How to punish a politician

Presented by Southern California Edison Company

THE BUZZ: When legislative leaders need to promote or penalize, there’s nothing like a committee assignment.

Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains’ sojourn in legislative timeout ended Thursday as Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon reinstated her on the influential Business and Professions Committee. Rendon initiated the monthlong “temporary removal,” as a spox called it, after Bains broke with her fellow Democrats during floor debate on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s oil profits penalty. The moderate Democrat aligned with Republicans over her party on a procedural vote to suspend the gas tax, and then she cast the lone Democratic “no” vote.

Her swift sidelining was a classic leadership whip-crack. A disparaging tweet from Newsom’s chief of staff drew the administration into the dispute, but this was principally about internal caucus machinations. Bains voted with the Republicans over the home team; Rendon sent a clear message that was unacceptable. In the past, Rendon yanked coveted committee posts when then-Assemblymember Adam Gray voted against a Rendon-backed water bill and when Assemblymember Evan Low was collecting speakership votes.

Committee spots can reward as well as they punish — and that gets us to the speaker-in-waiting. Speaker-elect Robert Rivas has honored his one-speaker-at-a-time truce with Rendon by assiduously refusing to say what he’ll do when he takes over in July. We don’t know, for example, whether he’ll keep the current committee assignments or switch them up this year. The latter could remap the final month-and-a-half of the legislative year.

Conventional wisdom suggests Rivas would reward his allies. The members who steadfastly supported him through a vitriolic speakership fight could be in line for choice chairmanships like the Budget Committee or the Appropriations Committee. Conversely, more vocal Rendon supporters might get new assignments. That reshuffling is a major reason leadership fights have a direct bearing on policy making.

There’s also a matter of scarcity. In one sense, Democrats’ enormous 62-member majority makes things easier on leadership. It’s a lot easier to pass bills when you can lose 20 votes and still muster a majority. On the other hand, the number of committee chairmanships generally stays static. The bigger the caucus, the harder it is to find every member the spot they want.

Former Speaker Fabian Núñez used committee assignments to bring rivals into the fold. He recounted doling out plum spots to people who hadn’t backed his candidacy to cultivate loyalty and demonstrate fairness. “There’s no need to think about a revenge play, because winning is the best way to respond,” Núñez said.

Núñez conceded he still had to pull a particularly intransigent lawmaker from a committee, but he preached balance: “People have to respect your place as a speaker. That doesn’t mean you go around with a shotgun taking aim at everyone who disagrees with you.”

BUENOS DÍAS, good Friday morning. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is at USC this morning to deliver a speech on building business bonds with Asian-American, Hawaiian and Pacific-Islander communities.

Got a tip or story idea for California Playbook? Hit us up at [email protected] and [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @JeremyBWhit and @Lara_Korte.

WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m confident that when I return to the Senate, we will be able to move the remaining qualified nominees out of committee quickly and to the Senate floor for a vote.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s written statement on her return to the Senate.

TWEET OF THE DAY:

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TOP TALKERS

— “Davis stabbing attacks: Police announce arrest of suspect,” by The Sacramento Bee’s Sam Stanton: “Davis police announced the arrest Thursday of a suspect in three stabbings that left two men dead and a woman critically injured in the past week, a 21-year-old former UC Davis student who may originally be from Oakland.”

— “At the LAFD, pay for sex on duty, batter a cop, lie on medical records — and keep your job,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Paul Pringle: “Despite repeated pledges by City Hall to boost recruitment of female firefighters, women still constitute only 3.4 percent of the force. The Times reported in 2021 that many female firefighters felt bullied and discriminated against. In August 2021, the U.S. Justice Department said it was “carefully reviewing” complaints by organizations representing female and nonwhite firefighters of discriminatory treatment in the LAFD, including in disciplinary cases. The federal agency has taken no public action since then.”

CALIFORNIA AND THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR

— California lawmakers move to establish hospital loan program, finalize farmworker deal, by POLITICO’S Jake Blake: The California Legislature passed preliminary budget legislation on Thursday that would create a loan program for struggling hospitals and formalize a deal with unionized farmworkers.

— California is way ahead of the EU in the zero-emission truck race, by POLITICO’s Hanne Cokelaere and Wilhelmine Preussen: California’s progressive politics put it at the forefront of climate policies, while its huge market and population make industries and other states follow its lead.

— “Feds find East Bay hospital violated laws, putting Medicare funding in jeopardy,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Cynthia Dizikes and Matthias Gafni: “A January report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services identified fundamental problems at John Muir Health’s pediatric intensive care unit at its Walnut Creek medical center, ‘creating the potential of substandard care to go undetected and continue,’ according to a letter and “statement of deficiencies from the federal authority. The agency’s findings raised questions about whether John Muir’s PICU was admitting children who were sicker than it was prepared to handle.”

— “How free trips for California legislators lead to bills,” by CalMatters’ Jeremia Kimelman and Alexei Koseff: “These events, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per legislator for international trips, are funded through membership fees paid by CFEE’s board of directors — 92 somewhat strange bedfellows, including major corporations, oil companies, environmental groups, construction trade unions, public utilities and water districts.”

— California environmental groups sue over reduced rooftop solar payments, by POLITICO’s Wes Venteicher: The three organizations, which include the Center for Biological Diversity, argue that reducing the subsidy violates state law mandating a transition to 100 percent renewable energy.

— “Gavin Newsom vowed to fix California environmental law stalling housing. Was the promise empty?,” by The Sacramento Bee’s Maggie Angst and Lindsey Holden: “But developers and housing advocates contend that CEQA has been weaponized by homeowners and anti-housing NIMBYs — a term that stands for ‘Not in my backyard’ — to legally challenge and delay housing projects they don’t like.”

— “Big Oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus,” by the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Stephanie M. Lee: Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability recently unveiled its first institutionwide research focus: greenhouse-gas removal. Taking tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be “essential” to limiting global warming, as a news release last month explained, and ideas will be marshaled from across the school to get it done.”

— “Los Angeles mayors try to avoid public school issues. Easier said than done,” by CalMatters’ Jim Newton: “What is true is that L.A. mayors, unlike their big-city counterparts in New York, Chicago and elsewhere, lack power over schools. And that can be a source of frustration, given how much of a city’s sense of well-being turns on how well it serves students and their parents.”

SILICON VALLEYLAND

— “Peter Thiel says moving to Florida from Silicon Valley is too expensive,” by Bloomberg’s Michael Smith: “The Miami region saw its number of million-dollar ZIP codes more than double from the end of 2019 through 2022, according to a Bloomberg analysis of home values in the country’s most-expensive areas. While parts of New York and California, traditional wealth centers, still rank near the top of the list of most expensive areas, values in some neighborhoods have actually declined since 2019, Zillow data show.”

MIXTAPE

— “Families of Slain El Monte officers sue the Probation Department and Dist. Atty. George Gascon,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Richard Winton and James Queally

TRANSITIONS

Katherine Borg Hoffman is now scheduler for Rep. Katie Porter. She had been associate for external affairs at the Global Business Alliance.

BIRTHDAYS

Christine Pelosi … Sacha Haworth of The Tech Oversight Project … Nathaniel Haas … Francis Larson

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