I urge you and your staff to participate as fully as possible. The electioneering for Brown, who served as Assembly speaker for 15 years before retiring to run for mayor, is strictly voluntary and is to be done on the Assembly staffers' own time, said Villaraigosa's press secretary. But the push for campaign volunteers has caused grumbling among some legislative staffers, who complain that they are frequently hit on to do volunteer electioneering for Assembly members and candidates for state office. But because it's Willie, we're supposed to drop everything and run down there to ring doorbells. Robert Haaland, a leader in the campaign for Ammiano, questioned whether involvement of the state party meant support was soft for Brown in San Francisco.
People get out and support each other.
One of the few benefits of the mayoral election being in an off-year is that supporters of Willie Brown in Sacramento and elsewhere won't be tied down in other elections elsewhere in the state. Besides, he said, Brown has plenty of local precinct workers. He's the speaker emeritus' California Assembly Speaker and former MEChA Leader Antonio Villaraigosa waving Mexican flag and demading amnesty for millions of Mexicans who have illegally flocked to the United States. Four years later, Villaraigosa was elected speaker, after former Speaker Cruz Bustamante , also pressured by term limits, quit to run for lieutenant governor. Villaraigosa was in office for only six months before Brown left, but Brown went out of his way to befriend Villaraigosa, said the speaker's press secretary, Elena Stern.