Health Woes Continue to Keep Greene From Senate Duties

In what may be his last term in office, state Sen. Bill Greene missed the first two months of this year’s legislative session because of pneumonia--the latest in a string of health problems suffered by the veteran Los Angeles Democrat.

Greene returned to the Capitol on Monday. He missed that day’s Senate session, but appeared in the Senate chamber long enough to be marked as present on the roll call sheet.

Because Greene’s absences have been excused by the Senate, the veteran lawmaker has been eligible to collect $92 a day in tax-free living expenses. During his absence, he has collected $5,152 for daily room-and-board expenses, according to the Senate Rules Committee.

Even though an aide said Greene is on the road to recovery, the senator’s return may mark the beginning of the final chapter in his 24-year legislative career.

This week, Assemblywoman Teresa P. Hughes (D-Los Angeles) said that about two weeks ago, Greene telephoned her to say he probably would not run for reelection next year, when his latest four-year term ends.

“It sounded pretty firm, but he has the option to change his mind,” she said.

Hughes said that if Greene drops out, she will seek his 29th Senate District seat, which includes much of Compton, Huntington Park, Cudahy and South Gate. “That is my community,” Hughes said. “I don’t care who else runs. I’m running for the seat.”

Greene, who in the 1989-90 legislative session missed more votes than any other senator, could not be reached for comment about his political plans or his recent illness.

Greene missed many votes during the ‘89-90 session when he began a treatment program for alcoholism and spent part of 1990 recovering from a heart attack. Until Monday, Greene had missed each day of the current legislative session since the Senate convened Jan. 7.

An aide, Curtis Earnest, said Greene has been battling pneumonia for about two months and for part of that time has been hospitalized. He said Greene did not want to disclose the name of the hospital.

More recently, Greene has been recuperating at his Sacramento home, Earnest said. Earnest added that he has regularly visited the senator and briefed him on legislative business. “He’s in good shape. He looks good,” Earnest said.

Besides missing Senate sessions, Greene failed to show up Jan. 22 for an informational hearing conducted by the Industrial Relations Committee, which he chairs. The hearing--the committee’s only one so far this year--was chaired by Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim), who said the hearing explored ways to test whether workers are fit to be on the job by measuring stress, fatigue and drug and alcohol levels.

Royce maintained that Greene has not missed much in the Capitol. Said Royce: “We are not yet to the point in our legislative calendar where we will be hearing a significant number of bills.”

Still, Greene failed to cast votes on two major pieces of legislation.

He was not present when the Senate took its first budget-balancing vote of the year. The legislation, approved 28 to 5, for the first time requires parents of developmentally disabled children who live at home to help pay the costs for services provided to those children by state-run regional centers. It was subsequently signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Greene also missed voting on legislation to give owners of assault guns an extra 90 days to register them or risk criminal charges. On Feb. 25, the Senate approved the measure by a 30-3 margin and sent it to the Assembly.

In the 1989-90 legislative session, Greene failed to vote 58% of the time, according to records compiled by Legi-Tech, a computerized bill tracking service based in Sacramento. The records showed that the average for missed votes by a Senate member was 15%.

Last year, when asked about his high percentage of missed votes, Greene said that he was often present during Senate sessions but simply refused to vote. He once described half the legislation that reaches the Senate floor as “hassles between government agencies. It’s not worth five cents.”

He has also cited his decision in 1989 to seek help for an alcoholism problem, as well as a heart attack he suffered in 1990, as major reasons he missed nearly four times more votes than the Senate average during the 1989-90 session.

After acknowledging his alcoholism, Greene missed the final weeks of the 1989 session while completing a treatment program at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.

At the time, a Senate Rules Committee spokesman said that the senator’s health insurance plan did not cover such treatment. As a result, Greene reported receiving $5,600 for his alcohol rehabilitation treatment from a variety of sources, including $1,000 from the California Manufacturers Assn. and $500 from Chevron USA.

In his annual economic disclosure statement for 1990 filed last week, Greene also reported that last May 30, Dow Chemical U.S.A. gave him $750 for the Betty Ford Center. Dow officials described the payment as a philanthropic contribution.