Bay Area lawmakers keeping busy (Contra Costa Times)

By Steven Harmon
MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
2/01/2009

SACRAMENTO — On a recent night at her Capitol office, Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, spent until 2 a.m. answering 150 e-mails from constituents worried about the state's fiscal crisis. That was after she'd hand-signed 500 letters she'd written about the budget.

Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda, has been meeting regularly with labor groups, who are angered over possible rollbacks to worker's rights.

Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, frustrated over the Republican Party's demands she and others say are not related to the state's fiscal crisis, is gearing up for hearings on her legislation that would eliminate the two-thirds vote requirement on budgets.

"People are anxious," said Buchanan, a freshman lawmaker and former longtime San Ramon Valley school board president. "No doubt, these are extraordinary times. We have to step up and do our jobs. I'll be having to make the most gut-wrenching decisions I've made in the last 20 years."

These and other Bay Area lawmakers are among the 116 Assembly members and senators awaiting the outcome of budget negotiations being hammered out between the four legislative leaders — Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Minority Leader Michael Villines and Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill — and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who must fill a projected $42 billion hole to cover the next 18 months of state spending.

Known as the Big 5, the leaders are careening toward a somewhat fuzzy deadline of early February to avoid what could be a disastrous cash shortfall in which the state would be unable to pay bills or fund its schools or other critical services and forced to issue IOUs to vendors and taxpayers.

But, outside the Big 5 meetings and away from the hordes of camera crews staking out the governor's office where they meet, rank-and-file lawmakers are adding their own pieces of cloth to the budgetmaking quilt. To them, waiting for an agreement isn't the same as sitting still.

Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, last week seized on a tip he'd received from the California Teachers Association that Schwarzenegger's budget proposal would sidestep a Proposition 98 requirement to pay back schools more than $7 billion he's proposing in cuts. Torlakson alerted both Democratic leaders, Steinberg and Bass, and he's helped to organize teacher protests in the past few days.

"Some of the governor's proposals needed to be called out," Torlakson said. "I called Steinberg personally and I called Bass to leave a strong message to hold the line to protect (school funding). I believe my job is to advocate for what I feel strongly, and I did that."

Members have certain skills and expertise, and the leaders are making use of them, said Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley.

Bass asked Hayashi to lead discussions on public/private partnership issues with Steinberg and high-level staff members, an issue she handles as chairwoman of the Business and Professions committee.

"I think the speaker does solicit genuine input," Hayashi said. "She knows how to reach out to members and ask us, 'What do you think of this or that?' I know she takes the concerns of caucus members back to the Big 5 meetings."

Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, the majority leader, considered the speaker's No. 2 man, says he speaks with Bass every day — and sometimes speaks for the Assembly Democratic caucus while she has maintained a lower profile as negotiations have intensified.

"She depends on us to get the word out and has regular caucuses," said Torrico, who has been a point man in keeping the heat on Republicans for what he and others say are unfair negotiating tactics of adding nonbudgetary issues to the talks. "They're trying to leverage this crisis against 75 years of worker protections," he said, referring to GOP proposals to eliminate the mandated eight-hour workday and 40-hour week.

Push-back against these proposals has been a common theme among Democrats — undoubtedly an agreed-upon talking point that emerged from their most recent caucuses. But the past two months have been agonizing for legislators, who know that in the end they will likely be casting the most painful vote of their political careers.

Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, said she has met with many constituents at rallies, town hall meetings or in her district office who have been laid off or are worried about the impacts of budget cuts.

"It's a very intense time," she said. The budget and the economy are at "the top of many peoples' minds wherever you go, even in the grocery store. People are very focused on what we're doing and how we're impacting them personally."

Swanson said that after the budget is completed, he and others will go to the voters to ask them to vote on a series of revenue-raising measures to ensure funding for schools and other services. "We'll ask them to define what they feel their values are and help us pay for it," he said.

Hancock said she is bracing for cuts that could mean some people will die, and for provisions such as a spending cap, which she said could condemn California to a permanent state of mediocrity or worse in education and other areas.

"There are questions about how people will stay alive with some of these cuts," said Hancock, who added that the dragged-out budget negotiations have strengthened her resolve to push forward with her legislation to eliminate the two-thirds vote requirement on budgets. Democrats need three Republican votes in the Senate and three in the Assembly to reach the two-thirds threshold.

"It is now clear, really for the first time to people, that we're out there alone with this two-thirds requirement, along with Rhode Island and Arkansas," she said. "We're held hostage by a minority party, not by legislation — they can't get enough Republicans elected because people don't agree with their policies — but by them doing nothing."

Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Los Altos, said the budget "is the most pressing subject in my mind," and he continues to meet with constituents who worry that Republicans may not agree to a solution that balances tax increases with program cuts.

Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, said he's had a tough time sleeping, partly because of the budget, but also because he's getting antsy about pursuing his legislative agenda, which has been put on hold alongside everyone else's as lawmakers focus strictly on resolving the budget crisis.

"There's so much work to be done, in worker's comp, corrections issues, oversight," he said.

For freshman Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, the budget battle has been an eye-opener to the realities of Capitol politics — and what she said is the stifling effects of the two-thirds vote requirement.

"You can see it in print and hear it in discussions," Skinner said, "but until you experience it and know that three people can prevent you from fulfilling your obligation to do the right thing, that's a pretty odd thing."