JBY MARTIN SNAPP
Staff Writer
December 1, 2006
As the most powerful political couple in the East Bay, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Assemblywoman Loni Hancock agree on almost every important political issue. The one thing they can't agree on, however, is when to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
"We got married on the Sunday after I was first elected (Berkeley) mayor in 1986, which happened to be Nov. 12," said Hancock. "He thinks we should celebrate on Nov. 12, but I think we should celebrate on the first Sunday after the first Tuesday in November."
"So in odd years we celebrate on my date, and in even years we celebrate on hers," added Bates.
This year they had a lot to celebrate as their 20th anniversary came five days after both were reelected by landslides.
Bates won 63 percent of the vote, the first Berkeley mayor to top 60 percent in almost 40 years.
"But she did even better," he said. "She got 80 percent, and the Democratic registration in the district is only 62 percent. That means a lot of independents and Republicans voted for her, too."
Back in the 1980s and '90s, she held his job and he held hers. She was mayor from 1986 to 1994, when she left to work for the Clinton administration.
He held the same Assembly seat representing Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Lamorinda, Pleasant Hill, Richmond and San Pablo from 1976 until 1996, when he was termed out. In 2002 they ran for each other's old jobs and won.
They're all business when they appear together in public. But when they sat down in their South Berkeley home recently to talk with the Voice, they showed a different face.
Although both are reserved -- even shy, in Hancock's case -- the affection between them was palpable. Without realizing it, they talked more to each other than to the interviewer.
They've been political allies since the early '70s, when he was a county supervisor and she and Ying Lee Kelly were the only liberals on the otherwise all-conservative Berkeley City Council.
"How things have changed," Councilman Gordon Wozniak said. "And in large part, it's due to Tom and Loni. Together, they've changed the face of politics in this city."
First impressions
In 1976, Bates went to lunch with Hancock and Kelly to ask for their endorsements in his first run for the Assembly.
"After we'd grilled him on all his positions, he said, 'Will you endorse me?'" Hancock recalled. "Ying said, 'Oh, yes!' I was sitting there, kicking her under the table, whispering, 'No, no! We don't know enough about him!'"
They endorsed him, he won, and he and Hancock were soon working closely on city-state issues. One day their working relationship shifted into a personal mode when he asked her for a date.
"It was like, 'Oh my goodness!' " said Hancock. "I was looking at somebody I knew well, but in a completely different way."
They were smitten from the start. And all you have to do is listen to them talk to realize nothing has changed.
"I had so much respect for her," he recalled. "She was so courageous, taking those lonely positions on the City Council. And she was so beautiful. She still is."
Hancock blushed. "I was this New York girl, and you were this football player from Southern California. And yet you always had these wonderful positions and wonderful programs, and I kept wondering, 'How did he get such good politics?'
"I think I instinctively always pulled for the underdog," replied Bates, who played tight end on the last Cal team to go to the Rose Bowl in 1959.
"And you were very good at it, too," she said. "Plus, you have a wonderful, easy warmth that's very charming."
"Thank you, sweetheart," he said.
Together, they have four children -- two daughters, Leita and Mara, from her first marriage and two sons, Casey and Jonathan, from his first marriage -- and seven grandchildren.
Though they're close to all four, none of the children followed them into politics. Leita is a chiropractor in Montpelier, Vt.; Mara is associate director of technical services at UC Berkeley; Casey is an assistant district attorney in Alameda County; and Jonathan is a wine purveyor in El Cerrito.
Unlike other power couples who say the secret of their success is leaving it all at the office, Bates and Hancock talk shop 24/7.
"It's our avocation as well as our vocation," Bates said. "Our staffs dread it when we go on vacation because we always come back with all these ideas."
After a vacation in July 2005 they came back with 16 items, including retrofitting old City Hall, neighborhood conservation zones, and a mayor's award for green buildings and businesses.
"And they didn't even wait for vacation to be over," says Bates' chief of staff, Cisco DeVries. "We were getting e-mails the whole time they were away."
Both attribute their marriage's success partly to the fact that they're both politicians.
"It's exceedingly difficult to be the spouse of an elected official," Bates said. "People don't treat you very nice. They don't intend it, but they elbow you out of the way to talk to the important one in the family. But since we're both public officials, that doesn't happen to us."
