Capitol Alert

Six Republican Assembly members gained new titles today as Republican leader Connie Conway expanded and altered her leadership team.

Conway's changes come in the wake of the GOP's Jeff Gorell returning from deployment to the Afghanistan War and Nathan Fletcher's decision to leave the party to register as an independent.

Two moderate Republicans formerly in leadership positions were not included in the new lineup: Cameron Smyth of Santa Clarita, formerly an assistant leader; and Bill Berryhill of Ceres, formerly a chief whip.

Sabrina Lockhart, Conway's spokeswoman, said that the exclusions of Smyth and Berryhill were not punitive. Both are leaving the Assembly in December. Smyth is termed out and Berryhill is running for a Senate seat.

Conway, in announcing her leadership changes, vowed to "fight to protect Californians from higher taxes" and to push for "common-sense bipartisan solutions" to problems ranging from pension debt to education budget cuts.

Gov. Jerry Brown began his speech Wednesday by chiding Republican lawmakers who responded a little too rapidly to his State of the State address. Assembly Republican leader Connie
Conway and Senate Republican leader Bob Huff put out their videotaped response a day earlier.

"I noticed that Connie and Mr. Huff put out their critique of my speech 24 hours ago," Brown said. "I'll let you in on a little secret -- my speech wasn't finished 24 hours ago."

Given what he called their "powers of precognition and clairvoyance," Brown said he planned to check with Conway and Huff on some stock tips after the speech.

"We could use them -- especially the state," he said.

Here's an assortment of responses that arrived after Brown stopped talking:

Your wallets will start feeling heavier tomorrow.

That was the message from a handful of Republican Assembly members this morning as they applauded their resistance during budget talks to approving temporary tax extensions. The budget plan passed by the Legislature this week assures that those taxes will expire at midnight, which the legislators say will save the average Californian about $260 each year.

"This is a great day for California," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks. "The death of these taxes is the rebirth of our economy."

As the legislators gathered in front of a pair of SUVs at Downtown Ford in Sacramento, Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway said that someone buying a $20,000 car this weekend would pay $300 less in taxes and fees than if they bought the car today.

"We've held the line. We've not negotiated. We're very happy that July 1st is coming," said Assemblyman Steve Knight, R-Palmdale.

Gov. Jerry Brown's original budget plan required at least two Republican votes each from the Assembly and the Senate. It would have held steady the rates for income and sales taxes and vehicle license fees. Instead, all of those rates will drop under the spending plan that Brown is expected to sign into law today.

Democratic leaders said Republicans missed out on a chance to enact significant pension, spending and regulatory reforms by not agreeing to temporarily extend those taxes.

But Conway said Brown walked away from the negotiating table because labor unions could not swallow the reforms that Republicans wanted.

"It was an opportunity to squandered by the governor," she said. "Our agenda is to honor and respect the taxpayers that provide the money for the budget."

PHOTO CREDIT: Conway speaking at Thursday's event. Paresh Dave / Sacramento Bee.

Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway said in a speech today that her caucus is willing to help break the state's budget impasse - if Democrats abandon their call for tax extensions.

Conway suggested that it's time for a new approach, now that Gov. Jerry Brown's attempts to pick off two Republican votes for his own budget proposal have not worked, nor have Democratic lawmakers' attempts to dictate budget solutions.

Speaking to the Sacramento Press Club, Conway said she has made it clear to Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez that her phone lines are open.

"We told him, he knows this, that we're willing to work with him on a budget that does not raise taxes but still could have bipartisan support," the Tulare Republican said.

Playfully, Conway pointed out that legislators do not necessarily have to march in lockstep with Brown, who vetoed Democrats' budget proposal last week.

"People have joked about, 'Who was the last governor who ever had a veto override?' Oh yeah, I remember that," Conway said, without stating explicitly that the answer is Brown, in the 1970s, during his first stint as governor.

Conway did not unveil a new proposal today, but she pitched the "road map" released by Republicans in May that relied on more spending cuts, fund shifts and a spike in state tax revenues to bridge a then-$15.4 billion shortfall.

The GOP plan called for funding education at the same level as Brown proposed in January. It also suggested slicing $1.1 billion from spending for state workers, saving about $1.1 billion by permitting more contracting for state services, and taking $2.3 billion from funds for First 5 children's programs and Proposition 63 mental-health services.

Conway said that Republicans will continue to fight any attempt to raise taxes or to suspend Proposition 98, the state's minimum guarantee for education funding.

The GOP leader left open the possibility of placing onto the ballot a measure to let voters decide whether to extend temporary taxes imposed two years ago. But she dismissed the notion of a "bridge tax" to retain such revenue pending balloting.

"Putting something to a vote, without a bridge tax, is a different conversation than (imposing) a bridge tax and then having a vote," Conway said.

She shrugged off Democrats' criticism of the Republican "road map" as a gimmick-filled approach that would do little to solve the state's ongoing imbalance between revenues and spending.

"It's politics, we all understand that," Conway said of the criticism. "At the Capitol, politics rules."

* Updated at 5:30 p.m. to include Conway's comment about a bridge tax.

Budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and five Senate Republicans are "done and over," Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway told KMJ radio this morning, though the governor's spokesman disagrees.

"It's my impression, after speaking to some of (the Senate Republicans), that the talks are done and over, and they walked away from the table," Conway said. "It's their impression that, even though the governor seems willing, labor has said 'no' to all of the requests. So I think everybody left very unhappy from the table."

Joe Justin, spokesman for Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Hemet, one of the five GOP senators negotiating with Brown, said Conway's remarks were accurate.

"We remain committed to work," Justin said. "The public employee labor unions wouldn't allow movement on a hard, meaningful spending cap and true, long-lasting pension reform."

