Members Rush to Submit Bills in Assembly

A month after approving bills to expand the right to carry concealed weapons and ban same-sex marriages, Assembly members have proposed legislation to limit abortions, roll back labor and environmental laws, and put the first crack in California’s year-old indoor smoking ban.

Several tax cut measures also were proposed, including one by Assemblyman Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) that embodies Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed 15% cut in income, banking and business taxes.

The flurry of bill introductions came on Friday, the deadline for proposing legislation for the 1996 session. The batch of new bills numbers in the hundreds and includes proposals to build nine new state prisons and to cut welfare to families whose children are truants.

The new bills are in addition to the more than 250 measures that the lower house passed and sent to the Senate last month, shortly after Orange County Republican Curt Pringle became speaker.

Assembly Republican bills on such issues as the environment and organized labor will face a tough fight in the Senate where Democrats hold a slim majority. But even in the GOP-controlled Assembly, anti-abortion bills will have a hard time gaining a majority, given that a handful of Republicans and most Democrats favor abortion rights.

Among the measures introduced by Democrats is one to repeal a portion of California’s landmark 1994 ban on smoking in most indoor workplaces. Under the 1994 law, smoking was to be prohibited in bars and casinos by next January, unless the state could develop safe standards for secondhand tobacco smoke in those establishments.

Under the bill by Assemblyman Sal Cannella (D-Ceres), the deadline for developing those standards would be extended to the year 2000, thereby permitting smoking in bars and casinos at least until then. Cannella called the bill (AB 3037) “fairly routine,” intended simply to give the state more time to develop safe standards for smoking in bars.

Although the bill as introduced affects only bars and card rooms, lobbyists for health groups fear the measure could be expanded during the committee hearing process to permit smoking in enclosed workplaces where smoking now is prohibited.

Among the five anti-abortion bills is one (AB 2665) by Assemblyman Bruce Thompson (R-Fallbrook) to restrict Medi-Cal funding for abortions. Thompson is pushing to make abortion funding an issue during the debate over the annual state budget.

Assemblyman Bob Margett (R-Arcadia), meanwhile, is pushing a bill (AB 2984) to make it a felony to perform late-term abortions, also called partial birth abortions.

Margett also is carrying legislation (AB 3376) to repeal a requirement that state and local government workers in union shops join public employee unions and pay union dues.

Several new measures would affect the health care industry, including one by Assemblywoman Barbara Alby (R-Fair Oaks) to prohibit health care groups from limiting doctors from fully advising patients about treatment options.

Among the array of tax credits is a proposal by Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-Burlingame) for a $400 credit for parents to help defray the cost of hiring tutors for their children in math, science and reading (AB 2950).