Assembly Panel OKs Five ‘3 Strikes’ Bills : Government: The finance committee sends measures to the floor that would crack down on repeat felons. But their costs are unknown and could amount to $2 billion a year.

Continuing the rush to pass tough anti-crime legislation, the Assembly’s main finance committee approved five separate “three strikes, you’re out” bills Wednesday without knowing the total costs of any of them.

After hearing testimony that the measures may cost billions, the Assembly Ways and Means Committee approved the measures by wide margins, and sent them to the Assembly floor for a vote that could be taken as early as today.

The action came as a new Field Poll showed that 84% of the California electorate supports the three strikes initiative heading for the November ballot, which would impose life imprisonment for three-time repeat offenders convicted of violent or serious crimes. President Clinton endorsed the concept in his State of Union address Tuesday.

“Let’s show that the Legislature can deal with this,” said Assemblyman Bill Jones (R-Fresno) who, with Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Hanford), authored the toughest of the five measures.

Although he said he was not suggesting that legislators cast their votes based on public opinion polls, Jones cited the Field Poll, saying: “This issue is paramount in people’s minds.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) had hoped to place the three strikes measure on the June ballot, allowing voters to exorcise their anger over crime before the November general elections.

But Atty. Gen. Daniel Lungren issued an opinion earlier this week saying that the Legislature may not have the authority to pass the three strikes statute by placing it before the voters. The Legislature can seek voters’ approval only for constitutional amendments or bond measures.

The legislative analyst placed the cost of incarcerating three-time losers for life at more than $2 billion per year. The California Department of Corrections is working on a more detailed analysis, but corrections chief James Gomez said the calculation will not be finished for weeks. The Department of Corrections current annual budget is $3 billion.

Jones said the additional costs may be high, but the Legislature and the Department of Corrections can find ways of lowering the cost of incarceration once habitual felons are off the streets.

But Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) said that based on his 28 years in the Assembly, he doubts the Legislature can or will solve such problems.

“I have no confidence in us being able to deal with anything in the long term,” Vasconcellos said. Vasconcellos abstained from voting on the three strikes measures, explaining later, “I don’t believe in voting for things we can’t pay for.”

The 21-member Ways and Means Committee approved the Jones-Costa bill by a 17-1 vote. The measure is an exact replica of the proposed initiative, and is endorsed by Mike Reynolds, the proponent of the initiative.

Reynolds, a photographer from Fresno, urged the committee to vote for the bill, asking members to consider the untold cost of violent crime committed by habitual criminals. His 18-year-old daughter was shot to death by a repeat felon outside a Fresno restaurant in 1992.

He told the legislators that unless they support the measure, “you need to understand that you are sharing a little bit of the responsibility” every time a repeat felon commits another murder.

Reynolds began pushing the initiative after the Assembly Committee on Public Safety refused to approve the Jones-Costa bill last year. Now, faced with Reynold’s initiative and rising public outrage about crime, the Legislature has made an about-face. But Reynolds said he will drop the initiative only after the Legislature approves and the governor signs the Jones-Costa bill.

The initiative and the Jones-Costa bill seek to double the sentences of people who commit a second serious or violent felony. A criminal who commits a third felony, after having committed two prior serious or violent felonies, would face a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Violent and serious felonies are defined in the penal code and include crimes such as murder, rape, arson, armed robbery, residential burglary and furnishing drugs to a minor. In both the initiative and the Jones-Costa bill, the third “strike” could be any felony, including some types of theft, many drug offenses or a fourth drunk driving conviction.

The committee approved other three strikes measures by Assemblymen Richard K. Rainey (R-Walnut Creek), Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) and Ross Johnson (R-Placentia), who has two identical bills.

Rainey’s measure has the support of the California District Attorneys Assn. Unlike the initiative, Rainey’s bill would impose a sentence of life in prison without parole on three-time losers, and it would require that the third felony be violent or serious.