STATE SEN. JOHN BURTON is normally a champion of civil liberties and a protector of the people. Recently, however, he has lost track of the difference between liberty and death. Using underhanded tactics, Burton is trying to kill the lifesaving AB1800 -- a bill that would improve the state's treatment prohibitive Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and give Californians overcome by mental illness a real chance at freedom and productive lives. The members of the Assembly understand how vital this legislation is. They passed AB 1800 by a wide margin of 53 to 16.

Inexplicably, Burton is now refusing to even allow the Senate to consider the bill. Through his influential position as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, he has denied AB 1800 the normal democratic process, which would place the bill in a policy committee for full discussion by the public and a chance at a vote before the full Senate.

Instead, he has acted as a dictator. Saying improvements to the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act "ain't going to happen," Burton has buried the bill in a research committee "for further study." It's a strange exercise of power by a man who holds himself out as a guardian of due process and freedom of speech.

Perhaps Burton fails to recognize that mental illness is a medical disorder from which people can recover. Doomsayers, like Burton, claim this legislation would turn treatment into a reduction of civil rights.

This is not so. It is treatment that enables people with mental illness to knowingly exercise their civil rights. There is nothing civil about California's current treatment laws, which have left thousands trapped by hallucinations, delusions and paranoia because they are too ill to know they need help.

Laws such as AB 1800 are necessary because the symptoms of mental illness can take away the ability to process and understand reality. Without these, there can be no real exercise of civil rights or appreciation of freedom.

We know this because we both have bipolar disorder (a.k.a. manic depression), a mood disorder that when untreated is characterized by turbulent and increasing episodes of mania and depression. We understand how mental illness can utterly strip away the ability to know what is in one's best interest. It has happened to us. We know that laws are necessary to get people who are very ill into treatment and back to the real world that so many others take for granted.

When people refuse treatment because of the effects of mental illness, California law forbids caring for them until it is too late. No matter what the basis for the objection, they cannot be treated until they pose a danger to themselves or others. In other words, an individual must have a finger on the trigger of a gun or be standing on the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge before medical intervention is permitted.

About half of the states no longer use this standard solely in determining when someone should be helped. These states consider factors such as being unaware of a need for treatment, or having a history of medication noncompliance or violence. But not California.

The consequences of California's outdated laws have been tragic for thousands of Californians:

-- Nearly 50,000 Californians with untreated mental illness are homeless.

-- About 16 percent of state inmates are severely mentally ill.

-- California police spend more time responding to mental health crises than to robbery calls.

-- Ten to 15 times more suicides occur among those with untreated severe mental illness.

-- People with untreated severe mental illness are nearly three times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime.

Under California law, those with untreated mental illness are allowed to commit suicide, freeze to death, slowly die from malnutrition, be killed in alleyways or kill others in what they delusionally believe is self-defense. All while we have effective treatment available.

AB 1800 will provide a much-needed safety net for Californians, protecting our most vulnerable citizens and the communities in which they live. It will elevate the right to be well above the right to be psychotic.

Regardless of what he thinks about people with mental illness, the longer Burton stalls AB 1800, the more people will die -- with their civil rights intact. There is nothing right or just about letting people live and die on California streets when they have a physical illness that can be easily treated. And more importantly, there is nothing democratic about refusing to allow AB 1800 to be considered by the elected representatives of all Californians.