CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR IN BIGGEST POLITICAL CHALLENGE
By E.J. Schultz, Fresno Bee
Scripps Howard News Service
September 26, 2006, Tuesday 4:24 PM EST
If Jerry Brown was born into politics, Chuck Poochigian, you might say,
stumbled into it over breakfast.
The year was 1977. The occasion: a morning organizing event in Fresno
for then-state Sen. George Deukmejian.
Deukmejian was ramping up his run for attorney general and looking
for volunteers. Poochigian, fresh out of law school, seemed to fit
the bill.
"They were looking for someone who was a young attorney," he recalls.
And so began a nearly 30-year political career that this fall brings
Poochigian to his greatest challenge yet: a run for attorney general
against Brown, a better-known and better-funded Democrat.
To say the race is a study in contrasts is an understatement.
Poochigian, a 57-year-old conservative Republican state senator,
grew up on a family farm in rural Fresno County. He spent nearly 20
years volunteering for campaigns and working behind the scenes before
plunging into elected office in his mid 40s with his election to the
Assembly in 1994.
Brown, the mayor of Oakland, is the son of a governor. His entry
into state politics began with a bang when he was elected California
Secretary of State in his early 30s. He went on to serve two terms
as governor and make three runs for president.
Brown, 68, remains one of the most well-known politicians in
California, a fact that has helped him to a double-digit lead in
early polling and a more than $1million fundraising edge.
Poochigian says the gap can be closed.
"My challenge is to overcome my name identification," he said. "His
challenge is to overcome his record."
So far the candidates have spent more time attacking each other’s
past than debating the issues of today.
The Poochigian team conjures up the image of Governor Moonbeam, the
"flaky" and "too liberal" Gov. Brown of the 1970s and early 1980s who
supported a prisoners’ bill of rights and vetoed a bill to reinstate
the death penalty. (The Legislature overrode the veto.)
The Brown camp paints Poochigian as an "out-of-touch" and "extreme"
career legislator who voted with business and against the environment.
The rough-and-tumble of a statewide political campaign seems an
unlikely place to find Poochigian, a mild-mannered policy wonk who
seems more at home breaking down legislation than slinging one liners.
"For me the campaign is an essential path to having the opportunity to
serve, and that’s it," he said. "I’m not interested in politics for
the sake of just taking a victory lap. My reward comes from getting
into the job, doing the people’s business."
The grandson of Armenian genocide survivors, Charles Suren Poochigian
was born in 1949 and raised in Lone Star, an old railroad town
southeast of Fresno. His elementary school didn’t have a Cub Scout
troop or baseball team, so Poochigian got involved in the 4-H club
and worked on the family farm.
He got a business degree from California State University, Fresno,
in 1972 and a law degree from Santa Clara University in 1975. After
graduation he opened a general law practice with Steven Vartabedian,
a college and law school friend.
Vartabedian, now a court of appeal justice in Fresno, said he and
Poochigian were "short-hair-cutted geeks" in college, bucking the
long-haired hippie trend of the day. "OK, let’s calm down," was their
attitude, he said. "We’re here to get an education, we’re not here
to save the world."
That’s not to say Poochigian isn’t outgoing. Vartabedian saw the
political ability in him from the start. "You walk into a room and
he’s the kind of person that knows everyone and will converse with
so many people," he said.
A noted punster, Poochigian thrives on one-on-one conversations,
but shies away from the limelight of a news conference. When he first
came to the Legislature, reporters joked that his favorite quote was
"off the record: no comment," said Deborah Gonzalez, Poochigian’s
chief of staff for the past seven years.
Poochigian’s first full-time political job came in 1988 when he
was named to the senior staff of Gov. Deukmejian, whom Poochigian
would come to idolize. Poochigian was responsible for interviewing
potential appointees to boards, commissions and the judiciary – a job
he performed with a penchant for detail, Deukmejian said. His reports
were "much longer memos than I would normally get, and I used to kid
him about it a lot."
Poochigian, who had no intention of getting into politics, expected
it to be a "two-year stint and back home." But he ended up staying
on through Gov. Pete Wilson’s inauguration and took over as Wilson’s
appointments secretary after the governor’s initial choice resigned.
He ran for the Assembly in 1994, at the urging of Bill Jones, who
left the Fresno-area seat to run for Secretary of State. Poochigian
won the election easily and quickly became a behind-the-scenes
power player. As a freshman he was named chairman of the powerful
appropriations committee, a rare assignment for a rookie.
He was elected to the Senate in 1998, earning a reputation among
Republicans and Democrats as a fair-minded, hard-working legislator.
One of his greatest legislative achievements was carrying the 2004
workers compensation overhaul bill that has been widely credited
with saving employers billions of dollars. He has written numerous
crime bills, including one that closed a loophole that allowed child
molesters who targeted their own family members to avoid prison time.
He says he is guided by the principle that "the primary goal in
government is public safety."