Welfare, L.A. Aid Issues Stall Budget : Finance: Assembly Democrats hold up spending plan by refusing to approve related bills. Legislation, passed by Senate, has only 23 yes votes in 80-member chamber.

SACRAMENTO —  After a long night and day of dissension and disarray, the California Assembly inched toward approving Gov. Pete Wilson’s $57-billion state budget--then pulled back late Sunday.

Assembly Democrats continued to hold up the spending plan by refusing to approve several related bills that would implement the budget.

The maneuver was part of a last-minute effort by Los Angeles County Democrats to obtain more aid for the county and its $1.2-billion budget deficit.

Other Democrats were hoping that by withholding final support they could further soften Wilson’s welfare cut.

The Assembly vote late Sunday afternoon was six shy of the necessary 54-vote margin needed for approval in the 80-seat house. But later, positions hardened, support crumbled and the budget languished with a mere 23 yes votes.

Wilson, increasingly impatient, emerged from his office and angrily demanded that lawmakers send him the budget with all the related so-called trailer bills.

“Assembly Democrats can’t be trusted,” Wilson charged. “Assembly Democrats are trying to welsh on that deal because they don’t like the welfare cuts.”

After the Sunday afternoon vote, Assembly GOP Leader Jim Brulte conferred privately with Republican lawmakers and announced that he was ready to put up the necessary votes to approve the budget, but not without a Democratic agreement to approve the related bills.

In an Assembly floor speech, Brown noted that Democrats were balking at the trailer bills, including the one implementing the 4.9% across-the-board cuts in welfare to families and disabled people, plus an additional 4.9% in cuts for recipients in areas of the state where costs are lower.

“You are attempting to dictate . . . what’s in [Democrats’] best interest,” Brown told Brulte in the fiery cross-chambers debate. “You can’t browbeat them. . . . They’re trying to meet you halfway. Don’t make it impossible. Pass what can be passed.”

“A deal is a deal,” Brulte replied. “The governor will not sign the budget [without the trailer bills]. It is foolish to send him a bill that he’s not going to sign.”

Brown and several other Democrats were saying late Sunday that they believed a budget deal could be reached soon, but not until Wilson agrees to some aid for Los Angeles.

However, Brulte and Republicans were not in a trusting mood, believing that once the budget is approved, Democrats could kill or weaken the related bills that implement the budget.

“They’re saying trust us,” Brett Granlund (R-Yucaipa) said. “I’m not here to trust.”

In contrast to the fractious Assembly, the state Senate approved the budget on a bipartisan 31-9 vote Saturday, and proceeded to approve the 20 bills needed to implement various aspects of the spending plan.

After sending the entire package to the lower house, the senators left town, with no plans to return until Aug. 21, although Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) said he would call his house back in an emergency.

With the Senate’s budget work complete, the gridlocked Assembly was left to grapple with the budget on its own--and the result was more infighting.

Approval of the $57-billion budget is a month past due. The constitutional deadline for approving the document passed with the start of the 1995-1996 fiscal year July 1, and lawmakers will miss their first paycheck if they have not approved the document and related bills by Aug. 1.

The spending plan forged by Wilson and Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and Assembly includes $1 billion more for public schools, the first cost of living increase for schools in five years.

The plan also includes no tuition increases at state universities and colleges, no tax increases, and a significant increase for prisons, pushing the sum spent on the Department of Corrections to $3.6 billion.

The most significant cut is to the Department of Health and Welfare, which issues welfare checks to more than 2 million mothers, children and people with various disabilities. The agency’s budget will fall to $13.4 billion from $13.9 billion last year.

As they have in years past, lawsuits may soften those cuts. But the spending plan assumes monthly checks for a mother with two children will fall to about $566 from $595 in the high-rent parts of the state, including Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, and to $539 in lower-cost areas, including San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The budget also assumes that disabled individuals, who receive $614 a month now, will get $584 in higher-rent areas, and $556 in lower-rent areas.

The Assembly’s afternoon vote followed another vote made shortly before 1:30 a.m. Sunday that gave the Republican governor’s budget a mere 27 votes--17 of 40 Republicans and 10 of 39 Democrats. The budget deal appeared to be dead when the Assembly broke for the night.

Even Speaker Doris Allen, Wilson’s fellow Republican, had balked at voting for the budget, even though, as part of the legislative leadership, she helped negotiate the 523-page tome.

Allen initially voted against the spending plan, telling reporters she, like at least 18 other Assembly Republicans, opposed the $40 million earmarked for abortions for poor women.

“Certainly when we’re all taking a stand, you know where I’m going to stand,” said Allen, who opposes abortion but had voted for budgets in the past that included abortion funding.

Wilson, one of the few Republican presidential candidates who supports abortion rights, refused to budge on the abortion issue, and by Sunday afternoon, Allen and several of the anti-abortion Republicans had relented.

“The stand was not very timely,” Allen said, adding that she and other anti-abortion lawmakers intend to redouble their efforts in next year’s budget negotiations.

But Assemblyman Bruce Thompson (R-Fallbrook), who led the anti-abortion Republicans, continued to vote against this budget as did six other lawmakers. “We have made our point. We’ll be back next year. We’re learning our lessons,” Thompson said.

Some anti-abortion Republicans relented in part because of the intraparty squabbling that has marked this year’s session. Many of the anti-abortion Republicans are also Allen’s bitter political rivals and did not want to appear to be aligned with her in continuing to oppose the budget, sources said.

As the lower house debated the budget on Saturday and Sunday, Allen emerged only occasionally from her office to appear on the Assembly floor and gave no floor speech explaining her budget views.

Allen’s role was in sharp contrast to her predecessor, Willie Brown. During Brown’s 14 1/2 years as Speaker, he took the lead in ensuring that his party lined up in support of the budget, going so far as to threaten to oust lawmakers from their choice committee assignments if they held out.

But Brown’s loss of power also was never more apparent than in this budget fight. Brown voted for the budget, gave speeches in support of the deal, and carried a resolution that the Assembly would continue to meet each day until there is a budget.

But until Sunday afternoon, he was unable to persuade more than a handful of Democrats to vote for the budget.

“It’s a mystery to me that folks don’t know how important a document the budget is,” said Brown. “The budget is a document that requires you to rise above politics.

“How do you hold important roles and titles and not vote for your own budget?” Brown continued, pointing out that lawmakers and their staff are not being paid because of the budget impasse, and there is no legal authority to fund state programs without a budget.

The Assembly did show a glimmer of compromise, voting 46-19 early Sunday to approve a bill by Los Angeles County Democrats and Orange County Republicans that would allow the boards of supervisors to strip money from transportation budgets to help fill the two mismanaged counties’ budget holes.

In Los Angeles County’s case, the supervisors would be able to use $75 million annually for the next five years. Orange County could use $70 million a year for 15 years.

So far, Wilson has not agreed to sign such a bill into law, prompting Los Angeles Democrats to move later Sunday to hold up the trailer bills.

“We’re going to continue to negotiate with the understanding that additional relief must come,” said Assemblyman Louis Caldera (D-Los Angeles).

Aides to Supervisor Gloria Molina and Los Angeles County lobbyists were trying to line up votes for more aid for the county, with little noticeable success.

Even some Los Angeles County Assembly Democrats attacked their home county. Assemblywoman Diane Martinez (D-Monterey Park) railed against the county spending, saying 4,000 county workers make more than $75,000 a year, and 1,200 make more than $100,000.

The effort hit its nadir when Molina ally Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) proposed imposing a tax on alcohol served in restaurants and bars. Democrats and Republicans who represent wine-producing regions joined forces to kill it--and it died with only 15 votes for it.