Offbeat Issues Fill the Bills in Senate

Californians, here is a taste of what the state Senate did for you last week:

* Voted to decree that the state’s official tree of the Christmas season be known as the “Capitol Christmas Tree” instead of the “holiday tree.” Sen. William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale) said calling it the holiday tree “dishonors a beloved Christian symbol in the name of inclusiveness.”

* Unanimously passed a bill that prohibits the University of California from denying promotions to parking enforcement employees if they fail to write a minimum quota of parking tickets. Such punitive practices are against the law for city and state parking workers, but a loophole allows them at UC.

* Approved a bill requiring public school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance as part of daily patriotic exercises. Students or school employees who object could remain seated and not be subject to “discipline, retaliation or ostracism.”

Knight, who wrote the Pledge bill, SB 1248, as well as the Christmas tree legislation, said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 left Americans “desperate to express their patriotic feelings.” He said his bill would help fill the void, especially for children who had never learned the Pledge. On a 24-4 vote, the bill was approved and forwarded to the Assembly.

Knight said he had complained several times to Gov. Gray Davis about the practice in government publications of citing the traditional Capitol Park yuletide tree as the holiday tree. The governor ignored his complaints, Knight said. But he found plenty of support in the Senate, which unanimously approved the bill, SB 1577, and sent it to the Assembly.

Senate leader John L. Burton (D-San Francisco) said his bill for meter readers and other parking enforcers at UC campuses was aimed at putting an end to the practice of UC officials who, he said, pressure employees to write “50 to 60 tickets a day.”

Burton noted that ticket quotas long have been illegal for state and local law enforcement departments, as is denying a promotion to a worker who fails to issue a certain number of tickets.

His bill, SB 2069, sponsored by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, also would discourage parking enforcers from issuing unnecessary citations, proponents said. It went to the Assembly on a 32-0 vote without debate.