Oct. 11, 2009
Something’s amiss with the Capitol building in Sacramento.
Particularly in the Republican Senate caucus rooms where, last month all the oxygen was sucked out, clearly inhibiting the ability of senators to tell right from wrong.
All but one Republican senator abstained from voting on a number of spending bills, including an absolutely urgent matter that would have restored $16 million in state funding to battered women’s shelters that the governor had axed by line-item veto.
All it needed was one more Republican vote to pass. But our own Roy Ashburn — who co-authored the bill! — felt it was more important to stand with his colleagues in order to, I don’t even know what, teach Democrats a lesson?
Santa Maria’s Abel Maldonado did break from his party and voted for the bill (SBX3-13). But lacking one crucial vote, the bill failed.
Six shelters across the state have closed. The Ridgecrest shelter has had to lay off 13 people and close 12 beds. In Bakersfield, we’ve had three layoffs and workers here are hanging on to beds and services with their fingernails.
Hey, that’s some lesson, Ashburn.
What could he possibly have been thinking? I wondered. So I asked.
I’ll give him at least some props for calling me back right away (from Barcelona) after I let his office know what I was up in arms about.
First, he told me SBX3-13 was one of many bills held up by the en masse Republican nose-thumbing.
No, it wasn’t part of an all-or-nothing package, he said. It came up individually. So, he could have voted for this bill and abstained on the rest, right?
“I couldn’t vote for it,” he told me.
Were your hands tied? Were you unconscious? Why NOT!?
He said withholding votes on bills that need a two-thirds majority, which spending bills need, is the only “leverage” Republicans have as the minority party.
Democrats, he said, have stubbornly refused to address major issues, such as water and education reform. Yes, and they’ve been doing it for decades now, I see no reason to hold up desperately needed money for battered women over that.
Besides, he said, (OK, here’s the real nut) Dems aren’t honoring “commitments” made during the earlier budget process.
Ashburn reminded me that he stood against an onslaught of Republican pressure earlier this year when he voted for the budget compromise, which included new taxes.
Yes, he did, and I give him credit for that.
Well, commitments were made at the time and they aren’t now being honored. Like what?
He wouldn’t tell me.
“The bigger issue is people aren’t keeping their word and in politics your word is all you have.”
I suggested that sounded like he didn’t get something he, personally, was promised. No, he said these were commitments that affected the lives of all Californians.
Great, then let us know how the Dems are welshing on us.
Nope.
“The specifics aren’t relevant,” he told me.
Oh, my head.
The specifics matter enough to deny life-sustaining money to shelters for vulnerable women and children in dire need of help, but aren’t relevant enough to actually talk about.
I asked if he didn’t think saving lives was more important than political gamesmanship and Ashburn said he understood the question, but quickly reverted back to the talking points of water and leverage and pointed his finger at Democrats for game-playing.
As an example, Ashburn noted they had stripped the bill of the name of his co-author, Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, for some in-party slight.
“If you want to say Republicans were playing games with the lives of domestic violence victims, the Democrats were going even lower in removing the name of the Senator who got the job done.”
First of all, huh? Second, so?
“It just shows how low they’re willing to go,” he said. “They put (SBX3-13) up even though they knew the outcome of what they had done.
“That’s game playing, that’s putting on a show.”
Maybe this is like the whistle only dogs can hear, except in this case, it’s a rationale only politicians can understand. Either way, I’m lost.
Ashburn’s name wasn’t taken off the bill, by the by, and even the poor, wounded Yee voted for it.
Ashburn told me he was planning to vote for SBX3-13 when it came back up in special session (assuming the Democrats bring it back up), which starts on Tuesday.
That’s quite a gamble, I thought, since he had no way of knowing the bill would be back. State Sen. Majority Leader Dean Florez, D-Shafter, agreed.
“We wouldn’t be bringing it back up if we weren’t coming back on the special session on water,” he said.
He called the Republican abstention ploy “crap” and said Ashburn seemed to be holding out for authorship on a housing bill he felt he was promised.
Florez vowed SBX3-13 would come back up and they would move it forward.
“He’ll have a chance to redeem himself (this) week,” Florez said of Ashburn.
These days, redemption may have greater value to Ashburn as he approaches the limits of his term. He may be contemplating a run for Rep. Jim Costa’s seat next year, and if so, needs to get back in the good graces in the Republican party.
Of course, with the governor threatening to veto all bills unless a water deal is reached, SBX3-13 may suffer yet another political assassination.
I may not have enough political acumen to connect all those dirty little dots.
But I know right from wrong.
This one’s easy. Closing shelter doors for political points is flat-out wrong.
Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry, not The Bakersfield Californian. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/noholdsbarred, call her at 395-7373 or e-mail lhenry@bakersfield.com
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