Locked-Up Assembly Passes Budget

Grumpy and bleary-eyed from a night spent locked in their chambers, members of the California Assembly grudgingly threw their support Tuesday behind a nearly $100-billion budget deal, in effect ending one of the bleakest political and fiscal chapters in state history.

The budget, passed 56 to 22 after a marathon of legislative horsetrading spanning two days and one very long night, drew scorn from all sides in part because it relies heavily on borrowing to keep California’s government afloat.

The Assembly approval now sends the spending plan to Gov. Gray Davis, who has been haunted by the months-long impasse as he has fought an effort to remove him from office. Davis said he would sign the budget this week. The Democratic governor is then expected to begin campaigning full time as the historic recall election looms Oct. 7.

“This budget is not pretty, but it could have been a whole lot uglier,” Davis said. “We did protect education as much as possible. We did avoid the drastic cuts the Assembly Republican budget called for.”

The final document includes neither the new taxes nor the deep reductions in government services that fiscal analysts had recommended to get the state back on solid financial footing and out from under its projected $38.2-billion shortfall. Instead it uses extensive borrowing as a political crutch, allowing the state to limp forward but saddling it with a deficit of at least $7.9 billion next year.

Reflecting the state’s deep financial woes, the budget also includes a significant provision giving the governor blanket authority for one year to make program cuts when spending exceeds projections.

Agreement on the plan finally came on what appeared to be the longest day in the Assembly’s history -- 29 1/2 hours, eclipsing the 26 1/2-hour marathon logged during a legislative fight in 1963.

The compromise allows the state to resume paying its bills and ends the deadlock that has pushed California perilously near financial disaster. But more than one lawmaker called it a budget with something for everyone to hate.

Public schools were largely protected from cuts, but higher education will take a significant hit, including a large increase in university and community college fees.

The budget also reduces health services, including a 5% rate cut to doctors who treat Medi-Cal patients.

Republicans dislike the plan because it relies on borrowing and on revenue from a rise in the vehicle licensing fee. Many Democrats, meanwhile, believe that the budget goes too far in its spending cuts and should have been balanced with a temporary increase in the sales tax.

“Make no mistake,” Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) warned just before the vote. “This is a budget that will in fact hurt people, and this is a budget that will create an $8-billion problem next year, and probably create a lot of heartburn and heartache for all of us.”

Wesson added, however, that “California needs a budget ... to pay our bills ... to keep our schools open” and to “keep cops and firefighters on the street.”

Assembly Minority Leader Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks), who managed to persuade 10 of his 31 Republican colleagues to join him in supporting the budget, agreed that the spending plan wasn’t perfect but called its passage a win for the GOP.

“It was a victory from the standpoint that we were able to get a budget that didn’t increase taxes for Californians,” Cox said.

Tuesday’s vote came nearly a month after the start of the fiscal year and six weeks after the Legislature’s constitutional deadline for passing a budget. Besides ending an ugly standoff that cut payments to day-care centers and vendors who do business with the government, adoption of the budget allows the state to show progress to a financial community increasingly critical of California’s shaky fiscal standing.

Last week, the state’s battered reputation took a major hit when the Standard & Poor’s firm knocked California’s bond rating down three notches to just above junk bond status -- the lowest of any state. Analysts say the move could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in increased interest expenses.

Passage of a budget, however, is unlikely to immediately improve the credit rating.

Perhaps it was coincidence, but the grim S&P; announcement seemed to jump-start progress on the budget.

By Sunday, state senators had passed a spending plan by the narrowest of margins and had essentially told the Assembly to take it or leave it as members of the upper house left town for summer recess.

Legislative leaders had hoped the Assembly would quickly follow the Senate’s lead. But Wesson immediately ran into problems Monday as he tried to cajole recalcitrant lawmakers into supporting the plan.

At 12:29 a.m. Tuesday, a vote on the budget fell short -- with only four GOP members in support and six Democrats refusing to endorse the deal. At that point, Wesson took the extraordinary step of imposing a forced sleep-over in the ornate Assembly chambers, an action taken only once before -- by the late Speaker Jesse Unruh in 1963.

Allowed access only to an adjacent lounge and the Capitol balcony, lawmakers cat-napped on sofas, played cards and ate pizza as Wesson held a series of meetings with those who were balking.

