WSJ Profiles Assembly Rep Leader Mike Villines
Today's Wall Street Journal puts Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines in the spotlight in the context of the current debate over taxes and spending in California.
Top California GOP Legislator Holds the Line on Taxes
From the Wall Street Journal, November 20
. . .
Mr. Villines is leader of the state Assembly's Republican caucus, which, with just 32 of the legislature's 80 members, has little power to set the agenda. Political observers here like to joke that the Republican caucus, along with its counterpart in the Democratic-led state Senate, holds real sway only two times a year -- when the state's budget is being set and during the legislative softball game.
The game was called off this year amid a tanking economy. But Republican lawmakers were able to flex their muscle in preventing Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Democrats from using higher taxes to help close a $15.2 billion deficit in the current year's budget, which passed in September after a nearly three-month delay. The Republicans have disproportionate power over tax bills, because California is one of a few states requiring that budgets pass by a supermajority.
Gov. Schwarzenegger on Nov. 6 called a special session of the legislature to deal with a new deficit that some experts say could balloon to $24 billion by 2010. Again, the Republican minority stands in the way of increasing taxes to solve the problem. "I tell my members, 'We're the only line holding back taxes,'" Mr. Villines says. "If we fall, the floodgates will open."
Top California GOP Legislator Holds the Line on Taxes
From the Wall Street Journal, November 20
. . .
Mr. Villines is leader of the state Assembly's Republican caucus, which, with just 32 of the legislature's 80 members, has little power to set the agenda. Political observers here like to joke that the Republican caucus, along with its counterpart in the Democratic-led state Senate, holds real sway only two times a year -- when the state's budget is being set and during the legislative softball game.
The game was called off this year amid a tanking economy. But Republican lawmakers were able to flex their muscle in preventing Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Democrats from using higher taxes to help close a $15.2 billion deficit in the current year's budget, which passed in September after a nearly three-month delay. The Republicans have disproportionate power over tax bills, because California is one of a few states requiring that budgets pass by a supermajority.
Gov. Schwarzenegger on Nov. 6 called a special session of the legislature to deal with a new deficit that some experts say could balloon to $24 billion by 2010. Again, the Republican minority stands in the way of increasing taxes to solve the problem. "I tell my members, 'We're the only line holding back taxes,'" Mr. Villines says. "If we fall, the floodgates will open."
posted by Ron Nehring at
11:32 AM
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