State Legislators Combine Business, Fun in Annual Trip to U.S. Capital

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown was explaining why 43 members of the California Legislature were in Washington this week.

Some were lobbying Congress to spend more money on state programs, he told reporters. Others were meeting with officials of the Bush Administration.

And candidly, he added, “We even have some members looking at land use on the golf courses.”

30-Year Tradition

In keeping with a 30-year tradition, the San Francisco Democrat led the delegation of state lawmakers on a Washington journey of lobbying, sightseeing, wining and dining.

With more than a third of the state’s 120 legislators in the nation’s capital Sunday through Wednesday, the California Legislature has largely been shut down.

Joining Brown on the trip were Assembly Republican Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra, Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, many of the Legislature’s committee chairmen, a dozen legislative staffers and various family members.

In addition to Johnson, three lawmakers representing Orange County residents took the trip to Washington. They were Sens. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), and Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad).

In Sacramento, 14 legislative committees canceled or postponed their hearings this week and the Assembly and Senate met only briefly Monday.

Topics of Discussion

Many of the lawmakers who made the trip said it was an important part of their jobs to come to Washington and communicate with federal officials about the needs of California. They talked with members of Congress and the Bush Administration about banning assault rifles, obtaining more money for transportation projects and protecting the food supply from pesticide contamination.

But other lawmakers were clearly more interested in being springtime tourists.

“A lot of people are taking today to buy gifts for their families,” observed Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa) on Tuesday.

One of the most creative aspects of this year’s trip was the way it was financed. Proposition 73, the initiative approved by the voters last year to limit campaign fund raising, restricts the transfer of campaign funds among legislators and restricts gifts to elected officials.

In the past, special-interest groups have sponsored a gala dinner and other events for the visiting lawmakers and the California congressional delegation. Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) would collect the money in his campaign fund to pay for the events.

This year, to avoid the ban on transferring political funds, the lawmakers set up a nonprofit foundation to handle the money.

Called the California Legislative Forum, the foundation is headed by Phil Angelides, a successful developer who used to work as an aide to Roos. Angelides is a savvy Democratic activist who was so dedicated to presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis that he enlarged the dining room of his Sacramento home last year in order to host a fund-raiser for the Massachusetts governor.

In planning for the Washington trip, Angelides said the foundation solicited $2,000 donations from corporations and special-interest groups that had helped sponsor the excursion in previous years.

Altogether, the foundation raised more than $100,000 from the likes of the California Medical Assn., Pacific Telesis, U.S. Sprint, the Atlantic Richfield Co. and IBM, he said.

“It’s the kind of thing, frankly, corporations in California ought to do,” he said.

In exchange for their gifts, the sponsors were invited to send a lobbyist or other representative along on the Washington trip, where they were able to dine, talk informally or go sightseeing with legislators.

“Basically, there was a feeling the trip was important, and it ought to continue,” Angelides explained. “There’s a surprising amount of serious work. A lot of members are going to see congresssmen, but it’s also fun.

“Even public officials are human, and they need to go have a little fun. It’s an environment where people, on a non-confrontational basis, get to deal with each other.”

Recorded as Gifts

Angelides said the contributions will be recorded by each of the legislators as a gift, with the amount totaling about $200 each. Under Proposition 73, lawmakers are entitled to receive gifts or honorariums of no more than $1,000 annually from any one donor.

The money raised by the California Legislative Forum, however, did not cover many of the legislators’ personal expenses. Part of the tab for this year’s trip was picked up by the state’s taxpayers, and the lawmakers themselves paid a portion of the costs from their campaign funds.

Members of the Assembly spent campaign funds to pay for their air fare and to pay for their rooms at the posh Ritz-Carlton, where many of the delegation events were held. Brown explained that members of the Assembly used campaign money because some of their business here was political, such as a dinner Sunday night at the home of Democratic Party campaign treasurer Robert A. Farmer.

But state senators who made the trip had their air fare and hotel bills paid by the state, according to Cliff Berg, executive officer of the Senate Rules Committee who accompanied the group to Washington.

To set a serious tone for the trip, the delegation sponsored seminars Monday and Tuesday morning on such subjects as housing, adult literacy, the proposed savings and loan bailout and pesticide residues in food.

A group of lawmakers also toured the facilities of C-SPAN, the nonprofit organization that tapes congressional meetings for cable television.

Brown has introduced a bill in Sacramento to create a similar cable system in California that could broadcast legislative floor sessions and some committee meetings.

Legislators of both parties like the idea of setting up a state legislative cable system, in part because it would enable the Legislature to provide direct television coverage unfiltered by newspapers and television news. It would also make up for a lack of television news coverage of the Legislature. No out-of-town television station in California maintains a Sacramento news bureau.