CTA political hack Joe Nunez, who championed the public employee union led effort in 2005 to sink the needed reforms on the special election ballot failed to achieve the two-thirds vote necessary to be confirmed in his appointment to the State Board of Education. Nunez needed 27 votes and he only got 25… But while Senator Dick Ackerman and almost all of the Senate Republican Caucus get credit for opposing the nomination, unfortunately two Republicans spurned the group decision made by the GOP Senators, and voted FOR Nunez’ confirmation – Senator Jeff Denham and Senator Abel Maldonado. However, two Democrat Senators were absent, and today was the deadline for Nunez to be confirmed.
So the good news is that a professional union political hack is off of the State Board of Education.
But the tragic news is that Denham and Maldonado, who both knew how big of a vote this
I spoke with Senate Leader Dick Ackerman who had this to say, "The education of California students will be in better hands now that Nunez is off of the board."
Ackerman is to be commended for his leadership on this issue.
Denham and Maldonado, however, are faced with trying to explain away indefensible votes. Both knew that this vote was a critical one for Republicans, yet they allied with the California Teachers Association.
Maldonado is up for re-election this cycle and clearly this vote is going to cost him a lot of GOP support.
Denham, just re-elected in November, has been talking privately about a future run for statewide office. This vote will make it very hard for him to cement GOP support for such an effort. As a matter of fact, Denham’s vote becomes more aggregious because it is well known that he backed Senator Jim Battin’s bid to oust Ackerman as leader, and Denham made a point of criticizing Ackerman for not standing up to the Governor. Sounds like hypocracy in the highest form.
Very disappointing. At least Nunez went down, but Denham and Maldonado have sucked all of the joy out of the victory.
We’ll be talking about this more. A lot.