Democrats Plan Show Biz Touch in Budget Debate

Assemblyman Steve Peace helped produce the 1978 musical-comedy-horror movie “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” Now, the Chula Vista lawmaker is joining other Democrats to produce what they hope will turn the state budget debate into political theater.

And from Republican Gov. George Deukmejian’s point of view, it easily could become another comedy-horror show.

Assembly Democrats announced Thursday that they intend to whisk Deukmejian’s proposed budget through the Ways and Means Committee in record speed with relatively few changes, then bring it up on the floor of the Assembly for a vote in early April, about two months earlier than usual.

The idea is to convene the Assembly in a rare “committee of the whole” for several days and--under the glare of what they hope will be extensive news coverage--take public testimony, then debate and vote on the governor’s proposal.

Assembly Democrats believe that the governor’s budget is so fundamentally weak and politically unsound that the best way to defeat it is simply to call it up for a vote on its merits.

Democrats have been up in arms ever since the governor last month proposed a lean, $39-billion budget for the coming fiscal year, recommending only a 1.8% increase over current spending.

In his budget, the governor proposed reducing scheduled cost-of-living increases for welfare recipients and for the aged, blind and disabled. In order to finance smaller first-grade classes, Deukmejian also advocated eliminating education programs for gifted and minority students and those with reading problems. Another of his proposals was to end state responsibility for a number of county health programs.

At the same time, Deukmejian wants the Legislature to set aside $1 billion in a special reserve fund for emergencies.

Democrats do not want the cuts and favor paying for the programs with the money the governor is proposing to put in the reserve.

But, knowing that the governor can veto anything they put into the budget, they do not know quite what to do. That is how they came up with the idea of turning the Assembly into a stage.

Assembly Majority Leader Thomas M. Hannigan (D-Fairfield) said the streamlined budget process “is designed to highlight the deficiencies in the governor’s budget.”

Peace, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, is one of the principal drafters of the process. He said the budget process was badly in need of streamlining anyway, and the “committee of the whole” will provide the budget with an “extraordinarily dramatic” forum.

Theatrical terms were also used by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, when he outlined the new budget strategy for reporters during a news conference Thursday.

Risk Worth Taking

Vasconcellos said the plan was to move the budget debate from “routine, mundane” subcommittee hearings to the floor of the Assembly without recommending how the full Assembly should vote. Although he conceded that moving the budget to the floor of the Assembly without a recommendation would dilute the power of his committee, he said he thought the risk was worth taking.

The idea, Vasconcellos said, was to put the governor’s budget proposal “on center stage” and “turn the spotlight on it.”

Explaining himself later, Vasconcellos at first said he did not want to call the “committee of the whole” process “theater,” but then warmed up to the idea, expressing himself philosophically:

“Good theater serves a purpose, and that is to not simply amuse, but to awaken people to what their own choices are, moral choices,” he said.

‘At the Crossroads’

He added that the ancient Greeks used theater “to awaken people to their own existential choices about their lives. In a sense, the state has an existential choice to make--that’s why we are at the crossroads.”

Vasconcellos indicated that a combination of factors, ranging from a state constitutional spending limit to Deukmejian’s conservative budget policies, have left him frustrated after seven years as committee chairman. “We don’t have any magic anymore,” Vasconcellos said.

Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale said the Democrats’ plan would “totally disrupt” the orderly budget process and may also be illegal. “It’s all public relations oriented. They want a chance to stick needles in the governor’s budget,” Nolan said.