Assembly Passes Majority Vote Budget Fix
Democratic state lawmakers pushed a budget fix through the Assembly late Sunday night. It’s a plan that they say does not require Republican votes.
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(Sacramento, CA)
Monday, June 29, 2009
The rare Sunday night debate dragged on for
hours, as lawmakers considered the 23 billion dollar Democratic package. It includes cuts to health and welfare
programs and tax hikes on oil, tobacco and car registrations. Democrats passed the plan without GOP votes
by eliminating other taxes and replacing them with fees…which they say do not
require a two-thirds vote. However,
Governor Schwarzenegger has threatened to veto any plan that includes tax
increases. Democratic Assembly Speaker
Karen Bass:
“For the Governor or for anyone to
reject these solutions and exploit the crisis for political gain or to get
unrelated reforms or pet projects would be really, the moral equivalent of
hijacking an ambulance.” Even
if the Governor did sign the Democratic plan, it wouldn’t take effect for 90
days. Republican lawmakers argue the
majority vote plan is unconstitutional.
GOP Assembly Leader Sam Blakeslee called it a huge step backwards. During the long debate, Democratic Assemblyman
Alberto Torrico was also sharply critical of the Governor’s budget plan, which
makes deeper cuts. He called it the
budget of a 2-year old that was “petulant, vindictive, immoral and quite
frankly, dumb.” Democrats passed budget
legislation to raise taxes using a similar majority vote strategy last
year. However, the Governor vetoed the
package. California’s
Controller has warned he’ll start issuing IOU’s this week if lawmakers don’t come
up with a budget fix immediately.