Sacramento Bee
It will be the most high-profile issue on the statewide ballot this fall, an initiative that could determine the shape and extent of gambling in California.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gray Davis says he doesn't intend to take a position "one way or another" on the measure.
"This is a very complicated subject," he told viewers of the first debate of the general election campaign season.
"We've got Nevada gaming interests on one side and you have Indian gaming on the other side."
It was not the first time that Davis, confronted with a difficult issue, has taken the "neutral" way out.
He didn't express an opinion in 1986 on the question that dominated California politics that year -- the reconfirmation of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird. Bird ultimately was ousted by voters for her repeated votes to overturn death sentences.
He had no position on Proposition 211, a 1996 ballot measure on shareholder lawsuits that pitted trial lawyers against Silicon Valley corporate interests.
Republicans like to point out that the measure, opposed by both President Clinton and Bob Dole, was sponsored by a major Davis campaign contributor.
Davis, a longtime friend of organized labor, also was on the sidelines in 1993, in the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Given an opportunity at the recent debate to say whether he supports it now, given the importance of developing a trade relationship with Mexico, Davis did his best to remain neutral.
"Well, NAFTA is already the law of the land," he said. "I don't know that it profits a lot of us to go back and say where were you on something that took place five years ago."
That answer heartened aides to Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren, who this fall will have to defend a host of controversial votes he made as a congressman more than a decade ago.
And it strengthened a case that Republicans hope to make to elect Lungren, who has taken plenty of positions over the years -- his opposition to abortion rights among them -- that California voters don't share.
The Republicans are hoping the electorate will choose a candidate with clear-cut convictions, even when they disagree with them, over a politician with a pattern of planting himself firmly in the middle.
"Gray Davis isn't dull; he's weak," said GOP analyst Dan Schnur, who admittedly isn't neutral in the governor's race.
"When his political benefactors tell him to jump, he jumps," Schnur said.
"The unions told him to stay away from NAFTA, so he hid. The trial lawyers told him to stay away from Proposition 211, so he hid. Rose Bird asked him to stay away from her recall and he hid. Now, the unions and the Indians are both telling him to stay away from Proposition 5, so he's hiding."
Davis' campaign manager, Garry South, bristles at the charge that his candidate has a tendency to duck tough issues.
He points out that Davis wasn't shy about taking a stand in support of affirmative action as a University of California regent, despite the tide of public opinion against it in 1996.
"Davis led the fight ... facing down (Gov.) Pete Wilson and all his cronies on the Board of Regents, knowing full well that that was going to end up on the ballot, and knowing full well that it was likely going to pass," South said.
By contrast, he noted, Lungren waited until the day before the 1994 general election to take a position on Proposition 187, the measure that sought to deny services to illegal immigrants.
"You talk about being mealy-mouthed. You talk about having no spine. It was the defining issue of 1994," South said. "Where was Dan Lungren?"
Lungren, who privately was said to have concerns about the measure, ultimately sided with Wilson and most members of his party in support of the measure. Davis opposed it.
"The hard thing to do politically is to do something at odds with your constituency, said Steve Merksamer, a Lungren adviser but an opponent of Prop. 187.
"It was not a difficult decision for Gray to oppose 187. Everybody in his constituency opposed 187. That was the easy way out."
Republicans also suggest that Davis has more trouble taking a stand when monied interests are involved, as they were in the NAFTA fight and with Proposition 211.
Lawyer Bill Lerach, the initiative's principle backer, has given nearly $250,000 to Davis since 1995.
In the case of the Indian gambling issue, Davis and other Democratic leaders have been caught between two special-interest friends.
Davis has already taken plenty of money from California Indian tribes in the governor's race, and was seen as sympathetic to their fight to retain their current gambling interests -- the principal objective of the initiative.
But labor groups unexpectedly -- and vigorously -- opposed the measure, which would nullify an alternative plan negotiated by Wilson that would require tribes to let some casino workers join unions.
Davis' campaign aides say he has stopped taking money from Indian tribes at the moment and is re-evaluating future acceptance of an increasingly controversial source of campaign cash.
Republicans suspect some of the money simply may be diverted to the Democratic Party, which also is opting to remain neutral on the initiative, to avoid publicity problems for Davis.
South said Davis simply "does not feel compelled to weigh in on every special-interest fight on the ballot."
"Gray's whole philosophy is to be selective," he said.
"Most of these are not put on the ballot by outraged citizens with pitchforks going into the town square to make things better. Most of these are put on the ballot by monied interests who can go pay mercenaries to get the signatures."
South said Davis angered liberal groups when he supported President Clinton's decision to sign welfare reform legislation in 1996.
"Our union friends didn't like it. Our minority friends didn't like it. Our Latino friends didn't like it," he said. "We took a lot of grief for it."
South added that Davis will side with utility companies -- and against consumer groups -- this fall in opposing what he believes is a badly written initiative effort to make California energy deregulation more consumer-friendly.
In the case of Bird, Davis lent his name to one of her fund-raisers the year before her reconfirmation, then argued during his race for state controller that he would remain neutral because the controller's office would have cases before the Supreme Court. South said last week that Bird also "was a friend of Gray's."
"Rose Bird herself asked state elected officials not to take a position on the race," he said. "It was her request."
Davis did anger a group of longtime friends this spring when he told reporters at a state party convention that as governor, he would veto legislation to establish same-sex marriage in California if it reached his desk.
Key gay supporters, who knew Davis as the tie-breaking vote in 1996 in favor of a bill containing "domestic partner" benefit provisions, threatened to withdraw their endorsements.
Gay activist Eric Bauman, president of the Stonewall Democratic Club in Los Angeles, recalled his confrontation with Davis on the issue.
"I said to him, 'If you can tell me what makes your marriage to Sharon one iota more loving, more moral or more important than my relationship of 15 years with Michael, I'll move to your position,' " he said.
Bauman said Davis looked at the floor. Later that week, facing 250 gay and lesbian members at the club's endorsement meeting, "Gray stood up and said, 'I cannot give you the answer you want to hear,' " Bauman said.
It is true that Davis' political caution in other areas has had its benefits.
He has compiled a public record so devoid of controversy that Lungren has been reduced so far to distorting Davis' votes on issues like offshore oil drilling and the death penalty to make his political points.
And Davis' overall loyalty to his friends with money has made him a formidable fund-raiser.
Labor money poured in to his campaign after the election, giving him a fund-raising edge over Lungren as the race begins.
But while neutrality at times has served Davis well in California's less prominent constitutional offices, Lungren's supporters this time will make the case that running for governor is different than serving in a down-ticket post.
"When you're confronted with 2,000 bills to sign or veto, you can't sit there and say 'I'll be neutral,' " Merksamer said.
"And the public has a right to know where you're coming from."