150 votes later… More debt… Food stamps for felons…
We had a busy day today in the Assembly as we returned from a weekend honoring those who fell in battle that we might live free.
The first votes started about 11 AM. We had about 200 or so bills on file with about 450 to vote on before the end of the week – we are on deadline to get all bills originating in the Assembly over to the Senate before Friday. The most controversial bill was Assemblyman Sandre Swanson’s (D-Oakland) AB 1996. AB 1996 proposes to give food stamps to released drug felons. The Assembly voted 42 to 30 to approve the bill. All 42 aye votes came from Democrats with Democrats Arambula, Lieu and Wolk voting no.
Majority Democrats argued that the bill helps the rehabilitation of ex-convicts. Assemblyman Calderon (D-City of Industry) even said that drug felons have no alternative other than stealing to make a living, so at least food stamps would help them eat without breaking the law.
Republicans argued that the bill has no provision that felons actually attend and complete a drug rehab program. Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) was especially forceful in his criticism of the bill’s weakness in not incentivizing criminals to maintain good behavior after being released from prison.
In the middle of today’s voting I had to run upstairs with the five members of Budget Subcommittee 4 so we could deliberate for over two hours in an effort to begin wrapping up our subcommittee’s budget duties.
The Assembly adjourned for the day around 6 PM, so we all to run back to the floor to make up our votes. I carefully reviewed the votes I missed, looking at the arguments for and against, and who voted yes and no. I then went to the vote kiosk consol and voted mostly “no” on dozens of bills that would enlarge government – as I frequently do – then ran back upstairs to rejoin the Sub 4 hearing.
While making up my votes on the Assembly floor I missed two votes in the subcommittee (which I later made up, voting “no”), showing up just as the committee was voting to raid an additional $46 million from various special fund accounts, such as the Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians Fund, the Contractors’ License Fund, and the State Board of Barbering and Cosmetology Fund. The vote passed 4 to 2 with me and Republican Assemblyman Paul Cook voting “no.” Sub 4 has six members, four of whom are Democrats.
We raided the $46 million because A) the majority can, and B) it allows the majority to spend more money on bloated government programs. Unfortunately, the money has to be paid back in three years. In rapid succession we voted more times, each on a 4 to 2 vote, raiding $60 million from the Public School Planning, Design, and Construction Review Revolving Fund, taking almost $20 million from four housing funds, appropriating $17 million from the Real Estate Appraisers Regulation Fund, and helping ourselves to $10 million from the Real Estate Fund. In about 15 minutes we borrowed about $153 million from ourselves, increasing our obligation to repay by a like amount in the near future.
Sadly, all of these borrowing raids had, as their origin, the Governor’s May Revision budget proposal. Ahh, remember the good ol’ days five years ago when Governor Schwarzenegger promised to “tear up” the state’s credit cards? Well, I can now personally attest to the fact that, not only did we not tear up the credit cards, we managed to get a few more and max them out too.
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
California State Assemblyman, 70th District
http://www.chuckdevore.com/
Tags: debt, drug felons, food stamps