Days after the boyish Abel Maldonado first set foot in the California Assembly, he offered a wide-eyed, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" appraisal of a training program for new legislators.
"I definitely learned a lot," the freshman Republican told a reporter in 1999. "Especially in the session where the senior members told us how things really work."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, February 25, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Abel Maldonado: An article in Sunday's California section about the political future of state Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) said he graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He attended the university but did not graduate.
After his recent high-pressure, high-visibility days and nights as the last holdout in the Sacramento budget drama, he can teach a few lessons of his own. In exchange for his reluctant yes to the state's controversial new budget, the 41-year-old Santa Maria grower demanded a ballot measure allowing open primaries, in which people can vote for candidates regardless of party affiliation. He also was able to fend off a 12-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase and keep legislators from getting pay raises until they balance the state's budget.
"He won," said Jaime Regalado, who heads the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles. "His name is recognized throughout the state now. It makes him look like a hero to independents and Democrats who wanted things done."
That could boost -- or sink -- his chances for the kind of statewide office he has sought before. Some of his party's leaders are talking about a censure, saying Maldonado's performance was more selfish than stoic.
"Sen. Maldonado's vote was decisive in passing the single largest tax increase in American history," Jon Fleischman, a state GOP vice chairman, said Saturday. "Going forward, Maldonado's breaking of his promise to fight against tax increases will be an anchor around his political neck."
In his hometown, the soft-spoken Maldonado's story is well known.
His father was a bracero who came to the U.S. dirt poor from the Mexican state of Jalisco in 1964. With only a second-grade education, the elder Maldonado worked the fields and grew a major farming operation. The younger Maldonado, chided by other kids for the strawberry stains on his pants, did well enough in school to graduate from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
A few years later, he was so exasperated by red tape in getting city approval for a giant fruit and vegetable cooler for the farm that he successfully ran for City Council at age 26. Two years later, he was Santa Maria's mayor.
"I tell you, it's the American story," said Bobby Acquistapace, a Santa Maria insurance broker whose family has been in the area since 1888. "It's amazing -- he comes from extremely humble beginnings."
