Prenatal Care Dispute Delays State Budget : Government: Assembly rejects plan to eliminate aid for illegal immigrants. Governor threatens to delete $50 million in services to legal residents.

Gov. Pete Wilson delayed signing the $57.3-billion state budget Wednesday after the Assembly rejected a measure that would eliminate state-funded prenatal care for pregnant illegal immigrants.

The Republican governor warned Democrats that he will have to delete $50 million from services to legal California residents if lawmakers do not reverse themselves and pass the bill cutting aid to the undocumented.

The last-minute flap meant at least another day’s delay in enacting a budget for the fiscal year that began Friday. The Assembly is expected to reconsider its action today.

The confrontation put the spotlight on an issue that Wilson has made central to his reelection campaign.

The governor has sued the federal government, seeking reimbursement for services that the state is required by law to provide to illegal immigrants, including education and emergency health care. Those services, he maintains, act as magnets drawing immigrants across the border into California.

In that climate, Wilson says, the state should not provide services for the undocumented that it can legally eliminate, such as prenatal care.

“It’s unfair and illogical to be providing these services as an entitlement to illegal immigrants when we can’t do the same for people here legally,” said Shannon Bowman, a spokeswoman for the state’s Health and Welfare Agency.

But Democrats contend that Wilson’s idea is shortsighted because babies born to illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens. If they have health problems and their parents are poor, California taxpayers will have to pick up the tab for their care.

Democrats say studies have shown that money spent on prenatal care is a good investment, saving the state even more money later in costs associated with preventable health problems suffered by newborns.

Wilson has used the same rationale to argue for greater funding for a program to expand prenatal care for lawful residents. That program, which serves the working poor, is the centerpiece of Wilson’s so-called preventive agenda.

“This bill is not good policy,” said Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles). “We should not punish the kids. They did not ask to come here.”

The budget bill provides only enough money to keep the prenatal program going through Sept. 1. The care will be provided throughout pregnancy to any woman who applies by the cutoff date.

Last year, according to the Health and Welfare Agency, nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants gave birth in California. The agency says 40% of births paid for by the Medi-Cal program are to women who are in the country illegally. The agency did not have figures on how many receive prenatal care.

The bill cutting off funding for prenatal care cleared the Senate Monday night with 21 votes, the bare majority needed for passage. But in the Assembly, only four of 47 Democrats supported the legislation, and it fell five votes short of the 41 required to send it to the governor.

Although the state budget bill has been approved by both houses, Wilson has withheld signing the measure until several other bills governing specific spending on various programs have been approved. All have been approved with the exception of the prenatal care bill.

A Wilson spokesman said the governor will wait to see if the Assembly reverses its position before he signs the main budget bill. If the bill eliminating prenatal care does not pass, the governor will use his line-item veto to reduce spending elsewhere in the budget.

“The citizens of the state of California, the legal residents, are not going to be pleased to see additional programs that benefit them cut,” said Sean Walsh, Wilson’s press secretary. “Legal residents are going to be cut at the expense of illegal immigrants.”