Just who is the speaker-elect of the California Assembly? Find out more about this cheerleader-turned-speaker, such as what current lawmaker she’s related to, where (and with whom) she went went to high school, and what she won't be doing in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s smoking tent.
1. While Karen Bass may be the new head-of-household for Assembly Democrats, she’s actually related to a state senator.
Bass and Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, the chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, are often referred to as “cousins.” That’s not quite right, says Ridley-Thomas.
“Technically she is my half-brother’s cousin,” he reports.
Even if that sounds like a bit of a distant familial connection, Ridley-Thomas says they bump into each other at family functions from time to time in L.A.
2. Ridley-Thomas couldn’t help but share that Bass was also once a cheerleader – at Hamilton High School, where the school colors are green and white. Just like in the state Assembly. Unlike in the Assembly, Bass wasn’t squad leader, she said.
3. Don’t let the whole cheerleader thing mislead you. Bass also has earned brown belts in tae kwon do and hapkido martial arts. She doesn’t actively practice martial arts anymore, but does bicycle.
4. Bass is not the first lawmaker from Hamilton High. She’s not even the second or third. The school has been a veritable breeding ground for elected officials.
Rep. Howard Berman, the longtime Los Angeles-area Democratic congressman went to school there. So did former Rep. Lynn Schenk, who went on to serve as chief of staff to Gov. Gray Davis.
And former Assemblyman Paul Koretz, who served alongside Bass from 2004 to 2006, went to school at the same time as Bass. The pair didn’t know each other back then.
“I found out about it basically after the fact that she was in (Sacramento) when I was,” said Koretz.
Bass says the high school campus was “a sea of political activism.”
“They even gave us a holiday to protest the war in Vietnam,” she recalls.
5. So by now you’ve probably heard that Bass is the first African American woman speaker of the state Assembly. She’s also the first Democratic woman speaker.
Here are some other facts on the historic nature of her new post.
She is one of only two black women currently serving in the 120-member Legislature (the other is Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina-Carter). She is one of only ten African American women to serve in the Assembly in California history, according to Chief Clerk Dotson Wilson. Before her election in 2004, it had been eight years since California had seen a black female assemblywoman. There have been 113 women elected in the Assembly, said Wilson, who pointed out that 90 of those women were elected since 1978.
6. Bass’ only child, daughter Emilia Wright, and her son-in-law, Michael Wright, were killed in a 2006 car accident in Southern California. Both were 23.
7. The state Assembly is Bass’ first post as an elected official. She won her seat in 2004 in a competitive five-way primary (with four other men), which included a better-known candidate, longtime Los Angeles City Council member Nate Holden.
Despite Holden’s name-recognition, she won double the number of votes as her closest competitor, finishing the primary with 48 percent of the vote.
8. As the newest member of the Big 5 – the nickname for the four legislative leaders and the governor – Bass will likely be spending some time in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famed Capitol smoking tent.
Just don’t expect the former nurse and physician’s assistant to light up a stogie with Schwarzenegger to seal a deal. Bass doesn’t smoke, said spokeswoman Kellie Todd Griffith.
"I'm going to have to make him come out of the smoking tent," Bass said the day she was elected speaker. "That's going to make me sick."
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