Bid to Bypass Governor on AIDS Tax Credit Stalls in Senate Panel

An effort to bypass Gov. George Deukmejian and place a measure on the June ballot to authorize a tax credit for contributions to AIDS research stalled Tuesday when a state Senate committee urged sponsors to negotiate a compromise proposal with the governor.

Members of the Senate Constitutional Amendments Committee balked at putting the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, arguing that the state’s tax policy should not be written into the Constitution.

“To try to write legislation of this sort into the Constitution would end up destroying the whole process,” asserted Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose). “You might as well forget about having a Constitution.”

The measure, carried by Assemblyman Johan Klehs (D-San Leandro), would revive a proposal vetoed by the governor last year and grant a 55% state income tax credit for donations to a special AIDS research fund. The money would be distributed among public and private research foundations.

Unlike last year’s bill, the proposed constitutional amendment would not require the governor’s signature.

Sponsors of the tax-credit plan, including state Controller Gray Davis and anti-AIDS activist Bruce Decker, estimate it would raise $150 million for AIDS research during a 2 1/2-year period.

Donors would be able to deduct 55% of their contributions from their state tax obligation.

Sponsors of the measure hope to place the amendment on the June ballot as an alternative to an initiative sponsored by extremist Lyndon LaRouche. That initiative would require doctors to report the names of patients who test positive for exposure to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome virus. Carriers of the disease could be subject to quarantine under the initiative, which is nearly identical to Proposition 64, a LaRouche measure rejected overwhelmingly by the voters in 1986.

“We need to have a responsible alternative to that irresponsible and dangerous initiative,” said Decker, a Deukmejian appointee to the California AIDS Advisory Committee.

But Decker and Davis, recognizing that they may have difficulty winning the necessary two-thirds vote in each legislative house for the constitutional amendment, have also begun circulating their own initiative that would put an AIDS tax-credit proposal before voters in November. They have until June 6 to collect 372,178 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot.

Last year, the AIDS tax-credit proposal won the unanimous support of both houses of the Legislature. But Deukmejian vetoed the legislation, saying the method of financing AIDS research was a departure from the normal budget review process. In addition, the Republican governor noted there are no tax credits for a variety of other diseases, including cancer, muscular dystrophy and arthritis.

By incorporating the tax-credit plan into a proposed constitutional amendment, supporters sought to circumvent Deukmejian. But the Senate committee, instead of voting to send the measure to the Senate floor, suggested that the sponsors of the proposal attempt to persuade the governor to support a compromise that would not require a constitutional amendment.

Willing to Listen

According gubernatorial spokesman Tom Beerman, the governor’s opposition to the tax-credit plan has not softened, but he is willing to listen to what the advocates of the plan have to offer.

If no compromise is reached, committee members said they could meet again to reconsider the proposed constitutional amendment. In order to put the measure on the June ballot, the Legislature would have to act by Jan. 28.

Meanwhile, Dr. Laurens White, the incoming president of the California Medical Assn., told reporters that Deukmejian’s proposed budget of $70 million to combat AIDS during the next fiscal year should be tripled to provide adequate funding.