Lawmakers Call Session a Success : Workers’ Comp, Transportation Plan Listed Among Major Achievements

With the Legislature trying to clean up its image and the governor worried about his place in history, blurry-eyed state lawmakers adjourned for the year in the pre-dawn Saturday after having passed enough major bills to assure that their 1989 session will be considered a success.

“The governor has changed. The Legislature has changed. We’re all getting older and tired of the old-fashioned fight,” said veteran Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), a member of Speaker Willie Brown’s inner circle.

Then referring to the GOP governor and the Democrat-controlled Legislature, Isenberg echoed the view of many by adding: “Republicans finally figured out they are running the state and had better start running it. We figured out we aren’t running the state but could help. . . . It took us six years to figure out that George Deukmejian is governor and that we are no longer in charge.”

Problem-Solving Role

Observed one longtime Republican legislator who did not want to be identified: “The governor finally became the governor. He was more directed toward problem-solving than in the past.”

Among the Legislature’s final acts before recessing until January was passage of a bill revamping California’s $8-billion system for compensating injured workers. It also passed sweeping legislation aimed at controlling the growth of solid waste, or garbage.

Both issues had for months been high on the priority lists of Deukmejian and the Legislature. So their accomplishments, after weeks of delicate negotiations between the governor and legislative leaders, generally were regarded as crowning achievements for a session that already had produced a bold plan for financing new transportation projects and relaxing the tight lid on state and local government spending.

“I feel like I can go home for the first time in seven years and not have to apologize for this Legislature’s activities,” Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa) told a reporter shortly after the lower house quietly adjourned at 3:42 a.m.

Yawning lawmakers did not drag themselves out of the Senate until 4:11 a.m. “This was an extraordinary session,” asserted Senate GOP Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. “Think back. It’s hard to find another year in which we did more.”

Some accomplishments, however, involved only modest steps at best. Passage early Saturday of a scaled-down bill aimed at providing health care for uninsured workers fell far short of what had been sought all year by the measure’s author, Speaker Brown (D-San Francisco). “I should be embarrassed to handle (the bill) on this floor,” Brown told his colleagues.

What passage of Brown’s bill did illustrate, however, was a new eagerness by Deukmejian and Brown to compromise in an effort to attain at least half a loaf, although in this case the Speaker probably got only a quarter.

Veto Likely

But there were exceptions to this conciliatory attitude, including a major one on the final night when Brown pushed through a bill to provide auto liability insurance for low-income drivers at only $25 per month. The rub was that the governor and the Speaker never came to a meeting of minds on this issue and Brown’s victory is expected to be short-lived because Deukmejian very likely will veto the bill.

This “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude by Democratic leaders--so prevalent in past sessions--was the exception rather than the rule this year on big issues, however. Deukmejian called it his “most enjoyable year in terms of the working relationship between myself and the legislative leaders.”

There was plenty of motivation on both sides to cooperate and get things done. Both the governor and the Legislature had been widely criticized--by business leaders, academics, local government and the news media--for alleged lack of leadership and vision. State government wasn’t working, critics said. Legislating had been relegated to ballot initiatives.

The Legislature especially was feeling the heat because of a drawn-out, highly publicized FBI investigation into alleged Capitol political corruption.

In this framework, legislators began worrying about voter wrath in the 1990 elections and Deukmejian--who decided not to seek a third term--became acutely concerned about his legacy. Additionally, Brown--who already had served as Speaker longer than any predecessor--began fretting about how he would be remembered by historians.

“Somebody finally told the governor this year that ‘if you want to go down in the history books, you’ve got to resolve problems,’ ” said a Deukmejian supporter, who asked not to be identified. “And he began kind of enjoying it (problem-solving).”

Many legislators of both parties said the Capitol political climate changed for the better when Deukmejian announced he would not run for reelection. Democrats no longer considered him a long-term threat--the positive flip side to being a weakened lame duck. The governor basically agreed Saturday: “Once I announced (retirement), Democratic lawmakers could feel a little more comfortable in working with me.”

No ‘Political Handlers’

One influential Republican legislator, who asked for anonymity, added this observation: “Deukmejian’s not running for reelection and therefore everything doesn’t have to be run by his political handlers.”

Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), a veteran legislative insider who helped negotiate the transportation package, said the improved Capitol atmosphere resulted from “a combination of factors--a sense that the state’s not moving ahead, the infrastructure is deteriorating, the vision of California is becoming clouded. Everybody came to that realization about the same time. And the FBI investigation obviously motivated the Legislature to do something.”

One thing the Legislature did do on the final night of the session was to approve a broad ethics package aimed at curbing special-interest influence--but also paving the way for a substantial pay raise in return for banning honorariums and limiting gifts. “It’s going to be viewed as curious to the public that in response to an ethics crisis we voted ourselves a salary increase,” Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) said during the floor debate.

Reflecting on the determination of both branches of government to chalk up some major accomplishments, Senate GOP Leader Maddy said: “It was a matter of timing. The governor was ripe for doing something. And there was the dynamics of Willie (Brown) wanting to be ‘a policy-maker.’ ”

For Brown, this was a year he tried to discard his image as a political wheeler-dealer and turn to the business of solving the state’s problems. Many believe he took some significant steps, but images are difficult to redraw--especially for a political animal like Brown.

Anyway, one person’s “achievement” usually is another’s “setback,” especially on controversial issues. Gun control is a prime example.

The Legislature, supported strongly by Deukmejian, last spring voted to ban semiautomatic assault rifles--a move seen by most Californians as a laudable achievement, according to the polls. But many gun groups bitterly saw this as a setback and never quit lobbying the Legislature as it debated additional bills to control firearms.

As lobbyists for the National Rifle Assn. stood as political sentries outside the chamber, two gun control bills died on the Assembly floor shortly before adjournment Saturday. One would have limited “banana clips” and other rifle ammunition magazines to 15 rounds each. The other would have required inexperienced handgun purchasers to complete a two-day course in firearms safety.

Another 11th-hour failure--in the eyes of many--was the inability of the Legislature and the governor to agree on a $147-million supplemental budget package, including $24 million for family planning. It got hung up on demands by Deukmejian and GOP lawmakers for new language forbidding use of the family planning funds for anything that might smack of assisting abortion.

According to knowledgeable sources, Democrats decided not to wage an all-out fight over the issue, preferring instead to blame Republicans for killing family planning programs and thereby gain a political issue. They also realized they can take up the issue again in January when the Legislature convenes the second half of its two-year session.

For a while, Deukmejian was trying to use the $147-million budget package as a bargaining chip for a prison labor program he badly wanted. But he gave up Friday night and tentatively decided to try to place a prisons job initiative on the November, 1990, ballot.

The Legislature also did nothing during the session to help implement Proposition 103, the 1988 ballot measure that tightened regulation of the insurance industry.

But the governor and lawmakers, after long negotiation, agreed on how to implement Proposition 99 and spend its $600 million per year in new tobacco tax revenue. Most of the money will go to county hospitals, emergency centers and health programs for the indigent.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION HIGHLIGHTS As the Legislature headed for adjournment of its 1989 session early Saturday morning, lawmakers groped to resolve a number of major issues. The following is a summary of what the issues were and what happened to the legislation.

THE ISSUE: WORKERS’ COMPENSATION--An effort to overhaul California’s troubled $8-billion system for compensating injured workers included two bills that would increase the maximum temporary disability benefits by 50% over two years and boost permanent disability payments by 7.5%. The measures also would implement changes aimed at speeding up the system, improving the effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation and restricting the ability of injured workers and employers to shop around for medical evaluations that best suit their purposes in a disputed claim.

THE OUTCOME: APPROVED--A two-house conference committee worked out last-minute differences on one of the bills, by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), which then breezed through both houses. The measure won with a 34-0 vote in the Senate and 65-2 tally in the Assembly. The companion bill by Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) also won easy approval, with a 68-0 vote in the Assembly, which sent it to the Senate for a quick 36-0 approval of amendments. The measures now go to the governor for his signature.

