One advantage of being a legislator in the minority party is that with fewer members, you are more likely to be tapped for positions in party leadership.  Today Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway announced some changes in her leadership team.  By my math her leadership team now actual includes a majority of her entire caucus.  There are currently 27 Assembly Republicans (with the departure of Nathan Fletcher), and

Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway

Conway’s 14-member leadership team now includes:

Assembly GOP Leader: Connie Conway
Assembly GOP Caucus Chairman: Brian Nestande
Assistant GOP Leaders:  Brian Jones+ and Steve Knight
Assistant GOP Floor Leader: Curt Hagman
Deputy GOP Floor Manager: Don Wagner*
Chief Republican Whips: Dan Logue and Kristin Olsen+
Republican Whips:  Paul Cook* and Mike Morrell*
Republican Outreach Chairman: Jeff Gorell*
Budget Committee Vice Chairman: Jim Nielsen
Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Diane Harkey
Assembly Rules Committee Vice Chairman Jim Silva

(* means a new person in leadership, + means someone who was already in leadership but has a new position)

Departing the leadership team: Bill Berryhill and Cameron Smyth.

In a prepared release Conway had this to say about the leadership expansion: ““I am pleased to have these dynamic and proven Republican leaders serving by my side as members of our Caucus leadership team as we fight to protect Californians from higher taxes,” said Conway.  “Working together, we will show Californians that Assembly Republicans are truly the ‘party of yes’ in Sacramento, promoting common-sense, bipartisan solutions to fix our broken pension system, safeguard our children from dangerous classroom predators and prevent devastating education trigger cuts from hurting our local schools and colleges.”

It’s worth noting that the Assembly Democrats have only ten official leadership positions — but this doesn’t count the boatload of Committee Chairmanship at their disposal which are awarded to member and come with large staff budgets and office space.  (I should caveat that one of the Democrat leaders, Roger Hernandez, was just charged with a DUI.  Apparently he was driving while drunk, or so the Contra Costa County DA has charged, in a state car, with a passenger along for the ride…  But that doesn’t seem to have effected his leadership position, yet — except maybe for a little while he won’t be the, “fun guy at the party.”)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Blog Posts.