New course in Sacramento.

• Author: Weintraub, Daniel M.
• Position: California Assembly

What do you do when you follow the "Ayatollah" of the California Assembly? You do things differently, that's what you do.

Curt Pringle is acting like a man with little time to waste. Since taking over as speaker of the California Assembly in January, Pringle has calmed the strife that tore his Republican Party apart for most of 1995. He also has begun an overhaul of the Assembly's internal operations, orchestrated the passage of more than 200 Republican-sponsored measures and initiated a wholesale replacement of former Speaker Willie Brown's appointments to dozens of state boards and commissions.

Why the rush? Pringle has just one year to serve before Republicans must defend their slim majority at the polls, and a maximum of three years as speaker before term limits force him from the Assembly altogether. The Republican from Orange County says he does not intend to spend any of that time idle.

"I think I'm doing just exactly what Republicans want me to be doing, focusing on change around here," Pringle said recently in an interview in the ornate, 19th-century office he inherited from Brown. "I think that's what the electorate wanted in November of 1994. We were certainly denied that opportunity, to implement those changes in 1995. Now we're making them."

Pringle, 36, is California's fourth Assembly speaker in a year. He is the third Republican to serve since Brown, realizing his days in the job were numbered, resigned from the post he'd held for nearly 15 years. The first two Republican speakers to succeed Brown - Doris Allen and Brian Setencich - won the job with Brown's backing and the votes of Democrats, against the wishes of the Republican caucus. But after Allen was recalled from office in November, Pringle, with some help from California's Republican governor and its congressional delegation, was able to keep enough Republicans in line to seize the post from Setencich. He is the first Republican to win the speakership with Republican backing since Robert Monagan in 1968, midway through Ronald Reagan's first term as governor of California.

Now that Republicans have the prize they have long sought, however, they are busy dismantling its once awesome powers. Pringle and his colleagues often accused Brown of ruling by fiat, and they have vowed to eliminate this sort of "imperial speakership" forever. Many of the speaker's powers - including the right to allocate internal operating funds and name the members of policy committees - have been transferred to an 11-member Rules Committee whose members are picked by the majority and minority caucuses.

Democrats say this shift is mostly for show. As chairman of Rules, they say, Pringle has all the powers Brown once wielded; the committee simply rubber stamps the speaker's decisions. Assemblyman Richard Katz, the Democratic leader, says Pringle has not been bashful about using the powers he once accused Brown of misusing.

"He has done what Willie Brown did," Katz said. "He has used the powers of the speakership very carefully. In order to get your committee changed, you have to come see Mr. Pringle. In order to get your travel voucher, you have to come see Mr. Pringle. He's been very adroit at emulating Willie's speakership. Despite the rhetoric of reform, it's been business as usual."

But it is a business that clearly is under new management.

AS DIFFERENT AS NIGHT AND DAY

Katz's comparison notwithstanding, Pringle and his Republican colleagues in style and in substance have been...