JOEL KOTKIN
Over the next month or so, business people can be expected to hear much about Gray Davis from the Republicans. The rap on Davis is that, as governor, he would be the cat’s paw of organized labor, the teachers unions and the trial lawyers. In combination with the most far-left Legislature in modern California history, it will be alleged, a Davis administration would be an unprecedented disaster for business.
All of this could prove true, but having known him for nearly a quarter century, I think it is also unlikely. Gray Davis may be many things common to politicians opportunistic, monomaniacally ambitious and at times even vicious but he is also very smart, pragmatic and knows what side the state’s bread is buttered on. This guy does not have one Quixotic ounce in his body; he is not ready to play the crusading loner role of a Gloria Molina, Tom Hayden or Dennis Kucinich.
“He has been pro-business all his career,” suggests veteran Democratic consultant and commentator William Bradley. “You’ll see tax incentives (and) trade expansion initiatives under him. He’d be a pro-business governor.”
Does that mean Davis will abandon organized labor, whose support was critical to his primary victory? Not at all. As Bradley suggests, Davis is, if anything, a “constituency politician.” Labor has given, both financially and with its considerable human resources, and it will no doubt get some of what it wants, whether in the form of higher minimum wages, more state-financed work to union workers, and stronger health and safety regulations in the workplace.
But labor was not Gray Davis’ only “constituency” in the primary, nor is it now. Back in the late 1970s, as chief of staff and unwilling straight-man to the unpredictable, sometimes abusive Gov. Jerry Brown, Davis became acquainted with Brown’s powerful coterie of political bankrollers like financier S. Jon Kreedman, super-agent Jeff Wald and Eli Broad.
Lacking much in the way of personal wealth or charisma, Davis has known he would have to cultivate the predominantly Jewish entertainment, real estate and financial moguls on Los Angeles’ Westside, which he once represented in the Legislature. Davis has also reached out to constituencies such as the high-technology and garment industries, which have often been at loggerheads with both organized labor and left-leaning Democrats. More recently, he has raised money from some big-time out-of-state financial moguls, including the Traveler’s Sanford Weill.
His pursuit of the garment and textile industry reveals Davis’ instinctive pragmatism. Most Democrats treat that industry a huge employer in Los Angeles and a linchpin of the Eastside economy like it had a social disease. Its largely low-wage employment base and occasional outrages, such as the El Monte slavery case, have made the sector the favored target of liberal journalists, academic Marxists and Democratic politicians. When former Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s henchmen went on a jihad against the industry after the discovery of enslaved workers in El Monte, Davis was one of the few voices interested in finding equitable ways to save this important industry, not destroy it.
As controller, Davis has even sponsored an export seminar and promoted the use of new technology in the industry. “It’s an important industry that generates a lot of entry-level jobs,” Davis told me. “Sure, there’s a seamy underside, but it adds to the glamour and prestige of L.A. It’s been everyone’s favorite whipping boy. I don’t think it’s justified.”
Some Republicans insist that Davis’ labor support will lead him to support legislation such as extending liability to manufacturers for the abuses of contractors that could cripple the industry. Typically, Davis takes a nuanced position, essentially leaving the issue to judicial interpretation of existing law. Behind this lies Davis’ very pragmatic concerns, such as not wanting to see a rapid spike in L.A. unemployment that a garment meltdown would cause at the beginning of his watch. He also sees the industry as particularly suited for helping welfare recipients find work.
Instead of focusing on contentious issues that would divide his own backers, Davis believes he is capable of bringing together often-competing interests, such as environmentalists and agriculture, or labor and business, a talent that his predecessors, the irascible, combative Wilson and the phlegmatic George Deukmejian, sorely lacked. One possible strategy to placate these interests would be to follow in the traditions of another Gov. Brown, Pat Brown, by building a new “growth coalition” around modernizing California’s aging infrastructure.
As happened under the senior Brown, such megabucks spending also could help a Gov. Davis solidify support from disparate groups like building trades, farmers, developers, industrial corporations and even mainstream environmentalists.
There is the danger that, once elected, Davis will veer dangerously to the left. This prospect has been made somewhat more likely by the essential collapse of the Clinton presidency. Since the days of Jerry Brown, the Democratic Party, both statewide and in Washington, has had a strong business as well as activist element. Centered on the Democratic Leadership Council, the pro-business lobby has helped restrain the redistributionist and regulatory impulse among some Democrats.
But now, as Clinton’s ignominy begins to erode the centrist constituencies of the party, the dissipation of the New Democrats seems inevitable. In the vacuum, the base constituencies of the legislative wing of the party organized labor, particularly public employees, trial lawyers feminists, environmentalists and the gay lobby might be able to exact concessions with greater ease. Indeed, Davis has shown signs of pandering to the demonology that is increasingly evident on the liberal left, such as when he accused Wilson this spring of fanning “the flames of discontent, anti-Semitism and bigotry.”
Yet, if elected, Davis might find his greatest challenge in fending off these very forces within his party. Business can help him now by opening channels and checkbooks, bolstering that side of his “constituency” base. For whatever the Republicans say, Gray Davis is, first and foremost, a pragmatist who is not only determined to win, but also wants to govern a prosperous California. Ever ambitious, Davis knows that economic growth remains key to solidifying the one constituency that ultimately will determine his political future the voters of California.
Joel Kotkin is a senior fellow with the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy and a research fellow at the Reason Public Policy Institute.
