Legislators Rush to File Final Bills

Some Democrats want to permit doctor-assisted suicide and sanction gay marriage. And they plan to try again to get driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, to help Californians buy prescription drugs from Canada and to raise the minimum wage.

Republicans, meanwhile, want to stiffen criminal penalties, create tax breaks and end conjugal visits for imprisoned felons.

One of the most ambitious packages is from the bipartisan team of Assembly members Keith Richman (R-Northridge) and Joe Nation (D-San Rafael). It promises to spur debate on how to extend health insurance to 6 million Californians who do not have it. Their plan would require Californians to buy health insurance, much as they are now required to buy auto insurance. Big questions loom about how to help poor people pay for it, and Democrats say such a mandate would prompt employers to drop coverage for their workers.

But few of the hundreds of bills introduced by Democrats as of Monday tackle the subjects that Schwarzenegger has said should dominate political debate in 2005. The Republican governor has vowed to change how political boundaries are drawn in hopes of making the Legislature less partisan. He also wants to install automatic restrictions on state spending, pay public school teachers based on merit -- not seniority -- and put new state workers and teachers into 401(k) retirement plans that would reduce what the state must annually pay into employee pension accounts.

Although Democrats vowed in January to champion what they saw as middle-class issues -- housing costs, transportation, education and healthcare -- few details are apparent from the bills filed so far. Many are brief "placeholder" bills that could be amended dramatically in the months to come. Schwarzenegger and the Democrats who dominate the Legislature instead are behaving as if the governor's agenda will be decided elsewhere.

Schwarzenegger has said that if legislators don't pass his proposals, he would take his agenda to voters in a special election. The governor is expected to call the election for Nov. 8. In anticipation, interest groups including drug makers and anti-tax groups have filed an unprecedented 81 proposed initiatives, many to either back or oppose the governor.