BILL DESIGNED TO PLAY FAST, LOOSE WITH LAW.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

THERE'S a term that describes the act of one individual illegally taking money or property from another: Theft.

When several individuals come together to plot such a crime, it's called a conspiracy - unless, of course, those individuals are the members of the California Legislature.

Then it's called business as usual.

Conspiracy to commit theft - or, if you prefer, business as usual - resumes in the state capitol on Monday when the Legislature convenes to deal with the budget mess it buried just in time for the November election.

Now comes the day of reckoning, when tricks and gimmicks will no longer suffice to make the books look balanced. Legislators must find real ways to fill the massive hole in the state treasury that stands to reach $30 billion.

That's where the conspiracy to commit theft comes into play.

Last summer, legislative Democrats hoped to sustain their protracted spending spree by tripling the Vehicle License Fee - or, more accurately, the car tax, the annual assessment Sacramento imposes on every vehicle, owned or leased, in the state.

But they were thwarted in their efforts by their colleagues across the aisle. Showing uncharacteristic principle, the state's Republican minority denied Democrats the handful of votes required to achieve the two-thirds supermajority that the state constitution requires for raising taxes.

Without the legal means to take hundreds of dollars from millions of California families, and unwilling to restrain their spending habits, Democrats had to concoct another way to get their hands on the VLF, one that skirted the constitution's protection of taxpayers. And in the 11th hour of the budget debate, Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza had a vision: They could get around the constitution by simply ignoring it.

The Carson Democrat argued that the VLF increase wasn't actually a tax hike, but the elimination of a tax rebate, i.e., the reversal of the two- thirds VLF rate cut that outgoing Senator Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, managed to push through in 1998. Thus, a simple majority in both houses is all that's needed for it to pass - no sweat, given the Democrats' dominance in Sacramento.

Republicans cried foul, and McClintock, citing parliamentary protocols that prohibit the use of the word ``lie'' in debate, evoked Churchill by calling the proposal a ``terminological inexactitude.'' After all, no matter how it's packaged, any new policy that shifts billions of dollars from private hands to the government's is a tax hike.

The 1998 VLF cut might have begun as a rebate (Gov. Gray Davis wanted to get credit for the millions of DMV checks that were mailed out to state voters), but the ``rebate'' was scrapped in favor of a flat-out rate reduction in 2001. And although the law allows for old, higher rates to be temporarily restored if the state controller lacks the funds to make payments to California's city and towns, what Oropeza proposed goes a step further by essentially making the tax hike permanent.

As it happens, Oropeza's bill never even came to a vote before the Legislature closed shop for the session, as Republicans and Democrats agreed on the phony-numbers compromise budget that deserves part of the blame for the state's current predicament. So Oropeza's scheme was shelved until a future date, when the Legislature would get desperate to find ways to raise more money, even ways that run grossly afoul of the state constitution.

And when the Legislature convenes Monday to discuss the budget crisis, Oropeza's plan will be at the top of the Democrats' agenda - right up there with gutting the $10.2 billion in spending cuts Gov. Gray Davis proposed Friday.

Never mind that her plan is almost assuredly illegal, and that Republicans have vowed to challenge it in court. For the $3.9 billion that tripling the VLF would generate for the cash-starved big spenders, playing loose with the law is a small price to pay.

They don't have the funds to maintain their desired levels of massive government, but they seem confident that despite the slow economy, most every California family will have an extra few hundred dollars on hand, per car, just to make sure the bureaucracy can hum along uninterrupted.

So, starting Monday, the state's Democrats will plot again to sidestep the state constitution in an effort to shift billions of dollars from private hands into their own. Call it rescinding a rebate. Call it business as usual. Call it a conspiracy to commit theft.

Call it whatever you like, but if lawmakers get their way, at the end of the day, Californians, their money, and their constitutional protections will be parted.