Voters are Heffernan’s only hurdle

If former Newport Beach City Councilman John Heffernan chooses to run for the council seat he gave up in January, there’s nothing officially barring his way, the Newport Beach city attorney has determined.

“There’s nothing in the [city] charter that would prevent him from running to get his seat back,” City Attorney Robin Clauson said Wednesday.

Heffernan resigned because of family and work commitments that he says are now resolved. He said Wednesday that before he decides on a run in November, he wants to see who he’d be up against.

Councilman Keith Curry was appointed to the seat in February and is running. Dolores Otting, a city activist who lost to Heffernan in 2004, hasn’t decided whether to run, and Heffernan said he might defer to her. In his resignation letter he endorsed Otting as his replacement.

“I don’t want to get into a three-person race,” he said. “Dolores and I will be fighting over some of the same voters, and my intent is to win, not to put a lot of my own money into a campaign and come out second or third.”

Heffernan realizes some voters may call him a quitter, after he came close to resigning in 2002 and resigned three months after winning a second term. But in recent months, he cleared up his work and family issues, and he wants to address what he believes is widespread public distrust of the council.

“I think that I bring a perspective to the council that neither Keith Curry or Dolores Otting can,” he said. “I’m a proven commodity.”

Whoever wins the seat will serve until 2008 and then would have to run again to keep the office.

IMMIGRATION ISSUE CROPS UP IN SACRAMENTO

The illegal immigration issue has been lying low on the Newport-Mesa political scene in recent weeks, but it has popped up in Sacramento, according to Newport Beach Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. Assembly Democrats have squirreled a half-a-billion-dollar healthcare proposal that would cover illegal immigrants into the state budget bill, DeVore said Wednesday.

A conference committee added the item to a budget trailer bill while hammering out the budget over the weekend.

DeVore’s take is that the proposal would expand the Healthy Families program, which offers health insurance to poor people, so that illegal immigrants and families of four with incomes up to $53,000 could participate. He estimates this would cost $500 million a year at a minimum.

“This is kind of the under-the-table way of doing it,” DeVore said. “They’re giving illegal immigrants the best healthcare California taxpayer money can buy.”

A bill proposed last year that would have done the same thing was vetoed by the governor, DeVore said.

But Democratic Assemblyman John Laird of Santa Cruz, who chairs the budget committee, said DeVore’s characterization of the issue is flat-out wrong.

“Basically we propose over the next four years to insure every kid for healthcare in California that’s not insured now,” Laird said.

Laird says the plan would insure some children ? no adults ? who are not legal residents of the U.S., but 88% of the 800,000 kids to be insured have legal status. He added that the program expansion would cost $300 million, but the money is spread over several years.

Laird maintains that the governor’s budget proposal essentially does the same thing by supporting the 18 counties that provide universal health coverage for kids.

The budget could come to a vote as soon as today, and DeVore predicted the healthcare provision will be so unpalatable to Republicans it could sink the entire bill.

He also criticized the Democratic budget proposal for spending $1.5 billion more than the governor’s most recent plan, a charge Laird also disputed. He attributes DeVore’s salvos to desperation.

“Traditionally at this time in the process, Republicans attack Democrats as big spenders,” Laird said. “It’s pretty hard when we present a budget that’s better than the governor’s.”

Adding up the budget numbers is a job for the fiscal experts, but on this issue, one thing is clear to political observers: No matter who bloated the budget, today is the deadline to pass it, and it will likely be late again.

WORKING FOR A LINE-ITEM VETO

Newport Beach Rep. John Campbell continued his quest to trim pork from federal spending this week, co-sponsoring a measure that allows the president to pull earmarks from bills and require Congress to vote on them separately.

The so-called line-item veto gives the president the power to extract projects ? such as Alaska’s infamous $223 million “bridge to nowhere” ? from spending bills or pull out special interest tax breaks if they apply to fewer than 100 people. Congress would have to vote on whether to remove the items from bills.

“The line-item veto is not the sole solution to our overspending and budget deficits, but it’s a part of the solution,” Campbell said.

Once the pieces of pork are singled out, nothing prevents members of Congress from agreeing to support each others’ spending proposals so they can stay in the bill, though Campbell said it probably won’t work that way.

A majority of the state’s governors have similar veto powers, Campbell said, including California.

The House Budget Committee on Wednesday approved the line-item veto, and it could face a floor vote later this week, Campbell said.dpt.15-landscape-heffer-CPhotoInfoVR1S008320060615j0vfc6ncDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Former Newport Beach City Councilman John Heffernan will decide whether to run for his old seat; the city will not prevent him from doing so.