CAPITOL JOURNAL : Lawmakers in Sour Mood as New Session Nears

As dank and cheerless as a dose of Central Valley tule fog, a numbing malaise has settled over the once high-flying California Legislature.

Rarely, if ever, has the Legislature found itself under such heavy siege, much of it arguably self-induced:

* Livelihoods and careers are endangered by voter-approved term limits and court-proposed reapportionment plans.

* Three former state senators have been found guilty of political corruption. Still more may fall.

* A mean 1992 election year is shaping up and Gov. Pete Wilson wants extraordinary new “emergency” budget powers at the expense of the Legislature.

* The state budget crisis only worsens, meaning legislators will be called on again to make painful cuts in services to Californians during probably the most sour economic period for the state since the Great Depression.

For many members of the Legislature and their employees, the political immune system protecting their branch of government seems to be weakening, burdens piling up like deadly viruses.

“It is like we have a terminal disease. We know it. Still, we don’t want to talk about it,” said a senior staff member of the Senate who asked not to be named. “The staff is realizing its own mortality, as are the members.”

In corridors of the Capitol, in the backstairs warrens where compromises are struck, in the ornate legislative chambers themselves, the usual upbeat conversations and anticipation of the start of a new legislative session Jan. 6 are nowhere to be found. Holiday greetings seem flat.

When it comes to contemplating life outside the Capitol, the legislative staffer said, “because of the recession, the normal economic escape routes are not out there for other employment. We are sort of caught in this malaise that has 20-foot concrete walls all around it and the doors and windows are closed.”

The malaise arrived both gradually and in sometimes jolting shocks. The first was delivered by the voters 13 months ago when they approved Proposition 140, which limited senators to two terms of office and Assembly members to three; abolished retirement benefits of lawmakers, and cut back the Legislature’s budget by almost 40%.

Although primarily aimed at legislators, the economic impact of Proposition 140 was felt hardest by their employees, whose ranks were cut by 30% in both the Senate and Assembly.

With staff and budgets under the knife, legislative leaders appealed to the state Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 140. Instead, last October the court upheld it.

“It was as if you had been told you had six months to live and you went through those six months hoping for a medical miracle,” recalled a former high-ranking Assembly aide. “The patient died when the court ruled. There was real grief. There is a kind of devotion to this place.”

Then, Wilson tore up the career road map of legislators and California members of the U.S. House when he vetoed redistricting plans crafted by incumbents in the Democratic-dominated Legislature and tossed the issue to the state Supreme Court. A court-appointed panel of jurists has proposed an alternative that tends to shift the balance toward Republicans.

Ever since August, 1988, when the FBI investigation of suspected corruption at the Capitol became public, the Legislature has struggled to recover from a severe crisis of public confidence. The inquiry has netted former Democratic Sens. Joseph Montoya, Paul Carpenter and just last month Alan Robbins, plus a cast of lesser political personalities.

“Undoubtedly, there has got to be more indictments,” observed a veteran Assembly staff member, weary of what he called the “chaos around here.”

Now, Wilson is proposing a welfare initiative for the 1992 ballot that, besides slashing welfare, would give him vast new executive powers to bypass the Legislature and enact spending reductions at certain fiscal crisis points.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) calls the governor’s measure an outright power grab. When Wilson tries to “take the power of the purse away from the Legislature,” Roberti said, he is tampering with fundamental checks and balances.

But even in the malaise, hope flickers that this Legislature can produce an honorable legacy of accomplishment.

As a politically savvy former staff member put it: “If I were a member looking toward the 1992 elections with the status of the majority party at stake, I would be in my leader’s office saying, ‘The (term limit) clock is ticking and many of us won’t be here to watch it run out unless some good public policy is put into place now.’ People need to rise up and demand that of their leaders.”