New Effort on Governor’s Mansion Begun

SACRAMENTO — State legislators on Tuesday launched another attempt at building a new mansion for California’s governors, who have been officially homeless since Nancy Reagan moved her family from the old, creaky governor’s residence in 1967.

The action to create a state commission to oversee planning and construction of a governor’s home coincided with the arrival of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, who spent the night in a Sacramento hotel.

“It’s kind of disgraceful that the governor of California doesn’t have an official residence for these kinds of occasions,” said Sen. Ross Johnson of Irvine, leader of the Senate’s minority Republicans.

On a bipartisan 7-0 vote, the Senate Governmental Organization Committee approved a bill, SB 1091, by Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) that would establish the oversight commission.

The bill notes that along with living quarters, California governors need space to entertain dignitaries and host public receptions.

The measure, sent to the Appropriations Committee, contained no money for a mansion. But Ortiz said she will try to add $3 million earmarked for a mansion to Gov. Gray Davis’ proposed state budget.

Davis supports a new governor’s residence but opposes use of taxpayer funds to build it. “He doesn’t consider it among his top priorities,” said Sandy Harrison, a Department of Finance spokesman.

Davis has said, however, that he would back spending about $2 million from a state-supervised escrow account of private funds collected for construction of a new residence. Ortiz estimates that a new mansion and entertainment complex could cost as much as $13 million in public and private funds.

For more than half a century, construction of an official residence for California’s chief executive has been a classic political football.

In recent times, the Democratic-controlled Legislature has refused to approve money for a new mansion.

Senate researchers counted at least three times in the 1980s when various commissions were proposed to resolve the issue, but none found a solution. Back as far as 1944, the researchers found, the Legislature appropriated $200,000 for a mansion, but it was never built.

The last family to occupy the Victorian-style governor’s mansion in downtown Sacramento was the Reagans. They lived in the residence only briefly before fleeing to a rented home a few miles east of the Capitol in 1967.

Nancy Reagan called the governor’s mansion a firetrap and said she was not about to raise their young son, Ronald Jr., in the noisy, commercial neighborhood that rumbles with traffic.

Eventually, Reagan led a successful campaign to build a $1.3-million mansion for his successors on a several acres overlooking the scenic American River in suburban Carmichael. The state paid for the house, while Reagan’s political supporters bought the land.

But Reagan’s successor, Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., called the residence “a Taj Mahal” and refused to live in it. He opted instead for a studio apartment near the Capitol during his two terms.

The next governor, George Deukmejian, lived in a ranch-style house in a leafy suburban neighborhood several miles east of downtown Sacramento. The home was provided by Deukmejian’s political supporters.

When Deukmejian left, Gov. Pete Wilson moved in. The house is now occupied by Davis.