But there is room for confusion about who is who. Hancock recalled a trip to a Mayors for Peace meeting in Sakai, Japan (Berkeley's sister city), when she was mayor. At the airport, people rushed up to Bates and shook his hand, saying "Mayor Hancock! Mayor Hancock!"
The tougher job
Having held both offices, they agree that the mayor's job is harder by far.
"It's more in-your-face," Bates said. "What a politician hates most is when people judge you solely by one single issue, like an off-leash dog law. I've had four different office managers in four years because it's so difficult with people calling and yelling and being upset because the garbage wasn't picked up."
Hancock added, "I have it a lot easier as an Assembly member because my constituents and I are in sync on most of the issues I'm dealing with at the state level, like education, global warming and gambling casinos. But when I was mayor, I made somebody mad every time I made a decision."
During Hancock's tenure as mayor she negotiated a landmark agreement with UC Berkeley that marked the first time the university acknowledged a theoretical obligation to pay for some of the city services it receives -- an agreement her husband built on last year when he convinced the university to fork over $1.5 million per year as part of a lawsuit settlement.
She also convinced Bayer Labs to fund the Biotech Academy at Berkeley High and contribute to the city's Housing Trust Fund. And she won praise for her calm leadership during the Henry's Publick House standoff in 1990, when a gunman invaded the bar at the Hotel Durant and took the patrons hostage for hours, killing one and sexually abusing others, before dying in the police rescue operation.
During his first term, Bates led the city through a budget crisis that trimmed the city's work force by 10 percent, restored a more civil tone to often-acrimonious City Council meetings, and walked a tightrope in his relationship with UC Berkeley -- working with the university on projects such as the downtown hotel/convention center development while simultaneously fighting the university's construction plans near Memorial Stadium.
"They have complementary styles," said Councilwoman Linda Maio, who has served with both. "Tom can instantly grasp the big picture like no one I've ever worked with. Loni also has that ability, but she likes to make sure her I's are dotted and her T's are crossed. I think that's what makes them such a good team."
So how do they rate each other's job performance?
"I give him the highest marks for his environmental programs and doing things for kids," said Hancock, "as well as restoring civility and collegiality to the City Council. You can disagree with people and still remain civil, and that's what Tom has always stood for."
Bates praised Hancock for her prominent role in promoting educational reform, cleaning up the Zenaca toxic waste site in Richmond and, especially, fighting the expansion of gambling casinos in Richmond and Oakland.
"She's been fighting alone against all kinds of entrenched money and interests," he said. "This is a woman who really fights for what she believes in. I had her on a pedestal as somebody who was bigger than life, and that's exactly what she turned out to be."
Hancock blushed again.
Looking ahead
Hancock has only two years left on her Assembly term, after which she'll be termed out, just as her husband was before her.
By coincidence, the term Bates was just re-elected to is for only two years, in order to bring the mayor's race in line with the presidential election.
Scuttlebutt around City Hall is that they'll both retire, but other rumors have Hancock running for the state Senate seat currently held by Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," she said. "I love this work, but there are other things that interest me, too. So I'm thinking about it. A lot depends on how much we can get done in the next two years."
Bates said, "I didn't tell anyone, but I had a mental benchmark -- if I didn't get 60 percent of the vote, I wouldn't run for another term. Now a lot will depend on if I'm still having fun, and on how much I think I'm needed to see things like the transformation of downtown through to fruition. And, of course, a lot will depend on what Loni decides to do."
"If I got out of politics, I'd just as soon you stayed in," Hancock told him, adding, "He takes up a lot of space around the house, so I need to keep him busy."
Reach Martin Snapp at 510-262-2768 or e-mail msnapp@cctimes.com
PROFILE
• NAME: Loni Hancock
• AGE: 66
• EDUCATION: B.A. English/History, Ithaca College, 1964; Master's degree, Wright Institute, 1977
• Background: Assembly member, 2002-present; U.S. Education secretary's regional representative, 1994-2001; Berkeley mayor, 1986-94; Berkeley City Council, 1971-79; regional director of ACTION (now known as the Corporation for National Service), 1977-81.
• NAME: Tom Bates
• AGE: 68
• EDUCATION: B.A. Rhetoric, UC Berkeley 1961
• BACKGROUND: Berkeley mayor, 2002-present; state Assemblyman 1976-96, Alameda County Supervisor 1972-76
Copyright (c) 2006 The Berkeley Voice.