Legislature Wraps Up Difficult, Humbling Year

The Legislature finished an unusually trying year before dawn Saturday. Over eight months, its very existence was questioned and its political virility was mocked while it braced for the retirement of some of its most experienced and effective members.

Lawmakers’ arranged marriage with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- courtesy of an angry electorate -- prevented majority Democrats from dominating the Capitol’s political direction this year as they had often done under Gray Davis. GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, found out that their party’s new celebrity leader was less conservative than many of them had expected.

Though 5,823 bills and resolutions were introduced in the two-year session that ended Saturday, major accomplishments were far fewer than in previous years.

“This wasn’t a banner year,” said Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland), whose election as the incoming Senate president pro tem last week consumed much of the Democrats’ energy during the crunch month of August. “We certainly had many more landmark bills become law in the shadow of the recall than this year,” he said.

“The enormous early expectations and popularity of the governor had everybody for six months sort of rocking from side to side, not being able to quite get our political balance,” Perata said. “The most significant accomplishment for Democrats this year is that this budget was a lot better than anyone thought it would be for the constituencies that we serve.”

Perhaps their most far-reaching accomplishment came earlier this summer, when Schwarzenegger and the Legislature resolved the state’s fiscal troubles in the short term by borrowing billions. It was seen as the only out, because Schwarzenegger and GOP lawmakers ruled out any new taxes, and Democrats would not permit universities and social programs to be cut as Schwarzenegger had first proposed.

The Democrats’ notable achievements were often defensive triumphs: salvaging some labor-friendly provisions from Schwarzenegger’s crusade to lower workers’ compensation costs for businesses, and restoring millions of dollars in cuts to universities and social service programs that the governor had suggested.

The Republican minority’s successes were equally modest: They kept tax increases at bay and engineered some changes to a law allowing employees to sue their bosses over labor violations. But once they helped Schwarzenegger fulfill his major campaign promises, such as repealing the increased car tax, GOP lawmakers could not enact many substantial measures through the Democratic-controlled Senate and Assembly.

Last October’s recall, which came in the middle of the two-year election cycle, upended the normal political rhythms of Sacramento. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature spent this year testing each other’s foibles, bottom lines and Achilles’ heels.

The recall -- with its implicit no-confidence vote in the Democratic direction for California -- made the party’s liberal leadership gun-shy. There were no proposals of grand new social programs.

Instead, lawmakers tinkered. They allowed more information about released sex offenders to be posted on the Internet. They mandated economic impact studies before giant stores such as Wal-Mart Supercenters could be built. They banned fake firearms from being carried in public and permitted released drug felons to qualify for food stamps.

And lawmakers micromanaged. They banned cruise ships from dumping drainage from dishwashers, showers, laundries and wash basins within three miles of shore. They toughened the penalties for dumping restaurant grease. They put a limit on traps to catch Dungeness crab. They removed hot-air balloon owners from the jurisdiction of the California Public Utilities Commission and placed them under the control of local governments.

It was a far cry from sessions in recent years when lawmakers enacted sweeping health insurance, family leave and financial privacy measures that affected millions of Californians.

“I think concentrating on bipartisan negotiation leaves you little time to push your own agenda, especially when fiscal realities dominate the discussion,” said Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Cal State Sacramento. “Bills that they were heavily invested in languished because they were trying to play catch-up.”

The Legislature’s public approval rating steadily rose from 19% in July 2003 to 33% this month, according to polls conducted by the Field Research Corp., a San Francisco nonpartisan group. Even so, that rating was still half that of Schwarzenegger’s public approval.

But Schwarzenegger, a neophyte politician involved in one of the more complicated on-the-job trainings in modern California history, faced difficulties of his own while trying to set the session’s priorities.

Though he engineered a number of significant victories early on, including a $15-billion bond issue to bail out the state’s deficit, many of his other ideas -- on solar power and restructuring state government, for instance -- were not released until the very end of session, not leaving enough time for the complex matters to be enacted.

“The governor got in too late to really set up an agenda,” said Sen. Dick Ackerman of Irvine, the Senate Republican leader. “I think next year, you’ll see a lot more of the governor’s initiatives.”

The governor had tried to extend his successful campaigning style to dealing with legislators. He mocked them as “girlie men” and showed up in the home districts of the more vulnerable members to threaten their fall reelection. He publicly toyed with the notion of reverting the state back to a part-time Legislature.

But there was little evidence that such tactics cowed the Legislature, which in fact became more brazen in its defiance as the session moved along.

By its end, legislators spurned his negotiated compact with the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to build a Las Vegas-size casino in the Bay Area city of San Pablo. They approved Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s proposal to regulate the way utilities build and finance power plants, despite Schwarzenegger’s opposition.

Lawmakers expanded the number of state boards and commissions, which have independence from the administration, even though Schwarzenegger advisors have recommended eliminating a third of them.

They also ignored his opposition to measures that would ease drug importation from Canada. One of their last acts, to restore driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, carried a particularly blunt rebuke to Schwarzenegger, after lawmakers’ willingness to repeal a similar law last year had been one of his first successes. Few of these measures are expected to escape the governor’s veto pen.

“It’s been a survival year this year,” said Nunez (D-Los Angeles). “I think we’re all somewhat humbled. Democrats are going to realize that a lot of their bills are not going to get signed by the governor. Republicans realize that Democrats are still in charge of the Legislature.”

Beyond individual bills, the Capitol proved impervious to Schwarzenegger’s rhetorical attacks on its political culture. Legislators bolted away from their offices for quickie fundraisers during the busy final weeks. Months of open public hearings held to fashion new laws were erased in favor of deals cut behind closed doors.

Lobbyists still descended on the halls in the final days, passing or killing legislation on behalf of powerful interests such as car dealerships. A three-day cooling-off period for used car buyers died in the waning hours Saturday, before the Senate finished work at 2.30 a.m. and the Assembly followed at 3:38.

The Legislature will reconvene Dec. 2, after the November election. But even as they finished up Saturday, lawmakers were acutely aware that the bigger battles lay ahead.

Next year, lawmakers will have to resolve a budget shortfall of up to $7 billion, presumably without the quick fix of massive new borrowing.

In addition, the institution of the Legislature is facing a number of challenges that intentionally or not would drain it of much of its power.

Many proposals in Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review would eliminate existing legislative prerogatives to guide state entities.

Ted Costa, the anti-tax advocate who launched the Davis recall, has begun collecting signatures to make the Legislature part time. Schwarzenegger is considering his own reforms, which could include stripping lawmakers of the power to draw their own districts.

Yet despite all this, the Capitol actually had a kinder, more collaborative aura this year. Long before the electorate decided to oust Davis, his Democratic colleagues in the Senate and Assembly had grown openly tired of him, and Schwarzenegger’s vigorous charm offensives and interest in cutting deals invigorated many lawmakers. They often reciprocated in kind.

“He’s an easier person to deal with, and he’s been cooperative in terms of his personal relationships,” said Sen. Dede Alpert (D-San Diego).

The partisan divide responsible for much of the gridlock in Sacramento also was mellowed somewhat, at least in tone, by the imminent retirements -- forced by term limits -- of some of the Capitol’s Republican and Democratic institutions: Sens. John Burton of San Francisco and John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara on the liberal side, and Sens. Ross Johnson of Irvine and Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga on the conservative side.

The cooperation was evident in Democratic leaders’ willingness to rush the session to an early conclusion so GOP lawmakers could attend their party’s national convention in New York City this week.

“It may be counterintuitive, but this session is actually much more calm than previous end-of-sessions,” Brulte said. “It may reflect the political passing of so many legends in the Legislature.”