Plenty of Hits . . . and Some Big Errors : Amid end-of-session chaos, Wilson connects on gun control, misses on sexual harassment

Gov. Pete Wilson has handled about 1,100 bills that the Legislature threw at him in Sacramento’s usual end-of-session chaos as smoothly as a governor could.

Wilson did it while coping with a recession that has made 240,000 California jobs vanish and produced the biggest drops in sales tax revenues in decades. With good reason, he made one checkpoint the question of how a bill would affect business.

But he gets no Gold Glove for the season, because he vetoed bills where that ordinarily sensible criterion was not proven but people’s need for help was.

He did sign two important gun control bills. He also overrode cost objections from business and signed an important bill to tighten protection of children against lead poisoning.

But he made an error in vetoing a Republican bill to give victims of sexual harassment and other forms of abuse in the workplace a way to collect cash damages.

With harassment high on any list of national issues as a result of the squalid scene surrounding Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court appointment, Wilson rejected the bill, saying, in effect, that it was bad for business.

What happened immediately is, we suspect, only the tip of a potential political iceberg for Wilson.

Milan D. Smith Jr., the Republican vice chairman of the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission, which would have judged complaints and made awards, quit. The chairman, Osias Goren of Los Angeles, a fund-raising supporter of Wilson, did not resign but he disputed one of the reasons Wilson gave for the veto. Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), the bill’s sponsor, was more restrained, calling the decision “unfortunate” and saying women would be disappointed at being left without redress in harassment cases.

The current law is of little help for several reasons. There are not enough attorneys who specialize in such cases. Civil action is the only recourse, and it can take years to get into California’s crowded courts. It can cost thousands of dollars in investigation before a lawyer can even decide whether there is a chance of winning a case in court.

Goren denied one of Wilson’s explanations for the veto, which was that the commission wanted the new law as a prod to encourage employers to settle issues before they get to court. Goren said the governor’s veto would force women to the courts, where “jury awards are abominable” for employers.

For the governor, the closing days of his first session resulted in some scores and a good many hits, but at least a couple of big errors. This was one.