Speaker OKs Funds for GOP TV Studio : Assembly: Some in Setencich’s own party call it a waste of taxpayer money. Democrats have similar facility.

Displaying the highly partisan nature of state politics, Republican Assembly Speaker Brian Setencich has authorized about $150,000 to build an in-house television studio for GOP lawmakers so they won’t have to use a separate facility that former Speaker Willie Brown built for his Democratic colleagues in 1986.

Setencich said through a spokeswoman that the new studio is necessary because the existing one does not have the capacity to serve both parties and because GOP caucus members placed a high priority on publicizing their actions to California television stations by satellite.

But the speaker’s account was disputed Tuesday by a number of GOP lawmakers who blasted the idea as a waste of taxpayers’ money. Several added that their opinion was never solicited and that they were unaware the studio was already under construction in a legislative office building across from the Capitol.

“Are we producing drama there or cartoons or a documentary or what?” asked Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos), who is heading an audit of legislative spending. “The idea that the Legislature should be building dual organizations up in Sacramento--one for the propagation of the Republican Party and one for the propagation of the Democratic Party--is ludicrous.”

Firestone and other lawmakers questioned whether any publicly financed studio is necessary when private facilities are immediately adjacent to the Capitol.

Others said Setencich should simply open the existing facility to all lawmakers instead of leaving it exclusively to Democrats.

The episode illustrates the bitter partisan rivalry that has been heightened by a dramatic battle for control of the Assembly that has been underway since Republicans gained a majority of the lower house in the 1994 election.

Setencich, of Fresno, is the second Republican speaker of the Assembly in the last year who has angered the GOP by breaking ranks with his own party caucus to win office with the unanimous support of Democrats.

Now, Setencich is struggling to overcome Republican opponents, mainly Assembly Republican Leader Curt Pringle of Garden Grove, and retain his office. Capitol insiders said the television studio is a way for him to both maintain the status quo for Democrats and appease Republicans.

“We are working on the issue of parity,” said Emma Suarez Pawlicki, Setencich’s spokeswoman.

Pawlicki said Setencich decided not to expand the existing studio because it would require so much construction that a separate facility was considered more effective. But Pawlicki also said Republicans did not know the capacity of the existing studio or the extent of its use.

“I couldn’t tell you that,” she said. “All I can tell you is that our Republican members are saying they need to have the capability of getting their message out and . . . it would only take one time for the other side not to be able to use it for all heck to break loose.”

Pawlicki said Setencich was out of town and unavailable for comment Tuesday. Democratic leaders were also unavailable Tuesday.

In Sacramento, Brown actually started the television wars about nine years ago when he secretly built a studio for Democrats. Like Setencich did recently, Brown paid for the facility from a taxpayer-financed account that is controlled by his political party and is never publicly audited.

For years, most Republican lawmakers did not know the studio existed.

Republicans complained that Brown’s studio was an inappropriate use of taxpayer money and that it was unfair because they could not afford equal access. Last year, Republicans tried unsuccessfully to kill funding for WBTV--Willie Brown TV, as it became known.

That’s why one veteran Republican lawmaker argued Tuesday that Setencich was not acting on behalf of the GOP caucus. “Every member of the Republican caucus who is not a freshman voted against having any studio at all,” the lawmaker said.

Times staff writers Eric Bailey and Max Vanzi contributed to this story.