CAPITOL NOTEBOOK: TRAVEL PROS SURVEY SLOGANS TO TAP TOURISM.

Byline: Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber

HOW to sell California as a visitor's paradise? That's the hot question for the California Travel and Tourism Commission these days. So the commissioners took a look at how California's competitors - those other 49 states - are pitching themselves.

The results were revealed during the annual California Conference on Tourism last week in Sacramento. Five hundred travel pros - including dozens from tourist-hungry Los Angeles County - gathered in the capital to compare notes and assess their competitors.

Not every state has California's gloss and sophistication. Here are some slogans from other states, which a California tourism official claims to have culled from the Internet:

Alabama: ``Come Feel Better About Your Own State.''

Colorado: ``If You Don't Ski, Don't Bother.''

Montana: ``Home of the Big Sky, the Unabomber, and Little Else.''

So, what's the Golden State's new sales pitch?

``California - find yourself here.'' (Sure. But you'll need a Thomas Guide to find anything else.)

Big guns

State Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles, wants California to become the first state in the nation to take on gun manufacturers in a product liability suit - just like the recent legal action taken against Big Tobacco.

If California Attorney General Bill Lockyer agrees, it could mean that the state would recoup money to treat gunshot victims as well as prosecution costs.

Bill Mabie, a Polanco spokesman, said gun manufacturers should be taken to task for not doing more to make their weapons safe. He said that's especially true of manufacturers of inexpensive Saturday night specials - most of which are made in an area of Southern California called the Ring of Fire.

New Orleans, Chicago and Dade County in Florida already have filed such suits, and Mabie said there is the expectation that it will become a trend across the country. So Polanco thinks now is a good time for California to act.

``The senator's hope is that California should lead the way,'' Mabie said. ``We don't want to be a Johnny-come-lately, like we were in the tobacco suits.''

Lickety-split

Imagine hurtling toward San Francisco on a high-speed train, watching the vast Central Valley roll by at 200 mph. You'd make the trip from Los Angeles in under three hours. The price tag? Around $23.3 billion.

That's the estimated cost for a new railway system that would race up and down California's spine, according to estimates reported at a recent meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Proponents plan to put the idea before the voters on the November 2000 ballot.

Just think: Fresno in 90 minutes!

Bills to watch

Assemblyman Wally Knox, D-Los Angeles, has introduced a bill, AB 208, that would require life imprisonment without parole for murders stemming from the victim's gender, sexual orientation or disability. Such stiff sentences already are applied to killings reflecting racial or religious hatred. . . . Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Glendale, introduced legislation Friday to protect communities from renegade bounty hunters. Wildman proposes that bounty hunters should be required to give local law enforcement officials notification before entering private property in search of a suspected fugitive. . . . Wildman also introduced a measure designed to control the misuse of hand-held laser pointers. . . . Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Encino, has reintroduced a bill to protect students from gay bashing.