general’s staff that she is deliberately staying away from her home to avoid such a meeting, according to a close relative.