Wrap Party Won’t Be to His Liking

In a warmup for the coming campaign over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s initiatives, the Democratic-controlled Legislature smashed some of the Republican governor’s most prized measures Thursday, including his solar power bill, two Indian gambling compacts and another of his high-profile department nominees.

Lawmakers adjourned for the year late Thursday. But earlier, tempers had flared and scores of lobbyists had tried to work out last-minute deals, many of which fell flat.

Lawmakers not only blocked bills sought by the governor but also sent him bills that could embarrass him if he were to veto them. One, by Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), would limit the use of dietary supplements by minors. A second would force health insurance companies to pay for classes and supplies to help people quit smoking.

Democrats have attacked the governor for his close relationship with the publisher of muscle magazines that depend on ads from dietary supplement companies. And health insurers, including some that are donors to the governor’s campaigns, oppose having to pay for supplies such as nicotine gum to help people stop smoking as required in the bill, SB 576 by Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento).

One of the most high-profile actions of the final day of the session occurred when the Senate approved a contentious bill that would authorize special driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. Schwarzenegger was expected to veto it, as he did with similar legislation last year.

The session’s conclusion was also notable for the measures that stalled: a Schwarzenegger-backed proposal to grant tax breaks to production companies that make films in California was “dead, dead, dead, dead, dead,” said Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), though only for the year. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), who also backed it, vowed Thursday to try to add it to next year’s budget.

And a centerpiece of the governor’s agenda -- legislation to encourage businesses and homeowners to install solar panels -- failed. The governor’s aides complained that some Democrats tried to muddy the bill, SB 1 by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), by putting in provisions that would require paying union-level, so-called prevailing wages for large commercial installations.

There were examples of agreement. By a 58-6 vote, the Assembly approved and sent to the governor a bill to limit children’s access to violent video games. The bill, AB 1179 by Assemblyman Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), passed the Senate, 22 to 9.

The measure got a boost when several Girl Scouts came to the Capitol to advocate for its passage. If signed by the governor, the bill would require warning labels, and subject retailers to $1,000 fines, for selling or renting to children younger than 18 videos that show “cruel,” “heinous” or “depraved” behavior, including rape, murder and torture.

Lawmakers also approved a bill pushed by Schwarzenegger to provide fresh fruit in California’s public schools. But there were several other examples of discord.

In the Senate, President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) led the effort Thursday to turn down Joan Borucki as director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, the second time in a week that the upper house had rejected one of the governor’s high-profile appointees. The first was Cindy Tuck, the governor’s choice to be chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board.

Perata said Borucki failed to show she could adequately implement federal Homeland Security legislation, known as the Real ID Act, without disrupting the lives of California motorists.

Approved by Congress this year, the federal law is aimed at requiring that U.S. citizens and residents have tamper-proof identification. Perata warned that it could force millions of Californians to obtain new driver’s licenses -- and that the DMV was unprepared for the deluge.

Noting that Borucki had worked for the state for 20 years, Perata said: “This is not a job for a bureaucrat; this is a job for a political leader.”

He urged that the governor undertake a nationwide search for someone to lead the DMV and improve its service.

The 40-seat Senate rejected Borucki on a party-line vote, with 14 Republicans voting to confirm and 18 Democrats opposing. Other senators abstained or were absent.

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson said Democrats were exacting revenge on Borucki because her department opposed providing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Thompson praised Borucki, saying she had presided over a department that reduced waiting times and added Internet services. Thompson said Democrats “put their political interests before what is in the best interest of Californians who have to deal with the DMV.”

The actions came as lawmakers scurried to wrap up the first year of a two-year session. The governor has until Oct. 9 to sign or veto bills.

At the session’s start in January, Democratic leaders Perata and Nunez had vowed to champion a “middle-class” agenda that would focus on housing, transportation, water policy and education.

Legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger struck a deal in June to finance a new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and Nunez announced late Thursday that he had brokered a compromise to allow construction of a carpool lane on the San Diego Freeway from West Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley. However, the bill stalled when the state shut down for the year before voting on the measure.

The year’s legislative work turned out to be relatively modest, overshadowed by Schwarzenegger’s move to take his “reform” agenda directly to voters by calling a special election for Nov. 8.

Many of the more contentious bills that consumed lawmakers this year were repeat versions of legislation that Schwarzenegger vetoed last year, including bills to raise the minimum wage and extend driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Both will meet the same fate this year, the governor’s aides said.

