FROM SACRAMENTO — Thanks a bunch, Mr. President-elect. You've just taken away California's best hope for government and political reform -- reform necessary to save this state.
It's understandable because Leon Panetta would excel in practically any job he undertook -- whether reforming Sacramento or retooling the CIA.
Bright, personable and pragmatic. Articulate and dedicated.
Experienced and knowledgeable in government -- if not as a spy, at least in managing people.
And two other assets: No one questions his integrity or intellectual honesty. Just a hunch, but I suspect there wouldn't have been any Iraqi WMDs reported out of a Panetta-run CIA.
Unfortunately, Panetta's crusade as a reformer of California's dysfunctional government had only just begun. And his departure will leave a large void very difficult to fill, if not impossible.
Apparently President-elect Barack Obama had some turn-downs in his search for a new CIA director. So he recruited Panetta.
It's typical Panetta. The 70-year-old former congressman and White House chief of staff needs another Washington job on his resume like he needs one more walnut tree in his 12-acre orchard near beautiful Carmel. But he's from the old school: When your president calls, etc.
"Washington's gain is California's loss," says Tracy Westen, chief executive officer of the Center for Governmental Studies, a think tank that promotes political reform.
"He was a very important voice. He had a lot of credibility and prestige in California. He could draw a crowd, create a headline and pull people together. When he asked people to come to a meeting, they came. I think the Legislature respected him. And there's not a lot of people like that in California."
"It's bad for the reform movement," says Tony Quinn, a Sacramento veteran who co-edits the California Target Book, which chronicles legislative and congressional races. "He was the face of it here."
Panetta has been co-chairman of a new reform group, California Forward, which played a significant role in winning narrow voter approval last November of Proposition 11. The ballot initiative eliminated the Legislature's power to gerrymander its own districts -- rig the elections -- and will turn the task over to an independent commission.
The fledging group's early and outspoken support for Prop. 11 was particularly important because Panetta is a Democrat. Most of the Democratic establishment opposed the reform, fighting to keep the party's gerrymandering power in the California Legislature that it almost always controls.
