GLUT OF BILLS AWAITS STATE LAWMAKERS.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

Lawmakers returning to Sacramento today will start a two-week marathon to act on hundreds of bills and try to keep measures they've spent months working on from landing in the legislative scrap heap.

With the Legislature set to recess Sept. 12, lawmakers have just a few days to shepherd more than 600 bills through final committee and floor votes.

And for many lawmakers representing the San Fernando Valley, the mounting pile of proposals includes their top priorities for the year - bills they want to tell the voters back home about.

``In the Assembly, they've gotta run for election next year, so they want to have something on their record,'' said Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, D-Van Nuys.

Work is stacking up in both houses. The Senate has at least 192 bills awaiting committee action and at least 150 awaiting action on the floor. The Assembly's floor file includes more than 200 bills, with more than 150 still in committee.

``I expect to spend a lot of nights on the floor after midnight,'' said Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. ``There's hundreds of bills left. It's crunch time.''

Hertzberg has a number of bills he's still trying to get through, including a measure to expand efforts to protect witnesses in criminal cases and a bill to allow informal courts to hear minor charges against some juvenile offenders.

Rosenthal also still has his own bills in the works, including a proposal to raise to 16 the minimum age for operating a power boat without adult supervision. He also has pending a bill to require state agencies to post its disciplinary records on auto mechanics, building contractors and other licensees on the Internet.

Valley-area Republicans have different agendas. Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, still hopes to get his bill signed requiring parental approval for body-piercing of minors. He also is carrying a measure to stiffen the sentence for assaults on police officers.

A bill by Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Northridge, would require parents of children accused of crimes to attend juvenile court proceedings. But a McClintock aide said he has relatively few bills still in the works - having already had several signed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

McClintock, Hertzberg and Rosenthal also are still working to approve their bill to allow the San Fernando Valley to secede from the city of Los Angeles upon a citywide vote.

But by and large, the area's legislators don't pursue a common agenda.

``The Valley is extremely diverse,'' said Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City. ``What might be cut-and-dried on one side of the Valley might be controversial on the other side.''

Like the others, Cardenas has his own set of priority bills to work over the final two weeks, including a measure to force the California Lottery to cut administrative costs and direct the savings to textbooks for schools.

Cardenas also is carrying a bill to use a statewide criminal database to track offenders wanted for drunk driving, domestic violence or welfare fraud.

The glut of bills up for last-minute votes opens lawmakers up for criticism, but Capitol veterans say the process of crafting legislation always takes time.

``That's always the question, `why so many bills at the end?' '' Rosenthal said. ``It's meant to be this way.''

While a few bills move through the process quickly, most need the better part of the legislative season to take shape, a process Sen. President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer likened to raising crops.

``It's harvest time,'' he said.

But a number of factors have slowed the process even more this year. The large number of new lawmakers, particularly in the Assembly, has gummed up the works a bit, Rosenthal said.

``For a long time, they weren't handling any of our (Senate) bills on the (Assembly) floor,'' he said. ``That's because of all the new people. They've had to learn the process.''

The summer budget stalemate didn't help. Many lawmakers had to cut short or cancel their vacations, and the weeks of wrangling with Wilson could set the stage for a highly partisan end to the session.

``We left with a very sour taste in our mouths,'' said Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Sheila Kuehl, D-Encino.

Along with being part of the Democrats' leadership, Kuehl has her own bills to worry about. One calls for mapping underground tanks and pipelines for their proximity to water supplies.

Another would create two zones off the Malibu coast where fishing would be prohibited. A third would allow family planning funds to pay for health screenings to low-income patients regardless of whether they were seeking contraceptive services.

A lot can happen in the last-minute crunch. Bills can become stranded in committee, dying without ever being formally voted upon. Attempts to amend bills - sometimes radically - are routine.

``You gotta watch the ball very closely in this business,'' Hertzberg said. ``This is when all the tricky stuff happens. You can't introduce a bill now, so you gut somebody else's bill and hijack it.''