Chaos on the Assembly Floor
On Thursday, the Supermajority arrived for our Assembly Floor Session with a clear goal: to not only stop my bill to suspend the gas tax, but to thwart a vote from even happening. As to the latter objective, they failed.
Afterwards, Assemblyman Heath Flora called it “one of the most heated floor sessions that I have ever participated in during my 6+ years in the Assembly.” The entire sequence of events took more than an hour.
Just as session began, they suddenly moved my bill from “the desk,” where it’s been gathering dust, to a new committee. So when Assemblywoman Laurie Davies asked to take up the bill from the desk, as we’d planned, the Speaker ruled her motion out of order.
This ploy was easily countered: James Gallagher invoked Assembly Rule 7, allowing the bill to be brought from a committee to the Assembly Floor. Stunningly, the Speaker simply ignored his motion.
When Gallagher appealed the decision, the Speaker interrupted him, wildly banged his gavel, and refused to hold the required vote. Vince Fong then stood up, stating that Gallagher’s motion needed a vote. The Speaker arbitrarily denied that point of order.
At this point, I stood up and said the Speaker is “overtly breaking the rules of this chamber in order to spare members a vote on a matter of profound importance to Californians.” With that, they finally gave up and held the vote.
Of course, they again voted against suspending the gas tax, with a number of Members abstaining. I’ve never seen them so rattled. One news report said it’s been “years” since Democrats at the Capitol have been so “on their heels.”
This is the only reason Newsom is now floating a “rebate” scheme to send you a pre-paid debit card. They are desperately trying to deflect, to take political cover. We are fully on offense and not letting up the pressure.
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