California: Vacant seats? Let the governor fill 'em

State Sen. Bill Emmerson, second from left, has decided to leave the Legislature, saying that his passion has waned. Officials estimate that a special election will cost $1.1 million. (Associated Press / November 25, 2013)

The price of electing lawmakers to replace ones who bolt is high. The Senate leader says it's time to let the chief executive decide.

SACRAMENTO — Senate leader Darrell Steinberg says he has seen enough. He wants to rid California of incessant special elections to fill vacancies in the Legislature.

The elections interrupt the legislative process, he asserts, and they bleed local taxpayers — roughly $1 million each time some lawmaker jumps ship, which has been increasingly often.

Let the governor fill vacant seats and be done with it, the Sacramento Democrat contends.

Amen.

If it were possible, I'd order lawmakers to stop the music, grab a seat and stay put. This musical chairs game is too expensive for the adults, the taxpayers. No more switching offices in midterm.

But forbidding politicians to run for another office is probably unconstitutional. So if they do bail in midterm, just let the governor choose their replacement.

Like the governor is allowed to do when there's a vacancy in a statewide office. Or when there's an opening on a county board of supervisors. Or a U.S. senator quits or dies.

If there's a vacant seat in the U.S. House delegation, the U.S. Constitution decrees that there must be a special election. But there's no such federal mandate for replacing a state legislator. Only a state law.

"The cost of these special elections and the delays for months at a time compels us to look at different ways to fill the vacancies," Steinberg says. "It would be much better to have the governor make the appointment."

Count up the legislative defections in the past year alone: There have been 10.

The latest is Sen. Bill Emmerson (R-Hemet), who's departing Sacramento because his "passion has waned" for legislating.

Via: LA Times

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California lawmakers seek to ban imitation firearms

California lawmakers are pushing to ban the manufacturer or sale of imitation firearms in the state after a Northern California sheriff's deputy shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a BB gun last month.

State and local officials announced legislation Friday that would require fake guns such as BB, pellet or airsoft guns to be translucent or brightly colored so they cannot be mistaken for real guns, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported.

"A toy should look like a toy. It should not look like a lethal weapon," the bill's co-sponsor state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said.

Officials introduced the bill one month after Deputy Erick Gelhaus shot and killed Santa Rosa teen Andy Lopez after reportedly mistaking his BB gun for an assault rifle.

On Friday, dozens of protesters marched from Santa Rosa City Hall to the Hall of Justice, chanting slogans and carrying signs urging District Attorney Jill Ravitch to charge Gelhaus with murder, the newspaper reported.

California law already bars imitation firearms like the one Lopez carried from being displayed in public unless the weapon meets color guidelines

Via: Fox News

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How Much Extra Spending Did Lawmakers Sneak Into Bill That Ended Government Shutdown?

The stopgap bill to fund the government was only supposed to end the partial shutdown for a few months, no strings attached -- right?

 

Nope.

Despite the bill being tiny by Washington standards -- just 35 pages -- lawmakers still managed to tuck in billions of dollars in additional spending.

Already, one item has earned some degree of notoriety. Appropriators included a line increasing the budget for an Ohio River dam project from $775 million to $2.9 billion.

Costs for the project, approved in 1998, have soared above the original price tag. Supporters of the Olmsted Locks and Dam funding argue the additional money is necessary to reduce bottlenecking at the crossing of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who along with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., supported the item, told Fox News that all barge traffic would be suspended if the dam wasn't funded.

She said the funding was included in the budget bill because it is the only spending bill moving. The House had earlier approved funding for the dam, though at a lower level.

But there are projects all over the country that could have made a similar case. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., earlier this week called the inclusion "disgraceful," saying many lawmakers didn't realize the bill contained additional spending like this until late in the process.

Government watchdogs argued that if lawmakers wanted to pursue this spending, they should have done so in the long-term appropriations bill or another more appropriate piece of legislation.

The language in the bill itself didn't exactly announce that the dam project was getting extra money, either.

The provision said: "SEC. 123. Section 3(a)(6) of Public Law 100-676 is amended by striking both occurrences of '$775,000,000' and inserting in lieu thereof, '$2,918,000,000'."

Via: Fox News

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Lawmakers demand Capitol Hill not be shielded from Obamacare

A quartet of Republican lawmakers on Tuesday accused the Obama administration of taking steps to “shield Washington insiders” from financial impacts of the new health care law and said it should reconsider its approach.

Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Lee of Utah and Reps. Phil Gingrey of Georgia and Ron DeSantis of Florida said the Office of Personnel Management went beyond the strict text of the Affordable Care Act when it decided in early August to let denizens of Capitol Hill get taxpayer money to cover up to 75 percent of their premiums. The move effectively keeps a traditional subsidy in place although the law forces congressmembers and their staffs to acquire insurance through state-based health exchanges in the coming year and beyond.

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SEE ALSO: Obamacare foes claim 1 million signatures for defunding

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“This proposed ‘fix’ is exactly why the American public has a very negative impression of Congress and Washington,” the lawmakers said in a letter to OPM Acting Director Elaine Kaplan.

They said the health care law states “very clearly” that federal lawmakers and staff must procure their insurance through an exchange.

“Just as clearly, it does not reconstitute government support of their present coverage under the separate Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP) as payment toward the Exchange,” they wrote.

Lawmakers have unveiled draft bills in both the House and Senate that they say would force members of Congress to experience Obamacare the same way many average Americans will — having to pay out-of-pocket for insurance in state-based exchanges

Via: Washington Times

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