Assemblymen lay out their legislation

Alicia Robinson

Newport-Mesa’s state legislators will have a full plate this year,

with 68th District Assemblyman Ken Maddox and 70th District

Assemblyman John Campbell carrying a total of 34 bills.

Topping the list of Campbell’s 19 pieces of legislation are

several reforms expected to save the state money and bills to repeal

laws enacted by former Gov. Gray Davis.

One bill would reform the state government’s employee pension

system, potentially saving billions in future years, Campbell said.

“Government employee pensions have gotten extremely generous of

late,” he said.

While the state can’t take away what’s already been promised to

current and former employees, it can restructure the pension system

for new employees, he said.

“It’s a major part of the governor’s structural reforms in the

budget,” Campbell said.

The pension reform bill is one of several budget-related bills the

assemblyman is pushing at the request of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Also at the governor’s behest is an amendment to the state

Constitution -- yet to be written -- that will make any changes to

government operations deemed necessary to eliminate waste and

duplication. The bill will be written in detail once a team of

analysts finishes reviewing government operations.

Campbell said he is proposing several bills that would repeal laws

regulating businesses, such as Senate Bill 578, which prohibits the

state from contracting with businesses deemed sweatshops based on

whether they offer certain benefits to employees.

“It attached this terrible-sounding word, sweatshop, to a vast

majority of the businesses in the state that are non-union,” Campbell

said.

Maddox has put forward 15 bills for the legislature to consider

this year. The most significant, he said, is one that lets primary

and secondary schools count students with excused absences in their

daily attendance and thus receive funding for those students.

“They still have to pay for the school and the lights and the

teachers,” Maddox said. “The school shouldn’t lose funding because

the student went to the doctor.”

Another of Maddox’s bills would increase the income level at which

people are eligible for federal funds to purchase their first home.

For people who earn about $30,000 a year, buying a home in Orange

County is out of the question, but if they earn closer to $60,000 a

boost from federal funds might be sufficient, Maddox said.

“At the levels where it’s at now, in a place like Orange County

where the housing costs are so high [the federal money is] of little

value,” he said.