Brown’s Oratory Deflates a ‘Bloated’ L.A. County : Finances: Denouncing supervisors as ‘scalawags,’ Speaker strikes a responsive chord in the Assembly.

It was vintage Willie Brown, and an acid-tongued revival of the old-fashioned North-South rivalry in California.

In a vein-popping oration during another all-night budget struggle, the Speaker derailed any chance that Los Angeles County had in the Assembly for scuttling a budget deal that takes $299 million from county coffers.

With Supervisor Gloria Molina in the Assembly chambers and Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke also in Sacramento to lobby against the budget, Brown denounced Los Angeles County leaders as “scalawags” who run a greedy system with “bloated” executive salaries.

“Los Angeles (supervisors) would squeal no matter how much you gave them,” Brown said, his voice rising before the Assembly late Wednesday night. “You can’t satisfy that appetite. There’s no way you can satisfy the appetite of people who personally have salaries of almost $100,000 a year.”

Brown was referring to the $99,297 annual pay of Los Angeles supervisors, compared to state legislators’ pay of $52,500, plus per diem expenses, which can total another $24,000 a year.

The Speaker issued his declaration in an effort to justify the budget deal, which he helped craft. Los Angeles County officials complain that they are being unfairly hit, because more than half of the $592 million that will be taken from all 58 counties statewide is coming from Los Angeles.

The county money will be shifted to public schools, and Brown warned that any lawmaker who voted against the transfer would have to “explain that to the schoolkids of the state.”

Brown’s comments about the salaries and benefits of top Los Angeles County officials underscores a feeling common among lawmakers here. They noted that Los Angeles County has more than 450 employees earning more than $100,000, according to 1992 figures supplied by the county.

“And you tell me you are going to withhold your vote to protect public education for that bloated system?” Brown demanded. “That bloated system ought to reduce itself and take care of the health of the people who go through the UC Medical Center and USC Medical Center.”

Brown gave the speech as some Assembly Democrats from Los Angeles County wavered in their support for the deal, in the face of lobbying by county officials, supervisors and union leaders.

“You have allowed yourself to be the victim to the complaints and cries of folk who are totally misrepresenting what the true facts are,” Brown said, contending that county budgets are not being reduced as drastically as the state’s.

“How can you do that, Gloria Molina? How can do that, Yvonne Burke?” he asked, charging that county officials had misrepresented the facts in their effort to get more money for the county. “It is unconscionable.”

Brown praised the Assembly for doing an “incredible job” by passing the budget at 5 a.m. Monday, after an all-night session, and bringing “dignity and honor to this place.”

But with the entire budget deal hanging on the property tax shift detailed in a trailer bill late Wednesday, Brown’s voice rose when he exhorted the legislators: “Don’t let those scalawags take that away.”

The Assembly erupted in applause. Members Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) and Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino), among others, hugged Brown.

Still, the measure failed to pass on the first vote. Eight Los Angeles-area Democrats voted no or abstained. Shortly past 2 a.m. Thursday, the Assembly voted again, and the measure passed with the required two-thirds vote. All Los Angeles County Democrats ended up voting for the bill. Four Los Angeles County Republicans voted against it.

Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), who voted for the package, was critical of the county’s lobbying effort but disputed Brown’s charge that all county operations are bloated. Citing law enforcement and health care demands on the county, Friedman said, “the burden that the county bears is enormous.”

“It sounded gubernatorial to me,” Moore said Thursday of the speech.

Brown, she said, captured the pain many liberal lawmakers like her feel about having to cut important programs, and she is frustrated by Los Angeles County officials misrepresenting the problem.

“We’re looking over the big picture, and trying to do the right thing,” she said.

Other Assembly members from Los Angeles could not be reached Thursday.

Molina, a former Assembly member, shrugged off the speech and all its charges, saying: “It’s part of the waltz. It’s part of the plumage that goes up around budget time.”

Dan Savage, who watched the speech from the Assembly gallery, was not so nonchalant.

A representative of Service Employees International Union local that represents 40,000 Los Angeles County employees, Savage pointed out that as many as 7,000 county workers in his union face layoffs because of this year’s budget cuts. Many of them are health care workers and nurses.

“There was clear sentiment that L.A. was fat and selfish and lazy,” Savage said Thursday. “I don’t understand it.”

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