Heavy Guns Aimed to Keep Bergeson Out : Education: Opponents are lining up to keep the Newport Beach state senator from being appointed California’s first female superintendent of public instruction. Second confirmation hearing is Monday.

SACRAMENTO — When Assembly Democrats launched a fusillade against state Sen. Marian Bergeson at her first confirmation hearing for state schools chief a few weeks back, the Newport Beach Republican may have wished she had worn a flak jacket.

The second session begins Monday, and this time Bergeson might do well to dress in full combat gear.

A phalanx of critics--ranging from the powerful California Teachers Assn. to a rainbow coalition of minority groups--will descend on the Capitol to argue why Bergeson should not become California’s first female superintendent of public instruction.

The ballooning opposition has prompted some Sacramento pundits as well as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to predict that Bergeson’s nomination is doomed, the victim of considerable pressure from Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

With the full Assembly expected to vote on Bergeson’s fate Thursday, the 31 Republicans will have to be joined by at least 10 Democrats to keep alive her chances of replacing Bill Honig, who was convicted of felony conflict-of-interest charges. The confirmation calculus is simple: Republicans must persuade one of every four Democrats in the Assembly to defect from the partisan ranks, a tough test in the best of times.

Bergeson backers remain zealously committed to prying Democrat lawmakers away from Brown’s embrace. In recent weeks, they say, seven Assembly Democrats have made a commitment to back Bergeson--and they hope a few more can be quietly recruited based on their long political relationships with the nominee, who served in the Assembly for six years before becoming a state senator in 1984.

To that end, Gov. Pete Wilson and his troops have drawn up a list of about two dozen key Democrats and mounted a grass-roots effort, enlisting friendly constituents in each district to pressure their Assembly member. Letters dispatched to the spotlighted districts by Wilson forces call Bergeson “a tough and dedicated advocate for schools, students and parents,” and encourage constituents to write and urge their lawmakers to back the GOP nominee. The missive includes a half dozen sample letters extolling Bergeson’s virtues suitable for sending to local newspapers.

Among the Democrats being stalked by Wilson are several in Republican-leaning districts who might lose GOP votes if they oppose Bergeson’s nomination, as well as women Assembly members and a smattering from the governor’s old hometown of San Diego.

Republicans are also fighting what they call a “disinformation campaign” being waged by Brown and other Democrats. In recent weeks, Brown has tried to paint Bergeson as an overly ambitious, right-wing ideologue whose conservative beliefs are out of step with mainstream California. It is a portrait that differs sharply from the nominee’s reputation in Sacramento as a tough, pragmatic conservative adept at hammering out solutions to difficult problems.

“Marian Bergeson is going to be confirmed,” declared Dan Schnur, Wilson’s press spokesman. “There are enough Democrats who are familiar with Marian Bergeson’s record and who will ignore Willie Brown’s political gamesmanship.”

It may not be so easy. Several of the capital’s political players--the big teacher unions and advocacy groups that provide lawmakers with hefty piles of campaign loot around election time--are lining up firmly against the nomination.

The most crushing blow came Thursday, when the mighty California Teachers Assn. dropped its vow of neutrality and came out in opposition to Bergeson. Republicans said the decision was the result of Brown putting pressure on the union board, which voted 17-4 against Bergeson.

“Let’s face it, the CTA’s political director is leading the push for Willie Brown to run for governor, so nobody is surprised by this new twist,” Schnur said. “But we are disappointed because the CTA has endorsed Marian for election to the Assembly or Senate seven times in the past.”

Officials with the union, which represents 235,000 California teachers, said the decision was based not on politics, but rather on the issues. In particular, the union’s top brass was troubled by Bergeson’s support during last summer’s budget battle of Wilson’s funding cuts for education.

A spokeswoman for Brown, meanwhile, said the speaker had not applied pressure. “This is not a political issue, it’s an issue about education and the future of our children,” said Darolyn Davis, Brown’s spokeswoman. “Bergeson is the wrong person for the job.”

Schnur said that opposition from the CTA and other groups ultimately won’t make a dent. “There is no shortage of individuals and organizations who owe allegiance to Willie Brown,” he said. “They’ll act as his agents to whatever extent possible. But it won’t deflect her chances one way or another.”

Meanwhile, Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga weighed in by declaring that the vitriolic April 1 hearing before the 15-member confirmation committee was a virtual “kangaroo court.”

In a letter last week to Assemblyman Tom Hannigan (D-Fairfield), chairman of the committee, Brulte also suggested that a “predetermined and scripted Democrat assault” on Bergeson amounted to “nothing more than an inquisition.” Hannigan did not return a phone call for comment.

Monday’s hearing could very well prove even tougher for Bergeson. Although she won’t have to field questions from the committee, the microphone will be open to all comers from the public--and a parade of vocal foes is standing in line, eager to have an impact.

“She has run under the radar screen in the past,” said Cynthia Carey-Grant, Northern California director of the California Abortion Rights Action League, which opposes Bergeson because of her anti-abortion stance. “She has distorted and presented herself in a manner that can be very deceiving.”

Ultimately, the decision will go to the full Assembly. Even now, Republicans and Democrats can’t seem to agree on what basis Bergeson should be judged. The GOP argues that she should be weighed strictly on her qualifications for the job, but Democrat leaders say Bergeson’s beliefs, her ideology, her personality and other factors must be considered.

“It’s a question of should Democrats vote in the Assembly to put somebody in office who they would not vote for if that individual was on the ballot,” concluded Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco). “I would think there may be an uphill road for Marian.”