Legislative 'Pork' OKd in Boom Leaves Bad Taste in Lean Times

SACRAMENTO — Ask lawmakers whether their votes are for sale, and the answer is: absolutely not. But come budget time, they can be flexible on that point.

Consider Maurice Johannessen, a legislator from far Northern California until his Senate term ended two years ago. Johannessen was one of a handful of Republicans who regularly bolted from his party to help Democrats get state budgets passed. That's how he became a master at delivering to folks back home what he called "district augmentations" and others describe as Projects of Regional Concern -- PORC for short.

In return for his budget vote, here's what Johannessen got over the years: $25 million for a Sacramento River parkway known as Turtle Bay in his hometown of Redding, including $10 million for the landmark Sundial Bridge designed by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava.

There was more, including a $10-million sports field, a $12-million library and $750,000 to remodel an old playhouse. Republicans ostracized Johannessen in his final years in Sacramento. Unpleasant though that was, he has no regrets.

"Politics is not a team sport," Johannessen said. "I came in with a purpose: to get projects done. If you get elected for the purpose of doing what the party wants you to do, then stay home."

Johannessen is not unique. Most elected officials strive to be known as politicians who can deliver public swimming pools, parks and museums for their districts. It gains them votes.

"There is an electoral incentive," said political scientist Scott A. Frisch of Cal State Channel Islands in Camarillo. "Politicians look for things that are tangible. They want to put on a hardhat, use the oversize scissors and cut the ribbon."

But procuring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on "pork barrel" projects when the state was flush may now haunt lawmakers -- and taxpayers.

An unpublished analysis by the state Senate shows that legislative grants, which totaled $22 million in the 1994-95 fiscal year, peaked at $393 million in 1999 as the stock market boom caused state tax revenue to balloon. That's a fraction of California's annual budget, which hovers at $100 billion.

But the state faces an $8-billion shortfall next year, budget experts say. Some of them trace California's current fiscal problems to budgets passed five and six years ago, when then-Gov. Gray Davis and lawmakers approved ever more costly spending plans as long as there was money for their pet projects.