Legislature OKs San Diego Electric Relief Package

SACRAMENTO —  The Legislature on Wednesday approved a pair of measures to use $150 million in taxpayer money to help San Diegans with this summer’s electricity price spikes and to immediately cut electricity bills in San Diego.

The assistance measure sets aside $150 million to be tapped if, by 2003, San Diego Gas & Electric’s losses are so great that to cover them would mean an additional 10% increase in the average customer’s annual bill. It was approved by the Senate on a 27-11 vote and by the Assembly 59-8.

A spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis said the governor supports the rate-relief bill, AB 265, but is undecided about the $150-million safety net measure--termed a bailout by some lawmakers.

“When you go down to San Diego and you see the businesses closing down, we need relief today,” said Assemblywoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego), “because the businesses won’t be there when we turn around.”

Some opponents said they fear the $150-million subsidy could set a precedent. Others said the measures won’t solve the state’s long-term energy problems.

“I’m extremely worried about the precedent being set,” said Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), who joined a handful of Republicans in opposing the package. He called the $150-million reserve, contained in AB 1158 by Assemblywoman Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego) and Assemblyman Jim Battin (R-La Quinta), a “bailout” for SDG&E.;

The rate-relief bill by Democratic San Diego lawmakers would cut the current price of electricity charged to all but the biggest customers of San Diego Gas & Electric, making the average homeowner bill drop to about $68 from $128.

The measure passed the Assembly 58-12 Wednesday after clearing the Senate on Tuesday.

Scrambling ahead of the final day of the two-year legislative session, top lawmakers also worked Wednesday to fashion a major expansion of health care for low-income working parents. And the Legislature approved scores of bills, including a large boost in the state’s college grants program.

The state Senate gave final approval to what Democrats and Republicans hailed as a historic overhaul of the Cal Grants college aid program. The bill, likely to be signed into law by Davis, would offer college grants to all qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates at an eventual cost of up to $1.2 billion.

“The state is going to reap the benefits of this for years to come,” Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) said, proclaiming the measure (SB 1644) to be “one of he most significant things that any Legislature has ever done.”

Other measures approved include an attempt to restore a version of the open primary, a bill that extends the time people have to register to vote and a consumer protection bill for people who carry balances on their credit cards.

A measure to require licenses for gun owners, an idea opposed by Davis and some police, was dropped by its author, Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena). The bill had passed the Senate and was awaiting an Assembly vote.

Scott said he dropped the measure (AB 273) after conversations with Davis persuaded him that he had little chance of seeing his bill signed into law this year. Davis had called for a moratorium on new gun control bills.

“I want to make it clear that my commitment to passing a law that will license gun owners has not wavered,” Scott said. “Rest assured, I will pursue this measure again next year, or however long it takes for it to become law.”

Measures still pending included a change in the car tax cut approved earlier this summer. Lawmakers were planning to break Wednesday night for their annual end-of-session bash.

Late Wednesday, Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) was negotiating with Davis on a proposal to expand Healthy Families, a state program aimed at providing health care coverage for children.

The expansion could include coverage for as many as 600,000 more families. It would be financed by using part of the $500 million the state receives annually from the settlement of the national tobacco litigation.

“We are working hard. We don’t know what the endgame is,” Hertzberg said.

Other weighty issues being negotiated ranged from new rules on timber clear cutting to a revival of a bill aimed at stopping police use of racial profiling. A package of business tax breaks also was being considered.

In a step toward reversing a decision made two months ago, the Assembly approved legislation that would give motorists an outright cut in the car tax, the fee Californians must pay to register their cars each year. The bill is awaiting a Senate vote.

As it stands, motorists would have to pay their bills in each of the next two years, then get rebates about a month after they write their checks. The rebate plan advocated by Davis stirred controversy because the cost of mailing the checks to owners of more than 25 million vehicles, together with notices explaining the reason for rebates, would have topped $20 million.

Davis contended that people realize they’ve received tax cuts only if they have checks in their hands. Ultimately, SB 540 by Sen. Joseph Dunn (D-Santa Ana) was amended to change the rebate into an outright reduction and cleared the Assembly 56 to 0.

