Bills by County’s Legislators Score Well; 39.6% Pass

From newspaper recycling to protecting government whistle-blowers, from creating a state university in San Marcos to building farm-worker housing in North County, San Diego legislators left their mark on laws passed by the Legislature this year.

Overall, San Diego representatives were more successful than most in 1989 at steering their proposals--great and small--through the sometimes brutal legislative process in the Assembly and Senate, statistics show. While the average legislator saw 37% of his bills move through both houses, San Diego lawmakers posted an almost 40% success rate.

And, once they landed on the governor’s desk, San Diego proposals fared even better. Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed slightly more than 11% of the San Diego bills, contrasted with the 16% he killed for the Legislature as a whole.

Practical, Not Costly

San Diego enjoyed that success in 1989, speculated Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside), because its legislators’ proposals were heavy on pragmatism and easy on the pocketbook.

“Those items the San Diego delegation proffered were reasonable and rational bits of legislation, and that’s why it was successful,” Craven said. “It had a tendency to veer away from high-cost items.”

Midnight Monday was the constitutional deadline for Deukmejian to approve or reject the last deluge of bills sent to him by lawmakers three weeks ago before leaving town for the year. In all, the governor has passed judgment on 1,741 prospective laws churned out by the Legislature since January.

In many cases, San Diego-originated bills won favor with Deukmejian because they dwelt on subjects dear to the heart of the law-and-order governor.

Battling a proliferation of methamphetamine labs and gang-related drug running at the border, San Diegans offered a fistful of anti-drug and anti-gang laws that were enthusiastically endorsed by Deukmejian.

Meanwhile, the area’s interest in recycling dovetailed nicely with the state’s desperate effort to deal with the dwindling capacity of local landfills. A number of bills proposed by Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), including one that would require all newspapers to use 50% recycled paper by the year 2000, became key elements in Deukmejian’s solid-waste management program.

Not a True Barometer?

Yet Killea and others, who said they were proud of their 1989 legislative accomplishments, cautioned against using it as the absolute barometer of their work.

For starters, any bill that was introduced this year only to be stuck in a committee is left off the 1989 list, apparently a dud. But many of those measures are not lost, since they can be taken up and passed when the Legislature comes back in January to complete the second year of its current two-year session.

In addition, a veto may mean defeat in one sense, but it can also be a moral victory.

“You can get a bill through the Legislature, have it vetoed and make a very strong statement,” said Killea. “Maybe next year it will pop up in the governor’s budget.”

Aside from laws, there are other ways to judge legislative performance, said Killea and others. There are the quiet negotiations for more park money, the key votes on committees, serving on legislative panels to change the formula for school funding. There is cutting red tape with state agencies for people, businesses and government administrators back in the district.

“Our job, in reality, is to be errand boys,” said Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh, (D-Bonita).

Still, making laws is undeniably a key part of a lawmaker’s job and San Diego legislators, like those all over the state, get their ideas for bills from a variety of places.

“Do we stay up nights and dream up bills? No,” said Deddeh. “The ideas come from public hearings, when you get witnesses to testify.

“The other way is personal contacts, people in the service clubs, people in the community--the white, the black, the rich, the poor. They get ideas.

“The third is your own staff and your committees,” Deddeh said. “Then there are all sorts of lobbyists.”

Puffing Up the Count

Sometimes the results are bills so arcane, technical or innocuous that they are tantamount to a legislative “gimme,” sure to win passage and pump up a legislator’s record.

“It’s easy to have a high percentage,” said Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa), a political maverick who has one of the lowest legislative batting averages in the San Diego delegation. “Just make sure you carry bills that are not controversial.”

Assemblyman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego) said his average is low because he doesn’t carry measures that are proposed by counties, cities and school districts, who often send their lobbyists to Sacramento to work a bill through the system.

“Those are usually easy bills,” Chacon said. “Most of them are technical changes in the law. If I were to carry those bills . . . it would up my batting average.”

One such bill, for instance, was carried by Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas) for the state cosmetology board.

It changed the law to make sure that manicurists are not allowed to “treat” the hands or feet of a customer, a change in language that prevents more than routine filing and polishing.

Sen. Marian Bergeson, a Newport Beach Republican whose district includes a large part of North County, successfully sponsored a bill that will excuse future landscape architects from taking an oral examination for their California licenses.

Another of Bergeson’s bills sanctioned employers’ practice of paying their workers every other week.

Craven carried one bill that simply changed an “or” to an “and” in the state code for public employee benefits, clearing up a dispute about firefighter death benefits.

Deddeh had a bill signed into law that would provide identification bracelets to victims of Alzheimer’s Disease who are on government assistance. Another one of his bills recognized diplomatic drivers’ licenses.

Not All Bills So Tame

But not all of the San Diego bills were sleepers.

A case in point was Peace’s bill this session to guarantee that no employer discriminate against a worker who required a smoke-free environment. Worried that it could be used against smokers, two of Peace’s colleagues persuaded him to accept an amendment that also would ban discrimination against anyone who chose to light up at places other than work.

With that, the anti-smoking groups who originally backed Peace began to oppose him. At one point, he pleaded for support by holding a press conference featuring his chain-smoking mother, a teacher for many years.

The measure passed the Legislature. It was vetoed by Deukmejian.

Whether it was a controversial bill or his politics, Peace was one of four San Diegans who fared poorly at the hands of their colleagues this year.

The others were the late Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Marcos), who was out for months before succumbing to cancer June 1; rookie Assemblywoman Carol Bentley (R-El Cajon); and veteran Assemblyman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego).

