Patrick Mallon
Thursday, Nov. 20, 2003

The short honeymoon is over. As of Monday, Nov. 17, Arnold Schwarzenegger is California’s 38th governor. Now he has to horse-trade with California’s leftist Legislature and John Burton, who was unable to attend the inauguration ceremonies, instead playing golf in a previously scheduled tournament.

Burton did have time the following day, however, to sink his fangs into Schwarzenegger over his promise to overturn SB 60, the law ex-Gov. Davis signed granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants: "I say the issue is racism. Do you think if these people were white and not brown-skinned we would be talking about it? I don't."

Some things never change with a cantankerous, obsolete liberal: Carpet-bomb when you have nothing original to say (and pray that someone is listening).

A day after the recall, Burton told the Sacramento Bee that he predicted he'll have a “very good personal working relationship” with Schwarzenegger but didn't rule out political fireworks.

“It depends on what the hell he wants to do,” Burton said. “If he wants to take money from the aged, blind and disabled, if he wants to take money from poor women and children, I don't think so – not while I'm around.”

In Sacramento, Burton’s the Boss. The Big Cheese. Outspoken, blustery and in-your-face profane. He’s the 45th president pro tempore of the state Senate, and the second-most-powerful man in state government. Half ruffian, half field general, Burton has mastered the art of war in the crusade for liberal policy excess. A take-no-prisoners socialist who prefers to settle matters his own way.

A liberal dictator? You be the judge. He’s the chairman of the Rules Committee and is notorious for burying legislation he doesn’t like. At 70, Burton is still full of vinegar, and his frequent expletive-loaded outbursts are the stuff of Capitol legend. He’ll be termed-out in 2004.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Our Man in Sacramento” is far more liberal, far meaner on occasion and “far more out there than most other lawmakers. Burton actually over-represents liberalism in California – the state is far more moderate, even conservative, than the insular world of San Francisco," said the Chronicle.

In any negotiation, outrageous demands tend to elicit marginal concessions, advancing intended outcomes, but the tide has turned and conservatives may not be as timid and spineless today.

In 1998, while attempting to resolve a legislative conflict over recycling laws, Burton held a meeting in his office with lobbyists and environmentalists.

When both sides became stubborn, refusing to give ground, Burton screamed, "F--k you all," and stormed out the office, leaving everyone stunned.

A classic 1960s liberal, he was once an up-and-coming U.S. congressman, living in the shadow of his famous older brother Phil. According to Martin F. Nolan of the Boston Globe, in his column “Liberal Icon” (10/29/03), Burton in 1982 courted death and threw away a career in Congress because, as he recalls calmly, “I was whacked-out and chemically dependent on cocaine and nitrous oxide. I started going goofy, and I put myself into Bethesda [Naval Hospital in Maryland]."

“If I'd had another $10,000, I'd be dead. I had no money. I owed the drug dealer, owed loan sharks, couldn't beg, borrow, or steal money. It was within 24 hours of the filing time” for the U.S. House seat he had held since 1974, "so I was unopposed. I walked away from a safe seat."

Burton has been the president of the California State Senate since 1998. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1974-83, the California Democratic state chair from 1973-74, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from California in 1972, and a member of the California State Assembly from 1965-74 and 1989-94.

Burton recovered from drug abuse, going cold turkey in 1982. At the urging of his longtime friend San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Burton won a seat in the Assembly in 1988, then, after he was termed-out, he won a Senate seat in 1998. He became the Senate president at about the same time Gray Davis became governor in 1999.

Sharp as a tack, Burton can tell filthy jokes, recall his classic philosophical confrontations with then-Gov. Ronald Reagan (who referred to Burton as a “nutcase”), and exploit his overwhelming intelligence and people skills to destroy the unprepared in debates.

Unlike the stiff Davis, Burton can stroll through Sacramento watering holes, jest with Republican lawmakers and lobbyists, elicit uproarious laughter and smiles, offering an anecdote and a salute like a fraternity brother. His friend Warren Beatty knew the magic of Burton’s magnetic personality and used him as the model for the film “Bulworth,” a movie about a “politician afflicted with fitful attacks of furious candor.”

Bubbling over with Irish charm (and a temper to go with it), making the most of experiences as a former bartender and his heartfelt belief that his party truly has a mission for the poor in the image of FDR, Burton had a lot that Davis admired. Similarly, Burton possesses the animated social charisma so effectively employed by Jerry Brown.

Davis used gobs of fund-raising cash to help compensate for his uncomfortable inability to relate to people. To his credit, by all reports Davis doesn’t drink, so sitting around with buddies shooting the breeze over a beer wasn’t part of the program.

Placing the Davis-Burton relationship in context, in 1967 Davis was in Vietnam and Burton was in his second year in the California Assembly. In 1972, Burton was steeped in national politics and the Democratic National Convention while Davis was getting his feet wet with the Tom Bradley campaign for mayor of Los Angeles. When Davis was first elected to a seat in the state Assembly, Burton was a U.S. congressman. Burton had every reason to condescend and treat Davis disrespectfully when Davis became governor.

But if Burton tries the same tactics on Schwarzenegger, get ready for an entirely different set of results.

Burton’s baby, Senate Bill 2, a piece of legislation Davis signed into law days before the recall, was labeled “the governor's last-minute job-killer” by hundreds of California businesses. Why?

