Bay Area Casino Deal Falls Apart

A deal to authorize a Las Vegas-style casino near San Francisco fell apart Thursday in a defeat for the Schwarzenegger administration, but lawmakers approved the use of the state’s carpool lanes by solo drivers in high-mileage hybrid cars.

In the end-of-session crush, with legislators exchanging sharp words, controversial legislation to authorize illegal immigrants to obtain California driver’s licenses appeared ready for last-minute consideration.

Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), the measure’s most adamant supporter, said the bill complied with all of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s demands to ensure security. The bill could make driving permits possible for the estimated 2 million motorists who are in the state illegally.

But under the bill, illegal immigrants would have to submit to a background check, be fingerprinted and provide proof of residency in California before obtaining a license.

The governor continues to oppose the measure, believing there are insufficient public safety protections. But Cedillo said Schwarzenegger never offered a counter-proposal.

“I don’t expect a veto because I’ve responded to his concerns,” Cedillo said. “I expect him to honor his word.”

Heading into the final day of the two-year legislative session, lawmakers considered scores of bills concerning vaccines, ferrets, lobbying rules and who would pay for rebuilding the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. More than 100 bills awaited action today. “Unfortunately, this is the calm before the storm,” Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla (D-Pittsburg) said Thursday. “We’re waiting for the really bad bills to hit” on Friday.

Legislative leaders scrapped a deal negotiated by the governor’s aides to allow the first Las Vegas-style casino in a major urban area, near Oakland and San Francisco.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Vince Sollitto conceded that there was insufficient support for the 259-member Lytton Band of Pomo Indians’ proposed 2,500-slot machine casino in the Bay Area town of San Pablo, but hoped lawmakers would take up the issue when they reconvene.

“It’s pretty clear the support wasn’t there in the Legislature,” Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said Thursday, pronouncing the San Pablo deal dead, at least for now. The measure could reemerge late this year or early in 2005.

“We are not conceding defeat. We are stepping back,” said Jack Gribbon, lobbyist for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, one of the main backers of the casino. “This is a very, very good agreement.”

Although the San Pablo deal has stalled, at least for now, the Assembly approved just before midnight Thursday, by a 41-15 vote, compacts with four other tribes, in San Diego, San Bernardino, Mendocino and Amador counties. Lobbyists for horse racetracks and card rooms worked furiously to block the deal by the administration and the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians.

Racetrack representatives believe such a casino would threaten their industry and its 60,000 jobs. It could force two Bay Area racetracks out of business, which would damage Southern California tracks and the state’s thoroughbred breeding industry.

“It goes beyond Northern California, all the way to the farms,” said Hollywood Park President Rick Baedeker, who came to Sacramento with Bay Meadows racetrack President Jack Liebau to work against the administration-backed compacts.

At the same time, the Schwarzenegger administration was victorious when lawmakers approved legislation authorizing single-occupant hybrid vehicles to use carpool lanes. The measure passed with the minimum 41 votes in the 80-seat Assembly, despite efforts by Ford Motor Co. and the United Autoworkers to scuttle it.

Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), the bill’s author, called on an array of supporters, including Schwarzenegger and Treasurer Phil Angelides, to persuade a sufficient number of Democrats and Republicans to support it.

“It is an administration bill,” said Rob Stutzman, the governor’s communications director, suggesting that Schwarzenegger would sign it.

The bill would authorize up to 50,000 hybrids powered by gasoline and electricity to use the carpool lanes. Currently, only hybrids made by Toyota and Honda would meet the minimum 45-mpg standard. A Ford sport utility hybrid vehicle scheduled to hit the market in October would fall short. Charging that the bill was aimed at helping well-heeled consumers and foreign automakers, opponents cited the high price tag of hybrids that qualify.

“It is a high standard; I realize that,” said Pavley, who last year won approval of legislation requiring that automakers further restrict emissions of “greenhouse gases,” pollutants believed to add to global warming.

