This morning at 9am, Assembly Republicans will enter into a special caucus meeting.  The purpose?  Apparently Central Coast Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee has put together the votes to become elected Assembly Republican Leader.  This morning the current occupant of the job will announce that he is stepping aside (which is the politically correct way of saying that he was "let go" from his duties as leader).

Having had some time to absorb this turn of events, I thought I would make the following observations…

As FR readers know, the current leader, Michael Villines of the Central Valley, was one of the key architects behind a budget deal in February that ultimately gave California’s the largest tax increase in the history of any state.  In addition, he along with former State Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill (as well as Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrat leaders) concocted the Proposition 1A "toxic cocktail" — a measure that would apply "revenue smoothing" measures into state law, but also triggers, if it passes, an addition $16 billion in higher taxes for Californians.  The campaign to pass 1A is calling it a spending cap, and clearly it is not. 

The raw deal was consummated virtually overnight, with legislators literally being locked into the building until the necessary three GOP votes in each chamber were obtained.  It was a bad deal at the time, but angst and frustration over the bad budget deal and the host of ballot measures that were birthed by that deal have been growing. 

Over the past few weeks, we have seen a lot of "heat" being turned up on Villines, who unlike Cogdill who was removed as leader of his Senate GOP Caucus for his advocacy of the big taxes budget plan, was still in his office.  Heck, just yesterday, former CRP Chairman Mike Schroeder and former CRP Treasurer and Fresno Lincoln Club President Mike Der Manouel were on the radio in Fresno (with popular talk show host Inga Barks) where they were quite critical of the budget deal, and of Villines’ continued presence as a GOP "leader" in the Capitol.

From our sources, we understand that Villines was not really looking to step down from his post, but has apparently accepted that fate.  It is expected that third term Assemblyman Blakeslee will be announced as the new leader.  It is unclear yet whether Blakeslee’s election will mean a wholesale turnover in leadership staff, but we do have it by reliable sources that there will be changes made in the leadership team, though it is unclear if those changes will be announced this morning.

I wrote yesterday about the fact that Sam Blakeslee is well liked and respected in his caucus, and by party leaders, such as yours truly.  He is considered to be very intelligent, and a very strategic thinker — traits that will be important to draw upon as he comes into his own at a time when the state’s fiscal outlook is challenging, to say the least.

Blakeslee is not a movement conservative, by any stretch.  While he has had a lot of great votes on a myriad of issues, and he was an ardent opponent of the effort earlier this year by Democrats to pass massive tax increases on a majority vote (read his FR column on that subject here), there is no doubt that in a number of policy areas he is more "centrist" than most Republicans (although compared to Arnold, Blakeslee still resembles Atilla the Hun).  In the areas of environmental law, and centralized efforts by the state to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, and promote social engineering, Blakeslee has cast some disturbing votes.  I remember being frustrated at the time, a couple of years ago, to see Blakeslee cast a vote to ban use of a cell phone while driving — which is one of those issues that goes to the core of individual versus government responsibility. Still, on a great many issues, Blakeslee has been a solid, reliable GOP vote.

Last night I spoke to a great number of Assembly Republicans, and some who are close to Blakeslee shared that they are quite comfortable that Blakeslee will regularly "take the pulse" of his caucus, and that he will lead them based on the group’s position on issues and matters, rather than allowing his personal views to shape the job he does.  Actually, I was impressed at the number of "fellow travelers" (that’s code for "conservatives") in the Assembly really had great things to say about Blakeslee.

All of that said, I wish the Assemblyman well in his new endeavor and look forward to working with him going forward.  There will be a lot of issues that will be on the front burner.  The first is that apparently (at least as of last night), Villines was urging colleagues to give him until the end of the month as a transition period before stepping down.  Normally that wouldn’t seem like that big of an issue.  After all, what are a few weeks in the scheme of things?  But we can expect that as soon as (if not before) May 19, high-level meetings will start to occur about the state’s fiscal crisis.  It is critical that the new leader (whether he be the leader "elect" or whether is actually in the job) be engaged in that process — and, frankly, it is equally important that Villines not be a part of it.  As they have done in the Senate Republican Caucus, Assembly Republicans need a clean break and a fresh start in negotiations — and Blakeslee will bring that.  As long as that is the case, then we here at the FR think it doesn’t matter whether Villines is ‘technically’ out tomorrow, or June first.

Blakeslee will need to quickly implement a strategy to deal with the state fiscal emergency — we’ve already seem how the "Big 5" process failed us, and we’ll need a new way of doing budget business.  Hopefully one that is both transparent and more inclusive of a larger group of legislators.  Blakeslee will need to come out strongly against the February budget deal, of course, and urge opposition to 1A and the other ballot measures.  This becomes important because we have an extremely tough "brand name" problem for the GOP right now — as exemplified by the fact that organizers of the recent "tea rallies" were targeting both Democrats and Republicans in their efforts.

Externally, Blakeslee will come to the helm of his caucus at a time when Republican activists and donors around the state are frustrated with their party leaders in both Washington, D.C., as well as in Sacramento.  The "tea parties" organized up and down the state were populated by fed-up people who are, to reiterate, frustrated with both major political parties — and a failure to control over-spending. 

There is also the issue of a very credible recall effort underway against Assemblyman Anthony Adams, who not only voted for the big taxes budget deal, but has demonstrated an attitude which has motivated proponents.  Heck, listeners to popular drive-time Southern California radio talk show hosts John and Ken has contributed over $80,000 to the qualification effort the recall, and that is with only two weeks of driving listeners to the recalladams.org website.  On one hand, Blakeslee will be under pressure to "defend" a member of his caucus from this effort — but on the other hand as a party leader, he needs to navigate the landmines knowing that the proponents of the efforts are largely Republican activists and donors — and that it is a "safe" GOP seat.  Many will be looking to Blakeslee to veer away from spending precious, limited Republican resources on this matter, which is internal to the party — and instead focus the funds that he raises towards electing Republicans in seats held by Democrats next year.

Finally, defeating the open primary measure that will be on the June 2010 ballot will be the top priority of the California Republican Party, and Blakeslee will be looked to in his new role to provide leadership towards this end.

For my part, I’ll look forward to the opportunity to work with Blakeslee.  For all of the temptation to get "caught up" in the minutia of voting records and such, I think it is fair to judge Blakeslee on the job that he does as Leader-Elect, and then as Leader.

And it is important to remember that Blakeslee’s coming into power is as a direct result of the bad deal and huge taxes brought to us, in large part, due to the actions of the current Assembly Republican Leader.  His departure is a repudiation of the terrible deal that he helped to negotiate.  Villines is a good guy — but one can’t help but feel that the office and the process ultimately changes him, and broke down his resolve.   (Frankly, as someone who considers Villines to be a personal friend, it has been a very depressing process to observe what took place.)  An important lesson from which Sam Blakeslee should learn.  There’s nothing easy about being the Assembly (or Senate) Republican Leader in these trying times…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.