{"id":11093,"date":"2010-02-12T01:35:40","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T01:35:40","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-02-12T08:35:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T08:35:06","slug":"maldonado-update-arnold-plans-to-swear-him-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2010\/02\/12\/maldonado-update-arnold-plans-to-swear-him-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Maldonado Update: Arnold Plans To Swear Him In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things are getting crazy in Sacramento with the Maldonado confirmation, with John Myers reporting that the Governor plans to swear in Abel Maldonado<\/a> as Lt. Governor, despite claims from the Assembly that his nomination is dead.<\/p>\n

The governor’s view is that Maldonado had to get 41 votes against<\/em> confirmation for the nomination to be refused. Since only 35 voted against, Schwarzenegger claims Maldonado is confirmed. But only 37 voted for<\/em> confirmation, instead of the usual 41.<\/p>\n

The LA Times has more<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Two professors at the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, Leslie Gielow Jacobs and Brian Landsberg, said the governor’s interpretation is reasonable. So did Tom Hiltachk, a Sacramento elections lawyer who used to work for Schwarzenegger but does not currently. All three said that the Assembly is not “refusing” to confirm Maldonado unless it has actively voted to reject him.<\/p>\n

“The failure to say no is not a rejection,” Landsberg said. “I think no means no, and yes means yes, and if we don’t have a yes or a no, then it would be reasonable to say they haven’t taken a position.”<\/p>\n

And if the Assembly has not taken a position, Maldonado would be confirmed.<\/p>\n

However, the 1988 opinion from then-Legislative Counsel Bion M. Gregory (it pertains to the office of treasurer, which has the same confirmation rules as lieutenant governor) argues that if the Assembly votes but does not confirm the appointee, he or she has been refused confirmation. The opinion said that “the defeat of a positive vote to confirm must be deemed a refusal to confirm ….” the nominee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess we’ll see everyone in court?<\/p>\n

One has to wonder at the behind-the-scenes machinations here, and why confirmation in the Senate was a breeze but not in the Assembly. Pedro Nava, one of the leading opponents of confirmation, is also a leading opponent of the Tranquillon Ridge oil drilling project that the State Lands Commission can either approve or reject. Maldonado would be the swing vote. There may well be other factors.<\/p>\n

Still, what could have been a clean yes-or-no is going to become another dragged-out power struggle between the Legislature and the governor. Perhaps there’s no avoiding it. But the prolonged battle isn’t going to make any of the participants look good. At this point the right thing would be for Arnold to either resubmit the Maldonado nomination or try someone else.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/b> Democratic Assemblymembers Jared Huffman and Anna Caballero put out the following statement defending their vote to confirm Maldonado<\/a>. Worth noting that Caballero is running to replace Republican Jeff Denham in SD-12 this fall, which would be the 26th vote for the Dems in the Senate. If John Laird won in SD-15 (next door to Caballero’s Salinas Valley district) then Dems would have a 2\/3rds majority.<\/p>\n

Today I broke ranks with many Assembly Democrats and joined almost all Senate Democrats in voting to confirm Senator Abel Maldonado for Lieutenant Governor. For me, this was not about whether I agree with Senator Maldonado’s politics, voting record, or ideology – we have huge political differences. But the time for voting based on partisan and political differences is in a campaign, not in discharging the confirmation authority entrusted to me by the California Constitution. My decision process started and ended with a simple question: is he qualified? That’s the standard I believe is required by the Constitution, the Legislature’s own past practice, and the reasonable expectations of most Californians. That’s the standard applied by Democrats and Republicans alike in the Senate this morning. And it’s the standard both houses and both parties have traditionally applied to confirmation votes, including a Board of Equalization confirmation just a few months ago. Unfortunately, the prevailing view in the Assembly today was to apply a new and different standard. On principle, I think it was the wrong thing to do. Politically, I think it is likely to backfire and hurt the Democratic Party. Make no mistake; I will support the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor this fall. But today, I was presented with a nominee who met the qualifications for confirmation, and the Constitution, as well as my conscience, dictated that I vote to confirm him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things are getting crazy in Sacramento with the Maldonado confirmation, with John Myers reporting that the Governor plans to swear in Abel Maldonado<\/a> as Lt. Governor, despite claims from the Assembly that his nomination is dead.<\/p>\n