The governor also vowed earlier in the week that he would quickly veto a bill to legalize same-sex marriages. But proclaiming that “the gloves are off,” Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author, said Thursday that he would invoke a parliamentary procedure to delay sending it to Schwarzenegger for several weeks, thereby affording time to Californians who support the measure to demonstrate on its behalf.

“They’re trying to embarrass the governor,” Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine said, referring to legislation that probably would be vetoed.

Ackerman chastised the Democrats for rejecting Borucki’s nomination, saying that while the “DMV is messed up,” governors should have the right to the appointees of their choice. Borucki, he said, was qualified and experienced and deserved to be confirmed.

Displaying their sway over Democrats and Republicans alike, a handful of Southern California tribes with large casinos persuaded legislators to block ratification of Schwarzenegger’s agreements with two tribes, the Yurok in far Northern California and the Quechan in Imperial County.

For several hours, representatives of the tribes and their foes conferred privately in the Senate president’s conference room in an attempt to compromise. By the end of the day, no deal was struck.

“Small tribes with large casinos stuck their clout in the way of big tribes with no casinos,” said Sen. Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata), whose district includes the Yurok reservation. He contended that tribes with significant wealth were “preventing the success” of Indians who have little.

The Yuroks have more members than any tribe in California, at 4,859. It also has one of the poorest reservations, with high unemployment and no electricity service in roughly 80% of the land.

“It only confirms for the governor that special interests have a stranglehold on Sacramento,” Schwarzenegger spokesman Vince Sollitto said, adding that it is “obvious that some wealthy tribes don’t like this governor’s efforts to reform Indian gaming agreements in our state.”

But lobbyist Josh Pane, representing the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which owns a large casino near Palm Springs, said that while his clients support the Yurok’s and Quechan’s right to open casinos, details in the deals could set a precedent that could damage Morongo and other tribes with gambling operations.

As invariably happens at the ends of legislative sessions, tempers turned raw and lobbying grew heavy-handed.

At one point, Speier announced that she was voting against seemingly modest healthcare-related legislation pushed by fellow Democrats because she had been “threatened” by a representative of the measure’s chief sponsor, the Service Employees International Union.

With 600,000 members in California, SEIU is the state’s largest union. It’s also one of the most aggressive backers of pro-labor candidates and routinely is among the biggest spenders on behalf of Democratic candidates and causes.

“Regardless of who it is, the question is, ‘Do we allow this kind of thuggery?’ ” Speier said, adding that in her 17 years in the Legislature, she had never been so directly threatened.

The measure, AB 761, would require that hospitals consider increasing the number of technicians, therapists and other employees who are not nurses or physicians. Hospitals opposed it, fearing it would lead to increased costs. The service employees union, which represents many hospital workers, pushed for it.

Speier, a candidate for lieutenant governor, said in an interview that a union representative warned one of her legislative aides in a phone call that if the lawmaker failed to vote for the bill, the union would “take me down” by working to elect Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, one of her opponents in next year’s Democratic primary.

“ ‘This is a threat,’ ” Speier quoted the man, without identifying him by name.

Speier said she had no intention of changing her vote to support the measure. To switch, she said, would be tantamount to “taking a bribe.”

Beth Capell, one of the union’s Sacramento lobbyists, apologized to Speier and to other Senate Democrats, and said the employee was being disciplined. “Somebody was overzealous,” Capell said. “We’re don’t condone inappropriate behavior.”

This year, SEIU is a leader in the opposition to Proposition 75, an initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot that would restrict public employee unions’ ability to raise campaign funds from their members. Speier said that despite the incident, she intended to side with labor and oppose that initiative.

But Ackerman, who like many Republicans is backing the so-called paycheck protection initiative, predicted that the incident “would probably help the campaign” for Proposition 75.

Among the bills that passed the Legislature late Wednesday and Thursday are measures that would:

* Implement a five-year deal with the federal government over hospital funding. The deal, in SB 1100 by Perata, is intended to ensure that hospitals that care for Medicaid and uninsured patients will not lose federal funding. It delays until next year plans to move 554,000 elderly, blind and disabled Medi-Cal patients into managed care.

* Expand a 6-year-old program that offers low-cost auto insurance to low-income drivers in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties to include Alameda, Fresno, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. The rest of California could be enrolled later at the insurance commissioner’s discretion under the bill, SB 20 by Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier).

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Times staff writer Marc Lifsher contributed to this report.