Assembly Speaker Karen Bass takes pride in being a consensus-builder, a soothing and maternal let's-get-along kind of leader. Now please pardon the interruption -- Madam Speaker is ticked off.
She simmered as efforts to tame California's $26.3-billion deficit threatened to shred the health and welfare safety net she helped stitch together as a Democratic lawmaker from Los Angeles. She stewed in budget briefings as clear second banana to Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), her counterpart in the state Senate.
Finally, she boiled over at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He rankled Democrats with demands that could undermine their union allies and a declaration to the New York Times that he was "perfectly fine" despite the fiscal meltdown, ready to enjoy an evening cigar in his Jacuzzi.
The Assembly's den mother became a growling bear, griping after an unsuccessful budget session between legislative leaders and the governor that Schwarzenegger "broke it. He should fix it."
That rare outburst earned an ovation from her Democratic caucus. But Bass has no time to be sanguine. A few Capitol insiders say that barely a year into her tenure, attempts to topple Bass are inevitable.
Her critics say she has a wishy-washy administrative style and is politically tone deaf. They fault her for one of the year's biggest political blunders -- hiking salaries for legislative staff a few weeks before the May 19 special election. The finance measures on that ballot failed, putting the state deeper in the hole.
"I will be shocked if she's still around by Sept. 1," said one longtime legislative staffer.
Bass brushes off such assessments as "the nature of the beast." Coup rumors have bedeviled her since May 2008, when she became the first African American woman in U.S. history to lead a state legislative house.
"When it comes time to leave, it will be in a natural order" and not before early next year, Bass said Tuesday in her ornate office hugging the Capitol's northwest corner.
Even some of her rivals concurred.
"I actually like her more in the last week or so," said Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Montebello), who has often jousted with Bass over policy and politics. "She clearly has made some mistakes, some very large mistakes. But she is speaking up and standing up for us. I believe she is going into her best moment."
Still, by her own admission, Bass, 55, has enjoyed few such moments during her crisis-plagued stint as Assembly leader.
