Legislators Will Weigh 2 Images of Marian Bergeson : Schools chief: To Republicans, she’s a pragmatist, to Democrats, an ideologue. Hearings begin Thursday.

SACRAMENTO —  When lawmakers on Thursday begin mulling whether Republican state Sen. Marian Bergeson should be California’s next superintendent of public schools, they’ll weigh two competing images of her.

The first, as painted by Gov. Pete Wilson, is the Republican version of Bergeson: pragmatic conservative, a former school board member and teacher who has the best interests of California’s children at heart.

The second, as described by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, is the Democratic vision: a lawmaker reluctant to fight for school dollars and lacking the commitment to help minorities. He also hints that the Newport Beach lawmaker, who believes in biblical creationism, is hiding a religious agenda.

Clearly, Bergeson is in the eye of the beholder.

“She’s a solid, responsible legislator, but it’s a case where you know someone in one context and suddenly have to judge them in another,” explained Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento). “You think of them quite differently--the skills are different, the orientation is different. People will have to give this a lot of thought.”

On Thursday, the rhetoric climaxes as Bergeson’s confirmation test begins in the Assembly, where Speaker Brown presides and the going is apt to be rough. One of Brown’s top lieutenants, Assemblyman Tom Hannigan (D-Fairfield), will serve as chairman of two special Assembly committee hearings on Bergeson’s fate. A floor vote on the nomination, which most expect to be tight, is scheduled for April 22.

Bergeson is likely to fare better among her brethren in the Senate, but no vote will be held there until well after the Assembly has had its say--and opposition from one house is all that is required to block the nomination.

Capitol sources say the delay is a bow by Senate Democratic leaders to Brown, who wants to take the lead in the confirmation proceedings.

A seasoned legislator best known for her decorous manner and ability to forge political compromises, Bergeson was chosen by Wilson early this month, shortly after former schools chief Bill Honig was convicted on felony conflict of interest charges. The governor said his nominee, who would be the first woman to hold the post, is ideal because she would be an “independent” advocate for the state’s schoolchildren.

Many agreed. Bergeson, who served a school board stint in Newport Beach before joining the Legislature in 1978, won praise from educators ranging from University of California President Jack Peltason to Honig himself.

“Her credentials are absolutely unassailable,” said Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), a member of the Assembly panel that will quiz Bergeson. “She should be a shoo-in, but this will be a battle. Willie is going to make a full-court press.”

With Brown and other key players lined up against the nominee, many here in the Capitol have written Bergeson off. Wilson and other boosters, however, contend the fight is far from over.

The support of the Assembly’s 31 Republicans is a given, so the governor will try to peel off 10 Democrats to assure confirmation in the 80-member house. Wilson’s strategy has been to focus on Democrats from politically vulnerable districts, as well as moderates and women. The governor also hopes to woo Democratic legislators from his hometown, San Diego.

Meanwhile, a battle has been waged by both camps to recruit California’s education establishment.

So far, Brown and the Democrats have prevailed. Bergeson is opposed by the California School Employees Assn. and California Federation of Teachers as well as abortion-rights advocates and various minority groups, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Those groups have scheduled a news conference in Sacramento today to spell out their reasons for opposing Bergeson.

Bergeson’s biggest coup was persuading the powerful California Teachers Assn. to remain neutral.

Brown has voiced blunt opposition to Bergeson right from the start.

Irked by the quick editorial endorsements Bergeson got from major newspapers, Brown struck back with his own marketing blitz, penning a commentary that portrayed the nominee as a soul mate of “ultraconservative zealots.” Selecting the senator, Brown charged, was an effort by “candidate Wilson” to boost his popularity with far-right Republicans heading into the 1994 election.

Brown questions Bergeson’s zeal to win funds for public education, citing her support for Wilson’s 1992 effort to cut money from public schools and opposition to Proposition 98, which guarantees minimum funding levels for education.

He notes that she authored one of the first voucher plans to allow the use of public funds to send children to private schools.

Brown also suggests that Bergeson’s failure to endorse his 1980 speakership bid, when she was in the Assembly, and her resistance to South African divestiture, indicates a “historic opposition, if not hostility, to almost any action to benefit California’s ethnic minorities.”

Bergeson chafes at Brown’s critique.

“I’d be an independent advocate,” she said. “When I disagree with the governor, I’ll let him know. I think I can be instrumental in bringing the governor and Legislature together.”

She opposes the current push for school vouchers, explaining that her own voucher legislation would have allowed only low-income students in poor-performing districts to attend non-religious private schools.

Her opposition to Proposition 98, she says, stemmed from a belief that it was an “arbitrary formula” that has created a “ceiling rather than a floor” for education spending. Bergeson also says that many Senate Democrats supported Wilson’s education cuts and that the final budget closely resembled the blueprint she initially backed.

Bergeson frankly acknowledges that, as a devout Mormon, she believes in the Bible and creationism. But she also said she strongly supports the separation of church and state and has never pushed for a religion-based curriculum.

“I would hope that a belief in the Bible wouldn’t discredit you from public office,” she said.

Most galling to Bergeson is Brown’s veiled allusion that she is a racist. The nominee, who taught for several years in Southern California classrooms full of minority students, said she considers apartheid “deplorable” but opposed divestiture because of fiduciary worries. She didn’t back Brown for the speakership based on her belief that he wasn’t the right man for the job, not because of his African-American heritage, Bergeson said.

“Is he sexist if he won’t vote for a woman for superintendent?” she said. “The reality is I have always showed great sensitivity to children of all races and heritages.”