State’s Lower House Sinks a Bit Lower

SACRAMENTO — California’s 80-member Assembly has been called disorderly, dysfunctional and as unruly as an elementary school playground during a food fight.

The inner workings of the Legislature’s lower house can be ugly, its members concede, but they say that merely reflects the messy nature of democracy in a state as diverse as California.

Still, this week the Assembly reflected not just chaos but at times downright ineptitude as members were paralyzed for several hours over a move to limit debate on hundreds of bills that must be acted on by today.

In the “Alice In Wonderland” world of the pale green chamber, it was left to Assemblyman Dick Floyd to sum up the wrangling. “What we’re talking about is how much we talk about what we talk about,” declared the amazed Wilmington Democrat.

Sure, the Assembly eventually settled down, limited debate on pending proposals and approved a bunch of weighty legislation--dealing with topics such as allowing the state to join in lawsuits against tobacco companies and a ban on the manufacture of cheap handguns.

But on occasion the session that began in December has deteriorated into petty infighting, including Wednesday’s debate over debates, a series of attempts by Republicans on Thursday to remove bills stalled in Democratic-controlled committees, and tattling lawmakers informing on colleagues for such minor offenses as using cellular phones on the floor of the chamber.

Lawmakers say the wrangling can be laid to inexperience, which stems from voter-imposed term limits--the Assembly’s membership has almost completely turned over in this decade. Some also point to the lack of a firm hand by rookie Democratic Speaker Cruz Bustamante and his newly minted leadership team.

“In the past, dysfunction has been used as a tool. There were times when things didn’t go correctly and the speaker let it happen. This is a case where the speaker doesn’t wade in. He can’t speakerize things,” said one veteran legislative aide. With Republicans having little at stake in the legislative process, he said, “They want to blow up things.”

By contrast, even as the Assembly session on Thursday ran late into the night for the third day in a row, the Senate had finished its work for the week and gone home.

Term limits have only partially taken effect in the 40-member Senate, so the body is made up generally of more experienced lawmakers who are given higher marks for collegiality and an ability to hammer out bipartisan compromises. Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino), a former state senator, said his Assembly experience is very different “because there’s so much inexperienced leadership on the side of the majority. They either don’t know the rules or they’re not confident in the rules.”

Ron Gray, Bustamante’s spokesman, acknowledged that his boss takes a different tack than former Speaker Willie Brown, the veteran Democrat who would ascend the podium during such crunch times and wield the gavel to nudge the membership and bring order.

“This is a different house and his style may be a little different than what worked in a previous time. . . . He says, ‘My name is Cruz, not Zeus, and I’m not going to throw lighting bolts down at mere mortals,’ ” Gray said.

But Gray maintained that the Fresno Democrat’s maiden year at the helm has been productive. Providing time for members to “vent” will, in the long run, add to a growing list of Assembly accomplishments, he said.

In fact, by early evening Thursday, Gray said, “things are moving the way we want them to” and lawmakers might finish up ahead of schedule early today.

Bustamante’s selection as speaker in December climaxed a remarkable turnaround for Democrats, who had lost power after the 1994 elections.

Upon his selection, Bustamante vowed to turn the lower house into a “battleground of ideas.” Some lawmakers complain that they are now hamstrung by rigid time limits instigated by an agreement between Democratic and GOP leadership, which triggered a sort of “beat the clock” mode of debate punctuated by periodic warnings of “30 seconds” or “10 seconds.”

Critics on both sides of the aisle say that this week’s rush to meet today’s deadline for sending bills to the Senate could have been avoided. They say it is rooted in Bustamante’s delay in assigning members to policy committees until late January--nearly two months after members were seated.

“We’re trying to do everything on this floor,” said Floyd, who is serving his second stint in the Assembly. “The committee system has broken down terribly because of inexperience and too many people on committees, overlapping committees and we’re sending out . . . shells of bills.”

Is the Assembly too disorderly?

“I’m not sure,” said Leonard. The Assembly situation, he added, “is more amateurish or ineptness than anarchy or revolt.”

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), who served in the lower house earlier in the decade, said there is not enough debate and bristles at restrictions imposed by both parties.

“If you’re not going to debate the issues of the day in this hall, then we might as well all cast our votes by e-mail and rent out the hall for Rotary Club meetings and VFW conferences,” McClintock said. “We might as well get some rent back.”