California Assembly

Supporters of incoming Assembly Speaker John Pérez say his rapid climb from rank-and-file lawmaker to one of the most powerful offices in the state is due to his intellectual prowess and unwavering commitment to the working poor. But Pérez, a Democrat who was chosen as speaker in December and will be sworn in Monday, has something that left-leaning former labor leaders and freshman lawmakers usually lack: a financial pipeline to billionaire developers and white-shoe investors who rank among the most politically active power brokers in the state.

Charmette Bonpua, chief of staff to Los Angeles City Councilman Herb Wesson, died in Las Vegas on Sunday, a week after suffering an aneurysm on a family trip. She was 44. Bonpua worked behind the scenes as a senior aide for some of the most powerful figures in California government. She was Wesson's chief of staff when he was speaker of the California Assembly. Before that, she served in the same capacity with Speaker Fabian Nuñez. When voters sent Wesson to the City Council in 2005, Bonpua agreed to move south to staff his office.

Confirming speculation about her political plans, state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said she would seek the seat of retiring Democratic Rep. Diane Watson, who appeared with Bass at a Los Angeles news conference Wednesday to give the speaker her endorsement. "This is a very, very humbling moment," Bass told community leaders and supporters who joined her outside her Mid-Wilshire-area office. "I am so proud to announce I'm going to throw my hat into the ring." If elected, Bass said, she'll have "very big shoes to fill."

The state Assembly refused Thursday to confirm Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's choice to fill the empty lieutenant governor seat, but the administration is vowing to install moderate state Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) nonetheless, saying the vote is moot. The 80-member house voted 37 to 35 in favor of Maldonado's appointment -- failing to achieve a 41-vote majority for or against him. The Schwarzenegger administration said the tally means that Maldonado gets the job because the state Constitution says the nominee takes office if he is "neither confirmed nor refused confirmation."

Lawmakers admonished state administrators Wednesday for expenditures such as furnishings costing up to $7,000 per employee, an airplane for Caltrans inspectors valued at nearly $1 million, a $429,000 boat and 1,300 cars, motorcycles and trucks costing $34 million. "I find these expenditures to be an insult and very disrespectful to every furloughed state employee, to every taxpayer who has been working very hard to make ends meet, who is driving an old car on its last legs when this state chooses not to do the same," said Assemblywoman Audra Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks)

The federal government offers funding to help states provide human services such as health and foster care, and that's fine as far as it goes. But sometimes the money comes with the wrong strings. For example, the feds for too long paid states to pluck abused or neglected children from their homes and put them in foster care, even after California learned that it's more cost effective and better for the kids to move them out of the program and into the homes of extended family members who, with a little financial help, can take care of them.

In choosing Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby for a vacant state Assembly seat, voters got a homegrown leader whose views on limiting government play well in the Republican stronghold. As expected, the former teacher, who grew up in Fullerton and served on its City Council before his 2002 upset election to the county Board of Supervisors, coasted to an easy victory in Tuesday's special runoff election, capturing 63% of the vote. Democrat John MacMurray won 31% and Jane Rands of the Green Party garnered 6%. "I have deep roots in the district," Norby said.

A proposal to legalize and tax marijuana in California was approved by a key committee of the Assembly on Tuesday, but it is not expected to get further consideration by the Legislature until next year. Despite a procedural glitch, backers hailed the committee's action as historic because it represented the first legislative approval of the proposal. "This vote marks the formal beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition in the United States," predicted Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a pot legalization group.

A California lawmaker is trying to make it a crime for witnesses not to report homicides, rapes and other violent attacks. The legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara), was prompted by the gang rape of a 16-year-old Richmond High School student who was attacked for about two hours while at least a dozen witnesses failed to call police. (Richmond police initially said the girl was 15.) "It is a horrible, horrible indictment on the state of affairs when a 16-year-old blameless girl can be viciously assaulted and anywhere from 10 to 14 witnesses don't do anything about it," Nava said in an interview.

He got the bug early, walking precincts in his Los Angeles neighborhood at the age of 14, talking politics with aplomb, prompting adults to marvel and agree: John Pérez was going places. Now, after his rookie year as a Sacramento lawmaker, Pérez is on the cusp of catapulting from a relatively obscure spot in the state Assembly to its most powerful position, the speaker's chair. Assembly Democrats are expected to formally vote him into office next month. A former union official who grew up in the neighborhoods of Highland Park and El Sereno and is a cousin of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Pérez bested more seasoned competitors in a long, behind-the-scenes battle for the speakership.