Amendments Could Cripple Secession Bill

SACRAMENTO — In a dramatic turn of events, San Fernando Valley secession legislation that had been breezing through the Legislature with broad-based, bipartisan support was amended with “poison pill” changes Wednesday that could hamper its chances of passage.

The most damaging amendment added, according to proponents of the bill, makes the secession legislation apply statewide, not just to Los Angeles, as had been originally proposed.

Statewide application is considered deadly. Some legislators now backing the measure because it applied only to Los Angeles are expected to change their minds if the legislation applies to their own cities.

“It’s a poison pill,” said North Hills homeowner leader Harry Coleman, who was part of a local delegation that journeyed to Sacramento for a Local Government Committee hearing Wednesday.

The force behind amending two secession bills, already passed by the Assembly, was the newest member of the Local Government Committee, state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), appointed Monday by Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).

Polanco has been a key foe of secession legislation for the past two years. His appointment to the committee was seen as an attempt to derail the bills.

“If this is, members, something we believe in, it should apply . . . to San Francisco, to your cities,” said Polanco.

Polanco said proponents’ resistance to statewide application exposed the fallacy of their past assertions that the bill, which would eliminate the City Council veto over secession attempts, is a “simple” measure about democracy.

“We exposed it for what it was,” Polanco said after the hearing. “This very ‘simple’ bill as presented was really a Trojan horse for the breakup of the city of Los Angeles.”

The amendment to apply the proposed change in the law to the entire state was approved on a 4-2 vote of the committee.

The amendments will come back to the committee in two weeks for a second vote before moving to the appropriations committee and finally to the Senate floor.

All four Democrats on the committee voted for the amendment, while Sens. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) and Richard Rainey (R-Walnut Creek) opposed it.

The unified effort by Senate Democrats on the committee, as well as Polanco’s surprise appointment to it, signals a shift from a few months ago when Lockyer had his own secession bill and Democrats were split on the issue.

Against the backdrop of a possible run for state attorney general, Lockyer had emerged this year as a major supporter of secession legislation. He met in Los Angeles with Valley leaders and promised them he would put his considerable power behind the bill bearing his name.

That newfound partnership with the Valley did not sit well with representatives of other Los Angeles-area centers, including Polanco and Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles).

Based on continuing divisiveness within the Democratic caucus, Lockyer said last month he was abandoning his bill in favor of caucus unity. But he promised to stay neutral, a vow proponents of Valley secession legislation said he broke by appointing Polanco and telling committee members his views in a letter.

“If the council veto is indefensible in Los Angeles, fairness suggests that it is indefensible as statewide policy,” Lockyer wrote. “I hope you will consider this in your deliberations on any bill dealing with a major area detaching and incorporating as a city.”

Recommending that the change in the law apply statewide is especially significant in that Lockyer did not insist upon it when his own bill was viable.

“The letter was clearly not from someone remaining neutral,” said Jeff Brain, co-chairman of a group formed to lobby for the legislation. “It’s from someone trying to influence the legislation.”

Former Rep. Bobbi Fiedler said Lockyer’s influence was evident.

“It appeared as though he had a surrogate, if not more than one at this hearing today,” Fiedler said.

Fiedler has been involved in pushing for the legislation since it was first proposed last year by then-Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland.

Lockyer saw to it that Boland’s bill was killed in the Senate last year. Then he surprised many by coming back with his own measure this year.

Lockyer’s press secretary, Sandy Harrison, denied the lawmaker is still pulling the strings behind the scenes.

“He wasn’t ordering anybody to do anything” in the letter, Harrison said. “He has not veered from his promise to stay neutral.”

While acknowledging that the amendments were a problem, the authors of the bills said there is plenty of time and lots of ways to save the legislation.

“It was a setback,” said Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), co-author of one of the Assembly bills. “It was not a defeat.”

McClintock’s bill, also sponsored by Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), calls for eliminating City Council veto power over secession requests and provides for a citywide vote on the question of dividing the city.

“We’ll just go to work to get 21 votes in the Senate,” Hertzberg said.

A second bill, offered by Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), also eliminates the veto power but calls for a two-thirds majority vote in the area that wants to detach.

By the same 4-2 vote, the committee passed a second amendment for a statewide commission charged with studying city boundaries that would provide an analysis of the impacts of dividing a city.

But an effort to include funding in the bills, which would then require a two-thirds vote to pass in the full Senate, was defeated.

That means one or both of the bills will wind up in the Senate Appropriations Committee, where similar legislation died last summer.

Still, Hertzberg said he’d rather have the bill in the Appropriations Committee than have to round up a two-thirds vote of the full Senate.