Hits and misses on capital’s calendar

Alicia Robinson

With a scant few weeks left in the 2004 legislative session, state

lawmakers have hundreds of bills left that will die if not acted upon

by the session’s end Aug. 31.

Newport-Mesa’s assemblymen are hoping to see a few of those pass

-- and many more of them fade away -- by the deadline.

Assemblyman Ken Maddox, termed out of representing the 68th

District at the end of this session, is rooting for AB 1903, a bill

he wrote to prevent local governments from discriminating against

religious institutions in land-use planning. Governments use zoning

to discourage churches from building because they’d rather have

something more lucrative on the property, he said.

“I’ve been working on that since I got here, and I have yet to

come up with any language that does not have the opposition of local

government,” said Maddox, who represents Costa Mesa. “Churches don’t

generate tax revenue.”

Assemblyman John Campbell, finishing his second term as 70th

District assemblyman and the GOP candidate for the 35th District

Senate seat in November, is pushing AB 1733, a bill he co-wrote

requiring cellphone-service providers to get permission from

customers before including their phone numbers in a directory. The

bill was hastily drafted after cellular companies announced plans to

create a “yellow pages” of cellular numbers.

“For an awful lot of people, their cellphone is their last bastion

of privacy,” Campbell said.

The bill is still in the Senate, where it was introduced, and has

yet to reach the Assembly for action.

Asked which bills he thinks are better off dead, Campbell had no

trouble coming up with half a dozen, several of which he sees as

harmful to the business community.

On his legislative hit list were AB 1690, which allows local

governments to enact an income tax by a simple majority vote of

residents; it is awaiting a Senate vote. He also is targeting the

Assembly-approved AB 2832, which increases the state’s minimum wage

to $7.75 in 2006, and SB 1903, which gives striking workers the right

to collect unemployment.

Maddox is hoping for the demise of SB 1160, which grants driver’s

licenses to illegal immigrants, and SB 1152, which would require

people buying ammunition for firearms to fill out a registration form

and give their thumbprint.

Not backing off the bay

Realizing that federal funding is a lost cause this year, Newport

Beach city officials are now urging their connections inside the

beltway to push legislation that lets the city start a huge Back Bay

dredging project with its own money.

Newport Beach Mayor Tod Ridgeway met last week with

representatives of the federal Office of Management and Budget and

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and this week he talked with Rep. Chris

Cox and Orange County officials about letting the city spend $13.5

million to begin dredging 2 million cubic yards of silt from the

Upper Newport Bay.

The dredging project has been in the works for more than six years

and will cost about $38 million. The city has been expecting $24.5

million in federal funds. As recently as June, Ridgeway was hoping to

get at least $10 million in a 2005 federal appropriations bill, but

now he’s focusing on getting the money in 2006 and 2007, he said. He

will fly to Washington, D.C., in September to convince federal

officials how important the project is to the city.

The city can’t pay for the project without permission because the

Corps, which designed the project and will construct it, isn’t

allowed to take money from the city.

Once the city gets legislative permission to start the work,

Ridgeway said, there’s a good chance they’ll get the rest of the

money they need. The White House has just been reluctant to fund

projects that haven’t yet begun, he said.

Libertarian sounds off after debate denial

Local U.S. Senate candidate and Orange County Superior Court Judge

Jim Gray got himself some publicity even without taking part in a

Tuesday debate between his opponents, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer

and Republican candidate Bill Jones.

Gray, a Libertarian, fought his exclusion from debate held by the

League of Women Voters of California but lost a court challenge last

week.

The league said Gray’s poll showings weren’t high enough to meet

its 10% requirement.

Gray and his supporters protested outside the debate, held at the

Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and broadcast on NBC, and he

netted about 10 radio and TV interviews, he said.

But it still would have been better for him and voters had he been

in the debate, Gray added.

Gray said he would have taken a strong stance against the Patriot

Act and given a date to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, but Jones and

Boxer each sidestepped controversial issues and tried to tie the

other to unpopular issues.

“That doesn’t say anything about what [they] would do,” Gray said.

“It’s just emotional drivel, and I would have stood up and said just

that.”

Group issues list of tax-increase opponents

A number of local candidates and officeholders have put their

opposition to tax increases in writing.

Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based independent

nonprofit group, last week issued its latest list of “taxpayer

friendly” November candidates -- those who signed the group’s pledge

that they’ll oppose and vote against any attempt to increase taxes.

Current officeholders who have signed the pledge are Reps. Chris

Cox and Dana Rohrabacher, and candidates include Campbell, Republican

70th District Assembly candidate Chuck DeVore and two opponents in

the 68th Assembly District race, Democrat Al Snook and Republican Van

Tran.