Yesterday marked the beginning of the 2007-2008 legislative session.  The Assembly once again installed Assembly member Fabian Nunez as Speaker of the Assembly yesterday and the Senate re-elected Senator Don Perata as Senate Majority Leader.  Most of the action was in the Assembly, as the governor sat through the whole swearing-in ceremony and got up to saw a few words when Nunez introduced him. 

Nunez gave a speech about wanting to work with members of both parties on issues such as health care, education and the environment.  When Assembly member Mike Villines was elected as Republican leader in November, Nunez issued a statement saying, “I congratulate Assembly member Mike Villines on his election today as Republican leader. If there is any lesson to be learned from the election, it is that California voters want us to be partners, not partisans…I look forward to working with him to continue the bipartisan progress we made with Governor Schwarzenegger.”

Bipartisanship was the theme of the day yesterday too, which is all well and good, as long as the Republicans have a real seat at the table.  I don’t think that AB 32, the greenhouse emission bill, was a demonstration of bipartisanship—not real bipartisanship that took in both parties’ concerns in the legislature.  But Villines is a smart guy who hopefully will have a good relationship with the governor and his people, and will persuasively articulate the Republicans’ policy goals as issues such as health care reform are hammered out this year.  And let’s hope that the governor and the Democrats really mean what they say and include the Republicans in the negotiations and address the issues that the minority party raises throughout the legislative year.

In the meantime, not much seemed to change in the Assembly.  The Democrats pushed through a new set of rules governing the Assembly against Republican protests.   And the majority party continued to push their left-wing social agenda.

Assemblyman Mark Leno reintroduced his bill to allow gay couples to legally marry in California, while Sen. Carole Migden introduced a bill that would let unmarried, heterosexual couples register as domestic partners, telling the San Francisco Chronicle, "This is a very practical expansion that absolutely reflects the new family unit today. We’re trying to provide the proper benefits for the families that exist today."

It’s no surprise that Leno continus to push his bill, but Migden’s bill actually gives me more concern than Leno’s bill.  Just last week a federal report showed that out-of-wedlock births are at an all-time high in the , with 20-something women, not teenagers, accounting for the rapid rise.  Nearly 4 out of every 10 babies born are born to single women.  The last thing California needs to do is pass legislation that encourages people to have children out of wedlock.  Morals aside, the evidence is clear that children do not do as well in homes where the parents are not legally committed to each other and the family. 

On the health care reform front, Nunez met with reporters yesterday and, according to Dan Weintraub, told them that the Democrats would continue to support “fundamental health care reform.” He said that the Democrats still support the single-payer program that the governor vetoed earlier this year.  Villines also held a press availability, but because the Republicans haven’t figured out how to have a call-in number for out-of-town reporters, I had to rely on Weintraub’s summary of Villines’ position on health care reform.  Apparently, Villines said that the GOP looking for a free-market approach to health care reform and is not interested in reform that relies on mandates, taxes or fees.  Let’s hope that the governor agrees with the GOP’s goals of increasing accessibility and affordability without raising taxes or creating new mandates.

In the end, the Democrats love the talk of bipartisanship because they got what they wanted out of the governor in the last legislative session.  If the health care reform debate doesn’t go their way, I’m sure they will be the first ones to yell that the governor isn’t being bipartisan.  It’s all good when the governor is playing their game, but time will tell whether Nunez and Perata are in really interested in working with both the governor and the minority party.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.