Assembly Rings With Tributes to Roos, Who Is Leaving Office

The Assembly devoted the majority of its Monday floor session to eulogizing Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), who is resigning from the Legislature March 19 to take a new job.

Roos will receive a six-figure salary to head a panel of local business and civic leaders that will recommend ways to improve the trouble-plagued Los Angeles Unified School District.

Nearly three-dozen speakers of both political parties spent more than 2 1/2 hours paying tribute to Roos in speeches that were serious and humorous.

When it was over, Roos joked: “I’ve listened. . . . I’ve changed my mind and I’ve decided not to take it (the job).” His colleagues roared.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said he intends to elevate Assistant Speaker Pro Tem Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) to replace Roos in the Democratic leadership hierarchy.

Political insiders said a former Roos aide, Peter Taylor, is a leading candidate to assume his former boss’s Assembly seat.

GOVERNOR

* Appointed former Senate Republican Leader James W. Nielsen of Rohnert Park to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Nielsen, 46, will be paid $92,460 a year. He also works for a farm chemical company. The appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.

* Will speak to the Cal Tax Forum in Sacramento on Wednesday.

ASSEMBLY

Floor Action

* Black History: Granted final approval on a voice vote to a resolution (ACR 16) by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) designating February as Black History Month.

Bill Introductions

* Sexual Molestation: AB 638 by Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills) would eliminate the statute of limitations for the prosecution of child molesters.

* Drugs: AB 650 by Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) would add five years to the prison term of any person convicted of providing a controlled substance to a pregnant woman.

* VDTs: AB 641 by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) would require all video display terminals sold in California after July 1, 1993, to meet specified health and safety standards.

SENATE

Floor Action

* Budget Process: Passed and sent to the Assembly on a 29-5 vote a bill (SB 55) and a resolution (SCR 5) by Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose) to create a state Constitution Revision Commission to, among other things, examine the process by which a state budget is formulated and enacted and to recommend improvements.

Bill Introductions

* Drugs: SB 456 by Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) would require the state in consultation with the Los Angeles Unified School District to develop a model statewide curriculum to train preschool, kindergarten and first- and second-grade teachers to identify special needs of children who are exposed to drugs.

* Automobiles: SB 431 by Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) calls for lower sales taxes on new cars that have lower-than-average pollution emissions, and higher sales taxes on cars that have higher-than-average emissions.