Maldonado fight takes another strange turn
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The long, strange fight over the next lieutenant governor just got a little stranger.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Friday that he would withdraw and resubmit Sen. Abel Maldonado’s nomination for lieutenant governor. Schwarzenegger said he was making the move ‘in an effort to avoid wasting time and energy on litigation that should be spent passing a jobs package that will get Californians back to work.’ Schwarzenegger’s maneuver resets the 90-day confirmation clock for lawmakers to act on approving or rejecting Maldonado’s lieutenant governor bid.
The state Senate approved Maldonado’s nomination Thursday, but in the Assembly he received only 37 votes for his confirmation and 35 against. That led to a war of words between the Assembly and governor’s office over whether Maldonado’s nomination had been rejected or not.
That led constitutional scholars and politicians to haggle over the constitutional meaning of rejection.
Schwarzenegger’s legal team maintained that a majority of the Assembly’s 80 members would have to vote against Maldonado in order for his nomination to be rejected. Assembly Speaker-elect John Perez (D-Los Angeles) maintained that, like other bills in the Legislature, the failure to secure 41 votes needed for passage amounted to a rejection.
‘The Assembly voted twice, and in both instances, a majority of Assembly members would not ratify his nomination,’ Perez said. ‘The people of California have made it abundantly clear that they loathe the kind of backroom deals that Sen. Maldonado and the governor have repeatedly cut over the past few years, which is why a majority of members, myself included, rejected this nomination.’
In a statement Friday, Maldonado said, ‘I’m humbled and thankful to my colleagues in the Senate for confirming me to the Lieutenant Governor’s office and very disappointed with yesterday’s show of extreme partisanship and politicking in the Assembly. The inability to come to a simple majority consensus on important issues is why Californians are rightfully disillusioned by Sacramento politics. I’ve said time and time again — I put the people first. The office of Lieutenant Governor is their office — it does not belong to Democrats or Republicans. For this reason, I wholeheartedly support the rescinding of my nomination. We must do the people’s work first.’
Perez was not immediately available for comment Friday.
[Updated at 5:14 p.m.: Perez issued a statement saying the Assembly has already spoken and that the governor’s move ‘changes nothing.’
‘By resubmitting this nomination, it is clear the Governor is more interested in partisan bickering instead of solving the problems we were sent here to do since this has already been defeated twice,’ he said.]
--Anthony York in Sacramento