SB2 requires businesses to offer health insurance to an estimated 3 million more workers. Businesses with 19 or fewer employees would be exempt. Businesses with 20 to 199 employees would pay 80 percent of health insurance premiums - about $2,000 annually - for each employee. And businesses with over 200 employees would be required to pay for the health care of employees’ dependents.

Not that it matters to a career socialist like Burton, a man who thinks the state always knows what’s best, but the California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business groups responded to SB2 by announcing that they would mount a referendum campaign against the law, legislation they conclude “would cost consumers and small businesses over $7 billion per year in higher health insurance costs.”

“Businesses are already cutting jobs or moving out of state because of high costs in California,” said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “This measure would make California one of only two states in the country to mandate health care, once again increasing the cost of providing jobs in our state. It will result in more layoffs for working families.”

And, according to the Orange County Register, state control of businesses will go even deeper as companies not able to comply must pay into a new state fund that will provide insurance for employees.

Even before SB 2 was signed into law, news about its adverse affect was rippling through the state. In September 2003, Consolidated Restaurant Operations Inc., a Dallas-based firm, announced it was calling off the “acquisition of Chevys Fresh Mex and Fuzio Universal Pasta restaurants from Boston-based J.W. Childs Associates,” reported the Boston Business Journal. Chevys and Fuzio employ 4,000 Californians at 68 restaurants. Consolidated cited SB 2's unknown increases in costs as a factor in deciding not to make the deal.

At the time, the Register concluded, “There are better ways to help provide health insurance to those who don't have it, such as granting personal tax credits and reducing other government burdens on businesses, so they can afford to provide more benefits. Unless it's repealed, SB 2 effectively is a job-killing, $11.4 billion tax increase on top of the $4 billion tripling of the car tax.”

Here’s how Burton likes to operate: In June 2003, buried under the siege of a $38 billion deficit that threatened his political career, Davis sought to repeal a scheduled Supplemental Security Income (SSI) increase of $28 in monthly assistance payments to 1.2 million qualified poor people.

The governor was reluctant to prevent the increase, but he knew that by doing so he would save the state upwards of $325 million. So he met with fellow Democrat, Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson of Culver City, to discuss putting together a bill and a supporting coalition within the party to ensure that the SSI payment increase would be frozen, in the interest of cost control.

Then word got out to John Burton. When the bill came to the Rules Committee, Burton’s Rules Committee, there were no hearings, no discussions, no speakers, no deliberation.

When the deadline for the measure arrived on June 1, without any substantive objections, the $28 SSI increase was passed, even though the state couldn’t afford it. A power play pure and simple. Burton won, Davis lost.

Or, as Burton explained in an interview, “There ain’t enough poor people to [expletive deleted] fix the whole [expletive deleted] problem anyway.”

Almost three years previous, during the height of the state's energy crisis, the always restless Burton fidgeted through a long meeting in the governor's office and heard former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher gently lecture Davis about how elected officials must lead in times of crisis – even when all their apparent choices are unpopular.

Burton stood up, fished a dollar bill out of his pocket and crunched it into a wad before hurling it across the table at Davis.

"I guess the buck stops here, governor," Burton said and waltzed out, leaving behind a roomful of dumbstruck officials.

“It seemed to just call for something,” Burton, with only a slight grin on his face, explained in a recent interview. “It was no big deal.”

Davis declined to be interviewed but said through a spokeswoman, “John Burton can be irascible, but he has a giant heart and wants to do the right thing.”

The governor was disrespected and made to feel like a little boy, as this episode demonstrates. In all fairness to Davis, what is one to do with a character like Burton? Punt?

On the other hand, like a Tammany ward heeler, Burton can be extremely generous, and it does appear to genuinely come from the heart. Every Christmas he spends his own money and goes down to Delancy Street in San Francisco with blankets, coats and donated supplies and gives them to homeless people.

Burton disagreed with the voter-passed city initiative that called for “care, not cash.” The public has had it up to here with panhandlers, addicts and bums defecating on sidewalks and urinating in front of businesses and using generous taxpayer-paid assistance to buy drugs and alcohol.

He identifies more with the “down and out” than with the average middle-class worker. Don’t mention the words “accountability” and “responsibility” to John Burton; you’ll only end up with an earful. That’s just the way he is. He’ll never change his mind on the subject, and if the majority demands that he do his job and heed the voters’ will, he won’t listen.

Burton suffers a common symptom of liberalism: a reluctance to embrace reason and the facts, to make hard decisions that will question sacred cows, to do what is right even when one doesn’t want to. Davis, unfortunately, was no match for the Burtonian calculus of interests that served as a major element in the voters’ verdict and Davis’ demise.

It will be an entirely different game of chicken with Arnold, a man who doesn’t take kindly to cheap shots, condescension and disrespect, standard tactics of a leftist liberal like Burton, a man who hasn’t had to confront many traffic cops in his many unchecked years of liberal abandon.

Patrick Mallon will be on "American Breakfast" with Phil Paleologos at 7:30 a.m. EST, Friday, Nov. 21. "American Breakfast" is a nationally syndicated radio program heard in over 250 markets. The same day, he will also be on George Putnam's "Talk Back" at 12:15 p.m. PST (KPLS AM-830 in Los Angeles). You can contact Patrick at Patrick@newsmax.com.

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