Growing up on the hardscrabble streets of South Los Angeles, Tony Mendoza and Eladio Villalobos were as close as cousins could be.

They were the same age, attended the same schools and hung out with the same street gang.

Today, Mendoza, D-Artesia, is in his first year in the state Assembly. His cousin was killed in 1994, the victim of a gang-related, drive-by shooting.

"I got out and he stayed in," Mendoza, 36, said of his gang experience. "A lot of times you stay in because your parents are not on you -- and my mom was on me."

Quelling gang violence is a hot political topic these days from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, where Mendoza has come up with one of the most novel proposals of the legislative season.

Under his Assembly Bill 1291, parents of first-time juvenile offenders who commit gang-related crimes could be forced by judges to take parenting classes designed to help them control their children.

In a Legislature where partisan rancor is the norm, the bill sailed out of the Assembly into the Senate on a 78-0 vote.

"Both Democrats and Republicans love it," said Mendoza, startled by the bipartisan support the bill has received.

As a fourth-grade teacher in East Los Angeles for 10 years before he was elected to the Legislature, Mendoza noticed a common denominator among kids who stayed out of trouble -- parents who were closely involved in their lives.

"When I had students who really needed help and were struggling with problems, their parents would never attend parent conferences," he recalled.

After he was elected, Mendoza convened a gang summit and invited law enforcement officials and gang intervention experts in his district in southeast Los Angeles County.

The county is home to 150,000 of the 420,000 gang members in the state, according to law enforcement officials.

Mendoza's district -- which includes Whittier, Norwalk and Hawaiian Gardens -- has more than its share. During his summit, Mendoza kept hearing participants lament that parents were not doing their part to keep their kids out of gangs.

Afterward, Mendoza sat down with his staff and outlined his proposal.

"I said, 'Why don't we do this?' " he recalled. "Is this crazy?' And they said, 'No, no, we can do this.' "

AB 1291 would authorize juvenile court judges to send a probation officer to the home of a first-time violent offender.

Working with the court, the probation officer would analyze whether the parents should be required to attend classes designed to teach them how to get their children to cut gang ties.

The program would require parents to pay for the classes, which Mendoza estimates would cost $200 to $500.

The state Department of Justice would establish the curriculum, which would include how to identify gang and drug activity in children, and an overview of pertinent support agencies. Classes would be conducted by adult schools run by school districts.

"We have classes that you go to if you have a traffic violation, and diversion programs if you get caught drunk driving, so why shouldn't you have to go classes if your child gets in trouble?" Mendoza said.

Mendoza concedes there are parents whose own behavior is to blame for children seeking shelter in gangs. But, he said, "We need to break the cycle of gang activity in families and stop the revolving door of juvenile gang members going in and out of jail."

Across the nation, more youths are joining street gangs each year. In 1991, the National Youth Information Center estimated there were 250,000 gang members.

Today, the FBI puts the number at 800,000 active gang members. Gang members now outnumber the 708,000 state and local police officers, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has called gang violence the No. 1 problem facing his city.

"Police alone can't own the gang problem," Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month while testifying in support of gang legislation introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

The measure would increase anti-gang funding, including $100 million annually from fiscal 2008 through 2012, and strengthen penalties against violators.

It is supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Attorney General Jerry Brown, who in recent weeks have weighed in on the issue.

Last month, Schwarzenegger called on the Legislature to fund his anti-gang initiative, which would coordinate gang-fighting efforts using a mix of state and federal funds and treat convicted gang leaders like sex offenders by using satellite tracking devices.

But Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, chairwoman of the Assembly Select Committee on Youth Violence Prevention, criticized the Republican governor's plan.

"We are concerned that the governor's program emphasizes expensive gang suppression strategies while shortchanging more effective and affordable violence prevention and intervention strategies," the two Democrats said in a joint statement.

Brown, meanwhile, launched a new state crackdown on gangs earlier this month when state Department of Justice agents joined local law enforcement officials in Stockton in raiding the homes of several Cambodian gang leaders suspected of running a multistate drug ring.

About a dozen cities in the state plagued by gang problems have requested help from the attorney general's office. Brown said the Stockton operation was a model for his plans to assist cities that ask for help.

But Mendoza, the first in his family of nine children to graduate from college, said history shows law enforcement is limited in what it can do to stem gangs. The father of four believes families can have a greater impact.

"I didn't grow up with my father, but my mom always knew where we were and we didn't end up in gangs," Mendoza said. "My cousin wasn't as lucky."