Orange County Legislators Put Their Stamp on Bills for ’88

With most of the legislative needs of their region addressed during 1987, several of Orange County’s state lawmakers are ready to pursue individual goals during 1988, with bills that will make a philosophical statement, if not an imprint on state policy.

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) has a measure that would deny state housing funds to communities that impose rent control.

Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) plans to introduce legislation that would reduce the budget for the state Department of Education, eliminate county offices of education and transfer any money saved to classroom instruction.

Income Tax Credit

Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) will introduce a bill to give an income tax credit to commuters who ride public transit or participate in van pools.

And Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) proposes to give crime victim groups the same exemption from the state sales tax now enjoyed by the Boy Scouts.

These bills and dozens of others will be introduced this month by members of the Orange County delegation. Feb. 19 is the deadline for introducing measures to be considered during the second half of the 1987-88 legislative session.

It is a session that already is shaping up to be one of the most explosive in recent history.

The Senate and Assembly are considering Gov. George Deukmejian’s nomination of Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach) to be state treasurer. If Democratic majorities in either house reject Lungren, the bad blood that results can be expected to sour working relationships the Democrats have built with the Republican leadership and Deukmejian, who already has warned that such a move would ruin a spirit of cooperation fostered during 1987.

In the Assembly, Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) is scrambling to maintain the control he has held over the lower house since 1980, when Republicans helped elect him Speaker despite the wishes of a majority of Democrats.

Republicans Fighting for Control

Now, Brown is fighting off a challenge to his authority from five dissident members of his own party who, in a coalition with the 36 Republicans, have formed a majority in the 80-member house capable of passing legislation opposed by Brown and other liberal Democrats.

On top of that, 1988 is an election year, the second to last before legislative districts are redrawn following the 1990 census. Republicans desperately want to control at least one house of the Legislature by then to prevent a repeat of the last reapportionment, which they believe cheated them out of several seats in the Legislature and Congress.

“Until 1990, every day is going to become more of a political war around here,” Ferguson said. “There are two more opportunities for the Republicans to win. They’ve got the bit in their teeth. That’s what is going on, and it’s going to get more furious every day.”

To be sure, there are a number of changes in the law being sought by government agencies from Orange County, and the county’s lawmakers will be carrying bills to implement those requests.

The county, for example, is seeking authority to allow agencies that deal with child abuse to share information without the consent of the child’s parents. The county also wants to retain a greater share of funds recovered from welfare recipients who, through errors, have received more than their legal level of benefits.

County’s Priorities

And the county wants the state Department of Forestry to help it combat an infestation of the eucalyptus longhorn borer, a pest that is attacking trees in the Lake Forest area.

But most of the county’s major priorities were either taken care of last year or will be put on hold until 1989, said Richard Keefe, who directs Orange County’s legislative affairs.

“This is typical of the second year of a session,” Keefe said. “It’s a shorter year, it’s an election year, and it’s difficult to get major policy changes approved.”

Last year, the county and local transportation officials won permission, through a bill by Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), for toll roads to be built in the county. With the help of Seymour and Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra), they persuaded the governor to open a new Caltrans planning office to serve Orange County separately from Los Angeles. And the county sponsored a bill carried by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) that will allow traffic and parking fines to be increased to provide $5 million a year for courthouse construction projects.

Bill on Hold

Another Bergeson bill, which would allow Caltrans to contract with private companies for engineers to help plan and build freeways, was approved by the Assembly but remains on hold in the Senate. Bergeson delayed action on the measure at the end of the 1987 legislative session because conservative Assembly Republicans, including several from Orange County, protested provisions requiring Caltrans to try to farm out 15% of the work to firms owned by minorities and 5% to companies owned by women.

Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission, said the bill remains one of the commission’s major priorities for 1988. Bergeson said she intends to bring it up for a vote soon, and Oftelie said he is confident that the measure, which could speed highway construction in the county, will be approved and signed by the governor.

“We’re optimistic,” Oftelie said. “We should be able to have that one resolved in the first half of the year.”

