CAL-SPAN Keeps an Eye on Sacramento

When a political opponent sabotaged his prized bill on ballot initiatives in the California Assembly, state Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) learned about it from a rather unusual source: a television viewer.

“Last Monday, my dear friend Mr. (Thomas) Hannigan (D-Davis) ungraciously moved a bill of mine that was on the Assembly floor to another committee than the one which had already approved it, a committee which no longer meets so it effectively killed the bill,” Kopp said. “I was informed of it by my aide, who said he learned of it after he received a phone call from someone who saw it on TV.”

The viewer, Kopp supporter Les Kelting of San Bruno, saw the maneuvering on a new cable television channel. Run by a not-for-profit organization called the California Channel, the channel has been televising the state Assembly on a test basis for the past three weeks. Available in Orange County only on Dimension Cable’s Channel 26 in South County, the test is scheduled to continue for the rest of this month.

The idea is to create a service for Californians much like C-SPAN, the not-for-profit channel funded by cable operators that televises congressional sessions, government briefings, press conferences and other elements of the legislative process in Washington.

If CAL-SPAN survives past its tryout, the network will produce some educational programs, but personnel would not attempt to analyze events or conduct journalistic investigations. Instead, events would simply be presented, unedited, to the public.

If all goes according to plan, the California version, to be called CAL-SPAN, would start by televising the Assembly and later add the Senate, round-table discussions on political issues, viewer call-in programs and perhaps coverage of the California Supreme Court.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand the need for this,” said Paul Koplin, the channel’s executive director. “California is the largest state in the union in terms of population, but nobody knows anything about the state government.”

Indeed, not a single out-of-town television station maintains a Sacramento bureau. According to a feasibility study conducted for the channel, only Wyoming and Montana provide less electronic media coverage of their legislatures than California. During the busiest period of the legislative session, California television stations devoted just 1.7% of their news time to state legislative issues, according to the study.

So far, the test has won supporters from a Legislature that was initially concerned that the presence of the cameras would somehow affect lawmakers’ behavior. The cameras are all the more visible in Sacramento because, unlike those installed in Congress for C-SPAN, they require bright lights because of the dark interior of the state’s legislative chambers.

“Several of us thought it would really have a down side in terms of people playing to the camera and making speeches toward a different audience,” said Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno). “But in one or two days, everybody forgot the cameras. People were very quiet and sat at their desks for about an hour. Then it was business as usual.”

In the three weeks since the trial began, footage has been used not only by constituents at home, but by lobbyists and legislators. Aides gather around sets to watch what their employers are doing. In one instance, a committee of lawmakers were arguing over who had taken what position on a bill during a previous debate. Then one remembered the cameras. They pulled out the tape and were able to resolve their argument.

“It’s become almost indispensable already,” said Michael Reese, director of communications for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-S.F.). “Right now I’m watching it, and they’ve got the floor debates going on. Bob Epple (D-Downey) is debating a bill on post-secondary education. And now they’re taking a vote and I can watch the vote. It doesn’t replace going down to the floor, but since I can’t go down right now, I can still watch it.”

If the Assembly decides to make the channel a permanent fixture, it will mean making a significant budget commitment at a time when funds are tight. While the not-for-profit channel will absorb the cost of distributing the televised sessions to local cable channels and pay for program hosts and producers, the Assembly would have to pay for the actual cost of buying and running the cameras. (The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate also maintain their own broadcast facilities.) Koplin estimates that it would cost $1 million to wire the Assembly floor and one committee room for television and buy cameras, plus about $450,000 per year in operating costs.

“We have to absorb it within our existing Rules Committee budget,” said Bronzan. “But by comparison, this is a fraction of what it used to cost for us to send out our newsletters.”

With newsletters done away with as a result of a budget balancing ballot initiative, and the dearth of television reporting about Sacramento, CAL-SPAN may be the only way most Californians can gain information about state government, Bronzan said.

Michael Singer, news director of KCBS Channel 2 in Los Angeles, said he doesn’t think that merely televising the Legislature is enough to inform people about state government. “Legislative sessions are usually not where the story is,” Singer said. “They are sort of managed events. The story is what’s going on outside the legislative chamber and what the implications of the story are.”