Assembly Backs Welfare for Legal Immigrants

As a week of marathon sessions neared a close, the Assembly on Thursday approved measures ranging from one to grant welfare to legal immigrants to one that would legalize ferrets as pets. The state Senate rejected a measure that would have barred the insurance industry from making campaign donations to the California insurance commissioner.

And, after approving a bill to ban the manufacture and sale of cheap handguns earlier in the week, the Assembly retreated on gun control, rejecting a measure to limit individuals’ gun purchases to one a month.

An Assembly bill to strengthen California’s ban on assault weapons stalled late Thursday after pro-gun Republicans maintained that the guns cannot be defined, and released a letter from Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s office saying the measure would cost $831,000 a year to enforce and result in “unnecessary litigation.”

“If we can clone a sheep, we can define an assault weapon,” said Assemblyman Don Perata (D-Alameda), the bill’s author.

The measure had 37 votes, four short of the necessary majority in the 80-member house. But Perata was working late into the night in an attempt to win over some of the 19 Democrats and Republicans who failed to vote in an initial ballot.

The Senate and Assembly also approved 13 measures this week aimed at increasing regulation of health care companies. The bills in the so-called Patients’ Bill of Rights package mirror many of the provisions in health care initiatives that failed last November.

The measures deal with topics such as more public disclosure about treatment options and increased liability when health maintenance organizations deny care.

Assembly Health Committee Chairman Martin Gallegos (D-Baldwin Park) said several of the measures may end up in a joint Senate-Assembly conference committee later this summer.

In the Senate, which completed its work early Thursday, legislators defeated a bill by Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) to bar the insurance industry from making campaign donations to candidates for state insurance commissioner.

Consumer groups backed the measure, the insurance industry lobbied against it, and it received 16 votes, five short of a majority in the 40-member upper house. The action occurred as several legislators are considering running for insurance commissioner in 1998, although Kopp said he has no such plans.

The current commissioner, Chuck Quackenbush, has received more than $6 million in donations from insurance industry sources.

“The bedeviling perception is that the commissioner is funded by the insurance industry,” said Kopp, who added that he introduced the bill at the suggestion of consumer activist Ralph Nader.

Quackenbush denies that the donations influence him. He took no position on the bill. Opponents of the measure said it violated the industry’s constitutional right of political expression and singled out the insurance industry for unfair treatment.

The rush of action on scores of bills came as both houses tried to meet today’s deadline to pass bills to the opposite house for further review.

In the Assembly, lawmakers approved a measure by Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) on a 45-20 vote to establish programs for legal immigrants who stand to lose their welfare benefits this year because of the 1996 federal welfare overhaul.

The services include long-term care, cash grants, food stamps and citizenship assistance for legal immigrants. The issue is likely to be a major point of discussion as the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson begin negotiations over the new budget later this month.

“They came here in search of the American dream, the dream of freedom and a better life. It’s wrong to abandon them to save a few dollars,” Villaraigosa said.

The Assembly also approved the ferret bill by a surprisingly wide 59-7 margin, despite opposition from state health officials and the Department of Fish and Game, whose officials fear that ferrets of nonnative species will escape from their owners, become wild and cause havoc among native animals.

“This is a rotten, dirty little rat, and we ought to kill this bill and every ferret we can get our hands on,” Assemblyman Dick Floyd (D-Wilmington) said.

Proponents of the ferret bill responded that it was a matter of freedom.

“If you’re going to take people’s rights away, you’d better have some reason for it,” said Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (R-Poway), the bill’s author.

The ferret, native to Europe, was imported mainly to hunt rabbits. Hunters would send the long, narrow-bodied creature down rabbit holes to chase rabbits out. With the exception of one subspecies, the ferret is one of a long list of animals not native to the United States that California will not allow to be imported.

“It’s a silly, silly law,” Goldsmith said.

In other legislative action:

* The Assembly approved a bill by Assemblywoman Martha M. Escutia (D-Bell) that would reconfigure public health standards to ensure protection for children. Currently, air and water safety standards are based on safe levels for healthy adult men.

Escutia’s AB 278, which is opposed by the oil industry, would require state agencies such as the Air Resources Board to recalculate standards based on safe levels of pollutants--lead, for example--for children. Opponents of the measure said it amounted to political meddling in science.

* By a 68-1 vote, the Assembly approved a bill by Gallegos granting a sales tax exemption to acupuncturists. The Democratic-controlled Assembly rejected Republican-sponsored tax breaks, including one by Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster) to give special tax credits to people who adopt foster children.

* The Senate approved SB 885 by Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) to create voluntary clean needle and syringe exchange projects for drug addicts in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Jose. Proponents of the bill said the program would reduce the spread of AIDS among drug users. Wilson has vetoed similar legislation.

* The Senate approved by a 32-1 vote and sent to the Assembly a bill by Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) to finance research into prostate cancer, a leading killer of men.

Times staff writer Dan Morain contributed to this story.