Assembly Committee Votes for Sweeping Redesign of Welfare

Looking to the day when Washington no longer controls welfare programs, an Assembly committee voted Tuesday to overturn the system in California. It approved a package of legislation that would severely restrict who qualifies for welfare and in some cases deny cash payments entirely.

The 4-1 partisan vote by the Assembly Human Services Committee on 10 separate welfare bills followed the lead of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who began the year pledging to revamp the 60-year-old, federally run welfare apparatus.

Republican analysts have cast the measures as a redesign of the family welfare system through “fundamental changes in the underlying philosophy, core values and structure of the program.”

The centerpiece bill, AB 3140 by Assemblyman Tom J. Bordonaro Jr. (R-Paso Robles), calls for flat grants with no increases for larger families. It would also terminate benefits after two years for those deemed able to work. And it would pay benefits with vouchers instead of cash to teen mothers and others who in some cases “can’t handle a checkbook,” Bordonaro said.

Opponents called the measure extreme and a political ploy, since it requires federal action. That is considered unlikely this year as Congress and the Clinton administration remain deadlocked over enacting block grants, considered the surest way to enable states to run welfare programs without federal approval.

“It’s all about electoral politics,” said Casey McKeever of the Western Center on Law and Poverty--Republicans trying to portray President Clinton as ineffectual and Clinton not willing to cave in to Republican demands. Clinton has vetoed one GOP welfare reform package already, contending that it would have led to a “race to the bottom” among states implementing harsher and harsher programs.

Bordonaro’s measure faces likely approval at its next hearing before the Assembly Appropriations Committee and on the Assembly floor. But its first stop in the state Senate is the Health and Human Services Committee, whose chairwoman, Diane Watson of Los Angeles, said:

“It will have the toughest scrutiny we can give it, and without major amendments it will not get out of the committee.

“The public wants welfare reform but does not want children to fall through the safety net,” Watson said.

Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Berkeley), the lone vote against the Bordonaro bill on Tuesday, said its goals were acceptable but the means to get there added up to “a disaster for the poor families.”

Despite opposition ahead, however, supporters Tuesday presented a lengthy, forceful explanation of the measure’s aims, portraying the changes as positive steps to shrink the rolls of the 2.7 million people in the state receiving benefits from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.

Eloise Anderson, director of the state Department of Social Services and a fervent advocate for welfare reform, said that behind the proposed welfare changes lay a shift in philosophy designed for the “21st century rather than the 1930s.” The new goals, she said, include reducing government’s obligation to the poor; ensuring that work pays more than welfare and designing programs to hold two-parent families together.

“People on AFDC aren’t the problem,” Anderson said. “The system is the problem.”

Though described as a “work in progress,” with cost factors still to be worked out, the Bordonaro bill includes:

* A “ready-to-work program” for those with work experience or employed part time while receiving a partial benefit. The program would pressure recipients to get a full-time job by dispensing flat grants irrespective of family size, with the amount reduced at intervals and cut off after two years.

* A “family transition assistance program” that would replace cash grants with vouchers for such needs as housing, transportation and child care for parents who have never worked and adolescent mothers. Also included would be adults with narcotics, alcohol or mental health problems. For those deemed ultimately employable, aid would stop after five years.

* A “disabled family assistance program” to provide cash grants for up to five years, more if necessary, for families in which a parent, child or both are physically disabled.

* A “child-only assistance program” that would allow assistance for children whose parents are ineligible for aid or children living with other relatives.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren in Washington contributed to this story.