If Ever a Strong Finish Was Needed . . . : Three key issues face Legislature before it recesses
With the Legislature’s one-month summer recess just two days away, state lawmakers who have ducked several key votes or dawdled on resolving pressing policy issues must now take action. Three important measures face key tests this week.
IMPROVING LAUSD: Legislation to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District comes before the Assembly Education Committee today. The bill’s author, Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), needs nine votes to get the controversial measure out of committee.
There’s no question that the beleaguered LAUSD, with its financial and administrative problems and its strained relations with teachers, needs reform. The key question is: Would a breakup make public education better? Roberti himself admits there’s nothing in his proposal that would automatically improve education in the classroom.
Breakup is a drastic step that could have dire social consequences in a city hobbled by racial and class divisions. The path pursued by LEARN (Los Angeles Alliance for Restructuring Now), which advocates local school control and other reform methods proven in other urban school districts, makes eminent good sense. The Legislature should throw its support behind the LEARN movement, which has demonstrated that educational reform doesn’t have to pit one part of the city against another.
PASS THE SMOKING BAN: Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) is facing the possibility of losing the war after winning a major battle for the health of all Californians. His bill, AB 13, which would ban smoking in virtually all enclosed workplaces, has cleared the Assembly but is stalled in the Senate Health Committee for want of one more vote.
Sens. Henry J. Mello (D-Santa Cruz), Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Bonita) and Frank Hill (R-Whittier), who have no good reason not to support this bill, either abstained or were absent when it last came before the panel. Today they have another chance to do the right thing.
AB 13 has now won support from a extraordinary coalition, including the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the California Restaurant Assn. and the California Medical Assn. These groups understand that cutting out secondhand smoke cuts way down on medical and workers’ compensation costs while improving health and productivity. The bill deserves support from three inexplicably reluctant senators.
WORKERS’ COMP: The most significant piece of unfinished business before the Legislature is the long-overdue reform of the state’s dysfunctional workers’ compensation system. A six-member conference committee appears close to a comprehensive bill, but it needs a full court press to get the measure back to the Legislature by Friday.
A major stumbling block is that Republican committee members are not convinced that the estimated $1.7 billion in savings from proposed changes in anti-fraud, medical/legal evaluation and stress provisions is enough to justify benefit increases of about $860 million to injured workers. Surely, some bipartisan compromise can be fashioned to complete the committee’s two-month effort to deliver a workers’ comp bill this week so the full Legislature can approve it when it resumes in mid-August. Reform of workers’ comp could be the crown-jewel accomplishment for the Legislature this year.
