Today the California Assembly Republicans picked a new leader, after this week's failed vote to kick out Chad Mayes over his vote for the cap-and-trade gas tax.
Assemblyman Brian Dahle (R-Bieber) will take the reigns as the leader of the 25-member caucus at the end of the legislative session in September.
“There was some members of our caucus that were taking tremendous amounts of pressure from folks back at home and it seemed important that we try to come up with a win-win situation.”
He originally intended to keep his post, but last night he agreed to step down after it became clear that Dahle had enough votes.
Dahle didn’t vote for cap-and-trade, but he agreed with Mayes that California Republicans must do more than simply oppose the Democrats’ ideas in order to win back the supermajority:
“We need to be at the table when these big policy decisions are going to be made. There are people in our caucus (who) voted their conscience and their district, and I support those who did that. In my case, it didn’t work for my district, so I was opposed to [the cap-and-trade bill].”
He also said that he would continue Mayes’ work of expanding the Assembly Republicans’ focus to a wide range of issues affecting Californians such as poverty and the housing shortage.
Let’s hope this guy doesn’t sell out like Mayes and the other Assembly flakes.