The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 315

VCy THURSDAY. MARCH 27. 1997 A3 LOS ANGELES TIMES California and the West Lawsuits Target U.S.CutsinAid for Immigrants Benefits: Activist groups challenge constitutionality of welfare law provisions that would deny payments to destitute or disabled legal residents. As 1 tt 4.. 7 hyzzr; By VIRGINIA ELLIS and PATRICK J.

McDONNELL TIMES STAFF WRITERS SACRAMENTO-Asserting that hundreds of thousands of destitute and disabled people face imminent danger of losing their only means of support, a coalition of civil rights attorneys sued the federal government Wednesday to stop it from denying aid to legal immigrants. In lawsuits filed in San Francisco and New York, advocacy groups sought federal court orders preventing the Social Security Administration from carrying out the mandates of a new welfare law that requires legal immigrants to be removed from the Supplemental Security Income program. The. SSI program provides benefits for impoverished people who are blind, aged or disabled. The law re Photos by ALEX GARCIA Los Angeles Times Teacher Sharon Mitchael helps Mark Stewart, 3, who had just found an Easter egg.

The eggs, made of old pantyhose containers, emit beeping sounds. Burbank Panel Assailed Over Airport Stand By EFRAIN HERNANDEZJR. TIMES STAFF WRITER BURBANK Four former Burbank mayors have charged the City Council with "egregious misuse" of taxpayer money in its opposition to a proposed Bur-bank Airport terminal expansion project. In a letter to the council dated Tuesday, the former city officials said council members have used "obstructionist and adversarial policies" and "sacrificed common sense and sound judgment for political expediency." It was the first public break in the united front of Burbank politicians who have vehemently opposed plans to expand the airport without greater guarantees of protection from noise and congestion. Last week, the Burbank council spent about $27,000 on a mailing to Glendale residents seeking support in the long-running airport controversy.

Please see AIRPORT, A34 High-Tech Hunting quires nonciti-zens to be removed from the program by Sept. 1. The new welfare act violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution by drawing an "impermissible distinction" between U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents of the United States, the suits charged. To allow the new law to remain in effect, the lawyers argued, would cause great suffering to fragile human beings who have neither the physical capacity nor the economic resources to support themselves.

"We think it's clear under the Constitution that the government cannot discriminate against lawful immigrants through actions that basically Sight-Impaired Children Follow Their Ears to Beeping Easter Eggs, Then Exchange Their Finds for Real Chocolate and Candy take from kids, volunteers said. "Trying to retrieve these from the kids is a challenge," said volunteer Dottie Mulkey who hunts garage sales for the discontinued pantyhose containers. "We lose eggs every year. How can you say no to a kid who says, 'I want to keep them'?" Children, however, have an incentive to return the eggs and most usually do. At one end of the shade-covered lawn is a volunteer in a bunny costume, who is willing to exchange the beeping eggs for bags of chocolate and candy ones.

Although some of the 49 children enrolled at the school are completely blind, others have partial eyesight, said spokeswoman Linn Morgan. About a dozen students without sight impairments also attend the school to help "mainstream" the other students. The volunteers mostly consisted of current and retired Pacific Bell employees, a group known as the Pacific Bell Pioneers. For more than 10 years, they have provided the candy and the beeping eggs for the Easter egg hunts at the center. They have sponsored similar events in Los Angeles County.

At the learning center on Wednesday, with dozens of children clamoring for beeping eggs, Morgan described the scene as "a little chaotic." But, she added, "It's a real fun time." By JEFF KASS SPECIAL TO THE TIMES SANTA ANA-Students at the Blind Children's Learning Center spent Wednesday morning scooping up some of the most high-tech Easter eggs around: L'eggs pantyhose containers fitted with beepers that emit a high-pitched wail. The multicolored eggs were spread across the Learning Center's front lawn as part of an annual ritual now in its 11th year that allows preschoolers with sight impairments to participate in an Easter egg hunt. Aided by parents and teachers, many of the 40 students were as interested in feeling the eggs as they were in finding them. Six-year-old Dah.iel,'Mallory, for instance, couldn't stop switching his green and white egg on and off, even though the beeping that filled the lawn area bothered his ears. "I think it's neat," added Patty Stewart, 35, who was at the school to help her two children.

"It sounds like a bunch of crickets." Each egg contains a beeper about the size of a quarter. Two short wires connect the beepers to a 9-volt battery and a silver toggle switch outside the egg. Polyester fibers pad the electronics. The plastic containers, which have holes drilled through them to allow sound, are just the right durability to withstand the pummeling they prevent them from surviving at any level of human decency," said Judith Z. Gold, the lead attorney in the California case.

But some law experts disagree. "Congress distinguishes between citizens and legal immigrants all the time," said Peter Reich, a professor at Whittier Law School. "It's well within Congress' power to make those distinctions, and they've made those distinctions for some time." In San Francisco, the class-action lawsuit was filed by the firm of Heller, Ehrman, White McAuliffe, the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups on behalf of legal immigrants in California, Please see SUITS, A34 Mi Capitol Journal columnist George Skelton is on vacation. Computers Bring Down Load of Trouble 'I'1 But many senators particularly Money: After spending Sii Ob I'- i 'i -I Ana'yh i i7l veterans unaccustomed to using computers found the state-of-the-art system too complicated, slow and unreliable for easy reading of bills and other documents. At their worst, the computers would freeze, particularly during periods of heavy pressure, and cause long delays, occasionally paralyzing floor sessions.

So the senators mostly ignored the system, and they prevailed on Lockyer to return to the familiar system of paper bills and digests. After repeated warnings, Lockyer and the Rules Committee fired the chief computer technician, and the 2-year-old computer system was virtually booted out. Undaunted, and determined to bring the hidebound Senate into the computer age, Lockyer recently had a new system installed. This one is based on a highly simplified "coloring book" set of laptops whose screens resemble toy computers. The keyboard buttons and type size are larger, the better for aging eyes, and the icons more cartoon -ish.

Computer commands are made by touching a finger against the screen. The cost: $508,000. "We are getting them down as close to coloring book form as we possibly can," said Senate Secre-Please see LAPTOP, A33 million on laptops, Senate is still relying on wiat was to have been frijade obsolete paper. By CARL INGRAM TIMES STAFF WRITER SACRAMENTO-In one of his first acts as the new leader of the Senate two years ago, Bill Lockyer ordered the tradition-bound chamber into the high-tech age by outfitting all 40 senators ith laptop computers at their desks. But after spending $1.2 million, the Senate finds itself relying on what was to have been made obsolete paper.

I -Lockyer, a Hayward Democrat, estimates that only about 10 senators regularly or occasionally use Jtheir laptops. iThe story behind what has happened is as much a tale about a Staid institution, where modernization can be measured in millimeters and votes are still taken by calling out the names of all senates in seemingly endless roll calls, afit is about faulty electronics. It all seemed so simple a couple years back, when Lockyer de- Laptop computers are available for all 40 senators at their desks. manded that every senator's desk be equipped with a $7,500 "idiot-proof" laptop computer at a total cost of about $750,000, including installation expenditures. Photos by STEVE YEATER For The Times use their laptop computers.

Only an estimated 10 state senators regularly or occasionally 4.