Legislature Nears Close, Scrambles to Resolve Issues

Legislature raced to adjourn its 1989 session Friday night, scrambling to resolve sticky issues ranging from workers’ compensation to health insurance to family planning to prison labor and gun control.

An ambitious proposal aimed at beginning the task of overhauling California’s troubled, $8-billion system for compensating injured workers seemed headed toward final passage, but still was facing 11th-hour sabotage efforts.

At the same time, Republican Gov. George Deukmejian and Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown successfully completed negotiations and put before the Legislature a scaled-back bill aimed at providing health care for uninsured workers. The measure relies on tax credits to try to induce employers to provide the health insurance.

Democratic lawmakers were also working furiously to try to restore a $24-million cut Deukmejian made last July in the state family planning budget. As a political trade-off, some Democrats said they would be willing to support the governor’s proposal, vehemently opposed by organized labor, to put prison inmates to work for private industry. But legislative leaders said they were pessimistic about resolving these issues, which although unrelated had become linked as bargaining chips on the Capitol negotiating table.

The Assembly was close--four votes short--to sending the governor a bill limiting the capacity of rifle ammunition clips to 15 rounds. That bill had dramatically passed the Senate on Thursday, but was encountering stiff opposition from the gun lobby in the Assembly.

The author, Assemblyman Johan Klehs (D-Castro Valley), argued that his bill would prevent incidents such as Thursday’s in Louisville, Ky., when an emotionally disturbed man with an AK-47 assault rifle--a weapon banned earlier this year by the California Legislature--killed seven people and wounded 15 before fatally shooting himself. “If these types of magazines were unavailable to the public, these types of incidents would not happen,” Klehs said.

The Legislature, which was not expected to adjourn until early this morning, is not scheduled to return to Sacramento until January, when it will begin the second half of a two-year session.

For legislators, Friday was a day of racing to meet deadlines, huddling together in corners to try to reach quick compromises, caucusing behind closed doors to map party strategy and voting on hundreds of bills they often knew hardly anything about--much of it played to full galleries of lobbyists and curious citizens.

The workers’ compensation measure was negotiated behind closed doors by a handful of lawmakers and representatives of five of the state’s longest-warring special interest factions: insurers, employers, labor, lawyers and doctors. The marathon talks lasted nearly until dawn on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The result was a package that had the support of all the interest groups except the lawyers, who were still trying to tinker with it Friday night. Business interests said if the lawyers were successful, it would kill the bill.

The measure would provide a 50% increase in maximum temporary disability benefits, from the current level of $224 a week to $336 by 1991. The measure also would boost permanent disability benefits by 7.5% and increase payments to the families of workers who die from an injury suffered on the job.

“No one is elated,” said Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who helped put the deal together. “I think we have pushed every group right to the end of their comfort zone.”

Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), who spearheaded months of negotiations on the issue, said the bill would be “a significant strengthening” of a system that is among the most costly for employers, yet provides benefits for injured workers that are among the lowest in the country.

“This will take a system that is in decline and will do repairs that will speed up the delivery of benefits to injured workers, increase the amount of benefits, and put a check on employer costs that are currently running out of control,” he said.

Assemblywoman Bev Hansen (R-Santa Rosa), a member of a two-house conference committee considering the measure late Friday, said the bill appeared to be a good deal for the business community, which has borne the burden of spiraling costs in the system.

In the final week of negotiations, lawmakers added a provision to force more of the disputed cases into arbitration and out of the courts, and to prompt more injured workers to participate in vocational rehabilitation. Another part of the bill would, for the first time, place limits on the ability of workers and employers to shop around for a medical evaluation that would help their side in a disputed claim.

On the health insurance bill, by Speaker Brown, the final version fell far short of the bill the Democratic leader had pushed for most of this year. He originally had sought to require companies with five or more employees to provide health insurance for their workers.

‘Watered Down’

Brown himself acknowledged Friday that his bill had been “watered down.” By the time it reached the Senate floor, it included only a study of the issue and provisions to establish a minimum level of health insurance coverage that all insurance companies would be required to offer beginning in 1992.

The bill’s fate was linked to another by Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia) that would provide a $300-per-employee tax credit for employers that provide the basic insurance. Keene’s bill was passed by the Assembly on a 67-2 vote and returned to the Senate for agreement in amendments.

As lawmakers consumed most of the day dealing with hundreds of bills--some major ones affecting the entire state, many others narrowly drafted to help singular special interests--legislation to restore $192 million in budget funds, including $24 million in family planning services, languished on the legislative back burner.

This legislation got caught up in a fight between Deukmejian and Democratic lawmakers over the governor’s desire to offer voters next year a constitutional amendment allowing the state to contract with private firms for prison inmate labor. Deukmejian wants the inmate earnings to be used largely for the convicts’ own keep and also restitution for their victims.

Democrats, siding with their political allies in organized labor, strongly oppose the measure, believing that prison inmates ultimately could compete with workers from private industry for jobs.

Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), chairman of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, acknowledged Friday night that the budget bill--including the family planning funds--was being blocked by Republicans because of Democratic opposition to the prison labor measure.

Personally, Alquist said, he was “very opposed” to the governor’s plan because he considers Deukmejian’s plan “a form of slavery.” But he conceded that “it might be wise” for Democrats to compromise because of Deukmejian’s threat to launch an initiative campaign if the Legislature balked at his proposal.

“We are no longer governed by the Legislature, but (by) the initiative process,” Alquist lamented, noting that the governor’s initiative probably would be approved by voters.

Republicans were also having a hard time coming to agreement on language governing the expenditure of family planning funds. They have long believed that money going to family planning clinics to dispense birth control and other information to women was being used to support abortion services. They demanded strict language written into state law governing the expenditure of family planning money.

“The hard part is coming to agreement on the language on family planning,” conceded Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno as the legislative session drew to a close.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Clay Evans and Douglas P. Shuit.

* WASTE BILL PASSES

The Legislature approved an ambitious solid waste program after weeks of back-room negotiations. Page 26