Feinstein Offers Democrats Help on State Budget Woes

Dianne Feinstein stepped gingerly into the sea of state fiscal troubles Thursday, offering herself to Democrats in the Legislature as an arms-length financial adviser.

The Democratic nominee for governor had breakfast in private at the Capitol with Senate Democrats and emerged to say she is prepared to advise lawmakers on resolving a projected record $3.6-billion budget gap.

To close the gap, she told reporters, she is “not entirely” supportive of a proposal advanced by key Democratic committee chairmen that would increase taxes by $2.3 billion a year and fill the rest of the gap with program cuts and deep slices in proposed state reserves.

“My general thrust is you’ve got to cut wherever you can, and I think you then have to reassess the situation,” she said, turning aside questions about specific targets for reduction. “I’ll say more on that later.”

A beaming Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who held the breakfast in his office, said Senate Democrats “want her advice and are looking forward to hearing it” on what he described vaguely as “overview, thrust and direction.”

As for specifics on closing the revenue gap and adopting a state budget, Roberti told reporters, “I think that is our headache” and not a task for Feinstein.

Describing herself as a “team player,” the former San Francisco mayor said she offered herself as a consultant to Democrats in both houses and intends to start discussing fiscal issues on Monday, in person and by telephone.

Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, a supporter of GOP candidate Pete Wilson for governor, facetiously quipped “terrific” when told that Feinstein would seek to help Democrats resolve the fiscal dilemma.

Citing the controversy over whether San Francisco faced a potentially huge revenue shortfall when she left the mayor’s office in 1988, Maddy suggested that Feinstein’s fiscal expertise was “based on the last year she served as mayor.”