Brown Pushing for Ban on Honorariums : Legislature: He says lawmakers should give them up with or without a pay increase in the wake of Sen. Montoya’s conviction.

SACRAMENTO —  Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), contending that the corruption scandal surrounding former Sen. Joseph B. Montoya has permanently tainted the practice of accepting honorariums, is pushing for an outright ban on the lucrative payments to legislators.

Brown, the Legislature’s leading recipient of honorariums, said legislators must shore up their image by imposing the ban on themselves regardless of whether they receive a pay increase.

“It’s going to kill me,” said the flamboyant Assembly Speaker, who reported receiving $92,111 in honorariums in 1988. “It’s all the money I used to pay for the kids’ schooling. It’s all of the money I used to pay for my alimony. And it’s some of the money that I used to pay for my ties.”

Brown said he has been quietly lobbying members of the Assembly and is now confident that they will vote for a ban on honorariums. In the Senate, President Pro Tem David A. Roberti said his members also would vote for such a prohibition but may still prefer to link it to a pay increase.

The differences between the Assembly and Senate may be resolved in the coming weeks in a two-house conference committee that will consider a variety of steps to improve the ethical conduct of the Legislature.

Brown and Roberti agreed in separate interviews that pressure on the Legislature to act has been intensified by the Feb. 2 conviction of Montoya on seven counts of extortion, racketeering and money laundering.

Montoya, who resigned his Senate seat effective Friday, was found guilty by a federal court jury of using his position to extract honorariums and campaign contributions from people with business before the Legislature.

Among the most damaging evidence presented at his trial was a secret videotape of Montoya accepting a $3,000 “honorarium” for simply meeting with two federal undercover operatives for breakfast at a restaurant near the Capitol.

In 1988, the last year for which figures are available, members of the Legislature accepted $729,000 in honorariums, most of it from groups with an interest in matters pending before the Legislature. Unlike campaign contributions, honorariums are personal income for legislators and can be spent for any purpose.

Traditionally, the term honorarium has meant a payment for a specific service on which there is no set price. In California, legislators usually make some sort of speaking appearance in exchange for their honorarium checks. But in some cases, members of the Legislature have received thousands of dollars in “honorariums” for merely touring a company or going to a meeting with company officials.

Now, Brown said, Montoya’s infamous videotaped breakfast at Pennisi’s Cafe here has made it politically unacceptable for legislators to take honorariums, even as speaking fees for legitimate appearances.

Brown, who has long been at odds with Montoya, a Whittier Democrat, said a ban on honorariums for legislators would be “Joe Montoya’s ultimate revenge.”

“There is never going to be any appreciation or understanding of the difference between conduct similar to that attributed to Joe Montoya and (public appearances by other legislators) if they’re both called honoraria,” the Speaker said. “In order to stop having to answer questions about it, let’s just ban it.”

Last year, the Assembly and Senate voted to put a comprehensive ethics measure on the June ballot that would ban honorariums, limit the gifts legislators could receive, strengthen conflict-of-interest laws, require lawmakers to hold their meetings in public and restrict lobbying by legislators who leave office.

However, the proposed constitutional amendment--titled Proposition 112--links all these measures to the creation of an independent salary commission with the power to give legislators a pay increase.

Aside from honorariums, the measure does not restrict legislators’ outside income, such as the hefty fees Brown and other lawyers receive from clients who hire them.

Roberti, the sponsor of Proposition 112, said he still favors tying a ban on honorariums to a potential pay increase. Without the receipt of speaking fees, he said, many legislators will have trouble surviving on their annual salary of $40,816, plus a tax-free expense allowance worth about $20,000 a year.

“It’s difficult for people to live on $40,000 a year and maintain two houses, send the kids to school and pay the mortgage,” the Los Angeles Democrat said.

At the same time, Roberti said that if the proposal for an outright ban on honorariums were to come to a vote on the Senate floor, it would pass easily. “I’m open to debate,” Roberti said. “The issue is not settled.”

The crucial decision on the precise shape of the legislation to be presented to the two houses will be made in the conference committee. That panel is likely to include Roberti, Brown and Republican leaders.

In addition to the honorarium question, the conference committee will decide how to implement other portions of Proposition 112, including the tougher conflict-of-interest standards and a limit on gifts to legislators.

The gift issue, in particular, may erupt into controversy. Brown opposes any restriction on gifts while others are pushing for annual limits ranging from $100 to $250 from a single source. In 1988, legislators reported receiving a total of $501,000 in gifts--nearly as much as they received in honorariums.

“The requirement ought to be, you have to report any gift over $250, not that you can’t take it,” Brown said.

For the Speaker, the top priority is to erase the public perception that legislators can be bought just by showing up for breakfast and receiving an honorarium check.

“I really want to make sure that no one on this floor is perceived as being compensated for anything other than real work,” Brown said. “The personal sacrifice is not as important as the institution.”

HONORARIUM BAN URGED

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown says California legislators should give up honorariums regardless of whether they receive a pay increase.