‘New blood’ in the speaker slot? + Cannabis tax revenue equals $$
Good morning, and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
IS ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP GETTING SOME ‘NEW BLOOD?’
Last Friday was anything but a slow news day.
Assemblyman Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, dropped a bombshell announcement: He has votes to replace Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, as Speaker of the Assembly.
If Rivas replaces Rendon (until the votes are counted, nothing is final), it’ll be the end of a six-year stint in the speaker spot for Rendon.
“Six years is a lifetime in speakership time,” said Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio, who has done some consulting work for Rivas in the past but says he had “zero role in this latest action.”
But what does it mean?
“Here’s what I know it would mean. It would mean the Democrats still control the Assembly,” said Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta.
By that, Acosta said he meant it likely wouldn’t mean a huge difference for the average person at home.
“Will it make for a lot of Capitol intrigue and tongues wagging about committee assignments? Probably,” he said.
The Assembly is set to see a massive turnover this November, and “there’s a lot of new faces and I would not be surprised that they want some new blood,” Maviglio said.
“After six years, you make a lot of enemies as speaker, and you make a lot of friends,” he said, adding that it’s a very personal vote for Assembly members.
Acosta said a lot of people want to be speaker.
“This is all within the family. If you bet from the outside, usually you lose because this is all internal,” Acosta said.
Rendon gave a lot of power to his committee chairs, and let them “rule their roosts,” Maviglio said. That didn’t sit well with everyone.
Then there was the way Rendon responded when Assemblyman Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, pulled his single-payer bill from consideration before it could be voted on. Rendon had publicly criticized Kalra for pulling the bill, which “raised a lot of eyebrows inside and outside the Assembly about the manner of how it was dealt with,” Maviglio said.
“There was some family feud going on there,” he added.
Maviglio described Rivas as soft-spoken, but “a very prolific fundraiser,” which he said is one of the most important jobs for an Assembly speaker.
“He’s been a well-liked team player,” Maviglio said.
“There are certain members who put it all out there on social media,” Acosta said. “I wouldn’t really put (Rivas) in that category.”
But Acosta added that as chair of the Assembly Agriculture Committee, Rivas held hearings out in the districts, something that “was a little bit more out there in terms of communicating and connecting with people on issues of ag.”
Acosta said Rivas’ decision to make his announcement without Rendon is interesting, and may yet signal dissent amid the Democratic ranks.
“Way back in the day, they had speakership fights that spilled over into elections,” he said. “Could something like that happen? Maybe.”
CDTFA REPORTS $293 MILLION IN CANNABIS TAX REVENUE
Cha-ching!
The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration has reported collecting $293.54 million in cannabis tax revenue for the first quarter. That includes more than $156 million in excise tax revenue, paid by the distributors; more than $32 million in cultivation tax revenue, paid by the growers; and more than $104 million in sales tax revenue, paid by the consumers.
That’s out of $1.1 billion in taxable sales.
So how’s that compare to last year? Not great. In the first quarter of 2021, the state collected more than $312 million in cannabis tax revenue.
In fact, revenue is down from the entire year of 2021, when not a single quarter saw less than $312 million collected.
Since January 2018, when recreational weed became legal, the state has collected a total of $3.7 billion in cannabis tax revenue.
State revenue proceeds may soon take a further dip, if Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed tax reform goes through.
The governor has called for scrapping the cultivation tax entirely, and raised the possibility of raising the excise tax to make up the difference if state revenues fall short of projections.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m on the committee that will hear the bill removing parental consent for vaccinations next Wednesday. One question will be why pass legislation that’s already been deemed unconstitutional?”
- Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, via Twitter.
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California’s state Assembly could soon see a change in leadership, via Andrew Sheeler.
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