Governor names Republican to fill troubled Veterans slot

Tuesday December 17, 2002

By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO (AP) Democratic Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday named the sole Republican senator to support this year's state budget as the new head of the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs.

Former Sen. Maurice Johannessen, R-Redding, is the department's fourth secretary in as many years as it plans a major expansion. The Korean War-era Army veteran promised to shake up the department as well.

Davis and Johannessen, who left the Senate at the end of November because of term limits, denied that Johannessen's budget vote prompted the job offer from the Democratic governor.

But Sen. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, issued a statement accusing Johannessen of accepting ``a pure political payoff'' for a vote Johnson said helped Davis disguise the extent of the state's budget woes long enough to win re-election last month.

Conservative on most issues, Johannessen broke with fellow Republicans last June 29 to create the two-thirds Senate majority needed to approve the budget and pass $3.6 billion in budget-balancing tax increases.

The vote prompted the Senate's other 13 Republicans to banish Johannessen from their caucuses.

Senate leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, predicted Johannessen will be confirmed by the Senate with majority Democrats' support, despite Republicans' outrage.

``He'll shake up the department that needs shaking up,'' said Burton, who blocked confirmation of Davis' last appointee, Bruce Thiesen, in September after Thiesen held the post for 10 months.

Burton had complained the department's problems ``persisted and even worsened'' under Thiesen, a former state and national commander of the American Legion.

Davis had sharp words for the rejection of Thiesen by his fellow Democrats, and since reinstated Thiesen as the department's deputy secretary of operations, which does not require Senate approval.

Davis' first secretary of veterans affairs resigned after five months. His second appointee, Tomas Alvarado, was forced to resign in 2000.

Johannessen warned a roomful of department employees Tuesday against ``petty politics within the department...I can guarantee they will not be tolerated.''

Department officials have been accused of firing employees and replacing them with their friends.

He promised to shake up the department in line with his business background and 17 years as a legislator and local politician.

``I have talked to the governor at great lengths about the changes that need to be made,'' said Johannessen.

The department made a surprise $3 million cut in services at the veterans home in Yountville earlier this year because of its failure to collect outstanding federal payments.

And a critical audit last month of a whistle-blower's complaint concluded the Yountville home routinely billed Medicare for patients a doctor never saw.

Davis, however, outlined improvements he credited mainly to Thiesen's leadership, including swifter approval of veterans home loans, restoring the fiscally troubled disability insurance program, and increasing the percentage of state contracts to disabled veterans.

``There's been a bad rap on Veterans Affairs for many years,'' said John Lowe, state adjutant quartermaster for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, but he agreed conditions have improved under Davis.

He praised Johannessen as ``a veteran-friendly senator'' who helped approve 37 bills while chairing the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, including measures authorizing a veterans' cemetery in Redding and five new veterans homes.

Johannessen will now oversee the onset of the major expansion from the three veterans homes currently operated by the department. Davis earlier this year approved the five new homes in west Los Angeles, Lancaster, Saticoy, the Central Valley and Shasta County.

Johannessen is a 68-year-old Norwegian immigrant who was Redding's mayor and a Shasta County supervisor before he was elected to the Senate. There he served nine years representing a district that stretched from Fairfield to the Oregon border.

He said he already was well into his retirement when Davis called last week. The new position pays $131,412 a year.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)