Hot Sarcasm and Ridicule Rule Capitol in Summer

Maybe it was the record 17 days of 100-degree heat in July. Maybe it was the Republicans being eager to head for New Orleans and this week’s GOP National Convention.

Whatever the reason, there can be little doubt after last week’s handling of an Orange County-sponsored bill that the California Assembly has started early on its annual end-of-the-session giddiness.

The bill would double--from $250 to $500--the maximum fine for illegally crossing the double yellow lines that separate car-pool lanes from the rest of the freeway. It is aimed at decreasing the number of such violations on the Costa Mesa Freeway, where motorists stuck in traffic often cause accidents by darting illegally into the car-pool lane to save time.

The measure’s author, Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) chose Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) to carry the bill on the Assembly floor. She was hoping that Ferguson’s right-wing credentials and past opposition to car-pool lanes would help her get enough Republican votes to put the measure over the top.

Instead, Ferguson was ridiculed for supporting an idea first pushed hard by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and his transportation director, Adriana Gianturco, the sound of whose name still boils the blood of the state’s business establishment.

“I urge you to support Gil Ferguson, Adriana Gianturco, Dick Floyd and Jerry Brown in keeping these (car-pool lanes) sacred,” said Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne)--perhaps the first person ever to link those four names in a single sentence.

Assemblyman Tom McClintock, a Thousand Oaks Republican and an unbending foe of car-pool lanes, described the bill as “stupid” and worked to defeat it.

Assemblyman Charles M. Calderon (D-Alhambra), a member of the “Gang of Five” dissident Democrats, also opposed the bill, alleging at one point that car-pool lanes might be responsible for the spate of freeway shootings that plagued Southern California last summer.

Another Republican wondered whether traffic law violators might be subject to the death penalty. Yet another announced his opposition by producing taped sound effects meant to mimic the sound of a machine gun “shooting down” the bill.

This prompted Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), who was presiding, to describe the debate as “the best case for having public television in this chamber that I have ever seen.”

When they got around to voting, Bergeson’s bill had 38 supporters, three short of the 41 required for passage. The number in favor of the measure later rose to 39, with several more legislators leaning toward supporting it. Then Ferguson nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Ferguson mistakenly allowed the presiding officer to announce the vote result as final before he had enough votes to win approval for the measure. Ferguson then was forced to plead for a waiver of legislative rules so the bill could be reconsidered and voted on again on the same day it was rejected.

After Bergeson arrived in the Assembly to lend her personal support to the effort to get the bill passed, Calderon, who had denounced the bill and voted against it, changed his vote.

Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) did the same, saying he had changed his vote only because of his friendship with Bergeson. A dozen vote switches later, the final tally emerged: 45-15 in favor.

Ferguson came out of the fray a little shellshocked, apparently stunned that McClintock, a fellow Republican, would try so hard to defeat the bill.

“Who would expect someone to work against a bill as innocuous as this?” Ferguson wondered. “I don’t like car-pool lanes, either, but I don’t like people getting killed.”