Legislators California

Voters sent Jane Harman to Congress to retain jobs and improve the local economy, she said. Looking back on her first six months in office, Harman (D-Marina del Rey) said Thursday she has made headway on those principal issues and several others. Sipping a diet soda and enduring a headache, Harman met for more than an hour with local reporters in her ninth-floor office in the Union Bank building in Westchester.

Workers compensation--an issue few people fully understand but one that can affect anyone who owns a business or holds a job--has become the make-or-break item on which the fate of the state's $56.4-billion budget now depends. Gov. Pete Wilson and his Republican allies in the Assembly are demanding changes in the workers compensation program in exchange for higher income taxes on the wealthy. If they get their way, premiums paid by employers--now among the nation's highest--could drop.

Thirty years ago, being a California legislator was a part-time job that paid $6,000 a year. It attracted young lawyers, ambitious local elected officials, retired merchants--and some people who just liked to have a good time. When this reporter first arrived at the state Capitol in 1960, lobbyists bought endless drinks, lunches and dinners for lawmakers. There also were paid-for gambling trips to Lake Tahoe, duck hunting or marlin fishing junkets, and ladies of the night.

Shortly after he was sworn into office, rookie Assemblyman Herb Wesson invited lobbyists to a fund-raiser at one of the capital's swankiest restaurants. The price: $5,000 a plate. The evening was a smashing success, with Wesson pocketing more than $100,000. But some called it audacious: How dare a freshman hold such a high-priced event--and so soon after arriving in Sacramento?

The new federal budget that won final approval Friday in Congress provides a record level of funding for lawmakers' pet projects, including money to begin building a new federal courthouse in Los Angeles and to renovate the federal office building in Santa Ana. A taxpayer group Friday projected that the so-called pork easily would surpass last year's record of 4,326 projects throughout the nation, which cost $17.7 billion. An aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.

Deploying an assemblyman as an undercover agent, the state attorney general's office has been investigating an alleged bribery attempt by a former California Republican Party chairman who was seeking legislative help for a proposed card casino. The investigation, according to documents and interviews, focuses on El Monte attorney Michael B.

The walls of his office are nearly bare, and he prefers it that way. Blank, plain, open space is what Brian Setencich likes. It's soothing, lets a guy think. "I'm into space," says Setencich, a freshman Republican assemblyman from Fresno. "I'm not a crowd person. I'm a loner, really." It's a good thing, because the 33-year-old Setencich has chosen a lonely path. Two weeks ago he declared his support for new Assembly Speaker Doris Allen.

Sen. Bill Lockyer, onetime bad boy of the California Legislature, has all but sewn up the support he needs to succeed fellow Democrat David A. Roberti next year as leader of the state Senate. Now, at 52, Lockyer says he has matured since his self-inflicted wounds of the 1980s, when his fiery temper and offensive behavior propelled him from one controversy to another.

Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), who waited 22 years for the Republicans to control the House so that he could hold a key position, learned this week that he is being passed over for two powerful committee chairmanships because Speaker-designate Newt Gingrich does not consider him aggressive enough.

Members of the new California congressional delegation wasted no time in the days after last week's election trying to resolve their longstanding partisan differences and convert their record numbers into real clout on Capitol Hill. Many of the 52 veteran and newly elected lawmakers--who in January will make up the largest state delegation in U.S. history--say they are committed to bringing home a bigger share of federal projects than in previous years.