It was a surreal scene, with one assemblywoman, Nicole Parra (D-Hanford), stretching out on floor of the balcony, her head resting on a “SpongeBob SquarePants” towel that a staff member had fetched for her.

By dawn, the normally chipper Wesson looked spent and sounded hoarse, as he confessed that his tete-a-tetes had not produced the 54 votes -- two-thirds of the total membership of 80 -- needed to pass the budget.

“We’re nine short,” he said, after a cigarette break on the balcony. “I’m still standing, and I still have a little strength. We’ll keep talking.”

By late morning, legislators and their aides had begun spreading the word that the speaker had corralled the necessary votes, and by 3 p.m. lawmakers had massed on the Assembly floor.

After apologizing to Californians for the delay and declaring it a “bittersweet moment” for him, Wesson called for a vote.

The final, 56-22 tally -- a total that had two more yes votes than were needed -- including 11 Republicans.

After the vote, Wesson and other Democrats made much of Republicans’ trading their budget support for funding of pet programs. The GOP requests helped add about $300 million to the spending plan, Davis administration officials said.

Assemblyman Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) called the GOP demands “opportunistic and hypocritical” given that Republicans had accused Democrats of creating the budget crisis by overspending.

“All last night and this morning,” said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), “they were marching into the speaker’s office, offering themselves for sale.”

But GOP lawmakers made no apologies for the quid pro quo.

Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine), vice chairman of the lower house’s budget committee, said that Republicans were prepared to vote for more cuts in other spending to offset their new demands but that Democrats refused. “There are members trying to find a way that they can be comfortable voting for this budget,” he said.

Assemblyman Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) said the Davis administration gave him “a strong commitment” that if he voted for the budget, about $130 million of bond money would be set aside for preserving the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Orange County.

“I wanted to hold off [on voting] to see if we could negotiate some concessions for people in the district, and I think we were successful,” he said.

Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher (R-Brea) said she did not switch her vote until she got something she has sought for decades, first as a school board member, later as a lawmaker--promises of $50 million in general fund money for school districts whose per-pupil spending is below the state average. “That’s the deal,” she said. “It’s going to pass.”

Other Republicans said they ultimately supported the budget because the impasse had simply gone on too long.

Assemblyman Robert Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) switched his Monday no vote to a yes on Tuesday because “it was costing taxpayers $1 million an hour not to have a budget. I just couldn’t stand seeing that kind of waste any longer.”

With the budget standoff resolved, the capital’s attention will shift to the question of the governor’s fate.

Davis, facing the first attempt to recall a California governor, has been pressing the Legislature to come to an agreement, and could enjoy a bump in popularity with the deal now in place, analysts say.

“Any resolution is a net plus,” Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg said.

On Tuesday, Davis congratulated the Assembly leaders and again called on the Legislature to address the structural problems in California’s finances to prevent future deficits.

He also claimed some credit for the budget resolution. He said he had met about 25 times with Republican and Democratic leaders of the Legislature since November and had called a number of lawmakers Monday and Tuesday to urge them to support the compromise.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

How they voted

First vote was taken at 12:29 a.m. (in parenthesis) and final vote at 3:12 p.m. First vote was 45-31 with four not voting. Final vote was 56-22 with two not voting. Passage required 54 votes. Lawmakers who changed their vote are highlighted.

