Lawmakers Return to Empty Capital Cupboard : Legislature: Austere new budget leaves no money for pet spending bills. The governor says he will oppose any major appropriations.

State legislators ended their abbreviated five-day vacation and straggled back to a brutishly hot capital on Monday to find the cupboard picked virtually bare of money to pay for their pet spending bills.

The newly enacted $55.7-billion state budget is so austere that money customarily available in rosier times to finance expanded state programs devised by the Legislature is now almost non-existent.

Moreover, Gov. George Deukmejian is in control of the state’s pocketbook and has shown every indication that he intends to leave office in January as tightfisted as when he arrived in 1983.

“We are sure that the Legislature recognizes the critical fiscal situation the state is in,” Deukmejian press secretary Robert J. Gore said Monday after conferring with the governor. “We don’t expect to see any new major appropriations bills.”

Gore said that the Administration “as a standard position, will oppose any new spending bills.”

The costs of any general-fund spending bills Deukmejian did sign would have to come at the expense of the $1.3-billion reserve for economic uncertainties that he fought for during budget negotiations last month. He intends to safeguard the surplus against any intrusions, his aides have warned.

“Isn’t it crappy to be back?” one senator complained as he slumped into his Appropriations Committee seat behind a thick binder of about 200 spending measures with seemingly no chance of becoming law.

Another testy member of the committee, veteran Sen. Ralph Dills (D-Gardena), surveyed the barren fiscal situation and told his colleagues: “I just think what we are doing is a waste of time. There’s no money.”

Their scheduled four-week vacations cut down to only five days because of last month’s prolonged delay in enacting a budget, legislators returned to baking 105-degree heat to complete their 1990 agenda by Aug. 31 and set out on reelection campaigns.

Unfinished business includes such tasks as making automobile insurance more affordable to some California motorists, providing health insurance to 5 million people who cannot afford it and requiring earthquake insurance for homeowners.

High on the list also is the tailoring of a comprehensive offshore oil-spill cleanup program to deal with catastrophic tanker accidents like the one in Alaska last year. Two competing proposals, both financed by a new 25-cent-a-barrel tax on oil, would create the cleanup program.

Of the three major insurance matters, an earthquake coverage bill probably has the best chance of passage. A measure sponsored by Deukmejian has cleared the Senate and is pending in the Assembly, where it is expected to be approved.

The bill would slap a surcharge averaging $36 on every homeowner insurance policy in the state. The money would go into a state fund. After an earthquake, residents would get up to $15,000 in coverage for structural damage. The proposal is meant to supplement private earthquake insurance.

Anticipating possible criticism that the plan is too limited, Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), who is carrying the bill, said the measure is not intended to be the “ultimate solution” to the earthquake insurance issue.

On automobile insurance, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) is negotiating with the governor in hopes of creating a low-cost policy that would make insurance affordable to motorists now breaking the law by driving without coverage.

A comprehensive overhaul of the auto insurance system is unlikely this year. But Brown continues to push a more limited proposal under which drivers no longer would be required to carry insurance that includes coverage for the “pain and suffering” they cause others in an accident.

By limiting the state’s minimum insurance requirements in this way, Brown hopes to reduce the cost of coverage for low-income drivers who have no assets to protect. More affluent motorists would be expected to keep buying the liability coverage, even if it is made optional. Otherwise, they would risk losing everything they owned if found liable in an accident.

On health insurance, Deukmejian started the year by pledging to enact a major health bill that would provide insurance for most Californians who lack even basic medical coverage. But the governor began to back away from the issue when a task force he appointed failed to agree on a plan that could satisfy the half-dozen interest groups with a stake in the issue.

With less than a month remaining in the legislative session, rank-and-file lawmakers have all but abandoned hope of passing a health insurance package. Even participants in the private talks have conceded that the chances are slim. With no taxpayer funds available to subsidize insurance for the poor, the only alternative would be to put the bulk of the burden on the business community--an unlikely political scenario.

“It is going to be very difficult,” said Democratic Assemblyman Burt Margolin of Los Angeles, a key player in the negotiations.