But shortly after 7 a.m. on Saturday, Sept, 13, after some 20 hours of continuous session, the Legislature moved a long way toward redeeming itself, working out compromises and approving legislation on a galaxy of major issues, including a historic school bond measure, a middle-class tax cut, a health program for poor children, a standardized achievement testing program for millions of California school children and numerous lesser issues that left observers scratching their heads and wondering just what got into Californians' 120 elected representatives.

Even Gov. Pete Wilson, no friend of the fractious Legislature, said the lawmakers' actions represented "one of the most extraordinarily productive sessions in recent years." The Republican governor has already agreed to sign all those bills -- and more -- into law.

So what happened? After months, even years, of inaction on key issues, why did the state's top politicians come to a meeting of minds on critical issues?

There are a number of reasons, and most have to do with politics rather than the merits of the issue.

First, Pete Wilson wants to be president. To do that, he has to show a national audience a record of achievement in California and to develop that record, he has to make deals with the Democrats who control the Legislature.

Second, the Democratic leaders in both houses are being termed out after 1998, which means they, too, are anxious to make deals they can exploit at the polls when they run for higher office.

Third, there is a rising tide of anti-Legislature sentiment in the state and serious consideration is being given to returning the Legislature to the part-time body it was before 1966, when then-Speaker Jesse Unruh led the charge to convert the 120-member body to a full time institution.

In short, members of both parties came to the conclusion that compromise rather than confrontation made sense.

Moreover, despite the rhetoric of lawmakers to the contrary lauding tax cuts and deductions, the most important legislation approved was the $8 billion bond issue for next year's ballot, coupled with proposal to allow local districts to approve school bonds by simple majority votes, rather than the two-thirds majorities now required.

The size of the bond issue is historic, roughly equivalent in today's dollars to the $1.75 billion measure voters approved in 1960 for the landmark California Water Project. But the majority-vote proposal is also deeply significant, marking the Legislature's first major repudiation of Proposition 13 since that tax-cutting initiative was passed in 1978.

Thus far, Proposition 13 has been a sacred cow, as politically popular as it was fiscally foolish.

If the simple-majority vote proposal is approved by voters, it could signal the death knell of Proposition 13. That, more than any other single issue, may be the true significance of the 1997 legislative year.

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