Speaker Karen Bass announced the core of her new leadership team on Friday, naming Assemblywoman Noreen Evans as the next chair of the Budget Committee and Assemblyman Kevin de León as the next chair of the Appropriations Committee.
Those two fiscal panels are widely considered the two most influential in the Assembly.
In choosing de León, D-Los Angeles, and Evans, D-Santa Rosa, Bass picked loyalists who backed her ascent to the speakership. Earlier this week she named Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, who was one of her chief rivals until the final day of the race, as Assembly majority leader, the No. 2 post in the Assembly.
Neither Evans nor de León will immediately assume the gavel of their respective committees. The current chairs, Assemblymen John Laird (budget) and Mark Leno (appropriations) will continue "with their full duties" until December, when they term out, according to the speaker's office.
But by naming her "chairperson-designees," Bass allows Evans and de León to begin fundraising in earnest for the fall elections.
Neither are particularly experienced with the committees, even by Assembly standards in the term limits era. De León is not currently a member of the Appropriations Committee and Evans does not chair any of the budget subcommittees, though she is a member of the overall panel.
Others who had been rumored to be considered -- or jockeying -- for the chairmanship of the appropriations panel include Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, and Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley.
Freshman Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, was considered a contender for the budget committee chairmanship.
Bass also named Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña, another loyalist, as assistant speaker pro tem, today.
The only other changes Bass has made was naming Assemblyman Curren Price, D-Inglewood, as chair of the Governmental Organization Committee.
Price had previously chaired the Assembly Elections Committee. He is not expected to chair both panels, which would leave elections without a chair, perhaps the only remaining puzzle piece in Bass' initial restructuring.
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