By imposing a 45-mpg standard, Pavley said, domestic car markers would have an incentive to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Assemblyman John Dutra (D-Fremont) cited the autoworkers’ opposition and noted that no hybrid made in the U.S. could benefit from the legislation. Dutra’s district includes the one auto plant left in California, and said the bill “puts that plant in jeopardy.”

The legislation gained attention earlier this month when Ford Motor Co. Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. issued a letter urging that Schwarzenegger veto it. The measure nonetheless appeared headed for passage in the Democratic-controlled Legislature until the UAW got involved, and its Capitol lobbyists sought to persuade Democrats to withhold support.

“The Ford folks talked to the UAW folks and told them you need to look at this bill. The UAW read the bill and thought it was horrible,” said lobbyist Scott Wetch, who represents the auto workers.

Wetch said the auto workers union has pushed manufacturers to make high-mileage vehicles, while the Pavley bill was “drafted to favor foreign automakers,” including Toyota and Honda.

“Many of the men and women I represent can’t afford a Prius,” he said, adding that many blue-collar laborers must drive on jammed freeways, while motorists in Toyota or Honda hybrids would be allowed to use less-congested diamond lanes.

Scores of lobbyists crowded Capitol hallways seeking final chances to sway lawmakers on bills affecting their constituents.

On this particular close of session, two measures to curb a practice in the lobbying industry went down to defeat at the hands Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, the departing Senate leader.

Burton, a San Francisco Democrat, quietly derailed the bills aimed at restricting lobbying by individuals who double as campaign consultants. The move infuriated lawmakers who had pushed the measures.

“You see the backdrop for this. This is the high season for lobbyists,” said Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Los Angeles). “It’s a sad end for John’s tenure to pull a stunt like this. This is a low note.”

Burton, his anger rising, acknowledged in an interview Thursday: “Yeah, I did it.... It is a stupid bill. They never should have passed it in the first place. We don’t let those people to tell us how to conduct our business.”

Frommer and Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis) introduced their bills after campaign consultant and lobbyist Richie Ross got into a shouting match over legislation he was pushing on behalf of a lobby client, the United Farm Workers.

Frommer and others say politicians share personal information with consultants and often end campaigns with thousands of dollars in debt, giving consultants too much leverage over legislators.

Also on Thursday, the Assembly sent to Schwarzenegger legislation originally pushed by Burton to require that political parties disclose major donations in the closing days of a campaign.

Burton introduced the bill after the California Republican Party accepted nearly $1 million from 21st Century Insurance in the final days before the 2002 campaign, and used the money to help GOP candidates in close legislative races. The final bill, AB 890 by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), won on a 69-0 vote in the 80-seat lower house.

Among the many other actions taken Thursday:

* The Senate, by a 26-2 vote, sent to the governor SB 89, legalizing ferret ownership, perhaps ending a 10-year legislative struggle over what to some is a household pet and to others is a varmint that threatens California agriculture and native wildlife.

California and Hawaii are the only two states with such a ban. Even so, there are an estimated 500,000 ferrets in California. The bill gives amnesty to all ferrets in California, provided owners pay a $75 registration fee. Money generated by those fees would go toward a study to determine whether to allow more ferrets into the state.

* The Assembly approved 50 to 21 and sent to the governor AB 2943 by Pavley, which would prohibit the use of any infant vaccines that contain mercury or mercury compounds.

The Assembly approved by a 60-1 vote and returned to the Senate SB 1612, which would restore $17 million that Schwarzenegger cut from the budget to care for foster children and pay for child abuse investigations.

Meanwhile, the legislative audit committee voted to investigate how Secretary of State Kevin Shelley’s office spent federal money aimed at increasing voter participation. The committee also called on the Bureau of State Audits to scrutinize pork-barrel spending in various legislative districts.

Several issues were yet to be resolved, including a push by Bay Area legislators to get the entire state to help pay for multibillion-dollar cost overruns on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Schwarzenegger said Thursday that he opposed a proposal by a Bay Area lawmaker that would have shifted much of the $3.2-billion cost overrun to all state taxpayers.

*

Times staff writer Solomon Moore contributed to this report.