GOP Relishes, and Democrats Fear, Impact of Bird Campaign

Now and then, some unexpected event hurls itself into the public eye with such force that politicians can only quiver before it.

In 1974, Watergate was such a phenomenon. Republicans could not escape the taint of Richard M. Nixon and suffered major defeats at the polls, losing 51 seats in Congress. Then there was the California property tax revolt of Proposition 13 in 1978. It put a tombstone on an era of state tax increases and gave rise to a new generation of conservative fire-eaters in the Legislature.

Taxes and scandals are not part of the political chemistry of California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird’s 1986 campaign for reelection. But the struggle over the record and future of the state Supreme Court has spilled over into other political races across the state. And officeholders and office seekers in California are pondering whether once again a single issue like Bird will grow, shape and perhaps even dominate the year’s state elections.

Republicans, who lead the opposition to the chief justice, are increasingly hopeful--and vocal--that it will.

Democrats Affected

Not only does Bird appear to be an unpopular figure who has come to symbolize a lonely opposition to the death penalty, they reason, but so many well-known Democratic leaders have jumped on the political fence regarding her reelection that the whole Democratic ticket may appear wobbly and vulnerable at the polls.

“Especially in years when the economy is good, the attention of voters drifts to other kinds of issues,” reasoned one GOP campaign manager who asked to speak confidentially. “This (the Bird candidacy) is really a package of issues--the death penalty, gun control, crime, prisons, support for law enforcement and leadership. And when you put them all together, the lasting impression is that you’re either right or you’re wrong.”

Senate Republican leader James W. Nielsen of Woodland said simply, “Rose Bird is probably going to be more exciting than anything else this year.”

Bird holds a nonpartisan office, runs on a nonpartisan ballot and has specifically shunned partisan assistance. Nonetheless, Republicans confront her as a Democrat and as an issue for Democrats, on grounds that she was appointed by former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., she worked in his campaign and Administration, she is identified with traditional Democratic liberal ideals and many of her backers are liberals.

She also has sided with Democrats, or at least liberals, on some key cases over the years--in particular, protecting a Democrat-drawn reapportionment plan for the Legislature and Congress from a GOP initiative challenge, a ruling that partisans on both sides take personally to this day.

Many high-visibility Democratic candidates, with their party groping to redefine itself and neutralize conservative gains, would prefer, however, to be exempted from the debate over the court election even as they seek to discount the suggestion that they can be tripped up by Bird’s robe-tails.

The Los Angeles Times Poll in late January and early February found that up to a third of the voters would be less inclined to vote for major Democratic candidates who endorsed Bird.

“She’s clearly damaging,” said the director of the Times Poll, I. A. Lewis.

The state Democratic Party ended its 1986 election kickoff convention Sunday in Los Angeles and determinedly avoided association with the court election. The Democrats adopted a platform that otherwise addressed many liberal concerns--on civil rights, the environment and world affairs.

But when it came to Bird, party officials twice refused to have the convention consider a statement of support for reelection of the justices. Instead, the platform put Democrats on record in favor of lifetime appointment of appellate justices in the future.

No Democrat is caught more in the squeeze than Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who is preparing to launch his second run for the governorship against Republican George Deukmejian.

Moved to the Right

As part of a recasting of his image, Bradley moved to the right on two law-and-order issues, apparently to account for changing times. First, he surprised many close associates and put himself on record forthrightly in favor of the death penalty. And secondly, he reversed himself and said he would oppose a law controlling handguns. Now, he faces a third decision: what to say about Bird.

“There is a good chance this will be the dominant issue he has to face,” said one of Bradley’s close advisers.

The mayor recently bought himself some time--and probably heightened interest in his decision--by commissioning a group of unnamed attorneys and advisers to review the Bird record in detail and report to him. Campaign chairman Tom Quinn said Bradley will go so far as to read important cases himself “to see if there is any justification for the criticism that her decisions don’t follow the law.”

Deukmejian argues that the quality of judicial appointees is as good as any measure of a candidate for governor. And as one of the most heavily armed law-and-order candidates ever to run for office in the state, Deukmejian has targeted Bird and her long string of decisions reversing death penalty sentences as just what the state does not need.

“I have for years been trying to impress on people--and this is long before I was governor--how important their vote for governor is in terms of what will be the quality and nature of the judiciary,” Deukmejian said in an interview last year as the court campaign began heating up. “I think now because this court is so controversial that people are beginning to make that connection.”

Deukmejian’s strategy is plain:

- If Bradley ducks the issue he will be attacked as a weak leader.

- If Bradley endorses Bird, the mayor will face charges, as the chief justice does, that he is soft on crime and that his appointees to the bench would be in the mold of Bird and former Gov. Brown Jr.

- If Bradley opposes Bird, he will be accused of a crass flip-flop and lack of character.

In 1978, the first time Bird stood for election, Bradley co-chaired a campaign committee supporting her and all appellate justices on the ballot. Bradley’s deputy mayor, Tom Houston, was campaign coordinator for Bird that year and previously served in the Brown Administration as a deputy cabinet secretary under Bird. Houston, like Bradley, is keeping his views to himself right now.

Key advisers share a common pessimism about the political reaction, no matter which way Bradley turns.

