Teaching Hayden a Lesson

Tom Hayden seemed out of place from the moment he stepped into the state Capitol after his 1982 election to the Assembly.

True, Willie Brown, who was Speaker even then, welcomed him with a most hearty handshake. As Hayden recalled in his autobiography, “Reunion,” Brown “smiled broadly at me, extended his hand and loudly said, ‘Welcome home.’ ”

But Hayden, having survived years of FBI surveillance and the Chicago Seven trial, should have been wary enough to suspect there might be a knife in Brown’s other hand. Hayden’s reputation as a Democratic insurgent had preceded him. And Brown was the embodiment of the Democratic establishment in Sacramento.

Last week Brown finally stuck it to him in the form of a redistricting bill that cut up Hayden’s Westside Los Angeles-Santa Monica district, splitting it among three other Democrats.

Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed the redistricting bill, however, perhaps leaving Hayden’s fate to the state Supreme Court, which will devise a plan if the impasse between the governor and lawmakers continues. In the end, the justices may restore the boundaries of Hayden’s domain.

No matter what the outcome, the situation will be remembered as a lesson in the unforgiving politics of Willie Brown.

I happened to be on a plane with Hayden during one of his first get-acquainted trips to Sacramento and we sat together.

He was both curious and apprehensive about the Legislature, fascinated as much by the sociology of the place as the politics. He asked about the legislators. What are they like? Are they smart? Are they crooks? Do they get anything done? If you stay in Sacramento too long, do you turn into an old hack?

It’s a club, I said. A few guys hang out with Willie at Frank Fats, the Chinese restaurant near the Capitol. They run the Assembly. The guys go on trips together. They talk about politics, sports and women. It’s like when you were in school. If you’re one of the guys, you’re in the club.

The guys never asked him to join.

Part of it may have been social. Not having the gift of small talk, Hayden couldn’t trade stories. Nor could he bring himself to engage in the ego-massaging so important to Capitol life. Hayden had been a political star since the ‘60s. He was married to a star, Jane Fonda. He partied with stars. He expected people to massage his ego.

Hayden also had his own political funds, provided by Fonda when she was his wife and by contributors to the political organization he had formed in the ‘70s. That made him financially independent of Brown and the whole system of shaking lobbyists for campaign contributions that dominates life in Sacramento.

And it made him independent of Brown’s Southland ally, the organization headed by Reps. Howard Berman and Henry Waxman that dominates Democratic politics on the Westside and in parts of the San Fernando Valley.

Basically, Hayden shared the liberal Berman-Waxman ideology. And he and Brown stood together on many major issues. Until, of course, Hayden supported one of the term-limit measures on the 1990 ballot. Brown and the Berman-Waxman organization opposed it, pouring all their resources into the losing fight against the limits.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Speaker Brown had this thought about Hayden after the painful loss: “If the man wants term limits, I’ll give him a term limit.”

Punishment was just part of it. There was also political arithmetic and a matter of political loyalty.

Population shifts entitled the Riverside-San Bernardino area to more legislative representation, and the Westside and southwest Los Angeles to less.

The southwest districts of Marguerite Archie-Hudson, Gwen Moore and Curtis Tucker, who are black, needed more Democrats to assure reelection of the incumbents.

Brown said he could have done that by extending their districts north into such heavily Jewish neighborhoods as Fairfax and Pico-Robertson.

But Brown said that Jews tend to vote for Jews. “Gwen Moore would have to become Moorenstein in order to have an equal opportunity to win, (if a Jewish candidate opposed her),” he said. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith called the remark “inflammatory.”

In any case, race wasn’t the issue. Black officeholders have been elected with liberal Jewish votes for decades.

What was more important was Brown’s loyalty to the Berman-Waxman organization and his obligation to protect its two Westside assemblymen, Burt Margolin and Terry Friedman.

So in the end, only Hayden was left to sacrifice. The man who never quite fit in would be gone, his story a potent reminder to Assembly members who might consider rebellion in the future.