New Supreme Court Looms Over Budget’s Abortion Restrictions

SACRAMENTO —  The political impact of Gov. George Deukmejian’s new Supreme Court appointments was felt in the Legislature for the first time Thursday when a group of liberal Democrats tried to block committee passage of a proposed state budget because it contains language restricting abortions for poor women on the Medi-Cal program.

The effort in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee narrowly failed. But it revived memories of 1980, when a bitter fight over state abortion funding created a stalemate in the Legislature and delayed passage of the budget until mid-July, 16 days after the start of the new fiscal year.

Pro-choice lawmakers in recent years had stopped waging all-out fights to keep Medi-Cal abortion restrictions out of the budget only because of confidence that the Supreme Court, then headed by Rose Elizabeth Bird, would uphold appellate court rulings that the restrictions violated the state Constitution.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), after losing the first round of what he predicted would be a prolonged fight, said:

“For years, we went through a perfunctory ritual of non-debate knowing that the previous Supreme Court would uphold the constitutional right of women.

“Now, all of us are having a difficult time adjusting to a new reality in which the court presumably will rule the other way.”

The debate on abortion overshadowed the novelty of what may be the speediest and earliest action yet by the Ways and Means Committee in sending the budget for a vote by the full House.

By a bare 12-7 vote, the Democrats who control the committee sent the budget to the floor without a recommendation. It was the earliest that veteran lawmakers could remember the budget leaving the committee, and it was the first time in recent history that the budget went out without the committee’s recommendation for passage.

The abortion provision was amended into the budget over the objections of Hayden and four other Democrats. The pro-abortion faction then abstained from voting on the main budget bill, forcing other Democrats to scramble for the 12 votes necessary to get the budget out of committee.

As it was, passage came only because Assemblyman William P. Baker of Danville, the Republican vice chairman of the committee, reluctantly switched his vote from “no” to “aye’ as a courtesy to Committee Chairman John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose).

The Democrats who opposed the abortion restrictions supported the same budget provision last year. It limits abortions to cases in which a mother’s life is in danger, where a pregnancy results from rape or incest and other special circumstances.

Funds Could Not Be Denied

But, as Hayden indicated, the courts in recent years have held, in a succession of rulings, that funds could not be denied to about 90,000 women who receive state-financed abortions each year as long as money was being provided for prenatal care and childbirth.

Last year, the ruling was made by the state Court of Appeal in San Francisco and allowed to stand by the Supreme Court. However, dissenting opinions were given by Deukmejian’s first two appointees to the court, Justices Malcolm M. Lucas and Edward A. Panelli, in what was widely viewed as the first indication of a possible shift by the court.

The three newest members of the Supreme Court were sworn in only last week, replacing Bird and two other liberal justices who were defeated in the general election last Nov. 4. The new justices are John A. Arguelles, David N. Eagleson and Marcus

M. Kaufman, all of whom previously served on state appellate courts.

Republicans cast all the “no” votes against the budget plan at Thursday’s committee meeting.

GOP leader Baker denounced the action, saying the committee was “working absolutely in the dark” because the Department of Finance does not publish until May such vital budget figures as final estimates of tax revenues and such important statistics as the number of children expected to enroll in the next school year.

Democrats, hoping to deal Deukmejian a political setback, adopted this year’s novel approach because they want key elements of the governor’s budget proposal, such as a recommended $150-million cut in the Medi-Cal program, debated by the full Assembly meeting as a “committee of the whole.” Democrats do not believe that Deukmejian will be able to muster support for his budget proposals and hope that news media coverage of the debates will expose the shortcomings of his spending plan.

Democrats admitted the committee’s $39.3-billion version of the governor’s budget was full of “holes.” Among major gaps the Democrats plan to challenge are the governor’s proposed $150-million Medi-Cal cut, the governor’s plan to reduce first-grade class size by eliminating a number of politically popular education programs, a proposal to eliminate the state’s worker safety program and a $214-million cut in public school aid.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) challenged Deukmejian to personally appear before the Assembly to defend his budget in a letter released Thursday. But the governor declined. The governor’s office released a statement saying Deukmejian “does not testify at legislative budget hearings” but he would be pleased to provide Administration officials.