Assembly Kills $9.2-Billion School Bond Ballot Measure

In an early-morning vote after hours of debate and fruitless negotiations, the Assembly on Friday killed a $9.2-billion school bond measure proposed for the June ballot.

After marathon bargaining sessions that began Thursday and lasted into the next morning, Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) announced that he was unsuccessful in trying to persuade enough Republicans to join Democrats in supporting the measure.

Both sides said they will now try to work out their differences and place a school bond item on the November ballot.

Even if the measure, AB 855 by Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael), had cleared the Assembly, it was headed for a veto by Gov. Pete Wilson, who wanted a lower amount and other changes. The Senate had narrowly passed the bill Tuesday.

The measure would have asked voters to approve a bond package containing $6.2 billion for kindergarten through 12th grade and $3 billion for higher education. The money would have been spent over the next four years.

Villaraigosa was tackling his first major challenge since being installed as speaker last week. He doggedly pursued Assembly approval of the bill, which needed 54 votes for passage.

Despite long floor debate followed by more than nine hours of Villaraigosa lobbying reluctant Republicans to support the measure, the bill never got more than 47 votes, only five cast by GOP members.

Many Republicans, including Wilson, said repeatedly in recent days that they would not support the Mazzoni measure, even though they agreed that schools need billions in new funding to repair dilapidated classrooms and build more campuses to accommodate growing enrollment.

The GOP pressed for elimination of what it called wasteful state policies that drive up the cost of school construction, reduction of design costs imposed by architects, and a decrease in what developers must pay to schools when new homes are built.

“I said to them I was open to all” such proposals, Villaraigosa said, but each time he conceded a point, the Republicans demanded further concessions, he said.

They “only knew what they didn’t want, not what they did,” the speaker said.

Assembly Republican Leader Bill Leonard of San Bernardino called that account inaccurate. Rather, he said, Democrats refused GOP counteroffers, such as including in a school aid package California’s share of a nationwide settlement that states are expecting from tobacco companies.