Karen Bass is making history as we speak.  She is currently being sworn in as the first Democratic female speaker in California history. Furthemore, she is the first African-American female to be Speaker in any of the 50 states and the federal government.

Good Luck Speaker Bass. And if you are really prepared to take on reforming our tax structure, we’ll be in good hands for the next two years.

With so much worth protecting and so much that threatens our economic well-being, it is far past time to move beyond simply patching over budget problems to finding a real, creative — and bipartisan — way off the budget roller coaster we seem to be stuck on year after year after year.(LAT 5/13/08)

UPDATE: Check the flip for Speaker Bass’ speech.

“To the former Speakers who joined me today as my escorts – you honor us with your presence the way your service honored this house and this state. Thank you for taking the time to be here today. Since I have been in the legislature I have sought each of you for your guidance, critique and solidarity. And I thank you for that – and assume you’ll be available for many more phone calls.

Members….honored guests…dear friends and family….since my election on February 28th to be the 67th Speaker of the Assembly, I have had the opportunity and experience to be part of an incredible transition –  part of a complex and comprehensive process of receiving the torch from the 66th Speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Núñez.

I know the job ahead of me as Speaker will be both easier and harder because of the example set by Speaker Núñez.

Easier because of the outstanding processes he has put in place for this house. Harder because of the high threshold he has set for results.

Mr. Speaker, thank you so much for your leadership, your friendship, and, especially, for the enormous generosity of spirit you have shown me during this seamless transition.

Members, as Mr. Speaker mentioned, I do feel the weight of history on my shoulders today – as the first African American woman in U.S. history elected to head a state legislative body.

Consistent with the African side of African-American tradition, I begin today by acknowledging and honoring those people who have shaped my life but are no longer here to share my life.

My mother who taught all of us that the most important words in our vocabulary must be dignity, integrity and honor.

My last image of her was watching her walking down the hospital corridor – she held her head high – yet I knew she knew her life was about to end.

My father who never wanted me to run for office – because he was afraid I’d be hurt.

But yet he was the one who introduced me to politics, watching the civil rights movement on the nightly news and trying to help me understand the concept of legal segregation in the South where he was from–he instilled in me the passion to fight for justice and equality.

They are not here, but their presence is constantly felt and is represented today by my three brothers – Kenneth, Keith and Kevin Bass.

Will my brothers please stand.

My beloved daughter and son-in-law – who I miss every single day.

I look out on the floor – I sat where Assemblymember Eng sits and the memory is seared in my mind – of my daughter Emilia, who sat next to me during my first swearing in and giggled at the formality.

Her then boyfriend – Mike – who would soon become my son-in law, sat in the gallery with eyes as big as saucers at the enormity of it all.

Emilia and Mike are not here, but their presence is constantly felt and she is represented today by her siblings – my step children – who have been in my life since the day you were born—Scythia, Omar and Yvette Lechuga – please stand.

And Emilia’s best friends – my other daughters – who are very much a part of my life – Denise-Julia, Rolanda, Sterling, Ebony and Tiffany – will you please stand.

Members, throughout the past 18 months I have experienced the best of your hearts – and I’m not sure I can fully express how much that has meant to me.

So many of us have faced personal tragedies and losses – we have stood with each other – we have embraced each other – and helped each other though the bad times.

And we’ve embraced each other through new children – Lori Krekorian – and grandchildren – life’s blessings as well.

If we could only harness the power of our common humanity, I don’t think there’s anything we couldn’t do for the people of this state.

And members, they truly do need us now.

People are losing their homes. People are losing their jobs. People are scared about the future in a state that should be all about hope for the future.

Think about it. We represent California – the 8th largest economy on the planet. If California was our own nation, we would be better off than Russia or India or Spain.

We have it all.

The movie studios I represent in the 47th Assembly District use software created in Ms. Lieber’s district.

Professors at Ms. Wolk’s UC Davis help Mr. Berryhill’s farmers improve their crops.

And who wouldn’t enjoy a glass of Ms. Evans Napa Valley chardonnay watching the sun set over Mr. Plescia’s La Jolla coast?

More than 50,000 companies in our districts export products around the globe.

20% of all U.S. trade – about a half a trillion dollars – passes in some way through California. Workers at our ports handle more than 40% of the nation’s container cargo.

Almost one-third of all U.S. biotech firms are located in California, and we have more biotech jobs here than all the other states put together.

And it’s no coincidence the biotech industry was founded here when more than 50 Nobel Prize winners have been associated with the University of California.

We are a $94 billion tourism industry and the nation’s top travel destination. Millions of visitors come here every year to enjoy 1100 miles of coast and 300-foot redwood trees.

