Although former California Gov. Pete Wilson left office in 1999, he remains an active voice in political circles. Wilson, who was co-chairman of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recall campaign, supports two key initiatives coming up on the Nov. 8 special election ballot: Proposition 75, which restricts union fundraising, and Proposition 77, which would alter how state legislative and congressional districts are drawn. The former San Diego mayor and U.S. senator, now 72, lives in Los Angeles and serves as principal of Bingham Consulting Group, a division of the Bingham McCutchen law firm that advises businesses on how to deal with California’s government regulations.
Question: You were co-chairman of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign. Do you guys keep in touch?
Answer:
Oh yeah, sure, frequently. He calls me and I feel free to call him and do. Occasionally, the advice I give is solicited, occasionally unsolicited.
Q: Are you surprised by his low poll numbers?
A:
I experienced some of the same kind of treatment. I was trashed by the public employee unions not all of them, but certainly the teachers union. The unions have now spent, I don’t know how much, but way over $20 million. And until recently, they’ve gotten no response, no rebuttal. Inevitably, people are influenced by it, and a lot of people are very gullible, so it’s not surprising. It would be shocking if his numbers had not dropped. To be honest, it was too high to be sustained.
Q: What must he do to raise his public approval ratings?
A:
Raise money. Ask for help. He’s earning a lot of free media. But as vigorously as he may campaign, those tend to be one shot. Television has become the medium that wins elections, not unfailingly. And campaigns that have saturation have won. If people know the truth, that can overcome even greater superior fundraising on the other side. You get to tell your side of it in a 28 & #733;-second message. If they see it 10 times, it registers.
Q: What about his use of ballot initiatives to bypass the Legislature?
A:
It’s a mixed blessing. There is no question it has brought about reforms we otherwise never would have. But a lot of reforms have been defeated by the public employee unions who have had the ability to amass major war chests.
Q: You must favor Proposition 75, which would restrict a union’s political contributions by requiring its members’ consent?
A:
I am strongly for it, and I was for Proposition 226 in ’98. The issue is a very simple one: Should a public employee union be able to take money from your check without your consent and spend it for political purposes that you disagree with? They can now, and do. That’s just about as wrong as it could be.
Q: What will it take to get that passed?
A:
The awareness of the people who last time did not vote. There are people who aren’t troubled to register, troubled to vote. They’re people I term “lazy voters” because often they don’t take the trouble to learn the issues and they get their information from television spots, interspersed with the sitcoms they’re watching. If there’s enough money to penetrate the awareness of voters, most of them are going to vote for it.
Q: There’s also Proposition 77, the redistricting measure.
A:
I am fervently in support. Re-apportionment, as done by the Legislature, creates an inescapable and egregious conflict of interest. What you should have is the lines drawn utterly without regard to incumbency, so that the public is assured of districts that conform to community boundaries and not these tortured things that look like snakes or dragons called gerrymanders. It brings out the worst in both parties because it’s the incumbents looking to assure their survival.
Q: How has politics changed in Sacramento?
A:
The confrontation between the governor and the Legislature has changed dramatically. The difference is the Davis administration. In the first couple of years, he tried to be a moderate and hold down spending. But when he began to feel threatened and felt he would lose his solidified base, they increased spending enormously. They were spending money they didn’t have, which is strictly forbidden by the constitution.
Q: It seems like Republicans continue to have problems finding strong candidates in Sacramento. Why?
A:
The last two gubernatorial races were frankly very bad campaigns. They made lots of mistakes. (Dan) Lungren never had a clear message, and he failed to take advantage of an opportunity to go after (Gray) Davis on educational issues. He spent most of the time talking about crime, which was not really the issue in that campaign. The next time, Bill Simon, who was a novice, made almost every mistake in the book, including some of which were hard to conceive of. They’re both decent, good men. But they were not good campaigners.
Q: How does the party change that?
A:
The answer is going to sound like a smart-ass answer, but they’ve got to get better candidates, people who will run better campaigns. What do you need to get when your football team keeps fumbling and your quarterback keeps getting sacked? You need to get a line that won’t let him get sacked and avoid turning over the ball to the other side. Don’t make mistakes.
Q: Do you miss politics?
A:
Oh, sure. I particularly enjoyed the executive post. Being governor and mayor is more fun than legislating, even though it was a time of great challenges, to put it mildly. We had 22 major natural disasters in my first term and also the L.A. riots and the longest, deepest recession since the Great Depression. But you have far more opportunity to shape policy as chief executive.
Q: What about now?
A:
Bingham Consulting tries to keep companies out of regulatory troubles. We say to a potential client, “We think you are about to be in trouble, and here’s what we advise you to do to avoid it.” Or, if they are engaged in expansion or trying to increase market share, perhaps by acquiring a competitor, we will fashion a strategy to assist them in doing that. We are counselors.
Q: How is that different from being a corporate lawyer?
A:
There is a considerable difference. What we offer is knowledge and experience. Most everybody who is in our group has spent some time in government, in addition to the fact that most of them are lawyers. We have former governors, former attorneys general, former deputy U.S. attorneys general. We sometimes rescue people from peril, and we sometimes have to extricate them.
Q: Anything else?
A:
There is another side of it where we are providing a strategy that I would term an “enabling” strategy. For example, a manufacturer feels his product is being denied entry market access because of a state statute and feels it is unfair both to him as the manufacturer and unfair to consumers. Working through a lobbyist we don’t lobby but we work with lobbyists we’ll say: We think you need to have a bill introduced to eliminate what is really an unfair requirement and one that does not benefit you or consumers.
Q: What is the most common regulatory hurdle?
A:
There are certain industries that are much more vulnerable to investigation, to lawsuits, than others. If you follow what (New York Attorney General Eliot) Spitzer has done, he’s been focused on financial services or insurance brokerages or mutual funds. He’s looking for a business practice that he thinks is unfairly dealing with consumers. Maybe it’s eliminating competition, maybe charging unfairly for something. It usually has to do with a sweetheart deal between providers rather than serving the interest of consumer.
Q: So does that leave you any free time?
A:
Most of my so-called free time is spent engaged as the director or trustee of non-profits. I’m on the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Air Force One chairman. They’re about to have an opening in a couple of weeks of the Air Force One exhibit. The other one that I’m very keen on is the National D-Day Museum, which has been designated by an act of Congress as America’s official World War II museum.
Pete Wilson
Title:
Principal
Company:
Bingham Consulting Group
Born:
1933, Lake Forest, Ill.
Education:
B.A. in English literature, Yale University; law degree, University of California, Berkeley
Career Turning Point:
When one of his law firm partners in San Diego encouraged him to run for the Legislature in 1966
Most Admired People:
Former California Gov. George Deukmejian, President Ronald Reagan
Personal:
Married, two stepsons, one grandson
Hobbies:
Serving on non-profits, barbecuing, reading
