Bill Shifting Costs of Courts to State Sent to Governor

Landmark legislation that would shift the burden of trial court costs from the counties to the state, allow Gov. George Deukmejian to name 109 new judges and permit experimentation with the jury selection process was passed by the Legislature early Saturday morning just before it shut down for the year.

In the waning hours of the legislative session, the Senate also rejected a bill that would have prohibited job discrimination against AIDS patients--a major shift in policy from a year ago when similar proposals twice won the Senate’s approval.

The actions were among dozens of hurried decisions--including rejection of trauma center funds and approval of new car pollution controls--made by the Assembly and Senate as they struggled to meet their midnight Friday deadline for adjournment.

With a burst of self-congratulatory speeches, the Assembly shut down at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. The Senate, meanwhile, staggered to a halt shortly after 3 a.m.--but only after two senators who had gone home to bed were called back to cast crucial votes on the court-financing legislation.

Debate on Incidentals

Crushed as they were under the weight of the state’s major legislative issues, lawmakers found time to engage in vigorous debate of incidental matters, ranging from the propriety of naming public facilities after themselves to the merits of the Vietnam War.

“After months of debate, conflict and honest differences strongly felt, we were able to engage in give and take, negotiations and compromise,” said Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) after the Assembly adjourned.

Before leaving for a three-month vacation, legislators in both houses passed and sent to Deukmejian a bill that would give the state the responsibility to pay for all operations of the Municipal and Superior Courts.

Hastily drafted on Wednesday, the bill would relieve county governments of $285 million in expenditures, a move long sought by county officials.

In an effort to relieve court congestion, the legislation also would create 64 new Superior Court judgeships, 34 Municipal Court positions and 11 more appellate court seats. Deukmejian, who campaigned for reelection last year on his record of appointing “common-sense judges,” would be empowered to fill all the new seats.

The legislation was the product of last-minute negotiations between lawmakers and the governor’s office. Asked during a news conference Saturday whether he will sign the bill, Deukmejian said, “I would like to see the final version, but I think you can say I am certainly leaning in that direction.”

Deukmejian had called on legislators to agree to a number of “reforms” to speed up trials as a condition of his approval for the state’s takeover of court financing. One of his chief complaints about the current system is the often-lengthy examination of potential jurors by attorneys.

But the final result gave the governor far less than he had wanted. Rather than authorizing major changes in the jury-selection process, the bill would allow Santa Cruz and Fresno counties to establish pilot projects to test a system in which judges, rather than the attorneys, would question potential jurors before selection of the jury.

The bill, carried by Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), was passed by a 75-1 vote in the Assembly, where Speaker Brown had played a major role in drafting the measure.

Nearly Derailed

In the Senate, the bill passed 28 to 10, but only after opponents nearly succeeded in derailing the measure on procedural grounds. Finally, Sens. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose) and Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale), who had left the Capitol earlier in the evening, were summoned back to vote for the measure just after 3 a.m.

Opponents insisted that numerous legislative rules were violated in bringing the bill to the Senate floor. But supporters said the legislation was so important that the end justified the means.

“This kind of hanky-panky I go along with,” said Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia).

Beginning next July 1, when the legislation would take effect, the direct cost to the state is expected to be $770 million. But the state would receive $456 million that the counties now get in legal fees and fines. The new judges would add another $46.8 million in state costs to the court-financing package, bringing the total net cost to the state to about $332 million.

In refusing to adopt the AIDS anti-discrimination proposal, the Senate rejected a bill by Assemblyman Art Agnos (D-San Francisco) that would have broadened the state’s AIDS policy and softened confidentiality requirements for AIDS tests.

Conservative members of the Senate, led by Sen. John Doolittle (R-Rocklin), defeated the measure on the grounds that some workers with AIDS, including those who work in food preparation and health care, should not be protected from losing their jobs.

The measure was rejected by a vote of 18 to 16, three short of the number needed for passage, when several lawmakers who had supported anti-discrimination provisions last year refused to vote for it. One of those was Davis, who was listed as a co-author of the bill.

“I don’t think there’s any question but what it’s a shift (in policy),” Doolittle said. “There’s a much greater awareness on the part of the members of the Senate of the AIDS issue and the impact it is having out there amongst the electorate.”

Growing Fear

Democrats who supported the bill blamed its defeat in part on growing fear among legislators and the public that, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, AIDS can be easily contracted.

“I think that there is an element of fear that AIDS can be spread in a more casual manner,” said Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles). “I don’t agree, but nevertheless the fears of the people in the house (the Senate) are something we have to take into consideration.”

Agnos, who at first was too angry to discuss the bill’s defeat, said later, “What we have is the politicization of AIDS in a far more pronounced fashion than before. Politicians are fearful about this disease as individuals and as public officials.”

Agnos’ bill was designed to appeal to some conservatives by altering several controversial provisions in the present law. The bill would have required that the entire medical team treating a patient be notified that the patient has AIDS--not just the doctor, as is now required.

It also would have eliminated the requirement that doctors receive the written consent of a patient before administering a blood test for exposure to the AIDS virus, substituting instead a requirement that the physician receive a patient’s verbal permission for the test.

Koop’s Recommendations

In addition, the bill would have incorporated the recommendations of U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop into state law, and created a commission to address the AIDS issue.

Like many of the bills defeated in the closing hours of the session, Agnos’ measure can be brought up for a vote again next year. Roberti expressed optimism that during a calmer time, backers of the bill can round up the votes they need to pass the measure.

In the final hours of the session, both houses of the Legislature passed and sent to the governor a bill that would require auto makers to install canisters to trap unburned fuel vapors, beginning with the 1991 model year.

The Assembly, however, voted along partisan lines to reject Democratic efforts to restore $20 million in funds for hospital trauma centers. The money had been vetoed from this year’s budget by Deukmejian.

The Senate, meanwhile, in a rebuff to the Republican governor, refused to approve his nomination of Barry Carmody as director of the State Division of Industrial Accidents. Carmody, who had been opposed by police unions, among others, had been accused of allowing a huge backlog of injured worker appeal cases to grow during the year he held the post.