THE SPEAKERSHIP BATTLE : Both Parties Look at Ways to End Impasse : Legislature: Shutting down the Assembly would be one option, but unlikely. More probable is the GOP trying to recall Horcher, finding a compromise candidate or soliciting party defections.

Here’s a scenario to warm the coldest anti-government heart:

The California Assembly, tied in a partisan knot pulled tighter every day, shuts down for much of 1995 while Republicans and Democrats struggle to find the 41st vote needed to take control in the 80-member house.

No Speaker. No committees. No business. Across the Capitol, the Senate drones on in its ornate, crimson-draped chamber. But any bill the Senate passes disappears into a legislative abyss because the lower house has sunk so low it cannot even gavel itself into operation.

“We may just be without a Legislature,” said Tony Quinn, a former Assembly Republican staff member and something of a legislative historian. “That probably wouldn’t bother the people that much.”

The idea of the Assembly grinding to a halt--while perhaps devilishly delicious--probably is the most unlikely of a handful of outcomes. But the fact that such a scenario is even possible shows just how nutty the scene in Sacramento has become this week.

Republicans thought the 41-seat majority they won on Election Day would hand them control of the Assembly for the first time in a quarter of a century. But one of their own--Paul Horcher of Diamond Bar--bolted across the aisle Monday to support Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Now both sides have 40 votes and are hunkered down in a political staring match.

Republicans have vowed to push for a recall of Horcher, replace him with a loyalist and regain their narrow partisan margin. That could take months, however, leaving the Assembly paralyzed all the while because state law requires that the house elect a Speaker before moving on to any other business.

In the meantime, several other scenarios could unfold, including:

* Democrats secure another Republican dissident, take a 41-39 advantage and elect Brown to his eighth term as Assembly Speaker.

* Republicans persuade one or more conservative Democrats to leave their party and elect GOP Leader Jim Brulte to lead the house.

* The two sides remain deadlocked until Republican Richard Mountjoy of Arcadia--who was elected simultaneously Nov. 8 to the Assembly and Senate--resigns to join the upper house, leaving Democrats with a 40-39 majority.

* A compromise candidate emerges from one party or the other to lead a bipartisan coalition--the way Brown did when he was elected Speaker in 1980 despite being opposed by a majority of the members of his own party.

In the end, who wins the top job may be less important than how he or she does so, because the road to victory will tell much about the way the Assembly will operate during the 1995-96 session.

One thing seems certain: The eventual winner, even if it is Brown, will not wield anywhere near the same kind of power that Brown has enjoyed for more than a decade.

“Whoever is elected Speaker is going to have to develop some allies in the other party,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of government at UC Berkeley. “That’s not a bad thing for California.”

While both sides continued to search for the elusive convert who could break the deadlock, Democrats--facing minority party status for the first time since 1969--seemed more eager than Republicans to talk about a compromise.

“Nobody has 41 votes,” said Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg, a Sacramento Democrat. “Neither side can control the house, and it’s obvious if we cared about the public’s business we ought to sit down and have a conversation about what should be done.

“You’re going to have to have some kind of power-sharing arrangement, some understanding that neither side is going to control the house in the old-fashioned way.”

The old-fashioned way means the Speaker--by dominating the Assembly Rules Committee--decides who sits on which policy committees and which bills go where for hearings. He can send a bill he does not like to an unfriendly committee or even change the composition of a panel on a whim to affect the outcome of a vote.

The Speaker also distributes staff and money to the members, assigns office space and makes a handful of juicy patronage appointments to high-paying state boards and commissions.

Isenberg, who is close to Brown but remains a bit of a maverick, suggested yet another scenario: splitting the spoils down the middle.

“It’s probably a virtually equal division of staff, money, responsibility, chairs, positions, everything,” he said.

Not so fast, reply the Republicans. They still have designs on taking over, thank you, and are not about to start giving away the power they worked so hard to win, even as they acknowledge that they lack the muscle to duplicate Brown’s authority.

“There’s no question things are going to have to change,” said Assemblyman Curt Pringle of Garden Grove, a member of the Republican leadership circle and a potential future Speaker himself. “I don’t believe any Speaker will have the powers Willie held. We are certainly going to have to ensure that there are Republicans and Democrats working together.”

But Pringle said Republicans are still confident of taking control of the lower house--presumably by winning a recall election to oust Horcher. He said his colleagues are not interested in a power-sharing arrangement of the kind recently brokered in Michigan, where the House elected co-speakers.

Pringle said he would not trust Brown, the Assembly’s senior member, to share power equitably.

Quinn, the former Assembly aide, worked for the last Republican Speaker--Robert Monagan--who ran the house with a 41-39 majority. He said Republicans would be foolish to agree to share power with Brown.

“In a bipartisan speakership, Willie would end up picking the Republicans’ pockets,” Quinn said. “If this thing goes as a train with a co-speaker, it will not have two engines. It will have one engine and a caboose. (Brown) will be in the engine and the Republicans will be in the caboose.”