The laptops on our desk should remind all of us that the California visionaries who founded Silicon Valley in a garage, have changed the way the world lives, learns and leads.

Thanks to California you can find anything you could possibly want on Google…and then when you get tired of it you can turn around and sell it on E-bay.

Our 80,000 farms and ranches produce more than $30 billion worth of goods.  And we export more than $10 billion of those goods – 350 commodities in all – everything from almonds and artichokes to turkeys and tangerines.

Among us we represent Koreatown, Little Saigon, Little Ethiopia, Little India and Little Armenia- little pieces of a lot of places.

California is a giant of a state – but we are a giant in crisis.

Over the last two months I have visited with business leaders in the Silicon Valley who are relocating overseas….I’ve met with farmers in the Central Valley who can not afford to plant crops-resulting in the abandonment of the workforce in nearby small towns. I have visited schools and met with teachers and school board members in San Diego and Norwalk where teachers received layoff notices.

I have met with students who are saddled with debt when they finish college – we should be able to provide more opportunity than that for the next generation.

California is a giant in crisis – and now it is up to us to solve that crisis.

It is up to us to take the fear out of California’s future.

Tomorrow, the governor will unveil his May budget revision.

By all accounts it will not be good news. We have to decide how we will address that news. We have to decide how we will come together to mobilize the incredible assets and resources at this state’s command to solve the budget crisis.

If we can mobilize our resources to respond to major disasters like Northridge and Whittier and Loma Prieta – we must be able to respond to the budget crisis.

The wildfires in Sierra Madre in April reminded us all too well of the infernos we faced in 2007.

The combination of economic recession, the mortgage meltdown and skyrocketing prices for food and fuel are having the same destructive force as an earthquake or fire.

When you lose your home, can’t feed your family, or can’t afford health care for your kids, it’s an earthquake.

When there is a disaster like that, an earthquake or a fire or a flood, leaders put their ideologies aside and step up and say “people are suffering – what do we do to alleviate the pain?”

Members, we have to respond to the current economic crisis the same way we would a natural disaster.

We have to toss aside the boxes we put ourselves in and the labels we place on others and come together to get the job done.

I believe part of that job has got to involve looking at the big picture and really examining California’s overall economic structure.

Most importantly, we have to ask the question of whether a tax structure that was established in the 1930s is sufficient to meet the needs of Californians in 2008.

And, frankly, members I think we need an answer to that question that is developed outside the day-to-day give-and-take here in the legislature.

To answer this question I have asked for help. I have asked 2 former Governor’s – Governor Pete Wilson and Governor Grey Davis to assist the legislature in identifying the leadership and membership of an independent Commission to examine California’s tax structure.

This will be a bipartisan group of California’s brightest to work together for one year to develop recommendations on how we can identify more consistent sources of revenue – the way 12 other States have already accomplished.

As we work to resolve the immediate challenge before us, the efforts of this commission can help us find ways to prevent California from cycling through crisis after crisis after crisis.

Mr. Villines, I am just as committed to working with you and your team. I want to continue and maintain the high level of civility that has been a hallmark of Speaker Núñez tenure.

I want to urgency of our cause to be marched by the unity in our commitment.

The weight of history is not just on my shoulders.

As we all move forward, it should be with the understanding that a society will be judged on the way it cares for its people.

As Speaker, I want you to judge me on how I am able to bring together the best of your talents, your experience, and, yes – the best of your hearts – to help build the kind of society that California deserves.

Thank you members. Let’s get to work.”

Chris Reed, as in “America’s Finest Blog” Chris Reed, is leading the right wing shill campaign against Karen Bass. We were both on a conference call with Bass yesterday, and Reed wasted no time going after pre-school kids as his suggestion for budget cuts followed by an attempt at a gotcha on taxes. For the life of me I don’t understand why he is coddled, he’s nothing but a right wing shill and Sacramento press types could learn a lot from the national movement to no longer legitimize Fox News and other partisan propaganda outlets. You’ll be shocked, simply shocked to see Chris Reed’s write-up:

I think Bass’ personal story is admirable and she seems smart and good-natured. But I have a bad feeling about her. With Nunez and Perata, I never really got the feeling that they were dyed-in-the-wool hard-left liberals who were eager to expand government whatever the cost. Instead, I often got the feeling that they posed as ideologues of the left to please their powerful union and trial lawyer allies and because they could never be elected to run the Assembly or Senate unless they were perceived as ideologues of the left.

I think with Bass it’s not a posture at all. She just might be an unreconstructed 1960s-style ideologue of the left, someone who is absolutely unworried about how government actions hurt the economy and someone who has zero sympathy for business — in other words, someone whose politics are more like former Senate President John Burton’s than Nunez’s or Perata’s.

