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TOM AMMIANO: GAY CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLYMAN JOKES TO PUSH A SERIOUS AGENDA

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, speaks at an AIDS rally in June
to fend off health cuts in the state budget.

BY JIM SANDERS
The Sacramento Bee

Don’t expect Assemblyman Tom Ammiano to celebrate by puffing a joint if he succeeds in legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California.

He says he’s “basically a martini guy.”

To a stuffed-shirt, suit-and-tie Legislature, Ammiano is the saucy-spouting jester with a no-nonsense political agenda.

The openly gay, first-year lawmaker with the gold stud in his left ear is just as likely to dance in salsa steps through the political aisle as reach across it.

A stand-up comedian, Ammiano has chided opponents to “walk a mile in my pumps” and last year said that he and San Francisco Democrat Fiona Ma – who is not necessarily a political ally – “cannot wait to be in the Assembly together with matching outfits.”

When the Assembly was locked into all-night budget talks last winter, Ammiano broke the tension while joining colleagues for a brief nap in the lounge.

“He said he hadn’t slept with that many people since the ’70s,” recalled Assemblyman John Perez, D-Los Angeles.

Behind the wisecracks is a San Francisco Democrat whose proposals this year ranged from a resolution opposing a ban on same-sex marriage to legislation that would restrict bank fees for overdraft protection programs.

Responding to a fatal New Year’s Eve shooting in which a former Bay Area Rapid Transit District police officer has since been charged, Ammiano proposed that BART create an agency to investigate police misconduct.

“It’s easy to look at the humor and not look at the substance,” Perez said of Ammiano, who chairs the influential Assembly Public Safety Committee.

“Whether you agree with him or not, what people admire is someone willing to speak their mind,” said Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara. “He speaks his mind.”

Shouts it, in fact. Ammiano erupted last month during Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance at a Democratic fundraiser after slashing core Democratic programs this year.

“You lie!” Ammiano screamed at the GOP governor, parroting words yelled by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., at President Barack Obama during his speech to a joint session of Congress.

Published reports say Ammiano went even further, shouting at Schwarzenegger to “kiss my gay ass,” a comment he says he doesn’t remember making.

Weeks later, Schwarzenegger killed one of Ammiano’s bills with an acrostic veto message that spelled out an epithet beginning with “F” and ending with “you” when the first letters of consecutive lines were read vertically.

Republican Harmeet K. Dhillon, who lost to Ammiano in last year’s Assembly race, said yelling at Schwarzenegger was rude and vulgar, and jeopardized San Francisco’s interests by antagonizing the governor.

“That’s good theater and bad politics,” she said.

Ammiano hopes the controversy will die, but he does not apologize for his eruption.

“This was like if Tommy Lasorda had showed up at a Giants event,” Ammiano said of his city’s antipathy toward the former Los Angeles Dodgers manager.

Dhillon said shouting is not Ammiano’s only weakness. He acted arrogantly by declining to debate during last year’s Assembly race, she said.

Other acquaintances say privately that Ammiano can be stubborn, temperamental and unbending at times – but never dull.

Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is quick to defend Ammiano. “Sometimes people compromise too easily and too freely, and you lose the essence of the position you’re taking. Tom doesn’t do that – and I think it’s fine.”

San Franciscan John Burton, the state Democratic Party chairman, said Ammiano is pragmatic, but “he’s not going to compromise his principles just to say he got something done.”

Ammiano anecdotes abound.

“Brad Pitt had a contract dispute, so I had to do it,” Ammiano told reporters about his cameo role in “Milk,” a motion picture honoring San Francisco gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, whom Ammiano knew personally.

Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, laughs about Ammiano’s reaction during an Assembly debate on her bill to permit parking in both directions on certain dead-end streets.

Ammiano grabbed his microphone to say, “In San Francisco, people are well known for liking to go both ways,” Lowenthal recalled. “And the entire Assembly floor broke up.”

Ammiano, 67, is a New Jersey native and a former public school teacher who helped lead the 1978 campaign that killed Proposition 6, the Briggs initiative, which would have banned homosexuals from teaching in California.

“I’m very sensitive to people, particularly if they’re not being listened to, if they’re not being represented,” he said.

Aside from politics, Ammiano is a committed domestic partner; is close to an adult daughter that he fathered from sperm donated to a lesbian couple; doesn’t have much time for salsa dancing anymore; and reads science fiction and books about Dexter who is a “serial killer but only kills bad people.”

Ammiano’s résumé includes stints on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Board of Education, Golden Gate Bridge board of directors and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

A decade ago, Ammiano parlayed a brief write-in campaign into a runoff with Willie Brown for mayor of San Francisco, a race that one San Francisco Chronicle columnist dubbed “The Man Who Would Be King” vs. “The Man Who Would Be Queen.”

Brown won, but Ammiano flashed his comedic flair when critics’ characterizations verged on painting him a Marxist. He turned the slur around, quipping, “I’m a Groucho Marxist,” the Chronicle reported.

In San Francisco, Ammiano is known for helping to launch first-of-its-kind universal health care access and for pushing measures to extend marital privileges to domestic partners and provide identification cards to San Francisco residents regardless of immigration status.

Critics say Ammiano’s support for statewide legislation to legalize marijuana, to permit same-sex marriage and to honor Milk are an attempt to push California too far left.

“It destroys the fabric of society,” said Ken Mettler, president of the California Republican Assembly, a nonprofit political group.

“He’s the worst kind of politician because it’s all about him – his sexual anarchy and his anti-God agenda,” said Randy Thomasson of SaveCalifornia.com.

Ammiano said he is used to people taking “cheap shots” at his politics.

“Definitely left of center,” he said of his leanings. “I’m definitely what people used to call a liberal, but now it’s become a bad word.”

Assemblywoman Connie Conway, R-Tulare, said she and Ammiano are worlds apart politically but find common ground nonetheless.

“I admire his earrings,” she said, “and he admires my shoes.”

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