Last I checked, Republicans are in a tough spot in the State Assembly.  There are 51 Democrats, and 29 Republicans (well, 28 right now while the 72nd is vacant — it will elect a Republican shortly).  That means that Democrats hold just over 63% of the chamber — bad news for taxpayers for sure.

That said, I took it pretty cynically when I ready Torey Van Oot’s morning post over on the SacBee’s Capitol Alert blog — where she wrote about Assembly Speaker Karen Bass appointing a Select Committee on Prison Re-Entry.  Torey penned…

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass  announced Friday the membership of a select committee created to examine ways to ease the strain the transition from prison into society can have on former inmates and their communities.

The Select Committee on Re-Entry, created in May, is tasked with responding to issues raised in a RAND Corporation report, "Understanding the Public Health Implications of Prisoner Reentry in California."

Bass said in a statement that the committee’s work "is critical to our efforts to improve public safety, reform our overburdened corrections system and reduce costs to the state budget."

Assemblyman Isadore Hall, D-Compton, has been tapped to head the committee, which plans its first hearing in February. Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano, Marty Block, Steve Bradford, Nathan Fletcher, Felipe Fuentes, Warren Furutani, Dave Jones, Jim Nielsen, Sandré Swanson, Alberto Torrico and Norma Torres were also selected to serve on the committee.

I have gone ahead an highlighted the names of the Republican members of this Select Committee otherwise finding them might be like trying to play Where’s Waldo.

Since it takes more than ten fingers to count the members of this Select Committee, let me help FR readers with the math here — there are TEN Democrats on it, and TWO Republicans.  That means that while Democrats have a 63% membership in the full Assembly, they have given themselves over an 83% share of this committee.

Frankly, if I were Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher or Jim Nielsen, I would politely but firmly decline the Speaker’s invitation to serve on a committee that is so blatantly stacked with liberal Democrats.  By giving this Select Committee the patina of bi-partisanship, we allow Speaker Bass to make a mockery of the Assembly.  We all know that given the proclivity of liberals to see everyone in prison not as a criminal, but as a "victim of society" that the outcome of their recommendations will be predictable.   But 10-2?!?

Assembly Republicans need to stand up and say that if the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in Committees are not going to reflect the overall ratio of the full Assembly, then Republicans will make a major issue out of it.

We won’t even broach the question of what kind of staffing and office space have been "granted" to yet another Select Committee (oops, I think I did just bring it up).

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.