All posted legislative batting averages in the low- to mid-.200s.

Bentley’s best-known bill called for the state to withdraw public trust funds invested in companies doing business with China. It faced stiff opposition from bankers and was bottled up in an Assembly committee, where it will be taken up next year.

Chacon’s measures were the least popular with the governor, who vetoed three of the eight bills the San Diego legislator got through the Legislature. Among those killed were two that made it easier to hold district-only elections for cities and school districts.

‘Extremely Controversial’

Chacon said his low rate of success with his colleagues and the governor was because of his specializing in Hispanic issues. “Any bill addressing the problems of an ethnic community is going to be extremely controversial,” Chacon said.

“I carry bills that address the problems of people on the margin. Those kind of bills are not going to be carried by Carol Bentley, Lucy Killea, Wadie Deddeh and Larry Stirling.”

“I’m at a disadvantage as far as batting average, and that’s why I don’t put much stock in it,” Chacon said. “I don’t think it is fair.”

Even San Diego’s more successful legislators tasted defeat when it came to bills having to do with the highly emotional issue of the proposed Southern California Edison-San Diego Gas & Electric merger.

None of the handful of bills written by San Diegans that were aimed at stopping or slowing the merger went the distance.

A Killea proposal calling for San Diego residents to hold an advisory election on the merger was strangled in committee. The only measure even vaguely related to the merger to limp out of the Legislature was one by Deddeh, who proposed that the Public Utilities Commission undertake an environmental impact report of the proposed merger.

By the time it landed on Deukmejian’s desk, however, the bill was moot. The PUC had already begun preparations on its own for the report, and the governor vetoed the Deddeh bill Sunday because it was “unnecessary.”

But Deddeh’s bill was one of the few that Deukmejian trashed from the San Diego delegation, which had a relatively productive year.

An analysis of the bills shows:

* San Diego legislators had a higher success rate with their bills being signed into law than the average lawmaker.

Of the 4,659 bills introduced in the Legislature since January, 1,741--or 37.3%--were passed and sent to the governor for consideration. Of the 447 bills introduced by San Diego legislators, 177 bills and resolutions passed--an approval rating of 39.6%.

The governor vetoed 276 out of 1,741 bills, or just under 16%. But he vetoed only 18 out of 162 San Diego-originated bills for slightly more than 11%.

* The most prolific San Diego lawmaker was Sen. Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), who resigned his seat Sept. 29 to become a municipal judge.

Stirling had 66 bills introduced and won legislative approval for 32, including a measure that made permanent a law protecting government whistle-blowers from reprisals by their superiors.

Stirling said he is most proud of the measure he authored that makes it a felony to simultaneously possess a gun and drugs--a bill aimed at cracking down on youth gangs.

“It is one of the few bills that has the approval of the NRA (National Rifle Assn.) and the gun-controllers,” Stirling said.

The former senator also said another favorite bill was one that authorized the state’s public employees pension fund to build nursing homes for its members. “They could operate the convalescent homes, and you would give up your check and go into the home,” he said.

Deukmejian vetoed that bill and six others by Stirling, including a measure to increase pay for jurors from $5 to $10 a day.

* The least prolific was Peace, who saw only four of his bills go to the governor. One was vetoed; the other three were signed into law, including a provision that makes it a misdemeanor to impersonate a park ranger.

* The legislator with the greatest success among his colleagues was Craven, who had a batting average of .571.

* The lowest rating was posted by the late Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Marcos). He had a .215 average.

* San Diegans passed laws addressing a number of crucial hometown issues.

Perhaps the most notable of the hometown bills was Craven’s measure to officially name the new San Marcos institution California State University in San Marcos. It became the 20th campus in the CSU system, capping years of work by Craven and other legislators.

In North County, Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad) secured $500,000 in state money to help prime construction of housing for farm workers.

Deddeh sponsored a resolution, which does not require the governor’s signature, to name California 94 for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Stirling wrote legislation enhancing the insurance and retirement benefits of San Diego County municipal judges, which was signed into law about a month and a half before he applied for appointment as a judge.

Other local projects include a state map of shoreline erosion, changes in bidding procedures for the North San Diego Transit Board, a four-year hospice pilot program in the county, creation of a marine life refuge in the city of Encinitas, and a resolution officially naming the San Diego-Coronado Bridge.

* Among the bills with the greatest statewide impact were the recycling measures shepherded by Killea. The San Diego Democrat authored a package of four bills that, along with mandating the use of recycled newsprint, directs Caltrans to use recycled materials such as old tires for new paving projects. The other measures would grant up to 40% income-tax credit for machinery used to make new products from waste and would allow the use of tax-exempt industrial development bonds for the purchase of privately owned recycling equipment.

A waste management measure sponsored by Bergeson would create a special state commission to give advice on how to expand the market for recycled goods.

* San Diego-area legislators wrote at least 12 laws to toughen criminal penalties, help the courts or prevent gang violence.

The new laws include one by Mojonnier making it a “serious felony” to sell methamphetamines to a minor, a crime that allows no plea-bargaining. They also include Killea’s measure requiring reports on all out-of-state purchases of chemical precursors to methamphetamines.

Other crime-related bills include Deddeh’s measure setting a new fine for assault and battery in a public park, as well as a new provision that allows the court to give protection to a witness and his immediate family.

BATTING AVERAGES

County legislators are rated on their success with bills and resolutions in 1989. Page 1 of Section II.