Brown Vows to Fight for Civil Rights Bill : Legislation: Citing personal experience, the Speaker says it’s too important to give up on. A Senate panel has blocked the measure.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown on Tuesday said his comprehensive civil rights bill--rejected by a Senate committee--is too important to abandon without another fight.

The San Francisco Democrat, who says he knows racial discrimination from personal experience, maintained that it is “absolutely madness” for a committee in the Democratic-controlled Senate to block his proposal.

In the past, Brown has promoted the legislation as the toughest anti-discrimination statute in the nation. But on Tuesday he seemed to be softening his view, telling reporters that the measure “is basically a moderate civil rights bill” that even President Bush would sign in this election year.

Underscoring the importance he attaches to the bill, Brown urged Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), who supports the measure, to take “whatever steps are necessary” to reverse the negative vote Monday by the Appropriations Committee. Brown said Roberti might even consider adding himself to the panel so that the measure will pass when it is reheard.

Monday, Brown could muster only five of the seven votes needed to send the measure to the Senate floor. Six lawmakers opposed the Brown legislation.

Even if Brown eventually succeeds in the Senate, the ultimate fate of the bill is unclear because last year Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed a bill to outlaw job discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Similar wording is tucked into Brown’s bill, along with provisions that would restore the state Fair Employment and Housing Commission’s authority to award relief to discrimination victims, forbid discrimination against disabled people and prohibit employers from requiring employees to speak English in the workplace.

The measure, known as the California Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1992, also would overturn four recent state Supreme Court decisions. These rulings took away the housing commission’s authority to grant damages for pain and suffering in sexual harassment cases and restricted the rights of families denied housing because they could not show proof of minimum income.

Brown’s bill was drafted with the help of a coalition of civil rights and labor groups. It is opposed by business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, that fear that companies will face baseless but expensive lawsuits if the measure becomes law.

Harry Snyder, West Coast director of Consumers Union, which helped draft the bill, maintained that the Wilson Administration is working with business groups to kill the bill. But Franz Wisner, a spokesman for Wilson, said the governor has not taken an official position even though the Administration has some concerns about the bill.

Brown is expected to get another vote next time, that of Sen. Alfred Alquist of San Jose, who did not vote Monday.

But two other Democrats, Robert Presley of Riverside and Ruben Ayala of Chino, oppose the bill.

Presley, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he will not budge from his opposition to the legislation, maintaining that it would make it harder for companies to conduct business in California.

“I just don’t want to do anything . . . that has an adverse impact on the business climate,” Presley said.

Ayala said he would support the measure if Brown removed the provision that would outlaw job discrimination against homosexuals. Brown said he would refuse to remove sexual orientation from the measure.

Brown, who is black, has said that he was the victim of housing discrimination in San Francisco in 1983 when he sought to rent an apartment. He has told reporters that he filed a lawsuit and won a settlement.

In an emotional appeal to committee members Monday, Brown noted that even though he has risen to a position of power, he faces acts of discrimination daily.

Asked to amplify, Jim Lewis, Brown’s spokesman, said that many times people say things to the Speaker that are discriminatory but that “he just attributes it to ignorance rather than any deliberate attempt to discriminate.”