Columnist Ron Kaye Questions Mike Gatto Over AB640 Comments

LOS ANGELES—Former Los Angeles Daily News editor Ron Kaye took a hard swipe at state assemblyman Mike Gatto today in a column published in the Glendale News-Press, accusing the influential legislator of making “misleading and disingenuous” comments to both the Daily News and the L.A. Times regarding his ability to influence AB640, the Isadore Hall-sponsored bill mandating the statewide use of condoms in porn productions that died in committee last week instead of making it to the floor of either chamber for a vote. In response to a recent robocall campaign on the issue by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation that targeted his district, Gatto told the papers that he was wrongly targeted because the bill was languishing in the Senate, and not the Assembly.   “I don't control the California Senate,” he told the Times. “I'm flattered, but there are two houses of government." According to Kaye, however, when a bill finds its way to the Senate Rules Committee because the sponsoring legislator has gutted one his own bills in order to reinsert new language into it that addresses a completely different issue—as Hall did with AB640, which previously addressed tobacco sales—the legislature employs an accommodating system to get such bills out of committee and back onto the floor for a vote. “It is a long-standing rule of the legislature,” wrote Kaye, “one that is only violated in exceptional circumstances, that a bill held in a committee of one house cannot be taken up in the other house without the express permission of the committee chair, in this case Mike Gatto, or the Speaker, currently John Pérez.” The implication is that Gatto was being coy with the media, or as Kaye put it more directly, “There is no possibility that a guy as smart as Gatto doesn't know the rules as well as anybody, so at the least his comments are misleading and disingenuous.” In response to questions from Kaye, however, Gatto stuck to the line that he was powerless to affect the outcome of AB 640, arguing, "I know even you can't seriously expect me to try to prove a negative. The California Senate has its own rules, and I serve in the Assembly. I can tell you that the framers of our Constitution put legislative procedures in place specifically to avoid hasty, emotional decisions, and prevent tactics that undermine the legislative process and committee procedures." In other words, explained Kaye, “[Gatto]'s sticking to his guns and denying that there is a protocol of civility between the Assembly and the Senate, insisting the ‘jailbreak rule’ does not have the force of law, so it is irrelevant.” As far as the actual bill goes, Gatto told Kaye that it was a flawed piece of legislation from the get-go. “In his emailed response, Gatto noted the bill was held ‘on suspense,’ along with hundreds of others, ‘because of cost concerns,’ litigation and enforcement costs in this case amid doubts about ‘whether such a law could ever be enforced.’ “He suggested state inspectors might be required on film sets, saying, ‘Imagine a government official asking a filmmaker, “Excuse me Mr. Spielberg, but what will your upcoming film portray, and would you mind if we posted a monitor on the set?”’ “He noted the bills, if passed, would not take effect for more than a year, so they would have no impact on reducing concerns about an HIV epidemic in the adult film industry…” In his final comment, Gatto took a swipe at AHF’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the condom law, telling Kaye, “It's clear that AHF is trying to bully the legislature into spending taxpayer money, and that they don't understand the legislative process. There are two houses of government, and I don't have a vote in the Senate, let alone control it." Kaye is clearly not convinced, however, and ended his piece with the sarcastic quip, “So it's not Mike Gatto's fault the condom bill died as the session ended. Just ask him.”