Four workers' comp bills set to roll in Sacramento; legislators take heat for past failure to enact reforms.

The debate over workers' compensation reform will begin simmering again in Sacramento this week as the new head of the Assembly insurance committee opens hearings to draft measures to reform the state's costly system.

Assemblyman Steve Peace, D-Chula Vista, who replaces Assemblyman Burt Margolin, D-Los Angeles, as head of the Assembly committee, will begin the hearings on Feb. 23, said Molly Hillis, a committee consultant.

"We expect to draft one major workers' comp bill that is a committee bill with bipartisan authorship," she said. The 10 Democrats and six Republicans on the committee all have "a really strong desire to see real reform this year" Hillis said.

Legislators are feeling the heat for failing to pass a workers' comp reform package last year which Gov. Pete Wilson would sign, Hillis said. The committee hopes to hammer out a package in two weeks, she said.

The insurance committee bill is one of at least four comprehensive reform bills which have been introduced or will be introduced in Sacramento in the next few weeks, according to Jeff Shelton, chief consultant to the Senate industrial relations committee and aide to Sen. Pat Johnston, D-Stockton.

Johnston has authored a reform package which would increase workers' benefits, while cutting back on stress claims and post-employment termination claims, Shelton said.

The reform package in many ways mirrors the ill-fated reform package vetoed by Wilson last year, but is tougher in some key areas, Shelton said. For instance, it would eliminate stress claims if the employee's stress was caused by performing routine tasks associated with the job.

"I think the governor will find our bill will be more to his liking" than reforms authored by Democrats in the past, Shelton said.

Among the toughest, pro-business workers' comp reform bills is a package authored by Sen. Bill Leonard, R-Upland. The Leonard plan would eliminate vocational rehabilitation as a mandatory benefit, eliminate post employment termination claims, limit compensation for psychiatric injuries to those which result from a "sudden and extraordinary" employment event.

The fourth major reform bill is authored by Assemblyman Paul Horcher, R-Whittier, said Beau Biller, his legislative aide. Details of the bill were not available, but the reform plan will be the companion bill to a state workers' compensation reform initiative, Biller said.

Harvey Englander, a political consultant who has run Horcher's campaigns as well as the political campaigns of state legislators and Los Angeles mayoral and city council candidates, will unveil the ballot initiative in mid-March.

Englander said that the initiative will go forward if the legislature fails to pass a workers' comp reform package. In order to get the measure on the June 1994 ballot, an initiative campaign must begin now, Englander said.

Wilson and Rebuild L.A. Chairman Peter Ueberroth have also hinted at reforming the workers' comp system through the initiative process, Englander said, adding that he hopes to get their support for his measure.

Englander said major California business leaders have expressed support for the initiative, but he declined to identify them. Carl Karcher, founder of Carl's Jr. restaurants, was "harassed" after it was erroneously reported that he had officially given his support to the initiative effort, Englander explained.

He declined to provide details about the measure, but said it is politically "a straight down the middle initiative" and will involve compromise on the part of every group in the workers' comp debate, including doctors, lawyers, insurance providers and vocational rehabilitation firms.

Meanwhile, Wilson's office is following all the different efforts to reform workers' comp "very closely," said John Duncan, deputy director of the state Department of Industrial Relations which oversees workers compensation matters for the governor. "We're cautiously optimistic that reform could happen this year," he said.