Senate Leader Blasts Killea for Calling the Kettle Black

Senate leader David A. Roberti lashed out Wednesday against Sen. Lucy Killea, saying the San Diegan has committed the same sins she criticized her peers for when she announced she was quitting the Democrats.

In an interview late Wednesday, Roberti (D-Los Angeles), president pro tempore of the Senate, said he was “personally hurt” by the way Killea attacked her colleagues Monday during a scathing speech on the Senate floor announcing her intention to forsake partisan labels and register as an independent for her 1992 reelection bid.

He described her as guilty of the political sins she cited as reasons that the public has lost confidence in the Legislature--including carving out safe legislative districts and resisting a recent voters’ initiative to cut legislative office budgets.

“Coming from one of your own, who is judging you by a standard that is stricter than (for) herself, that hurts,” Roberti said.

Killea did not return phone calls to her office late Wednesday, and her chief aide, Craig Reynolds, said she did not wish to get into a public squabble with the Senate leader.

Roberti’s comments came shortly after lawmakers in the Assembly took the first steps to legally free Killea from her registration as a Democrat, which she has had for more than 40 years. Current law prohibits her to change her affiliation less than a year before next summer’s primary.

At Killea’s request, the Assembly Ways and Means Committee unanimously approved legislation allowing her or other candidates to re-register their political parties in time for the 1992 race. Roberti said he would not oppose the measure when it reaches the upper house.

“I’m for it,” he said. “She wants freedom from the Democratic Party, and she should have it.”

Asked if Killea’s decision will affect her ability to pass laws and represent San Diego, Roberti declined to make predictions. “It looks like I’m being threatening,” he said. But he added that, in the Legislature, “things get done more through the two-party system.

“She’s on her own. She’s cast adrift and that’s her decision.”

During her speech Monday, Killea said party leaders have been unable to improve a public perception that the “Legislature is interested only in itself.” She criticized her colleagues for trying to “undo the will of the people” by going to court to overturn Proposition 140, the voters’ initiative limiting legislative terms and cutting their office budgets by nearly 40%.

She also criticized her colleagues for giving the public “very good reason” to think that the lawmakers’ “first priority is to carve out districts favorable to our own ambition,” as well as to collect tax-free expense checks and accumulate large campaign war chests.

But Roberti said Wednesday that Killea--to whom he helped steer $175,000 to $200,000 in donations during her December, 1989, senatorial campaign--has herself expressed an interest in redrawing the lines of her heavily Republican 39th District, which embraces Coronado and stretches along Interstate 8 through La Mesa, El Cajon, Santee and Lakeside.

He said that, earlier this year, she broached the subject of adding Democrats to the district during the current reapportionment discussions. Her district’s registration is now 49.5% Republican and 36% Democratic.

“Yeah, we did discuss it obliquely, never specifically, but I never had the feeling that . . . she was terribly unhappy,” Roberti said.

He also said that Killea, unlike most other senators, has yet to cut her office budget in line with Senate goals established under Proposition 140.

According to Senate records, Killea was supposed to cut her $869,000 office budget by about 13%--or $110,000--as part of the upper chamber’s effort to trim $13 million in payroll by July 1. But she has only made about $65,000 in reductions, making her only one of two senators who have failed to meet their goals, according to figures compiled by Roberti’s office.

“Are you trying to ‘undo the will of the people’ when you don’t make your cuts?” Roberti said. “Isn’t that ‘undoing the will of the people,’ too?”

Reynolds, Killea’s aide, said the senator was under the impression she had made all the cuts requested by Senate leaders when she reduced her staff from 17 to 15.