But Brown press secretary Gil Duran disputed that budget negotiations with the five Republicans are done.

"Talks are continuing," Duran said. "It seems to me that some people are urgently trying to exaggerate and spread this other story, but that is not our understanding of the situation."

Click here to listen to the full radio interview with Conway.

Paper Tiger?

In honor of Chinese New Year, the Assembly distributed a paper flier to members Thursday honoring the 12 animals of the Chinese calendar and listing 1938, the year of Gov. Jerry Brown's birth, as a "Year of the Tiger."

Brown is honest, strong, spirited, rebellious, brave and dynamic, according to the flier, provided by the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Council.

The Democratic governor shares those traits with Senate Republican leader Bob Dutton and Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway, both of whom were born in 1950, another "tigerish" year.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez's birthdate is in 1969 -- five months after Brown celebrated his 31st birthday -- and he is listed as confident, precise, candid and optimistic within the "Year of the Rooster."

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg was born in 1959, a "Year of the Boar," and he is happy, gallant, reliable, courageous and generous, suggested the flier, which did not indicate whether it was printed by a Democrat or Republican.

In keeping with Chinese New Year, Democratic Assemblyman Richard Pan of Sacramento presented Pérez with a drawing of a koi, honored in folklore for swimming against the current.

Symbolic? Indeed.

"We hope, like the koi, we will overcome our fiscal difficulties and bring jobs and abundance to the people of California," Pan said.

This year, by the way, is a "Year of the Rabbit."

PHOTO CREDIT: A white tiger rests inside an enclosure at Beijing Zoo in Beijing, China, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010. AP Photo/ Vincent Thian

In detailing his budget plan this morning, Gov. Jerry Brown said he is shooting for a two-thirds vote to put a proposal to extend higher tax rates set to expire on the ballot in a June statewide election.

That feat would require the votes of at least a handful of Republican lawmakers in each house, a scenario GOP legislative leaders shot down as unlikely at best shortly after the official unveiling of Brown's plan.

Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton predicted that "zero" members of his caucus would cast an aye vote under the current proposal outlined by Brown today.

"I am not open to the idea because nobody has demonstrated anything to me that shows we are going to do anything different than we have done before," the Rancho Cucamonga Republican said. "Voters were given this choice back in 2009 and they rejected it and frankly they were right to reject it. We didn't fix anything, so why would the voters believe you now that you're going to fix the problem even if they would give you five more years of the same thing?"

He called Brown's proposed spending reductions a start, giving the governor kudos for cutting his own budget, but said it was "too little, too late." Dutton and Senate Budget Committee Vice Chair Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, called for steeper spending cuts, changing the regulatory structure, and changing how the Legislature conducts business with steps like limiting bills with new programs that add costs.

"Nobody wants to be with a hatchet in hand, going off and cutting programs, and yet we absolutely have to do that," Huff said.

Assembly GOP leader Connie Conway, of Tulare, painted a similar picture of the party's lower house caucus. She issued a statement saying Assembly Republicans "stand united" against the plan to "place the same tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected less than two years ago back on the ballot."

"At this point, I think California voters have got to be feeling like the parent who consistently tells the child 'No.' How many times do we have to say no to taxes? I think they speak loud and clear," Conway told reporters today. "Jobs are leaving the state, people don't have a job. Why aren't we looking at more jobs and more people working as a way to increase our revenue?"

Whether Brown will ultimately get, or need, a two-thirds vote is still unclear. The Democratic governor said this morning that Republicans aren't "locked in stone in opposition" and that he is committed to working with them on his plan.

"I'm trying to forge a consensus," he said "A wide agreement."

Links:

Brown's Countdown, Day 1: Plan takes on powerful redevelopment forces

Legislators, left and right, dislike Brown budget

Steinberg: 'I hate these cuts,' but we are 'out of patches'

State Budget coverage

Gov. Jerry Brown coverage

Bee colleague Jim Sanders contributed to this report.

Photo above: Senate GOP leader Bob Dutto

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez has been talking a lot about taxes at this morning's budget forum, suggesting most recently that an income/sales tax swap should be considered again this year.

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown has stayed mostly out of it, but the chatter appears to be irking Republicans.

Republican Assembly leader Connie Conway reminded the panel that the conversation this morning was meant by Brown to define the budget deficit, not address solutions.

"I'm so glad we're not talking about solutions and raising taxes," she said.

Assemblywoman Connie Conway was elected Assembly GOP leader just yesterday, but campaign finance records show she was busy boosting the campaign coffers of Assembly candidates before the vote.

In the month leading up to the leadership vote, the Tulare Republican made maximum allowable contributions to the general election campaigns of 10 potential new members, including six of the 11 freshman Republicans just elected to the Assembly. She had already donated the limit to an seventh freshman's bid and maxed out to another new member during the primary.

Conway also donated the largest amount allowed per election to several Republicans who lost competitive races, including 5th Assembly District candidate Andy Pugno and made a $3,900 contribution to the state Senate bid of Republican Assemblyman Ted Gaines.

Support of freshman members could have been crucial for Conway's triumph. Assembly leader Martin Garrick declined to run for re-election at the mandatory caucus leadership vote. Those 11 freshmen form more than a third of the 28 members of the caucus for the upcoming legislative session.

Conway spokesman Dillon Gibbons said Conway told him she simply "gave money to people who asked for it."

Campaign fundraising and electing Republican members will be a major part of Conway's job as leader. Conway, who was up for re-election in the 34th Assembly District, raised $30,800 in her campaign account between Oct. 1 and Oct. 16, roughly half of what was raised by Garrick in the same time period.

A spreadsheet of contributions reported by Conway in the month of October is posted after the jump.