Does the California Assembly have a secret plan for making itself seem more chaotic than it really is? <\/p>\n
If you were watching the confirmation hearing for Abel Maldonado on Thursday, it was hard to draw any other conclusion. <\/p>\n
Legislators had a simple task – to confirm a moderate Republican senator for the largely meaningless job of lieutenant governor. <\/p>\n
It should have been a quick vote. Once it was done, they could have moved on to truly important tasks, such as finding budget solutions and crafting a bipartisan approach to creating jobs. <\/p>\n
But not this Assembly. <\/p>\n
Partisan and infantile, this Assembly demonstrated Thursday that it was void of leadership even before Speaker Karen Bass passed the torch to incoming Speaker John A. Pérez. Both joined colleagues in abstaining from the first vote on Maldonado. <\/p>\n
Then, as a sick Danny Gilmore, R-Hanford, was being driven to Sacramento so he could vote, Pérez and Bass voted against Maldonado’s confirmation, effectively blocking it.<\/p>\n
The Senate, to its credit, swiftly confirmed the senator to the post earlier on Thursday. The Senate’s leaders recognized the need not to play political games with the confirmation. To get through this budget year, both chambers will need to maintain a working relationship with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Assembly, alas, would rather beat up on a moderate GOP lawmaker who was crucial to last year’s budget deal. <\/p>\n
It may not be over. The Schwarzenegger administration may challenge the rejection in court. The governor’s aides argue that, based on their reading of the constitution, opponents would need to marshal 41 votes to block such a confirmation. <\/p>\n
This may produce a lively constitutional battle. Yet it is the last thing this state needs. Democrats and Republicans who waffled and voted against Maldonado need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask: Are you part of the solution in helping California? Or are you part of the problem?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Does the California Assembly have a secret plan for making itself seem more chaotic than it really is? If you were watching the confirmation hearing for Abel Maldonado on Thursday, it was hard to draw any other conclusion. Legislators had a simple task – to confirm a moderate Republican senator for the largely meaningless job […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}