Which suggests we won’t see an Arnold-orchestrated grand deal in which Dems agree to constitutional spending controls in return for GOP approval of some tax hikes. Instead, Bass wants the whole enchilada — tax hikes, no restraint on spending, and new rules allowing the Legislature to hike taxes and approve budgets on simple majority votes.

Quite a honeymoon for the first African-American female Speaker in America.  

There are a lot of interesting things going on that should be mentioned, but that I couldn’t quite generate whole posts out of – so here they are for your Friday reading pleasure.

• Karen Bass will become the Speaker on May 15, meaning she will play a central role in the upcoming budget negotiations this summer. I’m guessing she won’t be as frequent a guest in Arnold’s smoking tent as was her predecessor.
• Civil Rights groups have come out swinging against the redistricting reform plan – MALDEF, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, and the William C. Velazquez Institute held a news conference to explain their belief that redistricting reform will produce many fewer elected officials of color and weaken the voting rights of those communities. It’s especially ironic that these criticisms are made against the backdrop of Fabian Núñez getting ready to hand off power to Karen Bass – redistricting reform is low enough on the state’s list of priorities, and if it is going to reduce the representation of California’s communities of color, it needs to not be passed.
• The Department of Managed Care is going to reexamine thousands of “rescissions” of health insurance made by insurers AFTER the patients got sick. When 90 of these rescissions done by Blue Cross were sampled by the agency, all 90 were found to be flawed. While this process holds out some hope of recovery of costs and insurance by those victimized by this practice, it also simply reinforces the point that health insurers have no place in the delivery of health care in our state and in our country.
• Neither Ronald Reagan nor his Vice-President George H.W. Bush wore a flag lapel pin. Noted America-hater Abraham Lincoln never wore one either and one does not appear on that paragon of sedition George Washington.

  So if you think ABC was out of line in making flag pins an issue at Wednesday’s debate, our own David Dayen is organizing a protest at ABC in Burbank, alongside the Courage Campaign (note: I work for the Courage Campaign) this afternoon at 4pm. Wish I were there with you all!

Feel free to add any of your own stories or insights in the comments.

Because I’m dumb: corrected to Portantino from Portafino

Rep. Anthony Portantino got a fax last week informing him that he was no longer chairing the Education Committee.  Rep. Hector De La Torre lost his chairmanship of the Rules Committee and won’t even get to stay on the committee.  The LA Times and the Pasadena Star News, along with Capitol Weekly, paint the moves as some combination of retribution for running for Speaker (both ran against Karen Bass) and lining up Bass’ preferred leadership ahead of her taking over the Speakership.

Steve Maviglio, in his normally flowery language, said simply “it’s an internal caucus matter.”  Both Portantino and De La Torre have said they spoke to Bass and she told them she knew nothing about the demotions.  If you’ve been living under a rock lately, you may have missed that Education is rather a hot topic about now in the halls of the Capitol, so a shakeup at the top of the committee is notable.  And the Rules Committee is always a big deal, so swapping out a recent Bass (and Nunez) competitor for Ted Leiu (who’s long been in Nunez’s and Bass’ respective camps) and dropping De La Torre all the way off the committee, well…that’s also notable.

If anything, it brings into stark contrast two competing governing theories.  Some people want to govern surrounded by the folks who get to the top based entirely on their merits, some prefer to be surrounded by the folks they work best with.  Certainly this isn’t a cut-and-dried contrast between the two options, but I’m sure it sets (or reinforces more likely) a standard of discouraging people for aspiring to higher positions lest they be punished for it.

According to Capitol Weekly, it’s a done deal.

Assemblywoman Karen Bass captured the speakership Wednesday night to replace Speaker Fabian Nunez following a round of closed-door meetings.

Bass, a Los Angeles Democrat and the Assembly’s majority leader, received a majority of support in the Democratic caucus to win the job. Nunez engineered the deal that put her over the top. Several legislators, including some who had hoped to be speaker themselves, announced as they left the meeting that  Bass had won.

“She’s got it,” said Assemblyman Hector de la Torre, D-Southgate, after the final meeting.

Other than a brief few months during the post-Prop. 93 Willie Brown fallout, Bass will be the first female Speaker of the Assembly, and the first Democratic woman overall.  She becomes the 3rd African-American, and the 1st African-American woman.  2008 continues to be a year of firsts.

I also think that Bass and Darrell Steinberg well make an excellent leadership team, though it’ll be somewhat short-lived, as Bass is termed out in 2010.  I can’t think of many better combinations than this.