Sen. Abel Maldonado has been in the Legislature for more than a decade, but he's always been an odd man out.
Maldonado, son of a farmworker who became a wealthy Central Coast farmer, is the Legislature's only Latino Republican. He's also one of the Legislature's few GOP moderates who has occasionally bucked conservatives, but who paid a price for his centrism when he lost a 2006 effort to become the Republican nominee for state controller.
Two years ago, Maldonado was the decisive vote for a budget deal that almost all his fellow Republicans opposed. When the most recent deal on closing a $40 billion budget deficit emerged from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders, he was atop the list of Republicans most likely to vote for it.
At first, Maldonado included himself out, asserting that he wouldn't vote for a budget with money for new furniture for Controller John Chiang's office – an indication that Maldonado was interested in seeking the position again in 2010.
Later, he said 2009 is different from 2007 because the package includes billions of dollars in new taxes. "Barack Obama is giving a tax break to 95 percent of Californians," Maldonado said at one point. "We're trying to give a tax increase to 95 percent of Californians."
But there was something else going on, a lingering resentment that while he helped Schwarzenegger on the budget, raising the minimum wage and other issues opposed by most Republicans, the governor hadn't helped his 2006 campaign for controller.
"Our governor cares about one thing only, and that's Arnold Schwarzenegger," Maldonado told the Los Angeles Times after losing the 2006 primary. "When he needs Latinos, Latinos are always there for him. When Latinos need him, the answer's been no."
Maldonado later apologized, but the resentment re-emerged a few days ago in another interview, this time with the San Jose Mercury-News. "Where was he when I needed him?" Maldonado said of Schwarzenegger.
But Maldonado never closed the door completely, telling The Bee on Sunday that "I'm very concerned with the tax package, (but) everything's fluid. … I don't want my state to go off the cliff, OK? I don't want that."
As the immense budget deal boiled down to a single Republican vote in the Senate on Sunday and Monday, the question on everyone's mind was: "What does Maldo want?"
Maldonado actually listed for reporters a series of things that could motivate him, reforms ranging from blocking legislative salary increases during budget crises to creating an open primary election system that would give moderates such as himself a better chance of winning. "I think government reform is a priority. It could be one, it could be two; at the end of the day, I want government to be reformed," he said.
Maldonado's resolve will be tested as the Senate conducts a showdown vote on the tax portion of the deal today and Democrats continue to press him for the decisive vote.
Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters.
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