DEMOCRATS

* Berg, Patty (Eureka) (Yes) Yes

* Bermudez, Rudy (Norwalk) (Yes) Yes

* Calderon, Ronald S. (Montebello) (Yes) Yes

* Canciamilla, Joe (Pittsburg) (No) No

* Chan, Wilma (Alameda) (Yes) Yes

* Chavez, Edward “Ed” (La Puente) (Yes) Yes

* Chu, Judy (Monterey Park) (Yes) Yes

* Cohn, Rebecca (Saratoga) (Yes) Yes

* Corbett, Ellen (San Leandro) (Yes) Yes

* Correa, Lou (Anaheim) (No) Yes

* Diaz, Manny (San Jose) (Yes) Yes

* Dutra, John (Fremont) (No) No

* Dymally, Mervyn (Compton) (Yes) Yes

* Firebaugh, Marco (D-Los Angeles) (A) A*

* Frommer, Dario (Los Feliz) (Yes) Yes

* Goldberg, Jackie (Los Angeles) (Yes) Yes

* Hancock, Loni (Berkeley) (Yes) Yes

* Horton, Jerome (Inglewood) (Yes) Yes

* Jackson, Hannah-Beth (Santa Barbara) (Yes) Yes

* Kehoe, Christine (San Diego) (Yes) Yes

* Koretz, Paul (W. Hollywood) (Yes) Yes

* Laird, John (Santa Cruz) (Yes) Yes

* Leno, Mark (San Francisco) (Yes) Yes

* Levine, Lloyd (Van Nuys) (Yes) Yes

* Lieber, Sally (Mountain View) (Yes) Yes

* Liu, Carol (La Canada Flintridge) (Yes) Yes

* Longville, John (Rialto) (No) Yes

* Lowenthal, Alan (Long Beach) (Yes) Yes

* Matthews, Barbara (Tracy) (Yes) Yes

* McLeod, Gloria (Chino) (No) Yes

* Montanez, Cindy (San Fernando) (Yes) Yes

* Mullin, Gene (San Mateo) (Yes) Yes

* Nakano, George (Torrance) (Yes) Yes

* Nation, Joe (San Rafael) (Yes) Yes

* Nunez, Fabian (Los Angeles) (Yes) Yes

* Oropeza, Jenny (Long Beach) (Yes) Yes

* Parra, Nicole (Hanford) (Yes) Yes

* Pavley, Fran (Agoura Hills) (Yes) Yes

* Reyes, Sarah (Fresno) (Yes) Yes

* Ridley-Thomas, Mark (Los Angeles) (Yes) Yes

* Salinas, Simon (Salinas) (Yes) Yes

* Simitian, Joe (Palo Alto) (Yes) Yes

* Steinberg, Darrell (Sacramento) (Yes) Yes

* Vargas, Juan (San Diego) (Yes) Yes

* Wesson, Herb (Culver City) (Yes) Yes

* Wiggins, Patricia (Santa Rosa) (Yes) Yes

* Wolk, Lois (Davis) (No) Yes

* Yee, Leland (San Francisco) (Yes) Yes

REPUBLICANS

* Aghazarian, Greg (Stockton) (No) Yes

* Bates, Patricia (Laguna Niguel) (No) No

* Benoit, John (Palm Desert) (Yes) Yes

* Bogh, Russ (Cherry Valley) (No) No

* Campbell, John (Irvine) (No) No

* Cogdill, David (Modesto) (No) Yes

* Cox, Dave (Fair Oaks) (Yes) Yes

* Daucher, Lynn (Brea) (PNV) Yes

* Dutton, Robert (Rancho Cucamonga) (No) Yes

* Garcia, Bonnie (Cathedral City) (No) No

* Harman, Tom (Huntington Beach) (PNV) Yes

* Haynes, Ray (Murrieta) (No) No

* Horton, Shirley (Chula Vista) (Yes) Yes

* Houston, Guy (Livermore) (No) Yes

* Keene, Rick (Chico) (No) No

* La Malfa, Doug (Richvale) (No) No

* La Suer, Jay (La Mesa) (No) No

* Leslie, Tim (Tahoe City) (Yes) Yes

* Maddox, Ken (Garden Grove) (A) A**

* Maldonado, Abel (Santa Maria) (No) No

* Maze, Bill (Visalia) (No) Yes

* McCarthy, Kevin (Bakersfield) (No) No

* Mountjoy, Dennis (Monrovia) (No) No

* Nakanishi, Alan (Lodi) (No) No

* Pacheco, Robert (Walnut) (No) No

* Plescia, George (San Diego) (No) No

* Richman, Keith (Northridge) (No) No

* Runner, Sharon (Lancaster) (No) No

* Samuelian, Steve (Clovis) (No) No

* Spitzer, Todd (Orange) (No) No

* Strickland, Tony (Moorpark) (No) No

* Wyland, Mark (Escondido) (No) No

*Firebaugh absent because of illness. **Maddox called to active duty. PNV--Present not voting

Source: California Assembly

Los Angeles Times