At the same time, lawmakers approved a measure, SB 28 by Sen. Steve Peace (D-El Cajon), to restore a form of the open primary--an idea approved by voters in an initiative four years ago but struck down earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The bill, which Davis has endorsed, would permit independent voters to participate in primaries but limit them to voting for one party’s candidates. Ballots cast by independents would be accepted by political parties that consented to do so, while voters registered with a party could choose only candidates affiliated with that party.

Calling the high court’s decision “dinosauric,” Peace said: “The bill goes as far as we can to align the political process with the real world.”

The Legislature’s majority Democrats continued to press forward with measures to raise workers’ compensation benefits, a year after Davis vetoed a similar effort. Democrats also continued to push for legislation allowing farm workers to directly sue farmers instead of farm labor contractors, the middlemen who typically hire them.

Hoping to capitalize on the Legislature’s desire to fix California’s housing shortage, the building industry pushed legislation to limit construction defect lawsuits by homeowners. Such lawsuits have become common in fast-growing areas such as Orange and Riverside counties, where some new home buyers have complained of construction flaws in hastily built subdivisions.

Developers counter that the suits are fueled by what they see as a new ambulance-chasing breed of lawyer that drops by new housing tracts as soon as they are finished, and have led to a decrease in affordable housing construction.

Assemblyman John Dutra (D-Fremont) sought to scuttle the lawsuits by restricting homeowners’ ability to sue and replacing it with a homeowner warranty program.

But the powerful trial lawyer lobby came out against his bill (AB 2112) forming a coalition of homeowner advocates to support the right to sue. It appears to have stopped the Dutra bill in a conference committee of Senate and Assembly members.

Consumer groups, which have been increasingly complaining that their issues have met swift deaths in the Assembly, continued to push for at least some action on one of their top issues: restrictions on the burgeoning payday loan industry.

Bills to restrict the fees charged by the check-cashing outfits to advance money, which can approach annualized interest fees as high as 911% and have been called legalized usury by critics, moved through the Assembly and Senate.

A bill by Sen. Don Perata (D-Alameda) died in an Assembly committee, and a similar measure by Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) met the same fate in a Senate committee. In what they are calling a “Hail Mary” attempt at reforms, consumer groups are backing an attempt by Perata to revive his legislation in the Assembly.

The lower house’s increasingly powerful Democratic Business Caucus, a group of moderates, rallied to stall another consumer bill, which would have redone California’s “lemon law” for the first time in more than two decades.

More Time to Register to Vote

Among the many bills approved:

* Californians would get two more weeks to register to vote under a bill by Hertzberg, AB 1094. Currently, people must register to vote at least 29 days before an election. The bill, which went to Davis, would reduce that to 14 days.

* Credit card companies would have to show consumers how long it would take to pay their debts if they make minimum payments. The bill, AB 1963 by Speaker Hertzberg, went to Davis on a 45-26 vote Tuesday night.

* The Assembly voted 69 to 0 to send the governor a measure, AB 2409 by Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), to lower fees for college summer school. The state budget includes $33.7 million for the fee cuts, but a separate bill is needed to let the state spend it. More than 700,000 additional students are expected to crowd the state’s colleges in the next decade.

* The Senate unanimously passed and returned to the Assembly for approval of changes a bill authorizing the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose and counties to create a “311” nonemergency telephone system, financed by an increase in the 911 emergency call surcharge on telephone bills. The 311 system would relieve overwhelmed 911 lines, and improve response time of police, firefighters and paramedics to actual crisis situations. Hertzberg is carrying the bill, AB 2837.

* The Assembly gave final approval to a bill by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) aimed at attracting prizefights by capping the state taxes promoters must pay at $100,000 per fight. The bill originally was aimed at helping promoter Bob Arum, who complained about high gate taxes for the Oscar De La Hoya-Shane Mosley fight earlier this year. The bill, AB 52, won on a 60-5 vote.

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Times staff writers Dan Morain, Julie Tamaki, Miguel Bustillo and Jenifer Warren contributed to this story.