Bid for Vote on Gas Tax Falls Apart : Plan Stumbles on GOP Oaths, Lobby Pleas to Democrats

Top Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature, who announced earlier this month that they were near agreement on a plan to seek voter approval for a gasoline tax increase, conceded Monday that the proposed compromise has fallen apart and that there is little chance of resolving the issue before the session’s scheduled adjournment Wednesday.

Support for the plan among Republicans, considered critical because of their longstanding opposition to tax increases, had slipped since the Republican National Convention, where GOP presidential nominee George Bush condemned Democrats for favoring tax increases.

Hard Lobbying

Meanwhile, Democrats in Sacramento were lobbied hard by public employee groups and others who oppose raising taxes for transportation without assurances that other programs will benefit as well.

Some legislative sources also suggested that the FBI’s inquiry into corruption in the state Capitol, which culminated in a raid of legislative offices Thursday, distracted attention from the tax plan and other issues where support was already shaky.

“The impetus is gone and I don’t know how to get it back,” said Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), who has spearheaded the gasoline tax negotiations. After a final effort Monday afternoon to bring the two sides together, Campbell announced that the agreement had broken down.

“There will be no gas tax and we will all be sitting in our cars,” Campbell told reporters. “It’s good for oil companies, but it’s bad for the environment and bad for tempers.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who has been pessimistic about the proposal all along, characterized the negotiations as “a lot of talk and no action.” He blamed Gov. George Deukmejian for remaining aloof and and declared that there is “no chance” that a last-minute effort would produce an acceptable agreement.

Support for placing the gasoline tax question before voters surfaced last year. But the idea was not taken seriously in the Legislature until voters in June narrowly defeated Deukmejian’s plan to raise $1 billion for transportation through the sale of bonds.

Even strongly anti-tax Republicans suddenly grasped the tax measure as the only practical way for the state to raise the money needed to expand freeways and rebuild roads, although they insisted that the tax increase be officially declared a “user fee.”

In the Capitol, where Democrats have traditionally been identified with taxing proposals, Republican support was viewed as a political breakthrough.

Both sides quickly forged a tentative agreement calling for a measure on the Nov. 8 ballot to phase in an 8-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase--4 cents at the outset followed by a 1-cent hike each year for the next four years. California currently collects a 9-cent-a-gallon fuel tax as well as a 6% sales tax in addition to the 9-cent-a-gallon federal tax.

But thorny questions were raised over how to deal with the state’s voter-approved spending limit.

In effect since 1979, the limit caught up with state government last year when the Legislature was forced to rebate more than a $1 billion to taxpayers. It generally agreed that if lawmakers were to raise the gasoline tax on their own, the additional money would almost certainly have to be returned to taxpayers unless voters agree to alter the limit.

Party Viewpoints

The problem is that many conservative Republicans, including Deukmejian, do not want to tamper with the limit while Democrats, prodded by their constituents, want the ceiling lifted for a variety of programs, not just transportation.

While the Republicans were meeting two weeks ago in New Orleans to nominate their presidential ticket, Democratic leaders in Sacramento came under heavy pressure not to allow the GOP to lift the spending limit just for transportation. Proponents of additional school funding, more health spending and other programs argued that doing so would deprive them of their political leverage.

“Now that they know we want (the tax measure) they are trying to get everything they can from us,” complained Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who had strongly backed the proposal.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), who chairs the Transportation Committee, acknowledged that “a lot of pressure” has been applied to Democrats. But he contended that Republicans lost their nerve after hearing convention speeches attack the “tax and spend” policies of the Democratic Party.

“The Republicans spent a week in New Orleans drinking the no-tax wine and got caught up in the rhetoric,” Katz said. “Their resolve to solve the problem dwindled in direct proportion to how many times they took the pledge. . . . I think the convention made a big difference because we were very close before that.”

Easing the Pressure

Others involved in the negotiations speculated that the FBI probe, which appears to have targeted at least four legislators, may have taken pressure off the Legislature and the governor to forge an agreement.

“People were looking for some excuse not to act and (the investigation), in effect, may have provided that excuse,” said Roy Heatly, who represents building contractors who are pushing for the tax plan.

If the Legislature adjourns without acting, it will not be able to place the tax question before voters until 1990 without a costly special election. Barring that, Campbell said, there is little the Legislature can do to resolve the transportation question.

Said Campbell: “More money is needed to expand the (transportation) system and how else can you do that without a vote of the people?”

Staff writer Noel K. Wilson contributed to this story