Other commission goals for legislative action include a measure to nearly double the fines for violators of car-pool lane restrictions on the Costa Mesa Freeway, a measure to provide a permanent source of funding for freeway sound walls and landscaping, and a bill to allow the commission to spend funds now earmarked for mass transit on a proposed network of 21 “super streets.”

Increased Fines

The car-pool bill would increase the fine for violators to $100 from the current $52. Oftelie said the commission regularly receives complaints from motorists who see others driving alone in the car-pool lane.

“Orange County is a very law-abiding county,” Oftelie said. “They don’t like to see people cheat. We get a number of calls from people who complain about violators in the car-pool lane. A stronger fine would be one way to combat that.”

With relatively few requests from local agencies for legislation, members of the delegation say they will take advantage of the extra time to pursue philosophical goals or their own areas of expertise.

Assemblyman Ferguson has a bill that would exempt child care centers run by churches and parent cooperatives from state regulations that do not involve health and safety. He said excessive interference from the state has made it too difficult for such low-cost centers to operate.

In Through Back Door

“There are all kinds of regulations about how high the toilets can be and how many little chairs you have to have,” Ferguson said. “It makes the prices of day care centers outrageous.”

Ferguson also proposes to cut off housing funds for cities and counties that have rent control. He concedes that such a bill would never be approved by the Democrat-dominated Legislature, but he said he hopes to amend the provision onto a spending bill that would require Republican votes for passage.

“We can’t go through the front door with it, but we might be able to get in the back door,” he said.

Frizzelle said his legislation to provide up to a 10% income tax credit for people who use van pools or public transit is an effort to shift the burden for traffic management from businesses to individuals.

Education Bureaucracy

“This would provide a positive incentive for employees, rather than relying only on penalties for employers,” he said.

Lewis said his bill to cut back on the education bureaucracy would provide millions of additional dollars for classroom instruction.

An aide to Royce said his proposal to waive the sales tax on items that crime victims groups sell to raise funds is only fair, because the same rule now applies to the Boy Scouts and 4-H agricultural groups, among others.

Assemblyman Richard Longshore (R-Santa Ana) said he will introduce a bill to provide counseling to help the elderly avoid purchasing unnecessary insurance to supplement their government-provided medical benefits.

Education Reform

“There are a lot of people out there selling insurance to older people that doesn’t do a damn thing for them,” Longshore said.

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) said that, in addition to working on foster care, mental health, and fish and wildlife issues, she plans to continue her pursuit of education reform.

On that front, she has new bills to coordinate training for teachers already on school staffs, to provide a comprehensive approach to programs for pregnant and parent students, and to modify the manner in which special education programs are financed.

She also has legislation, dubbed the “bully bill,” to guarantee that the parents of children who are beaten or threatened have the right to learn what action is taken against the perpetrator. And she has another bill to improve teacher training by requiring student teachers to work with special “mentor teachers” in closely coordinated relationships with universities.

Trucker Safety

Seymour, who has carried several bills dealing with trucking safety in past years, has two new bills along those lines for 1988.

One would require the installation of a “black box,” similar to those used on airliners, on any truck with more than two axles. The box would record the speed of the truck and the hours it was in operation and monitor the driver’s use of the brakes.

The other bill would charge truckers a fee for the annual inspections performed by the California Highway Patrol and use the extra money to finance increased spot checks of trucks. Seymour said two such checks last year resulted in 22% and 34% of the trucks stopped being declared unsafe and removed from the road.

Seymour also plans measures providing more incentives for car pooling and ride sharing and establishing a state master plan for fighting drug and alcohol abuse.

Wetlands Projects

Bergeson said she will be concentrating much of her effort on winning approval for her bill to allow Caltrans to contract for engineers and another measure creating a privately controlled, special government district to ease development around the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

Bergeson also will be working on a bill to solve problems that counties have had with landmark court-funding legislation. The bill passed last year was designed to shift trial court costs from counties to the state. But officials from several counties, including Orange, have said they will not be able to participate unless their objections are resolved.

Bergeson also plans a major package of bills that will attempt to decrease the huge backlog of public works projects in the state.

“Everything is going to come to a standstill if we don’t put some focus on that problem,” she said.