Budget Ax Swung at High Court : Spending: Assembly subcommittee advocates a 38% reduction, apparently in retaliation for the justices’ approval of term limits.

In an apparently retaliatory move, a state legislative committee has adopted a drastic cut in the state Supreme Court’s budget, following the court’s approval last fall of a sweeping initiative limiting legislators’ terms and expenditures.

The action, taken late Tuesday by an Assembly Ways and Means subcommittee, calls for a 38% reduction in the high court’s budget--the exact percentage mandated under Proposition 140 for cutbacks in the Legislature’s operating budget.

Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas on Wednesday denounced the proposed cutback, saying that it would disrupt court operations and result in significant delays in issuing civil and criminal rulings--including already time-consuming death penalty decisions.

“We recognize that there may be understandable resentment at the Supreme Court for upholding the people’s initiative, Proposition 140,” Lucas said in a prepared statement. “Nevertheless, we think it inappropriate for the Legislature to ‘kill the messenger.’ ”

“We have every confidence that, after calm reflection, there will be (a) realization that the judiciary is the third branch of government--the branch that guarantees law and order and justice for each of our citizens,” the chief justice said.

A lawyer for the sponsors of Proposition 140, Anthony Caso of the Pacific Legal Foundation, assailed the committee’s action as “very unwarranted” and “quite petty.”

“The people who voted for Proposition 140 to counter legislative spending have not found any similar problems with the court,” Caso said. “Unlike the Legislature, the court doesn’t have political hirees and people on its staff whose sole task is to get them reelected. . . . The court is one of the most frugal branches of government.”

The court budget cutback was approved on a 3-0 vote by Assembly members Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), Teresa P. Hughes (D-Los Angeles) and Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley). A fourth subcommittee member, John Burton (D-San Francisco), was not present. The action was made as a recommendation to the full Ways and Means Committee.

Polanco, who made the motion for the reduction, defended the action Wednesday as warranted to help reduce the state’s huge impending budget deficit.

“There are no sacred cows in this budget crisis we are faced with,” Polanco said. “Everyone has to share in this budget crisis.”

Asked whether the action might be seen as a petty response to the court’s approval of Proposition 140, the legislator replied: “There’s nothing petty about a $3-billion to $6-billion budget deficit. Everyone has to take an equal hit. No one should escape that in these difficult times.”

Hughes, the chairwoman of the subcommittee, said: “We are just trying to be fair and equitable. If (the Legislature) has to do with less, we all have to do with less, including the courts. Our job is to cut wherever we can.”

Lynn Holton, the court’s public information officer, said the cutbacks, if implemented, would make it almost impossible for the court to function. The court’s annual budget is about $17 million--compared to the overall state budget of about $54 billion, Holton said.

Of the $17 million, about $7 million is for non-discretionary costs--binding contracts for services, fees for court-appointed lawyers to represent indigent defendants and salaries for the seven justices, who are protected from salary reductions by the state Constitution.

That would leave about $10 million in discretionary expenditures on which a 38% cutback could be imposed, according to Holton. Any such cuts would require substantial reductions among the 127 court staff members, including the 67 staff attorneys who help the justices review and decide cases. Last year, more than 3,000 petitions for review were filed with the court.

Proposition 140, approved in November, 1990, by a 52% majority, limited Assembly members to three two-year terms and senators and statewide elected officials to two four-year terms. The measure also reduced the Legislature’s operating budget by 38%, or $70 million, and abolished the lawmakers’ pension system.

Last Oct. 10, in the nation’s first state high court decision on legislative term limits, the justices turned down a constitutional challenge to the measure brought by legislators of both parties.

In a 6-1 ruling written by Lucas, the court rejected claims that the initiative infringed on the voters’ right to a choice of candidates or the candidates’ right to run for office. Any value in retaining incumbents was outweighed by the voters’ right to enact a measure to “protect against an entrenched, dynastic legislative bureaucracy, and thereby encouraging new candidates to seek public office,” Lucas wrote.

The court, resolving an ambiguity in the measure, also held that when a lawmaker reaches his term limit, he faces a lifetime ban on seeking that office, rather than only a limit on consecutive terms in that office.

While upholding the bulk of the initiative, the court struck down the provision abolishing the legislators’ pension system. In January, lawyers for the Legislature appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the case remains pending.

Hager reported from San Francisco and Gillam from Sacramento.