Bitter Vasconcellos Threatens to Quit : Politics: The chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee is angry about staff cuts mandated by Proposition 140. He says he feels unappreciated.

By WILLIAM TROMBLEY

Jan. 31, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — Angered by legislative staff cuts required by passage in November of Proposition 140, Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), chairman of the powerful Assembly Ways and Means Committee, threatened Wednesday to resign from the Legislature.

“I’m really debating whether to resign before the term is over,” Vasconcellos said in an interview. “I don’t see any point in killing myself for people who apparently don’t care if they have decent government or not.”

“There’s no point in sacrificing my health and peace of mind when there’s no appreciation,” the 59-year-old legislator added. “If they (voters in his Santa Clara County district) were going to vote for this, they shouldn’t have reelected me.”

Vasconcellos won his 12th term last fall with 63% of the vote. Voters in his district also approved Propostion 140.

“The only reason for me to stay is to outlast that idiot Schabarum,” he said, referring to Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, who was a key sponsor of Proposition 140. The initiative imposed term limits on lawmakers, eliminates their pensions and requires deep staff cuts.

Vasconcellos’ remarks came against a background of reports that several legislators are planning not to run again, now that members of the Assembly have been limited to three two-year terms and senators may serve only two terms of four years each.

Assembly sources said Majority Floor Leader Thomas M. Hannigan (D-Fairfield) has told his staff he will not run again and that they should consider other jobs.

Last week, Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) said he is considering taking a job as executive director of a new group that wants to improve the quality of Los Angeles schools.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) has said that by 1992, the next general election, as much as 40% of the 80 Assembly members may be gone--to run for higher office or to other jobs.

Vasconcellos’ Ways and Means Committee, which handles more bills than any other legislative committee, has been hit especially hard by the budget cuts, losing six staff members, including top consultants in such fields as education, social services, taxation and toxics.

They are among roughly 500 Assembly employees--one-third of the staff in that house--who are expected to take severance pay and leave their jobs by Friday.

Passage of the proposition has brought “devastation and utter demoralization” to the Legislature, Vasconcellos said. “People have devoted their lives to the institution and now this!”

“I’m real bitter about it,” he said. ‘I couldn’t believe the voters would pass it. I couldn’t believe they would be that self-destructive. If people want better government, this isn’t the way to get it.”

Legislative colleagues who have seen Vasconcellos in a depressed mood before said they doubted he would quit. Others were not so sure.

Asked when he might make a decision, the veteran lawmaker replied, “I’ll decide when I decide. I run on my own time clock.”

In the meantime, he said, “I’m reducing my working time to 40 hours a week,” from the 60 hours or more he often puts in. “I’m not going to bust my ass for people who don’t value what I’m doing.”

If Vasconcellos does go, it will deprive the Legislature of one of its most colorful members. Known 15 years ago for what was then considered an eccentric interest in humanistic values, he has surprised many observers with an efficient, effective performance as chairman of Ways and Means.

But he has never lost interest in such causes as preventing crime, drug addiction and other social problems by improving the self-esteem of all California citizens.

Laughed at for these ideas for many years, Vasconcellos recently saw newly installed Gov. Pete Wilson embrace the self-esteem concept and incorporate it into many of his ideas for “preventive government.”