Legislators Throw Out the Textbook in Last-Minute Frenzy

SACRAMENTO — Donald Green, a veteran lobbyist for California’s trial lawyers, has been on the inside of the Legislature’s end-of-session frenzy and on the outside. He likes it more on the inside.

This time two years ago, Green took part in a huge deal to overhaul the state’s civil liability laws. The agreement was hatched behind closed doors and outlined on a white linen napkin at a restaurant near the Capitol.

But this week, as the Legislature raced toward a midnight Friday adjournment, the savvy Green suddenly sounded the common lament of Capitol neophytes: He had been unfairly excluded from negotiations to reform the state’s troubled system for compensating injured workers.

“We are kind of in the dark at this point,” Green complained. “We are dealing with a bill we have not seen. We are dealing with a bill that is oral. We do not even have an outline. That really handicaps us.”

Such are the fickle fortunes at deadline time in the California Legislature, when the civics class model of “how a bill becomes a law” is abandoned in favor of a less tidy process best described in two words: “Whatever Works.”

This is the week when legislators end months of dickering, bickering and procrastinating and finally get down to serious business. With a deadline looming, deals that once seemed impossible quickly come together. Bitter opponents set aside differences and reach accords, usually out of fear that they will be worse off if they do not. Meeting late into the night, the Senate and Assembly pass bills by the bushel, most of which are never read by the members.

There is anger and humor. There is profanity and, sometimes, eloquence.

The most common complaint as any session nears its end is that the major issues always seem to be decided at the last minute, and this year is no exception. But Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), author of the workers’ compensation measure, defended the practice as an inevitable product of human nature.

“People in the Legislature are very much like people elsewhere in society,” Margolin said. “They respond to deadlines that are firm and final. When they are under pressure, people define their bottom lines and then close the deal.”

Besides workers’ compensation, the issues on the front burner this week have included a mounting trash disposal crisis, health insurance for working people, auto insurance for the poor and the expenditure of more than $1 billion in new tobacco tax revenues.

The tobacco tax measure was the subject of an intense--some say unprecedented--lobbying effort by cigarette companies opposed to the expenditure of $29 million for a mass media campaign aimed at telling the evils of smoking. Industry officials would not comment on the extent of their effort, but, as of June 30, tobacco companies had already reported spending $465,000 to hire five firms employing 17 individual lobbyists.

“There was unbelievable pressure, as much as any I’ve seen in my seven years in the Legislature,” Assemblyman Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento) said of the tobacco industry’s campaign. In the end, the bill was passed intact, still containing the provisions the industry had opposed.

Other measures, however, were not as fortunate. During one flurry of amendments in the Senate, Sen. Ralph C. Dills (D-Gardena) complained about the bewildering pace of the changes.

“We are amending them to the point where no one knows who is doing what to whom,” the veteran lawmaker objected.

And Assemblyman Tim Leslie (R-Carmichael) admitted as he presented one of his measures that it had been amended almost beyond recognition. The bill, Leslie said, “is a miserable shell of what it once was. It is hardly worth the paper it’s written on.”

The bill, nevertheless, was passed on a vote of 62-2.

Cellular Phones

So fast was the movement on some issues that some lobbyists came to the Capitol equipped with hand-held cellular telephones, which they are using while standing in the rotunda under the dome.

But the usual frantic pace of conference committees and floor debates was largely supplanted this week by an unprecedented--at least for this regime--series of meetings in the governor’s suite, where the party leaders in the Assembly and Senate hammered out agreements directly with Gov. George Deukmejian.

This represents a change in style for the Republican chief executive and his Democratic adversaries. In the past, legislative leaders have criticized the governor for delegating negotiating sessions to subordinates who could not always deliver what they promised. The governor, in turn, has accused Democratic leaders of being too politically partisan.

“In the past, the governor’s representatives would go out and put things together (with legislators) and then try to sell them to the governor and not be successful,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar). “This year, the governor has bent over backwards to be cooperative.”

The rise of direct diplomacy between the administration and the Legislature has frustrated some lobbyists who are accustomed to being in the room when the deals are put together.

“Much more of this and I will be out of business,” said one grumpy lobbyist who represents doctors and hospitals and did not want to be identified.

But other lobbyists--particularly those with open pipelines to legislators--insist the private meetings did not present a problem.

Referring specifically to negotiating sessions between the governor and legislative leaders, John Henning, the veteran secretary-treasurer of the California Federation of Labor, said: “That’s the way it’s done in Washington. It’s logical. It’s realistic. The governor has the veto power. He has to be involved.” While the major issues have been discussed in the governor’s office, the great majority of lawmakers spent most of this week in the Senate and Assembly chambers, grinding out action on hundreds of minor bills in sessions stretching well into the night. As these marathons wore on, nerves frayed and tempers flared.

Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), whose role it is to keep the members moving through their thick agenda, gets irritated when lawmakers do not take up their bills on schedule. When one member declined to present a routine, non-controversial resolution that did not even require a roll-call vote, Roos upbraided him.

“This is a voice-vote item,” he said. “You could do it in your sleep.”

At a Rules Committee meeting, Assemblyman Richard L. Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) pressed his oft-stated desire to have members of the Legislature give urine specimens to be tested for drugs. Mountjoy has pushed this idea repeatedly without success, and this time the proposal prompted a caustic retort from veteran Rules Committee Chairman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana).

“Would you like to take my sample right now, Mr. Mountjoy?” Bane asked. Mountjoy declined.

Sometimes, the interaction turns humorous, at least what passes for humor to those trapped inside the Capitol for hours on end.

An Assembly floor debate on ethics was interrupted--some might say appropriately--by the presence of a rat in the visitor’s gallery. The rodent, perched on scrollwork attached to one of the chamber’s ornate pillars, popped its head out several times and briefly brought discussion to a halt as lawmakers craned their necks for a look.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) went to the gallery for a closer inspection of the rat but joked afterward: “I watch them every day. Why would I have to look up there for one?”

This week, with so much at stake, was also a time to gauge the priorities of the legislative leaders. While some decisions affecting millions of Californians were being delegated to rank-and-file members, the two-house conference committee that handled the ethics package--which affected only the Legislature--was one of the most powerful bodies ever assembled. The panel included every legislative leader except Senate GOP Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, who sat in on many of the meetings anyway.

“It is part of the job of being in leadership to ensure the comfort and welfare of the members,” remarked Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa). “People in the leadership know that if something that affects members is not handled properly, they are going to pay the price. Their constituencies are these 120 people (in the Legislature).”

Also contributing to this article were Times staff writers Virginia Ellis, Jerry Gillam, Carl Ingram and Richard C. Paddock.