BALLOT COMPROMISE UNCERTAIN AS LEGISLATORS LEAVE FOR RECESS.

Byline: David M. Drucker Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO - State legislators wrapped up work Friday for a monthlong summer recess with focus already sharply shifted to the looming battle over the November special-election agenda and an August deadline for compromise on ballot measures.

With a state budget approved and out of the way, the legislators will spend the next 30 days at home in their districts while legislative leaders ostensibly work with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to craft a compromise on his special-election agenda that both sides can live with.

Yet with discussions currently occurring only at the staff level and Democrats having little motivation - politically or philosophically - to move the governor's agenda forward, the prospects for compromise remain unclear.

Schwarzenegger, so far, has remained optimistic about a possible compromise.

``The speaker at one point called the governor's (revised budget) 'crap,' and we certainly saw that they were willing to move and negotiate,'' Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson said. ``So there's things that are said in public, and room to negotiate in private.''

Ultimately, negotiations could hinge not on whether all parties can agree on the three measures the governor has actually placed on the ballot - initiatives to control state spending, redraw political district lines and adjust teacher-tenure rules - but on whether an agreement can be reached on a fourth proposition the governor did not propose and has yet to weigh in on.

Proposition 75, known as ``Paycheck Protection'' by supporters and ``Paycheck Deception'' by opponents, would require public-employee unions to get annual written permission from members to collect and spend their monthly membership dues on political activities.

Organized labor has taken the lead in opposing Schwarzenegger's special- election agenda, and the governor has said he likes the idea of what Proposition 75 would do.

But Schwarzenegger has otherwise refused to say whether he will endorse it, support it, or remain neutral.

Union leaders and Democrats - who rely heavily on organized labor for political contributions - are worried because when passed in other states, funds for political activities dried up.

Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, said that by offering not to campaign for it or raise money for it, he can compromise with Democrats without diluting the strength of his proposals as much as he might otherwise have to.

``It certainly puts extra chips on his side of the poker table.''

David M. Drucker, [phone]

david.drucker(at)dailybulletin.com