Finally a reason to support a constitutional convention: To rewrite Article V Section 5(b) of the state constitution to make clear what it means by the phrase “refused confirmation.” If we can dump that murky phrase we would know if California had a Lt. Governor or not today.
Since there was no majority of the Assembly to reject outright the nomination does that amount to the Assembly refusing to confirm the nomination? Does that mean that Abel Maldonado is the Lt. Governor of California? The Governor thinks so. The Assembly Democrats don’t agree.
So as all issues must in the natural order of things the confirmation result has come down to the lawyers.
Whether you agree or not with Maldonado’s positions on tax increases, it seems Democrats in the Assembly have lost the right to criticize Republicans for refusing to compromise. Here’s a Republican who voted with the Democrats yet they stick to politics and punish him.
Republicans, with the exception of U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, voted to confirm Maldonado, despite his position on the liberal side of the party. This after many members and Republican activists skewered Maldonado for past votes.
Professor Boris Shor of the University of Chicago put up an interesting blog after yesterday’s vote showing on a graph where Maldonado falls in the liberal –conservative spectrum.
According to the ideological formula Shor created with Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, California has the most polarized legislature. California’s Republicans are well to the right and Democrats are further left. The polarization is not as great in a state like New York, for example, because while the Empire State Democrats are as far to the left as those in California, New York Republicans are much closer to the center of the Shor/McCarty graph.
California’s political polarization will get no better after the Maldonado vote.
Interestingly, while Professor Shor puts Maldonado in the liberal wing of the California Republican Party, he says compared to Republicans around the country Maldonado is much more a centrist.
And, get this: On the professor’s point scale Abel Maldonado is more conservative than the new U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown.
Read Shor’s conclusions and view his graph here.