THE ISSUE: LEGISLATIVE ETHICS--Under a cloud because of an FBI probe of political corruption in the Capitol, lawmakers have been considering a number of measures that would reform the way legislative business is conducted. The keystone of the ethics package is a constitutional amendment that would bar legislators from accepting honorariums, impose a limit on gifts and prohibit lawmakers from lobbying for one year after they leave office. It would also set up an independent commission to set their salary--a move that could mean a doubling of the present level of $40,816 a year.

THE OUTCOME: APPROVED--The constitutional amendment by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) passed on lopsided votes, 33 to 3 in the Senate and 68 to 7 in the Assembly and will be placed on the June, 1990, ballot.

THE ISSUE: GUN CONTROL--After a successful effort earlier in the session to ban the sale of many semiautomatic weapons in response to the killing of five children in a Stockton schoolyard, legislators considered several other proposals to regulate the sale and use of guns. One measure would require a two-day course in gun safety and proper storage before a handgun could be purchased. A second bill would limit the capacity of rifle ammunition clips to 15 rounds.

THE OUTCOME: DEFEATED--In response to intense lobbying by gun owner organizations, led by the National Rifle Assn., the Assembly refused to pass both the safety instruction bill by Assemblyman Rusty Areias (D-Los Banos) on a 37-31 vote, and the ammunition clip restriction measure by Assemblyman Johan Klehs (D-Castro Valley), 36 to 32. The bills required 41 votes for passage.

THE ISSUE: SOLID WASTE--With local governments beginning to run out of room to bury trash, lawmakers worked with Gov. George Deukmejian on several measures designed to cut in half the amount of garbage trucked to landfills by the year 2000. With an emphasis on recycling, the proposals would establish a full-time state solid waste management board with broad powers. Critics objected that the plan would encourage the use of incinerators to meet trash reduction goals and complained about the composition of the board.

THE OUTCOME: APPROVED--The most far-reaching of the solid waste bills, a measure by Assemblyman Byron D. Sher (D-Palo Alto), was approved 22 to 15 in the Senate and quickly sent to the Assembly, which voted 42 to 25 to accept Senate amendments. The measure now goes to the governor, who is expected to sign it.

THE ISSUES: FAMILY PLANNING, MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING, PRISONS--A bill that would appropriate $146 million for a variety of state and local government programs became embroiled in a controversy over whether state family planning funds were being used to promote abortions. The measure was also linked to negotiations over a contentious Deukmejian plan to permit private industry to contract with the state. At stake in the debate was the restoration of $24 million for family planning programs that had been vetoed earlier by the governor. But the same measure included funds for other programs, including $25 million for mental health services.

THE OUTCOME: DELAYED UNTIL NEXT YEAR--The Assembly on a 51-24 vote rejected a compromise bill that would have prevented the use of family planning funds for abortions. The measure required 54 votes for passage, two-thirds of the 80-member Assembly. And the governor’s prison measure remained bottled up in an Assembly committee. As a result, the $146-million appropriation bill by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) was never taken up on the Senate floor and must now wait for consideration until January, when the Legislature returns.

THE ISSUE: AUTO INSURANCE--Lawmakers nibbled at the problem of the high cost of automobile insurance with a pair of complementary bills intended to get uninsured drivers off the road and to help poor people find affordable insurance. One of the measures would extend the requirement that all California drivers carry at least a minimum auto insurance policy. The other bill would require insurance companies to offer a $25-a-month policy to low-income people--to single individuals earning $20,000 or less or to families with incomes below $25,000.

THE OUTCOME: APPROVED--Both the mandatory insurance bill, by Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) and the affordable policy measure, by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) won last-minute approval in the Senate and Assembly. The two bills go to the governor, who has said he probably will veto Brown’s bill.

THE ISSUE: HEALTH INSURANCE--Legislators looked at proposals intended to provide health insurance for an estimated 2.5 million uninsured California workers, but could not agree on how to fund it. What did emerge were two bills, one of which would provide a $300-per-employee tax credit for companies that offer health insurance to their workers. A second bill creates a task force to study the idea of requiring businesses to provide such insurance and requires the Deukmejian Administration to report back by March, 1990, on ways to lower the cost of such coverage.

THE OUTCOME: APPROVED--The tax credit bill, by Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia), and the study measure, by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown were both approved by the Senate and Assembly and now go to the governor for his signature.