Fiscal Summitry, California Style : Brown urges a Clinton-like meeting for the state

It is welcome news indeed that newly reelected Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown stands ready to marshal the Legislature to tackle California’s economic woes with more determination than it displayed last year.

In his first address to the newly installed Legislature, Brown on Monday called for an economic summit--along the lines of the one that President-elect Bill Clinton will hold this month--to discuss ways to improve California’s stalled economy.

As Brown envisions it, the summit would include state business and academic leaders and would convene in Sacramento in late January. The gathering would have before it a “full and complete agenda” of ways to spark California’s economy, the Speaker said, adding that “this house (the Assembly) can provide the leadership” to do the job.

We earnestly hope so. Brown’s announcement signals not only his interest in improving the economy but also in effecting sorely needed change in Sacramento’s political climate. Gov. Pete Wilson’s quickly voiced support for the summit notion is very much in that vein as well.

There is no small chance that Brown’s summit might simply degenerate into a media circus, with participants more interested in grabbing the microphone than in seriously discussing ideas to improve the state’s economic picture. But there is also a chance that the proposal could help build consensus on a number of issues that require legislative attention. Such consensus was utterly absent last year, and all Californians are the worse because of it.

Voter anger with both the Legislature and the governor understandably soared last summer after the divisive budget battle extended two months into the new fiscal year, forcing the state to pay some bills with IOUs for the first time since the 1930s. The battle also left many worthy legislative proposals as wreckage in its wake.

With or without an economic summit, there is much the Legislature and the governor can and should do quickly. Workers’ compensation reform must be among the top priorities; the Legislature produced a reasonable compromise last year, and Wilson should have signed it. Growth management, economic incentives, regulatory reform and forestry protection are other leading candidates for attention.

The real business of the new Legislature doesn’t begin until Jan. 4. Brown said that he wants to tackle the deficit already looming over this year’s budget “sooner rather than later.” That would be a good test of this new spirit of cooperation.

Resolutions to do better are pretty easy to make this time of year. The real test for Willie Brown, Pete Wilson and the Legislature will come after the New Year’s holiday.