NEWS ANALYSIS : He Keeps the Faith With Vetoes : Philosophical Gulf Still Separates Governor, Democrats

Despite bipartisan agreement on a string of major issues, Gov. George Deukmejian’s 276 vetoes this year demonstrate that a wide ideological gulf still divides the Republican chief executive and the Democratic-dominated Legislature.

Deukmejian in his seven years in office already has vetoed far more bills--1,863--than either Edmund G. Brown Jr. or Ronald Reagan, his two predecessors. And this year’s vetoes--completed in a flurry before Monday’s midnight deadline--show that Deukmejian has budged little from his long-held philosophy that when it comes to government, less is better.

With few exceptions, Deukmejian rejected Democratic-sponsored expansions of health and social service programs, refused to intrude on the free market by increasing regulation of business, and left local governments and voters maximum flexibility to run their own affairs.

Deukmejian also jealously guarded the power of the executive branch to administer state programs, and time after time refused to allow lawmakers to appropriate money for special projects outside of the regular budget process, which he controls.

Much attention has been paid to landmark agreements reached between Deukmejian and the legislative leadership on such major issues as transportation, education, garbage disposal and the state’s system for compensating workers who are injured on the job. These deals showed that Deukmejian and his Democratic adversaries were able and willing to compromise on matters that have divided them for years. In fact, the governor signed roughly five times more bills than he vetoed.

But on scores of issues that did not make the agenda of the extraordinary, top-level meetings between the governor and legislative leaders, Deukmejian this year was little different from the steadfast, cautious--some critics say stubborn--governor that he has been since he took office in 1983.

“I don’t think George Deukmejian has modified any basic philosophical view since he has been governor,” said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. “When given a choice on the day-to-day operation of the state, the ordinary issues, he basically maintains a very conservative, fiscally conservative line.”

Added Assembly Republican Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra: “The Legislature and its committees are dominated by liberal, big-city legislators whose first impulse is always more and more government, more interference in the lives of ordinary, honest citizens. That philosophical predilection is expressed in a great many pieces of legislation that pass by relatively narrow margins, and the governor fulfills an important function in stopping those kinds of excesses.”

Democrats, naturally, disagree. And, perhaps because of the good will created by this year’s blockbuster agreements, many Democrats were especially upset when Deukmejian vetoed bills they thought he might sign.

“It isn’t all sunshine and roses,” said Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-South San Francisco).

The governor vetoed Speier’s bill to create a program aimed at stopping pregnant mothers from using drugs or alcohol and caring for babies born to mothers who did use dangerous substances. In his veto message, Deukmejian said the bill was unnecessary because the state already has begun pilot projects to address the problem in four counties.

“It’s like throwing a bucket of water on a forest fire,” Speier said of the more limited program favored by the governor. “It is totally inadequate.”

In another example of Deukmejian’s go-slow approach on health and social issues, he signed a bill to create a new insurance program for people who, because of previous medical conditions, cannot now obtain coverage. But he vetoed a more far-reaching measure that also would have offered coverage to working people not insured by their employers.

“That veto was consistent with the governor’s cautious, conservative style to take the smaller step rather than the larger step,” said Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), the bill’s author.

Robbins was victimized by another Deukmejian veto that fit the governor’s pattern of rejecting legislation that, in his view, needlessly meddles in a local dispute. That was a bill by Robbins that would have prohibited the construction of any mass transit rail line in the San Fernando Valley unless it was built underground.

While the measure was opposed by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which operates the mass transit system, Robbins said it was endorsed by “virtually every elected official” in the valley.

“The governor has a very deep philosophical commitment, and what happens is that sometimes he tends to get trapped in the box,” Robbins said. “He looks at this bill and sees it as one that reduces local prerogatives, and therefore he vetoes it. But if you look at it from the perspective of anyone standing on the ground in the San Fernando Valley, the local perspective was that the bill was supported.”

Business Climate

Similarly, on matters affecting the business community, Deukmejian has been unwilling to inject the state into disputes that he says can be handled by individuals. A prime example was his veto of a bill by Assemblyman Terry Friedman (D-Los Angeles) that would have allowed employees to use their own sick leave to stay home and care for their ill children.

“I think that bill presented a clear choice between the philosophy of allowing business to have total control over the workplace and a philosophy that wants to ensure that the interests of workers and consumers are protected,” Friedman said. The governor, he added, came down on the side of a business community that “does not want to give up its power.”

Allan S. Zaremberg, the governor’s legislative secretary, said Deukmejian believed that the sick leave issue was not one that required state intervention. “That is a matter between the employer and the employee,” he said.

Zaremberg said the governor will not sign legislation until he is convinced that a problem exists and that the bill before him will solve it. It was for that reason that he vetoed a measure that would have prohibited the unsolicited transmission of advertising over facsimile machines--a product known as “junk fax.”

“There was a lot of information presented to us that people who are manufacturing fax machines are in the process of trying to deal with that themselves, to be able to screen out those types of messages and resolve the problem,” Zaremberg said. “We thought the bill was premature.”

Money Bills

A large number of the bills the governor vetoed represented legislative attempts to appropriate money outside the regular budget process. Deukmejian rejects so many of these efforts that his staff has placed “boilerplate” language explaining his position in the computer word processor so that it can be inserted with a single keystroke into his veto messages.

Lawmakers almost always complain when Deukmejian vetoes their bills that would spend a relatively small amount. Speier, for example, said $34,000 she wanted to spend to develop a fact sheet on the rights of marriage partners surely “would not break the bank.”

But Administration officials like to point out that, over the years, these individual vetoes have saved taxpayers $5 billion.

Deukmejian’s hard line has increasingly made it easier for Republicans in the Legislature to force the Democrats, who control the Assembly and the Senate, to negotiate. Zaremberg said he cannot help but take special notice when a bill arrives with a significant number of votes in opposition cast by Republicans.

Maddy said realization of that fact has helped him fight off Democratic attempts to create boards and commissions with members appointed by the legislative leadership to run state programs. He said Deukmejian has made it clear that he will not tolerate such intrusions on the power of the executive branch.

“I can sit there in a committee, and I can say, look, you can get this bill down to the governor, but it’s not going to be signed,” Maddy said. “We can either talk about the bill or I can guarantee you that he’ll veto it. That gives us some leverage.”