I went and checked out the analysis of the bill over at the ca.gov website, and it comes down to this:
Mountain lions are a protected species, and the legislator (from a rural area) doesn't think the species should be protected. But he realizes he's got no way of changing that, because the mass of voters are in favor of protecting endangered species.
So his reasoning goes like this: since the government mandates that mountain lions should be protected, the gov't is therefore responsible for anyone hurt by a mountain lion, and should pay. It just so happened that one person in his district was attacked; one of 12 confirmed mountain lion attacks in the last 20 years. The author is quoted:
""As mountain lions reproduce - with no predator higher on
the food chain - their numbers have and will flourish. This
has set California on a crash course with nature and has
resulted in multiple vicious attacks. We are responsible to
those victims. They should have a resource to go to for
assistance with medical bills and similar expenses related to
those attacks."
What this really shows is the prediliction for the average California legislator to grandstand on minor issues (there are 30 million of us here) while not addressing any of the hard problems in this state, like imploding schools, lack of health care, prisons in crisis, and other things that are politically dangerous to deal with. But mountain lion attacks -- yeah, I'm all over it.
Here's the URL to the analysis of the bill, performed by one of the staffers for the assembly committee that heard it.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/a..._asm_comm.html