From Cap Weekly…. Parra kicked out of Capitol office after budget vote (published Monday, August 18, 2008)

Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, has been evicted from her Capitol office space today by the Assembly Democratic leadership. The move came one day after Parra failed to vote for her own party’s budget proposal.

That proposal needed 54 votes — the two-thirds majority needed to pass a budget in California — but got only 45 votes. The vote came after four hours of debate during a special Sunday session. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles. Not a single Republican voted for the budget bill, AB 1781 by Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. Thirty of 32 Republicans voted against the bill.

According to Parra’s staff, the office will now be split up. Several staffers will… Read More

After working in and around the Capitol for about 20 years I still do not understand the whole punishment by small office effort. It almost always makes the Speaker or Pro Tem look petty.

In the case of Assemblyman Curt Pringle — he wore it as a badge of honor. He actually made it into a good thing. Parra will do the same.

The big loser here is Speaker Bass.

This is a bunch of "Wiggins".… Read More

Check out this video that the Governor recorded for EcoDrivingUSA.com…

The GOP candidate in AD 80 is up on television… … Read More

Word is that Asm. Nicole Parra has been kicked out of the building, "relocated" to the Legislative Office Building across from the Capitol. She was not an aye vote on yesterdays budget exercise.… Read More

No-I’m not talking about any member of the Legislature. I’m talking about inside information about what is happening on the budget. I had a conversation with one capitol insider who told me the budget will be adopted with a tax increase. So I called around to see what others thought. The general consensus was that wouldn’t happen.

The basic reason–the Governor needs 9 Assembly Republicans to vote for the budget. Three Assembly Democrats, Parra, Calderon, and Soto,aren’t voting for the budget (Parra and Calderon won’t and Soto is ill and can’t). That means 9 Assembly Republicans have to put up yes votes. However, 31 of the 32 Republican members of the Assembly have signed no new taxes pledges and won their primaries because they signed those pledges, that means at least 8 Republicans would have tobreak their promises to theirvoters in order for this budget to pass with tax increases. I’m betting that doesn’t happen, for several reasons.

(1)Most Assembly members believe they have apolitical career after the Assembly. As my earlier post showed, any Republican who votes for a tax… Read More

Sacramento’s missing water meter saga continues like a bad soap opera. This major debacle is costing taxpayers millions of dollars—money that could be used to provide essential services without the tax increases liberals are crying for. Unfortunately, for taxpayers, the city of Sacramento hired an out-of-state consultant to find the lost meters at a cost of $99,000 to search about 32,000 addresses. According to the Sacramento Bee (July 16, 2008), the U.S. Metering and Technology representative “spends his days looking for Sacramento’s lost water meters, lifting heavy concrete hatches in yards and on sidewalks, meticulously recoding serial numbers.” “The Sacramento Utilities Department does not know where the meters are. They were labeled ‘unaccounted for’ in a recent city investigation….The… Read More

UPDATE: The vote was just taken and the bill, needing 54 votes,was defeated 45-30, with no Reep aye votes.

The Assembly is now on the floor with the budget debate happening now. The document being looked at is not one that has been put together in a bipartisan way.. It is largely a dolled up version of the joint budget conference committee report, with only Democrats voting for it, known as AB 1781.… Read More