Lobbyists and Lawmakers in Last Huddles and Hustles : Legislature: Touchy negotiations and unlikely alliances mark end of a frenzied--but surprisingly cordial--session.

For Capitol lobbyists, these have been the most frantic days of the year, the final hours of frenzy before the Legislature adjourns.

It is a time of miracles, when bills long ago pronounced dead suddenly rise from their graves, and a time of plague, when seemingly robust measures fall sudden victim to terminal disease.

It is a slippery time of unlikely alliances and unending negotiations, when the only certainty for a lobbyist is the final vote count. Innocuous bills are suddenly hijacked, amended to serve some new purpose. Important bills are defanged to satisfy some special interest.

At issue are laws that will in one way or another affect 31 million Californians. They promise tax breaks for manufacturers and water for developers, cheap natural gas for private companies and generous retirements rather than layoffs for government workers.

Day after day in the final four weeks of the legislative session scheduled to end today, lobbyists for special interests have been working on these and other bills--meeting with legislators, cornering them in corridors and pulling them off the Senate and Assembly floors to make a final appeal for votes.

Many of the more seasoned lobbyists say this year’s legislative session has been calmer than most, less contentious. Even as tonight’s midnight deadline approaches and the pace of lobbying picks up in the Capitol corridors, there is camaraderie, even among those on opposing sides.

An observer standing among waiting lobbyists and passing lawmakers is struck by the jokes and taunts, at times as raucous as a fraternity party, and by the continual touching--the handshakes, the neck rubs, the hugs and, yes, the backslapping--taking place here.

Yet these are critical hours for lobbyists, when bills, clients and lucrative contracts are won or lost--the drop-dead time, when there is a kind of desperation never far below the surface.

A few days ago, the Senate’s sergeant at arms, Tony Beard, posted a bright yellow sign outside the side entrance to the Senate chamber reminding lobbyists that they are not allowed to send lawmakers notes or cards telling them how to vote on a specific bill. “THIS RULE WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED,” the notice concluded in dark, black, capital letters.

Beard explained to a reporter that lobbyists “can send in information, that’s fine. But if that piece says support, defeat, vote no, vote aye, that’s a violation.”

Lately, Beard said, several lobbyists broke that rule by sending in business cards urging votes in favor of certain legislation.

The Senate sergeants, like their counterparts in the Assembly, play a crucial role in the life of lobbyists. Registered lobbyists are barred from the Senate and Assembly chambers. The only way they can talk to a lawmaker during a floor session is by handing a note to a sergeant, who will carry it into the member.

For days now, lobbyists have been lining up to send in business cards, hoping that the lawmaker who could provide that crucial swing vote would emerge to hear one final argument.

During a recent afternoon session, lobbyists Sarah Beserra and Sandy Klagge were tallying votes outside the Senate chamber as they worked to kill an obscure bill that would reimpose local rent control on long-term mobile home park leases. The measure was supported by those who rent the spaces and opposed by park owners.

Beserra and Klagge were calling out senators one after another, urging a vote against the measure, by Assemblywoman Valerie Brown (D-Sonoma).

When the final vote was announced and the bill had fallen two votes short, Beserra and Klagge were elated, especially when they realized that Senate rules prevented the bill from being voted on again. “We’ve actually killed something,” said Beserra with considerable relief.

If there is a lesson for lobbyists, it is a simple one: There is no substitute for being in the Capitol, right outside the legislative chambers, always watching, ever vigilant.

“Most of it is making sure everything goes smoothly,” said lobbyist Lenny Goldberg, whose clients include the California Tax Reform Assn., utility consumers and several cities. “Your clients expect you to be here.”

Former state Sen. William Campbell, now director of the California Manufacturers’ Assn., is everywhere--face to face with lawmakers and other lobbyists and at press briefings--successfully pushing a series of bills that would cut taxes on business and streamline environmental regulations.

Key to the manufacturers’ lobbying effort is a publicity campaign--directed at lawmakers and the press--featuring free samples of California-made products that, according to the association, could be produced more cheaply in other states. Among the items winding up in legislative (and journalists’) offices have been gift boxes of Jelly Belly jelly beans, large sacks of tortilla chips and even a quart of paint.

The tobacco lobbyists have been working the halls as well. At a crucial late-night meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, they sat at the very back of the cavernous hearing room, wisecracking among themselves despite the crucial vote that lay ahead on a bill by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) to ban smoking in most workplaces.

For the most part, their lobbying was done and all they could do was await the result.

One of them accurately predicted what was about to unfold--that Friedman would either accept a series of amendments to weaken his bill or he would not be able to get it out of committee at all.

But the lobbyist reminded a reporter that he was not to be quoted: “There’s a gag rule for tobacco lobbyists. We can’t talk about tobacco.”

There was no vote on the bill, and Friedman agreed to wait until next year to try again.

Although Friedman’s bill was highly visible, with enormous consequences, most legislation being considered is more narrowly drawn.

Ex-Assemblyman William T. Bagley, an attorney and former state public utilities commissioner, has registered as a lobbyist, representing the Gas Co.

Grabbing his former colleagues wherever he can, he is fighting an attempt by the city of Vernon to take over gas service to businesses. The bill, by Assemblywoman Martha M. Escutia (D-Huntington Park), would reverse a May ruling by the Public Utilities Commission and allow the city to offer cut-rate gas prices to private companies.

Bagley has met with a dozen or more lawmakers urging their opposition. “This is a typical special interest bill,” Bagley said, “but the special interest happens to be a city.”

On a recent afternoon, someone had tuned the television monitor outside the Senate chamber not to the floor session going on inside, but to a nature program showing two rattlesnakes slithering about--an image that seemed to capture the tension among the dozens of lobbyists there.

Sierra Club lobbyist Michael Paparian had changed the channel.

He had been waiting for days for state Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord) to take up another narrowly focused bill that would force the elected board of the East Bay Municipal Utility District to supply water to a $4-billion housing development proposed by Beverly Hills real estate developer Nathan Shapell, a big-time campaign contributor who has been generous over the years to Republicans and Democrats alike.

The water district, just recovering from a disastrous drought, wants no part of Shapell’s development.

Environmentalists such as Paparian oppose what they see as a naked power grab and a precedent that could affect the divvying up of precious water supplies into the next century.

Equipped with a portable phone that folds neatly into a jacket pocket, Paparian was ready to mobilize opposition to the measure the minute it came up for a vote on the Senate floor.

In the end, late this week, the Senate approved the bill, but only after Boatwright promised to make changes and delay seeking Assembly approval until next year.

Without knowing when a particular bill will come up for a vote, the Sierra Club prepares a daily “green sheet” that is distributed to friendly lawmakers, listing many of the environmental measures on the daily legislative agenda. Many other special interest groups do the same, adding to the deluge of paper confronting legislators each day.

Lawmakers, Paparian said, in explaining the reason for floor alerts, “are going to deal with hundreds of bills today. Even the most alert members are not going to know what they’re voting on.”