Lungren Drafts Lobbying Effort With Deukmejian

WASHINGTON —  Gov. George Deukmejian and Rep. Daniel E. Lungren held a strategy session Sunday to draw up a list of “swing vote” Democrats to lobby in their battle to win Lungren’s confirmation as state treasurer by the California Legislature.

With floor votes scheduled for Thursday in both the Senate and the Assembly--and the legal deadline for confirmation next Monday--the governor told reporters that “it’s going to be a very difficult effort. It’s going to be a struggle.”

Still, Deukmejian--in Washington to attend a national governors conference--said that he is confident that both houses ultimately will confirm the Long Beach Republican.

Neither the governor nor his aides would disclose the list of Democrats targeted for special lobbying. But it was learned the names include seven Democratic senators who fit into the ideological category of moderate-to-conservative, at least as measured against the Legislature’s liberal leadership.

The senators are Ruben S. Ayala of Chino, Daniel E. Boatwright of Concord, Wadie P. Deddeh of Chula Vista, Cecil N. Green of Norwalk, Joseph B. Montoya of Whittier, Robert Presley of Riverside and Rose Ann Vuich of Dinuba.

Lungren will need a majority of votes in each house for confirmation--21 in the Senate and 41 in the Assembly. This means he will need at least five Democratic votes in each chamber. That will be particularly tough in the Senate, where up to 19 of the 24 Democrats reportedly already are privately lined up against him.

The Senate Rules Committee last Thursday voted 3 to 2, along party lines, to recommend against Lungren’s confirmation. A special Assembly committee is scheduled to vote on Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a poker game and Duke’s a pretty good poker player,” said one gubernatorial adviser, speaking on condition he not be identified.

But Deukmejian’s chief of staff, Michael Frost, denied all rumors of deal-making for votes. He insisted that no quid pro quos have been offered by either the governor nor any legislator.

Lungren, who returned to Washington after last week’s stormy hearings by the Senate Rules Committee, told the governor he will fly back to Sacramento tonight or Tuesday morning after voting on a civil rights bill in the House of Representatives.

May Return Wednesday

Deukmejian had not been scheduled to return to Sacramento until Thursday morning, but aides said it now is likely that the governor will fly back Wednesday night to be in the Capitol and available for personal lobbying during the showdown voting by the Senate and Assembly.

Deukmejian and Lungren met privately over breakfast in the governor’s hotel suite for about an hour.

The governor later told reporters merely that he and the congressman discussed, among other things, specific legislators who should be further contacted.

Deukmejian and his advisers clearly have been preoccupied for weeks with the confirmation battle. They are keenly aware that its final outcome will be regarded by politicians and much of the public as a test of the governor’s leadership as he enters the midway point of his second term.

“I think we’re going to just make it,” the governor told a reporter, referring to the confirmation votes.

One reason for his optimism, the governor said, is that neither Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) nor Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) have asked their Democratic colleagues to take a formal caucus position against Lungren.

“They haven’t made it a leadership thing,” he noted. “If they had. . . . “