Robert Johnson, executive director of the California Assn. of Private Postsecondary Schools, said the bill established so many requirements that it would have been crippling to smaller trade schools that are not part of national chains. The bill, he said, "was 112 pages of punishment."
Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the state Department of Consumer Affairs, which has overseen the schools, said that since July, the state had doled out $4.7 million in reimbursements to 435 students The fund is all but depleted, he said, because the state hasn't been able to collect new fees since July.
Perata's bill will probably reemerge later this year in a form that will require only majority votes to pass, a likely outcome since Democrats control both the Assembly and Senate. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not taken a stance on the bill, could veto it; Schwarzenegger's Consumer Affairs Department opposes it.
Even if it were to pass, the earliest it could take effect would be January, leaving the schools without state oversight for six months.
In other business, the Assembly passed a bill aimed at ensuring that U.S. presidents are elected based on the popular vote. The bill, SB 37, by Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), would have California join a compact of states that have agreed to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes nationwide. Those votes now go to the popular-vote winner in each state. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2006.
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jordan.rau@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Nancy Vogel contributed to this report.
