Analysis : Governor Puts Democrats in Toxic Pitfall

Gov. George Deukmejian seems to have pulled off a significant political accomplishment here this week by putting Democrats in the Legislature on the defensive with an issue that they would like to claim as their own--the fight against toxic waste.

And the skill with which he did it should be a worrisome portent for his potential Democratic challengers in next year’s gubernatorial campaign as they look for issues on which he is vulnerable.

By spelling out details for a new department of waste management and repeating his proposal for a $200-million bond issue for toxic waste cleanup on the 1986 ballot, Deukmejian placed Democrats in the awkward role of either endorsing his plans or appearing to be obstructionists on a public health problem that is of major concern throughout California.

Garamendi Strategy

Sen. John Garamendi of Walnut Grove, who ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for governor in 1982 and may run again next year, said it would be “foolish” for Democrats to be caught in either one of those positions, but admitted that the best strategy would be to join Deukmejian, not fight him.

“Democrats will work for and implement legislation to deal with toxic problems in their many facets,” he said. “We’re not going to block any of his areas to improve the situation. We’ll augment his efforts to join us in our decades-long effort.”

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), the author of several major pieces of toxic legislation, said Deukmejian obviously recognizes that toxics represent “the issue of the ‘80s” and “he’s doing something about it.” But he said that many of the toxic programs contained in the governor’s proposed 1985-86 budget first appeared in Democratic bills that were vetoed last year.

Source of Ideas

“He’s forgotten where he got the idea for some of that stuff,” Katz said.

Despite urging from the governor, however, the Democratic-controlled Legislature still has not passed an enabling bill to spend the $100-million bond issue passed by voters last November to clean up toxic dumps. Lawmakers are bogged down in debate over whether the money should be spent on many small dump sites or several large ones.

And Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said Tuesday in an appearance before the Associated Press News Executives Council that he would be unwilling to commit the state to any more bond money until the $100 million has been spent.

Brown also said the state should look to other sources of money for cleanup efforts and suggested that “before there is any additional need for bonded debt, we should seriously start imposing penalties on those creating the waste problems.”

In cases where that is not already done, however, fixing responsibility frequently constitutes a legal mine field that can bog down cleanup efforts in the courts for years.

It is likely that Democrats may revert to a historic campaign tactic as they approach an election year and simply charge that whatever the Republican chief executive is doing on toxics is not enough. But they will be hard-pressed to make the case if they have, in the meantime, thwarted initiatives that would do more.

Irony of Position

The irony was not lost on news executives Tuesday when Brown said on the one hand that the Deukmejian Administration was not vigilant enough on toxic problems but on the other hand spoke out against the $200-million bond issue.

Since the Speaker already is the author of a bill to consolidate the state’s toxic-fighting efforts into one department, it should follow that Deukmejian’s proposal for a single department would have clear sailing once it reaches the Legislature.

But even the governor concedes that some heated debate is inevitable. One major bone of contention, for instance, is apt to center on the control of pesticides.

Environmentalists have long wanted regulations of pesticides taken away from the state Department of Food and Agriculture, which environmental groups say is overly sympathetic to the farmers. The environmentalists want pesticide regulation in the hands of an agency chiefly concerned with control of toxics.

But agricultural interests, among Deukmejian’s major backers, want Food and Agriculture to retain control over pesticides, and the governor said this week that pesticide regulation would not be in the purview of his new department.

Speaker’s Measure

Neither does the Speaker’s bill as it currently is written assign pesticide control to a new department.

Aside from toxics, Deukmejian has already shown through a combination of political acumen and just plain luck his ability to preempt Democrats on many of their own issues--more money for schools, for instance--and even critics as severe as Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Cruz) found little to criticize in the governor’s 1985-86 budget proposal.

So the Democrats are looking to a more esoteric line of attack.

“Deukmejian is vulnerable in that he is shortsighted and has no vision of what the real needs of California are--not tomorrow but 10 or 15 years from now,” Garamendi said. “. . . This governor is a caretaker, not a builder. He’s willing to clean up yesterday’s problems but not prevent tomorrow’s problems.”