Things are hectic here at the home base of the FlashReport — while Democrats in Sacramento were slamming through very constitutionally questionable tax increases — billions of dollars worth — I was out with the family buying a Christmas Tree for the house. Now I am writing an update on the antics of the Capitol before the tree delivery people arrive with our new purchase.
As promised, Senate and Assembly Democrats called session this afternoon, and rammed through bills containing gas, income and a car tax increases. We’ll give a closer look to see which Democrats didn’t vote FOR the taxes (I am sure they "protected" targets since they only needed majority votes under their lame plan) — but I can tell you that not one Republican in the Senate or the Assembly voted for ANY tax increase.
Nevertheless, in both chambers, these tax increases were declared as being passed with a majority vote. In the State Assembly, Republican Chuck DeVore objected to the tax increases being scored as needing only a majority vote. DeVore’s objection was overturned, and he then, in turn moved to overturn the ruling of the chair, which was voted down by all of the Democrats.
The good news — for now — is that shortly after this legislation was passed out of both chamber, and Republican legislators signed one of two letters (one for Senators, one for Assemblymembers) urging a veto by Governor Schwarznegger — the Governor, in fact, vetoed the package.
He said at a press conference that none of the major policy reforms that he asked for to provide economic stimulus were substantively addressed in the package (we won’t get into the horrible effect on the economy of the underlying tax increases).
The Governor said that he would stay in the Capitol and work through the holidays to come up with a plan that works for all concerned — but Speaker Bass said that she was sending legislators home for the holidays, to return in January.
At his press conference, the Governor apparently side-stepped a question about whether he thought that the tax increases were unconstitutional or not. Either way, with the Governor, we take the victories when we can, and his veto today of a clearly terrible package was great news for California taxpayers, and he deserves much praise for an oustanding use of his veto pen!