Oh, the trials of Public service! A lot of California Democrats will soon be back in the unemployment line.
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Political appointees dust off their resumes
Actor's pledge to clean house worries staffers
Mark Martin, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Thursday, October 2, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/02/MN267369.DTL
Sacramento -- Firing the 192 state employees who work directly under Gov. Gray Davis will cost taxpayers $600,000 in vacation buyouts.
That's the kind of calculation going on in state buildings across Sacramento as Davis appointees cling to hope but dust off their resumes. Angry and angst-ridden, Davis staffers are walking precincts and working phone banks in their off hours in hopes the recall can be defeated. Along with Davis, more than 3,000 workers appointed by the governor -- from the head of the California Highway Patrol to Davis' personal secretaries -- soon could be out of work three years before they anticipated.
Transitions between governors have typically been cordial in California. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown re-painted the governor's offices just before Republican George Deukmejian moved in, and GOP Gov. Pete Wilson's administration compiled 100 thick dossiers on important topics for Gray Davis' administration as Davis took over.
This transition, if polls showing Davis losing and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger winning hold true, might not be so smooth.
"It's like in a football game, when the running back is pushed out of bounds onto the other team's sidelines," said one Davis appointee when asked about a potential transition to an Arnold Schwarzenegger administration. "Is the other team there to help catch his fall? Not really. They just step out of the way, and if he runs into a wall, he runs into a wall."
Most Davis appointees remain publicly confident.
"No one should be measuring the drapes yet," said Davis Press Secretary Steve Maviglio.
But signs are everywhere that the polls are having an effect.
Officials at the California Environmental Protection Agency issued a 16- page report to reporters touting the Cal-EPA's accomplishments the day after Schwarzenegger hinted he might favor gutting the agency.
Davis himself has acted like a governor on the way out: he has made 15 judicial appointments in the last 13 days -- an unusually quick pace, said Gerald Uelman, a Santa Clara University law professor who tracks legal appointments.
It's already been a tough year to be a bureaucrat.
The state's budget mess has many employees fearing mass layoffs.
"No matter who becomes governor, state government is going to get slashed," said Scott Clark, who was eating lunch on the lawn outside the state Capitol Wednesday. Clark is not an appointee; he's a civil servant who has 11 years of state service and works at the Deparment of Health Services.
But the recall has added a whole new tension for appointees at a time of year when kids have started school, and no one was planning to have to move, several said.
Emotions have ranged from rage at Schwarzenegger -- who has vowed to come to Sacramento to clean up the mess -- to disappointment in Davis for not doing a better job of connecting with the electorate.
In the meantime, Davis staffers have adopted many of the same catch-phrases Democrats are using to defend the governor, decrying the recall as a Republican coup attempt.
"Davis has stood up to Washington on so many environmental issues," said Bill Rukesyer, assistant secretary of communications for Cal-EPA. "I can't believe that all could end."
Even though they're angry at what one appointee dubbed a "hostile takeover, " appointees pledged no dirty tricks should Davis lose.
"Nobody will be taking the 'S's' off of the keyboards," promised Maviglio, referring to allegations that staffers for President Clinton removed the "W's" from computer keyboards in the White House the night before George W. Bush became president. |
