| Because I'm dumb: corrected to Portantino from Portafino
Rep. Anthony Portantino got a fax last week informing him that he was no longer chairing the Education Committee. Rep. Hector De La Torre lost his chairmanship of the Rules Committee and won't even get to stay on the committee. The LA Times and the Pasadena Star News, along with Capitol Weekly, paint the moves as some combination of retribution for running for Speaker (both ran against Karen Bass) and lining up Bass' preferred leadership ahead of her taking over the Speakership.
Steve Maviglio, in his normally flowery language, said simply "it's an internal caucus matter." Both Portantino and De La Torre have said they spoke to Bass and she told them she knew nothing about the demotions. If you've been living under a rock lately, you may have missed that Education is rather a hot topic about now in the halls of the Capitol, so a shakeup at the top of the committee is notable. And the Rules Committee is always a big deal, so swapping out a recent Bass (and Nunez) competitor for Ted Leiu (who's long been in Nunez's and Bass' respective camps) and dropping De La Torre all the way off the committee, well...that's also notable.
If anything, it brings into stark contrast two competing governing theories. Some people want to govern surrounded by the folks who get to the top based entirely on their merits, some prefer to be surrounded by the folks they work best with. Certainly this isn't a cut-and-dried contrast between the two options, but I'm sure it sets (or reinforces more likely) a standard of discouraging people for aspiring to higher positions lest they be punished for it. |
