Considering the drubbing he’s getting from his own caucus in the press, this can hardly be a shock to anybody in the Capitol. From CapitolAlert:
“Mike is going to be making an announcement tomorrow morning prior to a 9 a.m. caucus meeting,” said his spokeswoman, Jennifer Gibbons.
She would not discuss details but indications are that Villines will step aside after a more than two-year reign. It is not clear who his replacement will be. Caucus rules require 15 of the Assembly’s 29 Republicans to approve the leader and several members could still be scrambling for votes.
Well, my money is on “anybody but DeVore or Anthony Adams.” Beyond that, it’s really rather tough to point out any one of the GOP drones that would be substantially better than the next.
UPDATE: Capitol Weekly reports that Sam Blakeslee will take over for the next 18 months. After that, he’s termed out.
Blakeslee is not only termed out of his Assembly seat, he’s located in Abel Maldonado’s Senate Seat, which isn’t up until 2012. I’ve heard he has no designs on the Senate seat anyway, wanting to go home to San Luis Obispo. Sounds like the pressure of being taken out in a primary won’t be much pressure at all.
And now he’s been criticized from the right for not being conservative enough (he did beat a more conservative challenger in his initial primary for the Assembly seat).
Too good to be true? Something is either wrong with this picture or will go wrong soon. Good luck doesn’t happen in California politics.