The governor’s view is that Maldonado had to get 41 votes against<\/em> confirmation for the nomination to be refused. Since only 35 voted against, Schwarzenegger claims Maldonado is confirmed. But only 37 voted for<\/em> confirmation, instead of the usual 41.<\/p>\n

The LA Times has more<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Two professors at the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, Leslie Gielow Jacobs and Brian Landsberg, said the governor’s interpretation is reasonable. So did Tom Hiltachk, a Sacramento elections lawyer who used to work for Schwarzenegger but does not currently. All three said that the Assembly is not “refusing” to confirm Maldonado unless it has actively voted to reject him.<\/p>\n

“The failure to say no is not a rejection,” Landsberg said. “I think no means no, and yes means yes, and if we don’t have a yes or a no, then it would be reasonable to say they haven’t taken a position.”<\/p>\n

And if the Assembly has not taken a position, Maldonado would be confirmed.<\/p>\n

However, the 1988 opinion from then-Legislative Counsel Bion M. Gregory (it pertains to the office of treasurer, which has the same confirmation rules as lieutenant governor) argues that if the Assembly votes but does not confirm the appointee, he or she has been refused confirmation. The opinion said that “the defeat of a positive vote to confirm must be deemed a refusal to confirm ….” the nominee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess we’ll see everyone in court?<\/p>\n

One has to wonder at the behind-the-scenes machinations here, and why confirmation in the Senate was a breeze but not in the Assembly. Pedro Nava, one of the leading opponents of confirmation, is also a leading opponent of the Tranquillon Ridge oil drilling project that the State Lands Commission can either approve or reject. Maldonado would be the swing vote. There may well be other factors.<\/p>\n

Still, what could have been a clean yes-or-no is going to become another dragged-out power struggle between the Legislature and the governor. Perhaps there’s no avoiding it. But the prolonged battle isn’t going to make any of the participants look good. At this point the right thing would be for Arnold to either resubmit the Maldonado nomination or try someone else.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/b> Democratic Assemblymembers Jared Huffman and Anna Caballero put out the following statement defending their vote to confirm Maldonado<\/a>. Worth noting that Caballero is running to replace Republican Jeff Denham in SD-12 this fall, which would be the 26th vote for the Dems in the Senate. If John Laird won in SD-15 (next door to Caballero’s Salinas Valley district) then Dems would have a 2\/3rds majority.<\/p>\n

Today I broke ranks with many Assembly Democrats and joined almost all Senate Democrats in voting to confirm Senator Abel Maldonado for Lieutenant Governor. For me, this was not about whether I agree with Senator Maldonado’s politics, voting record, or ideology – we have huge political differences. But the time for voting based on partisan and political differences is in a campaign, not in discharging the confirmation authority entrusted to me by the California Constitution. My decision process started and ended with a simple question: is he qualified? That’s the standard I believe is required by the Constitution, the Legislature’s own past practice, and the reasonable expectations of most Californians. That’s the standard applied by Democrats and Republicans alike in the Senate this morning. And it’s the standard both houses and both parties have traditionally applied to confirmation votes, including a Board of Equalization confirmation just a few months ago. Unfortunately, the prevailing view in the Assembly today was to apply a new and different standard. On principle, I think it was the wrong thing to do. Politically, I think it is likely to backfire and hurt the Democratic Party. Make no mistake; I will support the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor this fall. But today, I was presented with a nominee who met the qualifications for confirmation, and the Constitution, as well as my conscience, dictated that I vote to confirm him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1990],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1990"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2SV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}