Washington Doors Do Not Open for State Lawmakers

With reapportionment politics, the $12.6-billion state budget problem and other issues on their minds, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and a delegation of state lawmakers made the rounds here Monday, hoping to shake loose more federal money, win other concessions and do some serious party-going.

Brown, who organized the trip and the round of parties, held center stage, spending more time doing national media interviews than he did attending meetings with federal decision-makers. The 18 members of the Senate and Assembly plan to spend another full day of lobbying and socializing today and return to Sacramento on Wednesday.

Many of the parties and get-togethers with legislators, their staffs and various government officials--long a fixture of Brown-sponsored trips--were paid for by Sacramento-based lobbyists, who also are here in sizable numbers.

During interviews with reporters, Brown speculated about Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s potential as a presidential candidate, although he said he fears that Wilson’s national ambitions may complicate budget deliberations. The San Francisco Democrat also said he hopes to get the Bush Administration to partially pay for federal offenders that he contends are being dumped into the state’s overburdened prison system. Later in the day, he pressed Commerce Department officials to release updated census information that he hopes will show that minorities and others were seriously undercounted in last year’s census.

Except for Brown--a national political figure because of his long tenure as Speaker and flamboyant political style--most state lawmakers found, as in the past, that they are not well known here.

In Sacramento, the lawmakers wield enormous power and influence, the result of their ability to write laws that affect every Californian and to raise and spend billions of dollars used to finance hundreds of state programs.

But in the nation’s capital, the lawmakers were forced to swallow humble pie. Top Bush Administration officials did not make room in their schedules. The Californians were considered outsiders and had to fight for access to decision-makers like everyone else.

Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata), chairman of the Housing Committee, said he experiences the same kinds of frustrations that county supervisors express when they try to lobby state officeholders in Sacramento.

“They flat out ignore you,” said Hauser, who is lobbying federal officials to lift the cap on Cal Vet home loans. The limit is $125,000, which Hauser said is not enough to buy a house in San Francisco or Los Angeles. The lawmaker also wants federal officials to extend the popular program to veterans of the Persian Gulf War.

The Speaker and a group of California lawmakers could get no higher than a deputy to a deputy of Department of Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher to lay out complaints that census officials are withholding crucial details on how the count was carried out.

State officials believe that census officials may have missed 600,000 Californians last year, enough to add another House seat to the seven additional seats California expects to receive as a result of population increases during the 1980s.

California is participating with New York City and other states in a suit challenging the census count. Brown also has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to force the Commerce Department to release full census information. The Speaker said he hoped to persuade census officials during the meeting to give up the information without further court action. They did not give him a decision.

As for reapportionment, Brown said he will meet privately today with Republican and Democratic lawmakers from the House to brief them on the Legislature’s plans. By law, the Legislature has the responsibility to redraw the political boundaries of congressional and legislative districts to reflect the new census figures.

Brown said he plans to ask Justice Department officials today to pick up a share of the cost of incarcerating felons who commit federal crimes but end up in state prisons. Brown said 38% of inmates in state prisons are there because they committed a federal offense in addition to breaking a state law.

Brown said federal agencies avoid the cost of incarceration by handing over prosecution of small felony drug cases to county district attorneys. “We end up holding the bag,” said Brown, who added that state prosecutors may refuse to accept prisoners from federal law enforcement authorities if the state does not get help.

As for Wilson’s future in national politics, Brown speculated that the Republican governor may weigh decisions on tax increases and the budget against GOP policies and the effect his actions may have on possible presidential ambitions in 1996.

“It will have a real effect on how he governs,” Brown said of Wilson, who served seven years in the U.S. Senate before resigning to run for governor in 1990.

Brown said that from the perspective of Democrats, Wilson’s plans may not necessarily be bad, because he believes the governor may be forced to accept Democratic tax proposals. “Otherwise, the state goes into the toilet and it will be worse for him if the state goes into the toilet,” Brown told reporters.

Otto Bos, a Wilson spokesman, said: “The governor has said 100 times that he views this job as a career capper. The budget crisis is in 1991, not 1996.”