When the Bills Pile Up, the Payoff Can Be Fun

Covering state government has more than its share of dull moments.

Sometimes you find yourself in mind-numbing committee meetings, forced to perfect the fine art of cuticle analysis until the lawmakers get around to an important issue affecting Orange County. Then you scribble away furiously to get down all the nuances of the animated debate, only to slump despondently in your chair when they vote to put everything off.

Then there is the end of the legislative session in mid-September, when lawmakers must put up or shut up before they pack their bags and leave town for the rest of the year.

This year, the deadline was midnight of Sept. 15 for a bill to be passed by both houses of the Legislature. All those (and there were a great many) not passed by that time would be considered dead or held in abeyance until next year.

That kind of pressure--combined with an overindulgence in caffeine, lack of sleep, the fear of failure and the exuberance of politics--prompted legislators during the days leading up to their deadline to engage in the kind of antics that more than compensate for the boring times.

This year, for instance, there was the momentous showdown on whether the Republicans or the Democrats would control the large shutters on the windows in the Assembly.

The Democrats, who sit on the side of the chamber with an inside wall, wanted to record the crucial closing minutes of the Legislature on videotape. The only problem was that the late-afternoon sunlight coming through the windows near the Republicans--and, specifically, behind the press desk occupied by The Times--was ruining the cinematographic effect.

So one Democratic lawmaker came over into enemy territory to close up the shutters, shoving this reporter aside in his zeal to achieve an artistic effect.

No sooner had he left, however, than the Republicans launched a counterattack, sending Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) to fling open the shutters and let the sunshine back into state government.

“We don’t want their pictures of us coming out,” explained the politically astute Pringle.

There were more theatrics later that evening as the Assembly, charging ahead in overdrive, took up a number of bills in quick succession.

A legislator stood up to support a measure, beginning a sentence with, “I agree with (Assemblyman) Steve Peace. . . .”

Whereupon Peace (D-La Mesa), considered something of a maverick, threw up his hands in mock shock, fell backside first to the floor and played dead for two minutes--with other legislators and reporters being careful to walk around his outstretched arms.

That day in the more temperate Senate chamber--often referred to as the “gentlemen’s house”--tempers were flaring during an unusually emotional display over Orange County’s jail tax measure. Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) was trying her darndest to get the bill through. Slyly, she took advantage of a little-known parliamentary procedure to surprise her opponents and move the measure off the floor.

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), who opposed her bill, had put the measure “on call”--essentially a parliamentary holding action used to buy time and maybe change a few votes. It is considered a common courtesy in the Senate that the legislator who places a bill “on call” also be the one to remove it.

But that’s not what the rules say. Any senator can “lift” a call, which is exactly what Bergeson did shortly after debate on the bill. Before a stunned Torres could react, the bill was officially approved and sent along to the Assembly.

Bergeson’s ploy sparked shouting and foot-stomping by Torres and Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who also wanted the measure stalled. Lockyer began yelling across the ornate chamber at Senate President Pro Tempore David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) for not intervening to stop Bergeson’s procedural move.

“David Roberti, you should be ashamed of yourself!” Lockyer shouted. “What is happening here?”

“Would you not do that in front of people?” Roberti asked, casting his eyes toward nearby staff members and reporters.

But there was no stopping Lockyer, who was outraged over the parliamentary rulings Sen. Ralph Dills (D-Gardena), chair of Senate deliberations, was making on the last day of the session.

“That’s the only way I can get you to respond!” Lockyer raged. “That madman (Dills) is going wacko!”

Sometimes, it’s anything but dull.