“The question is how can Tom Bradley support what he has done his whole life--independence of the judiciary--without being sucked into the whirlpool and drowned?” said one friend with a shrug.

One potential avenue of escape for Bradley is being discussed, but so far secretively, by lawyers, a few judges and some Democratic political operatives.

The idea is for some prominent lawyers to form an “independent” committee on behalf of all justices--Bird and the five others up for confirmation Nov. 4.

Less Personal

Backers hope such a committee could defuse the personalized nature of the campaign and focus debate on a righteous theme of judicial independence. Although apparently not designed specifically to assist Bradley, such a committee would give him or any squeamish Democrat a place to take a stand and endorse a principle on behalf of the court, but not necessarily on behalf of any specific justices.

A spokesperson for Bradley said such an independent committee would have a good chance of drawing the mayor’s support.

Another Democrat dogged by the Bird candidacy is Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy.

Like Bradley, McCarthy altered his views prior to the elections--saying he had come to believe that capital punishment is necessary after a lifetime of opposing it. He remains a supporter of Bird and the other justices, however, arguing that the court should remain independent of shifting political tides.

Only through the line of succession would a lieutenant governor have any direct connection to the Supreme Court, and then only to fill vacancies. But McCarthy nevertheless says he must continue to deal with a steady rain of questions about Bird “because you have to try to figure out how your opponent is going to hit you with a most unpopular issue. . . . I’m aware that it’s a downer.”

McCarthy’s appearance at the Democratic party convention on Sunday illustrated what candidates must face. He delivered an address stressing the theme of educational opportunity. But when he met reporters, their questions were about Bird, Bird, Bird. “I know at some point there will be other questions asked in this campaign, when we all get exhausted of this,” McCarthy shrugged.

U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston and state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, both lifelong death penalty opponents, are two other Democrats who are frequently, if not constantly, asked their views on Bird on the reelection stump. And both have chosen to stay neutral--Cranston on grounds that he does not want to plunge into a nonpartisan matter unconnected to the responsibilities of a U.S. senator, and Van de Kamp because his office must do business every day with the high court.

“If I supported one or another or all of the justices, I would be accused of angling for special treatment,” Van de Kamp declared a year ago. “If I opposed one or another or all, I could cause detriment to the people’s position before the court.”

But Van de Kamp’s neutrality has not rendered him silent on the issue. Rather, he has become what he calls a “broker” of information, and from time to time he has found occasion to be critical of both the court and the court’s opponents.

Cranston Avoids Debates

So far, Van de Kamp’s fence walk apparently has not made him appear vulnerable to many potential blue-chip Republican opponents. In fact, among well-known GOP names, only former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Robert H. Philibosian has expressed a strong interest in challenging Van de Kamp, and even that is tentative. Philibosian is a strong Bird opponent and he believes that Van de Kamp actually is leaning in favor of Bird under a guise of neutrality.

Cranston has spent 18 years skillfully avoiding being drawn into debates over ballot initiatives and other strictly California political fights. He is determined to do so again, even though he acknowledges some frustration this time because one of his key campaign advisers, pollster Pat Caddell, was once connected to the Bird campaign. The Caddell link is too weak to be a political problem for the senator, his aides say confidently.

If big-name Democrats are trying to ignore Bird, a spokesman for the chief justice professes to be thankful. “The most courageous politicians are the ones who stay out of the court campaign and thus reaffirm the principle of a judiciary independent of political pressures,” Bird campaign aide Steven M. Glazer said.

In the Legislature, Republicans continue to hope they can weaken longstanding Democratic majorities in both houses by associating them with Bird.

“Just like Proposition 13!” said Assembly GOP leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, who earned his seat in the Legislature as part of the 1978 class of conservatives known as the “Proposition 13 babies.”

But, by and large, Democrats laugh off the idea of being somehow snared in this fashion.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who is unflinching in his personal support for Bird, says that other Democratic assemblymen made nervous by association with Bird or the issue of the death penalty had long ago “bailed out and distanced (themselves) from the court and whatever downsides there are.”

Swing-District Democrats

That means that some of the most vocal death penalty advocates these days are Democrats in swing districts.

Brown’s chief of staff and reelection campaign strategist, Richard Ross, argues that Republicans have repeatedly attempted guilt-by-association campaigns in the recent past--trying to drag down conservative Democrats by emphasizing their links with the liberal Brown, or attacking rural Democrats because of connections to farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. There is little evidence of success. “They don’t seem to learn. I hope they keep trying,” Ross said.

The Times Poll, however, found that Bird could be a drag on legislative candidates, other factors being equal. Those voters surveyed were given a choice among three candidates: “A” a Bird supporter, “B” a fence-sitter and “C” a Bird opponent. The victor was candidate C with 39%, followed by B with 28% and A with 13%.

One thing seems clear: As Democrats seek to duck Bird and scatter every which way over the death penalty, the Democratic Party forgoes any chance of presenting Californians with a coherent policy on law and order in this election. Fully one year ago, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner made a celebrated speech to the party, trying to shake it up with this warning:

“It has not been lost on the American public that the Democratic Party has consciously chosen to remain silent about the most serious social problem in America today--violent crime.”

These days, Reiner, although not taking a stand on Bird’s confirmation, says the chief justice “has come to symbolize a point of view held by too many Democratic elected officials. And I think generally Democrats are going to suffer.”