Davis Names Huerta to UC Regents Board

LESLI A MAXWELL / Sacramento Bee 10sep03

Gov. Gray Davis has appointed farm labor icon and Democratic activist Dolores Huerta to the prestigious University of California Board of Regents -- a deal he struck to secure a key vote for a second appointee who has given more than $300,000 to his political campaigns.

Co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, the 73-year-old Huerta will serve the six months remaining in the term of Norman J. Pattiz, founder and chairman of the nationwide radio network Westwood One.

"I'll bring the perspective of working people, working poor, women and people of color to the board," Huerta said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It may be a perspective that hasn't been widely represented."

Davis announced Huerta's appointment late Tuesday, a day after his nomination of Pattiz for a new, 12-year term on the 26-member board was in jeopardy in the Senate Rules Committee.

A Monday confirmation hearing for Pattiz was canceled after Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, refused to vote for the radio mogul until Davis agreed to also appoint a minority woman. Romero said she suggested Huerta.

"I made it very clear that I wanted diversity on the UC board," Romero said. "I told the administration to bring me some nominations that reflect what California looks like. I'm happy with this result. It was worth the fight."

Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio said Romero's demands did not prompt the governor's choice of Huerta.

"She is a folk hero, and she will bring a unique perspective to the Board of Regents," Maviglio said.

Huerta's term will expire in March -- the same time that Pattiz's current appointment was scheduled to end. Davis named Pattiz to the Board of Regents in September 2001 to serve 2 1/2 years remaining in the term of S. Stephen Nakashima, who resigned.

Now, if confirmed, Pattiz will remain on the board until 2015.

Pattiz has donated $125,000 to Davis' campaign to fight the recall. He has been a loyal contributor since 1998, giving more than $200,000 and hosting a cocktail party at his Beverly Hills home for the governor and the media during the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

Most of Davis' appointees to the UC board have been generous campaign donors, including chairman John Moores, owner of the San Diego Padres; George Marcus, a Palo Alto real estate magnate; Haim Saban, founder of Fox Family Worldwide and Saban Entertainment of Los Angeles; and Richard Blum, a multimillionaire investor and husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Huerta, who earned a teaching certificate in the early 1950s at Stockton College, now known as Delta College, and has honorary doctorate degrees from three universities, has not donated money to Davis. The famous labor leader who built the UFW with Cesar Chavez has campaigned on behalf of the Democratic governor.

Romero said the force of Huerta's personality and stature in the Latino community will make her an influential regent despite the brevity of her term.

"She'll have enough time to get her foot in the door and establish a voting record," Romero said. "She will do what's right for the students."

Huerta and Pattiz could be confirmed in the Senate Rules Committee as early as Thursday, said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco.

Delores Huerta Named UC Regent 

CHUCK SQUATRIGLIA / SF Chronicle 10sep03

Gov. Gray Davis appointed longtime labor and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta to the UC Board of Regents on Tuesday.

Huerta, who with Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union, is synonymous with the labor movement, and her appointment caps an activist career that began 48 years ago, fighting segregation and getting out the vote in Stockton.

"I'm very excited and very thrilled that this could happen," Huerta, 73, said Tuesday night as she hustled off to a class at the University of Southern California to teach a new generation of activists. "It's totally out of the blue."

Davis named Huerta to complete a term that expires in March. He said her record of public service and background in education -- she began her career as a schoolteacher -- made her a logical choice for the post.

"She's a folk hero," said Davis spokesman Kevin Ryan. "The governor thinks she'll bring a unique perspective to the board. She has served the underserved people of California with dignity and grace over the years."

Huerta's appointment comes just four days after Davis signed legislation allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, and it is sure to be seen by critics as an effort to solicit Latino votes as he battles the Oct. 7 recall.

Ryan downplayed such criticism, saying the governor had appointed a highly qualified candidate to a vacancy on the board.

"He's conducting business as he would normally," Ryan said. "There's a vacancy, and he believes she is the best nominee for the job."

Huerta's supporters agreed.

"She'll make sure the sons and daughters of farmworkers and the urban poor will have access to higher education," said Fred Ross Jr. of Service Employees International Union and a 40-year friend of Huerta. "I think it's great."

A lobbyist and civil rights activist, Huerta joined with Chavez in 1962 to found the National Farm Workers Association, a precursor to the UFW.

Over the years, she has participated in countless boycotts and strikes, and she has been arrested 22 times -- making her perhaps the first nominee to the Board of Regents with a rap sheet.

Huerta said her history of serving immigrants, laborers and the poor made her well-suited to help shape UC policy.

"I would bring my experience of working with working people, Latinos and immigrants and my own personal experience with the educational system" to the board, she said.

Although she declined to say what she hoped to accomplish on the board, Huerta is well known for her opposition to Proposition 209, a voter-approved initiative that bans state affirmative action programs, and Proposition 54, an Oct. 7 ballot measure that would prohibit the state from collecting racial and ethnic data.

Both measures are tied to Regent Ward Connerly, who would sit alongside Huerta should the Senate approve her nomination. Connerly was the spokesman for Prop. 209 and is the engineer of Prop. 54.

"Ward Connerly has more than met his match in Dolores," Ross said. "She's taken on a lot tougher characters and defeated them. It'll be fascinating to watch."

Huerta's friends called her a skilled negotiator with a knack for leading others to compromise and said they didn't doubt she would bring that same levelheadedness to the board.

"Dolores is not a shrinking violet," said Herman Gallegos, a founder of the National Council of La Raza and friend of Huerta's for 50 years. "She will speak up if need be. She has a lot of experience negotiating and working with people who might be considered adversaries."

Gallegos also said it would be a mistake to think Huerta would be concerned only with issues facing Latinos, or that she would be beholden to a single constituency.

"She won't be a Hispanic regent; she is a regent who happens to be Hispanic, " he said. "She will serve all the people."

Huerta was born in New Mexico in 1930; her parents divorced when she was 3 years old. She moved with her mother and four siblings to Stockton, where her mother bought a hotel.

She attended the University of the Pacific's Delta Community College in Stockton, where she studied education but fell a few units short of her degree.

She briefly taught elementary school but felt she could do more good by helping organize migrant farm workers, according to her biography.

That led in 1955 to a stint with the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization, which fought against segregation and police brutality and organized voter registration drives.

It was the start of an activist career that continues even now, despite a near-fatal brain aneurysm three years ago.

She rallied farmworkers in upstate New York in May and encouraged the organizing efforts of grocery clerks at Berkeley Bowl in June.

Last summer, she marched 165 miles in 100-degree heat from Merced to Sacramento to persuade the governor to sign a bill granting farmworkers increased bargaining power.

Most recently, she launched the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which aims to train a new generation of activists.