Lawmakers Head Down to Wire on Bills

State legislators returned from their month-long summer recess Monday and began dealing with a mountain of bills that they must act on during the final three weeks of the legislative session.

Dozens of votes were taken on relatively non-controversial bills in both the Senate and Assembly, but they appeared to be just warm-ups for the tougher decisions that lie ahead.

Facing the lawmakers are proposed bond issues to finance toxics cleanup, school bus safety and other statewide programs; legislation that would require directors of state pension funds to sell securities in companies that do business with South Africa; a heavily lobbied bill to enact tax breaks for multinational corporations, and a decision on whether to build a new state prison in downtown Los Angeles.

In all, lawmakers must act on more than 1,500 bills by Aug. 29, when the 1985-86 session of the Legislature is scheduled to end.

Looming like a big shadow over their work and coloring just about every aspect of the political debate are the Nov. 4 elections to fill statewide offices, half of the 40 Senate seats and all 80 Assembly seats.

Interspersed with legislative action in the two houses will be the most intensive series of political fund-raising events of the year, as lawmakers prepare for the elections by inviting lobbyists and others interested in bills pending before the Legislature to join them at receptions, cocktail parties, dinners and barbecues.

The most pressing issues involve the bond measures, which got caught up in election-year politics in July. Lawmakers have linked together six bond measures, including a $150-million toxics cleanup bond proposal sought by Gov. George Deukmejian, even though they would be listed separately on the ballot. Thus, Assembly Republicans, in order to give Deukmejian his toxics cleanup measure, must agree with bond measures pushed by Democrats, something that they have so far refused to do.

Eu’s Deadline

Secretary of State March Fong Eu has said that in order to guarantee a place on the Nov. 4 ballot, she must have the bond measures no later than Friday.

Even at that, a special supplemental voter pamphlet would have to be published, at an extra cost of $1.5 million, because the Legislature is already too late to have pro-and-con arguments for the measures included in the regular ballot pamphlet.

However, passage of the measures appears far from certain.

Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale said Monday that he is still opposed to the bond issues, arguing that before the Legislature adjourned for the summer recess in July, it had already voted to place $1.8 billion in bond measures on the Nov. 4 ballot.

“We’ve already approved the highest amount of bonded indebtedness ever to appear on a ballot. We’ve already done that. There is just a limit to what we can put off on our children to pay for,” he said.

Democrats claim that Nolan does not want to help Democrats who are the targets of GOP challenges in the November legislative elections. Among the authors of the bond measures are three Democrats that Republicans hope to defeat: Assemblyman Richard Katz of Sepulveda, sponsor of a $100-million school bus safety measure; Assemblywoman Lucy Killea of San Diego, author of a $50-million environmental preservation issue, and Senate Democratic Leader Barry Keene of Benicia, sponsor of a $100-million measure to build and improve libraries.

Katz said Nolan personally told him that he would do nothing that would help the Democrat get reelected.

GOP Targets

Nolan acknowledged that Katz and Killea are GOP targets but denied that the political campaigns had anything to do with his opposition to the bond measures.

“They’re the ones that are being political,” Nolan said. “They don’t care about the substance of the issue; they want a bond issue with their name on it.”

Explaining the strategy of linking the bond measures, Keene said, “The only way any of these bond issues will pass is if there is a package sufficient to attract a consensus.”

He added, “I would guess that it is only the governor who is in a position to break the logjam at its source, a very stubborn Assembly Republican Caucus.”

In developments on another issue, Assembly Democratic leaders said they will meet today with Deukmejian to discuss a landmark measure that would require all of the state’s major pension funds to get rid of investments in firms that do business in South Africa.

Deukmejian long had opposed a tough anti-apartheid measure, but he changed his position during the summer, pressing for action by the University of California to cut all its financial ties with firms operating in racially torn South Africa.

Major Roadblock

The governor’s expected support for a strong anti-apartheid bill by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) could clear a major political roadblock that has been standing in the way of passage of a major corporate tax-break bill.

The measure, sought for several years by Deukmejian, would overhaul the state’s system of taxing multinational corporations on the basis of their worldwide earnings, as opposed to their earnings only within the United States. It would save the corporations at least $300 million in California taxes a year and possibly twice that if a broader bill is adopted.

Waters has blocked passage of the corporate tax measure in the Assembly by linking it to the South African political question.

Sources on both sides of the Los Angeles prison issue said a final vote on the bill will be taken Thursday.

Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), who is carrying the measure on behalf of the Deukmejian Adminstration, said he will push for a vote as soon as possible to reduce chances that the bill may be used as leverage by Democrats to get last-minute concessions from the Republican governor.

“We hope that won’t be the case,” he said.

Sen. President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Sen. Art Torres (D-South Pasadena) met over the weekend in a strategy session with community activists who oppose the prison and are expected to launch a last-minute floor fight to block the prison’s construction on a site about two miles southeast of the Los Angeles Civic Center.

Prison Project

Presley said he hopes to put together a coalition of lawmakers from throughout the state who are anxious to see Los Angeles County accept its first state prison project.

“Most of the legislators agree that there has to be a prison in Los Angeles,” Presley said, noting that state law requires that construction begin on a Los Angeles prison before the state can occupy new prisons anywhere else.

Times staff writers Richard C. Paddock, Leo C. Wolinsky and Stephanie O’Neill contributed to this article.