May 12, 2008

For Bass, budget gets top billing

Speaker-elect Karen Bass said Monday she plans to have a limited agenda during her speakership, focusing from the start on the budget, which she declared as her priority number “one, two and three.”

Bass, who will be sworn in on Tuesday as the first African American woman speaker of the Assembly, spoke with The Bee Capitol Bureau about a range of topics, from her election priorities to her plans for committee chairmanships.

She takes the helm of the Assembly only one day before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will unveil his revised May budget. The governor has suggested the budget deficit could be as large as $20 billion.

“I really can’t see past the budget,” said Bass, who predicted that her Democratic caucus would not support a “cuts-only” budget, without new revenues.

She also plans to convene a commission of bipartisan big thinkers to consider how to overhaul California’s tax structure, saying she’s reached out to former Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, as well as former Govs. Gray Davis and Pete Wilson. She said she hoped to formulate the commission “before the month is over.”

Another top priority for Bass is foster care. The Los Angeles Democrat is considering pushing a ballot measure, modeled after Proposition 63, the 2004 mental health measure, to create a revenue stream earmarked for foster care programs.

“The state is responsible for these children. We’re their parents,” she said. “One could argue today that we could be accused of neglect and abuse.”

To pay for the program, she said she is exploring closing “tax loopholes” but hasn’t settled on a particular revenue stream. “This is a group of children that have no lobby,” she said of making foster kids a priority.

Unlike her predecessor, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, she said she’s unlikely to tackle major policy issues like health care and global warming.

“My speakership will be like all the other ones post-Willie Brown: short,” Bass said.

She continued, “It seems to make the most sense to me that I stay focused on the budget, continue my agenda with foster care and then promote the agenda of other members versus taking on major issues myself.”

•Her top election priority come November will be protecting the seat currently held by termed-out Assemblywoman Nicole Parra.

Fran Florez, mother of Sen. Dean Florez, is the Democratic candidate in that race. “We are going to be out there in full force for Fran Florez,” Bass declared.

Parra has famously feuded with the Florez family (a former Dean Florez aide unseated her father in local office) and publicly flirted with the notion of backing the GOP nominee, Danny Gilmore.

But Bass said that wouldn’t happen. “She’s not going to endorse Danny Gilmore,” Bass said of Parra.

•She said she would need to raise an estimated $10 million for Assembly Democrats to compete in November.

•Bass wouldn’t divulge who would be the new set of committee chairs under her speakership. They will be changes, she said, but she there will not be a mass exodus this week.

“If I believe that the most important thing is the budget, then, to me, in terms of the house, it is most important the house be stable,” she said.

She said she would “appoint designees for a number of committees” in June.

•She said she opposed the anti-gang initiative, sponsored by Sen. George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner. She wasn’t sure how active she would be in her opposition, citing the challenges the raising money and campaigning for Assembly Democrats.

•She hasn’t taken a position on Núñez’s latest redistricting/term limits proposal. She has not taken a position on the plan that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing, saying she wants to ensure the Legislature will “maintain the diversity” it currently has.

Assembly Speaker-elect Karen Bass in a press conference after her election in February. Photo credit: Brian Baer, Sacramento Bee

Posted by Shane Goldmacher on May 12, 2008 10:50 AM