Jumping ahead here, but what happens to Abel Maldonado if the state senate and assembly do not confirm him as Lt. Governor? Almost assuredly, he follows the trail blazed by Dan Lungren and runs statewide waving the senate rejection as a bloody shirt.
I read two articles over the weekend that referred to Dan Lungren’s rejected nomination to become state treasurer in 1987. Garry South’s piece in the L.A. Times spoke mostly about nominees who were confirmed to fill state offices but were turned out by voters in the next election. Cathleen Decker, also in the Times, discussed the Latino angle of the Maldonado nomination and how Maldonado might be treated differently than Lungren.
Lungren’s appointment by his Long Beach neighbor, Governor George Deukmejian, set off partisan wrangling over the Republican congressman asked to fill the treasurer post of iconic Democrat, Jesse Unruh, who had died in office. Democrats objected to Lungren’s political views. Lungren, now back in Congress representing a northern California district, reports in the biography on his congressional website about the rejection as treasurer: According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Democrats “praised Lungren’s integrity, but said they were unwilling to vote for a Republican whose congressional voting record was so conservative.”
I remember a legislative committee staff report issued at the time of Lungren’s confirmation hearing complaining that since Lungren believed in smaller government he was not fit for the treasurer’s office.
Democrats were equally opposed to the Lungren nomination because gaining the position would clearly position the ambitious, young politician for higher office.
Lungren was rejected from the job but used the visibility of the partisan hearings to successfully capture the attorney general’s post a couple of years later. After two terms as attorney general he ran, unsuccessfully, for governor against Gray Davis in 1998.
There would be no exact parallel between Lungren and Maldonado if the latter meets the same fate as Lungren when the confirmation vote is taken. Lungren was able to galvanize the base of the Republican Party because of his conservative positions and the obvious partisanship that colored the votes of the Democratic legislators. Maldonado does not have the grassroots Republicans solidly in his corner and he may even lack some Republican legislators’ votes when the final confirmation tally is taken. However, Republican voters may take an obvious political rejection of Maldonado to heart.
This is particularly true of the many registered Republicans who don’t live and breath politics every day. Maldonado’s emphasis on ending the legislative gridlock, coupled with his championing of an Open Primary, may affect this class of Republican voters. Whether enough turn out in the primary when Maldonado is reminding those voters of his rude treatment at the hands of the legislators could mean the difference of securing the nomination or failing at the polls.
As I acknowledged at the beginning of this piece, I am getting ahead of myself. Maldonado may successfully run the gauntlet and be confirmed as the next Lt. Governor. However, of the many considerations legislators have to weigh in voting for or against the Maldonado nomination, they also must consider the image of Abel Maldonado waving the bloody shirt if he is rejected and what that may mean during the 2010 elections.