Just a few minutes ago, I got off of the phone with a very excited Assembly George Plescia. 
Although perhaps I should now use his more "formal" title – Assembly Republican Leader Elect! That’s right, today, at a lunchtime meeting of Assembly Republicans, Plescia was unanimously elected to succeed current Leader Kevin McCarthy, who yesterday announced that he was stepping away from his leadership post to focus on his efforts to run for Congress. McCarthy hopes to fill the seat currently occupied by his old boss, Representative Bill Thomas, who after 14 terms in Congress has decided to retire.
Let me say this – I’ve known Assemblyman Plescia for many, many years now — and couldn’t be more excited and thrilled that he has been elected by his colleagues to this post.
Plescia shared with me that he looks forward to spending a lot of time with McCarthy over the next month, learning what he can from the outgoing leader. He also shared his excitement at the unity and excitement amongst Assembly Republicans.
I, too am excited about this unity. In speaking with several caucus members after the lunchtime event, it is clear that as of right now, all Assembly Republicans are unified taking a team approach to consideration of any massive bonded indebtedness package that would be coming to their chamber for a vote. One member told me that as of right now, none of the current proposals being floated around enjoy the support of even a single Republican legislator.
Anyways, getting back to my chat with Plescia — my two favorite things to share about our talk were that his wife and family are very supportive of his decision to become leader — and that the Assemblyman reads the FlashReport EVERY day! (Can we make a commercial out of that?).
We’ll be looking for great things from Plescia starting in mid-April. But for now, we’re going to give support and encouragement to the current leadership team of Kevin McCarthy and Russ Bogh, as they deal with a very complex nogotation period. You have the Democratic leaders who will push for massive spending, without any meaningful reforms, to include a lot of non-infrastructure projects, and a Governor who has proposed this massive plan, and will feel pressure to bring something to the voters in June, perhaps enough pressure that he will feel a need to compromise. Republican legislators, unified around the principles outlined in Jon Coupal’s column today in the FR will give the Governor the hand he needs to go back to the Democrats — and in the end, if Republicans cannot satisfy their need for a fiscally prudent plan — then its time to just vote NO!
