CAPITOL NOTEBOOK: SACRAMENTO GOING CRAZY FROM THE HEAT.

Byline: Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber

THE blast-furnace heat in Sacramento is getting the blame for politicians' odd behavior.

Gov. Gray Davis' spokesman, Michael Bustamante, pointed to hot weather as the reason that top leadership in the Legislature reacted so angrily to the governor's heavy-handed attempts at controlling the progress of bills. ``Strange things happen in Sacramento once the temperature gets beyond 100 degrees,'' Bustamante said.

Instead of the traditional approach of speaking to the authors of bills, Davis' lieutenants were calling committee chairpersons and telling them to delay or pull legislation.

The more we think about it, Bustamante's flip response might be right on. It's the only explanation we can think of for some of the weird events in the Capitol during the past week:

Hello, Mr. Bill

You remember it, the dullest chapter in your civics textbook: ``How a Bill Becomes a Law.'' Your textbook was wrong.

Sit in on a few hearings at the Capitol, and you quickly learn that bills don't just ``become'' laws. Bills are squeezed and magnified and tweaked and nuked into laws.

Sometimes, the lawmakers themselves are left scratching their heads as they survey the results.

Last week, Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, shepherded his bill banning residential gun sales past the state Senate's Public Safety Committee. The bill, AB 988, had passed the Assembly with votes to spare.

Capitol veterans know funny things happen when a bill leaves its own house and travels across the hall. Like guerrillas in the reeds, opponents lie in wait, hoping to snipe at the measure when it hits a committee on ``the other side.''

AB 988 was no exception. Lowenthal found himself accepting amendments in order to keep the bill alive. Originally, it banned all firearm sales from private homes. Then gunsmiths were exempted. Then curio dealers were exempted. Then gun dealers in sparsely populated counties were exempted.

Finally, a gun lobbyist sadly told the Senate committee about a friend of his, a quadriplegic who struggled to make a living by - yes - selling firearms from his home.

Chairman Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, looked at Lowenthal, eyebrows raised. ``Well?'' he asked.

And that's why, if this bill becomes a law, quadriplegic California gun dealers will still be allowed to sell Colts over their kitchen tables.

Willie Brown boycott

The Assembly held a special session for former Speaker Willie Brown, a long-winded affair to laud the Democratic politician who's now mayor of San Francisco.

Assemblyman Thomas ``Rico'' Oller, R-Roseville, known for his hysterical press releases, issued a statement to the press that he was boycotting the Brown event.

Reporters were told that ``Oller was available off the Assembly floor this morning in case any real legislative business was to be conducted, but the leadership of the Assembly decided, Why ruin the party with work?''

Later, Oller sent a letter to Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, the chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee, and asked him to conduct an investigation into the cost of the event.

Bills to watch

AB 15, by Assemblyman Martin Gallegos, D-City of Industry, would require seat belts on school buses. It passed the Senate Education Committee on an 11-2 vote and next goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

AB 72, by Hertzberg, would increase the possible penalty to a felony for the owner of a vicious dog who permits the animal to bite humans. The bill passed the Senate Public Safety Committee on a 4-0 vote and next goes to Senate Appropriations.