Crime Issue at Forefront as State Session Opens : Capitol: Lawmakers will also have to deal with a budget crisis. Election-year politics adds zest to the mix.

State legislators will launch their 1994 session under the golden-domed Capitol today, intent on projecting crime, illegal immigration and the need to improve public education as their top concerns.

It being an election year, however, it remains to be seen whether legislators will actually pass major laws on such big issues, or get bogged down in posturing against political rivals.

“It looks like it will be an exciting year for political junkies,” said Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Big Bear Lake).

Legislators from both sides of the aisle have studied polls, conferred with supporters, and read the headlines, and agree that the issue certain to receive the most attention is crime.

Several Democrats plan an ambitious assault on the proliferation of guns and ammunition in California. The Republican focus will be on locking up repeat offenders, imposing stricter penalties on juveniles who commit serious crimes and criminals who prey on children, and repealing such inmate privileges as conjugal visits.

Gov. Pete Wilson, making crime a central plank in his reelection bid, has called for a special legislative session to consider anti-crime bills, and will convene a “summit” on the topic in January.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who held a high-profile economic summit last year, plans to convene another summit in February--this one focusing on education. To assure maximum exposure, the crime and school summits will be staged in Los Angeles.

The budget will also command legislators’ attention when they return. Senators and Assembly members will be confronted with a $40-billion budget in disarray for the fourth year in a row. Faced with a deficit of $3.8 billion, lawmakers must struggle again to cut programs ranging from health and welfare to aid for local governments.

“The choices we’re left with are the unpalatable and the unthinkable,” said Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).

Wilson will present his proposed budget to the Legislature on Friday. The Republican governor is expected to propose more money for education and prisons to keep pace with increases in enrollment and incarceration, and will ask for deep cuts in nearly every other state-supported program.

Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) said Republicans will be seeking a freeze on salaries for the 270,000 state employees as one solution to the looming budget crisis. Republican legislators also will attempt to cut direct and indirect aid to illegal immigrants, including elimination of state-paid perinatal care for women.

Health care for all Californians is likely to become a more pressing issue in 1994. Assemblyman Burt Margolin and Sen. Art Torres, two Los Angeles Democrats who are considering running against one another for state insurance commissioner, are chairing a special committee to develop California’s plan for implementing President Clinton’s health care proposals. Boosting the chance that a plan will emerge, Brown and Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno are sitting on the conference committee.

The committee must seek ways to provide coverage for the estimated 6 million Californians who have no health insurance, and to obtain more federal funds to pay medical costs of indigents and illegal immigrants.

“Revitalizing California’s economy is central to the legislative agenda,” Margolin said. “Health care reform is central to revitalizing the economy. The cost of doing nothing is intolerable.”

With the Southern California economy still in the doldrums, lawmakers will try to help speed the recovery, as they did in 1993. There will be, for example, efforts by Republicans to reduce government regulation of business.

Democrats and Republicans also are casting crime and fear of violence in economic terms. Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles) hopes to get business support for a measure that would allow local governments to regulate gun sales. As it is, state law governs the sale of guns and ammunition.

“The message we’re sending worldwide is that the United States is a dangerous and lawless place,” Caldera said, adding that crime hurts one of Southern California’s leading industries, tourism.

Other Democratic anti-gun proposals include a package by Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) requiring people to obtain a license to buy a handgun and ammunition and limit an individual’s handgun purchases to one per year. Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti will attempt to jump-start his bill to limit the size of ammunition clips.

Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) has a proposal to force bullet manufacturers to place serial numbers on casings. Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) is pushing for an outright ban on the sale, importation and manufacture of handguns in California, plus licensing of current handgun owners.

“We have the best chance in a long time of getting a crackdown on the proliferation of guns,” said Friedman, who also will try to revive a bill from last year that would have banned smoking in enclosed workplaces.

The Republicans plan to revive a measure that would send people convicted of a third felony to prison for life. The bill died last year, prompting Mike Reynolds, a Fresno photographer whose daughter was murdered, to push an initiative for the November ballot known as “Three Strikes and You’re Out.”

The cost of incarcerating the additional prisoners could run into the billions. Republicans say money for new prisons could come from health and welfare programs.

“I don’t think we’ve built enough prisons,” Leonard said.

Although they will resist efforts to make more cuts in social programs, Democrats may offer support for less costly alternatives to prisons, such as lower security work camps for nonviolent offenders.

“We can’t spend a lot of money we don’t have,” Lockyer said. “People look at their shoes when you ask: ‘How are we going to finance this? Who’s for cutting education? Who’s for tax increases?’ ”

The Legislature is coming off an unusually successful year, when Republicans and Democrats struck compromises to overhaul the troubled workers’ compensation system, cut business taxes and pass a $39-billion budget by the constitutionally imposed summer deadline.

Republicans and Democrats say they intend to operate without the rancor of years past. But 1994 is an election year, and if the past is a gauge, the work of legislating could become a sideline in Sacramento as politicians turn their attention to raising money and marketing themselves in a quest for votes.

Wilson faces a serious challenge from either Treasurer Kathleen Brown or Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi. The offices of treasurer, controller, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, insurance commissioner and state superintendent of schools will be open. Among those considering a challenge to Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren is Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove).

As term limits continue to take hold, as many as 22 members of the 80-member Assembly plan to run for higher office or leave office this year. With 30 first-termers in the Legislature, more than half the members of the lower house will have two or fewer years of experience by this time next year.

Half the Senate also will face reelection. Democrats hold 16 of the 20 seats that will be up in November, giving Republicans a chance to wrest control of that house for the first time since Ronald Reagan was governor.

The Senate also will have a new leader for the first time in more than a decade. Roberti plans to step down and run for treasurer, leaving Lockyer as his most likely successor. The transition could take place this month.

As the politicking and legislating proceeds, the eight-year-long federal corruption investigation will continue. Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier) and Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who were indicted in 1993, likely will go on trial on corruption charges this year--and some lawmakers again will push for campaign financing reforms.

Even if campaign reforms are approved, elected officials will be raising huge sums of money. Wilson plans to spend up to $20 million on his reelection. The Democratic nominee will spend a like amount. With 20 Senate races, 80 Assembly races, the cost of the statewide offices, plus an initiative or two, political leaders could be asking donors to shell out $75 million or more to keep the democratic process operating in the coming year.

“Politics,” said Bill Press, chairman of the state Democratic Party, “may be the biggest growth industry in the state in 1994.”