Lawmakers Foresee Grim New Year in State Capitol : Government: Some in the county delegation predict a repeat of the 1992 budget mess. Others see signs of change.

When the clock struck midnight and rang out 1992, more than a few state legislators breathed a sigh of relief. Gloomy old ‘92--a year of recession, revenue shortfalls and a historic budget stalemate--was finally over. Good riddance.

Unfortunately, 1993 doesn’t look a whole lot more promising, at least in the eyes of many members of Orange County’s delegation to the state Legislature.

Most grumpily predict still more agonizing gridlock over how to curb the swelling state budget deficit, which analysts predict will once again top $7.5 billion. And few in the delegation expect the Democrat-dominated Legislature to produce any new laws to ease the strain of workers’ compensation claims on California’s businesses or dramatically streamline the regulatory process they feel is strangling private enterprise.

“I think it’s going to be a tough year and a disappointing year,” state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) predicted. “There’s a lot of things that are needed to lift the state out of the mess it’s in, but I just don’t see them happening.”

Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R--Orange) sounded even gloomier. “We’re going to be in budget stalemate,” Conroy said. “I look for the economy to be a disaster, and I look for it to only get worse until we get some people with a real understanding of what’s going on.”

A few, however, hold out hope. Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) has struck a new bipartisan tone and is boldly predicting that the state’s mounting problems will finally knock some sense into ideologically fixed Republicans and Democrats alike. Orange County’s only Democrat in the state Capitol, Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), agreed that both parties could be more amenable to compromise now that the election year is behind them.

“Hopefully, people won’t be as rigid as they were last year,” Umberg said. “It was clear that (Gov. Pete) Wilson felt impasse was OK because he could go to the court of final review--the voters--and they’d find in his favor. But when he reached the court of last resort in November, he wasn’t vindicated. The Democrats retained control. So now I expect him to be more convivial.”

The real key, however, could be in the actions and attitudes of people like Bill Morrow, South County’s new assemblyman. Morrow and other Assembly newcomers make up the largest freshman class since 1966 (more than one-third of the Assembly is new) and are the first elected under the state’s new law limiting them to six years in office. With the clock already ticking, they are eager for action.

“We’ve got six years to make our mark, and none of us can be complacent,” Morrow said. “Everyone is going to be looking for bipartisan solutions.”

Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) suggested the new freshman class is “a change in the type of people” typical of Sacramento lawmakers. “Democrats and Republicans alike seem to have a focus on solving some of the anti-business sentiment,” he said.

But a big question looms: Whither goes Willie?

Lewis and several others predict that powerful Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) has been so emboldened by the successful Democratic Party showing in the November elections that he will be as irrepressible as ever in waging the sorts of political games that have given Sacramento a national black eye.

But some, most notably Ferguson, predict that Brown will prove to be a changed man after last year’s budget imbroglio. “I think he’s looking toward to his farewell speech, and some friends and colleagues have convinced him that he should leave a legacy besides battles and fighting,” Ferguson said. “I really think he’s had enough of the power business and the bullying. He seems ready to solve problems.”

Although only a few days old, 1993 has already yielded some other intriguing changes in political personalities. Ferguson, normally a staunch ideologue, suddenly is peddling compromise like never before. And Lewis, long the consummate aficionado of the art of electioneering, is spending more time on legislation he plans to sponsor and less on political wizardry.

“In the past, environmental zealotry prohibited some Democrats from helping turn the economy around. Now they’re realizing their regulatory overkill is driving out business,” said Lewis, who plans a half dozen bills to ease state environmental regulations. “I have a feeling some of the inner-city Democrats will be more willing to vote to improve our economy than the white, quiche-eating liberals who reside in the suburbs.”

Other legislators from Orange County also will take aim at the state’s environmental laws, particularly those springing from the powerful South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Pringle wants to sponsor laws requiring that all AQMD regulations be ratified by the Legislature and rescind the agency’s controversial trip-reduction requirements for Southland businesses. He also wants to establish “environmental enterprise zones” where businesses with good ecological records could more easily start up without first jumping through all the usual regulatory hoops.

Conroy, meanwhile, hopes to curb regulatory overkill with a proposed law requiring that fines and fees go into the state general fund instead of an individual agency’s coffers. “To me, we are not free people,” Conroy said. “We only think we are. But with our regulatory system, we’ve been put in a position worse than any socialist nation. The permit process is ridiculous. There is no reason why we do some of the things we do.”

Morrow, despite his status as a freshman, is pressing ahead with an ambitious agenda, including plans for legislation to ease the proliferation of “frivolous” lawsuits by requiring that the losing side in a case automatically pay reasonable attorney’s fees. He also has suggested that lawmakers be forced into special elections if they fail to pass a budget by the state’s July 1 constitutional deadline.

Perhaps the most important issue for Morrow and other Orange County legislators is workers’ compensation insurance reform. Most want to see the outright elimination of stress disability claims but promise to compromise if necessary. Morrow, in particular, hopes that the Assembly Republicans can join together and agree on one omnibus bill.

“We need a better plan of attack rather than every legislator sponsoring a bill dealing with one quirk or another,” he said. “We have to recognize this is a crisis that is driving businesses out of the state.”