Assembly Panel OKs Purchase of Computer System to Link Offices

SACRAMENTO — The Assembly Rules Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a multimillion-dollar lower house legislative computer contract to link district offices with the Capitol, a move that critics charge could be used for political campaign purposes.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) has denied that the computers would be misused by his colleagues, insisting that the state must advance into the computer age and process paper work by computers instead of typewriters.

Drop in Costs Expected

On a 9-0 bipartisan vote, the Rules Committee approved the purchase of the system from Digital Equipment Corp. at a first-year cost that could not exceed $5.1 million. The five-year cost could not exceed $8.5 million. Data General was the losing bidder.

The Senate Rules Committee recently approved a contract with Digital for a similar system for the Senate, setting cost limits of not more than $5.9 million for the first year and not more than $13.2 million for five years.

Assemblyman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana) chairman of the Rules Committee, a member of Brown’s inner circle, predicted that the five-year Senate cost would drop substantially now that both legislative houses would be using systems made by the same company.

Bane claimed that the Assembly would save the state money over the long run by automating communications with district offices.

He also pledged that the Assembly would not purchase compatible software from a computer firm in which his wife, Marlene, has a 25% interest.

“We will not buy any software from any firm in which my wife owns any interest, period,” Bane said.

The fact that Bane’s wife has an interest in a firm that could provide software to compile mailing lists and electronic dossiers, drawing on public records, caused complaints that the Assembly computers could be used for political campaign purposes.

Such potential uses of computers also led the California Republican Party to request the Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate the computer contract plan.

“I am very fearful that we are moving into Big Brother kind of government,” charged GOP Chairman Clair Burgener, a former state legislator and congressman.

Request Denied

The FPPC subsequently denied the Republican request, however, because it said it was not the agency’s role to investigate “motives and intentions.”

All five Democrats and four Republicans voted in favor of the Digital computer contract at the Assembly Rules Committee hearing.

Late last year, Data General officials claimed that the contract was being “engineered” to go to the winning firm, even though they said they could provide a similar system for a lower cost. Legislative sources wrote off their complaints as being “sour grapes.”