California Republican state Senators sack leader for compromising

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There was a compromise hammered out between Arnold, and the Democratic and Republican legislature leaders. While enough Assembly Republicans are predicted to support their leader and vote for the compromise, the Senate Republicans don't seem to be yielding the 3 votes needed for the BS 2/3rd majority to pass a budget. And in the middle of the night, they sacked their leader.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget18-2009feb18,0,2637442.story

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Now they're set to to reconvene at 10pm. Our state legislature is in bizarro-land lately.

Edit: Make that 11pm.

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Umm... wow. I sort of expected it to be an exaggeration, but they did actually oust their leader for trying to solve the problem. That can't exactly endear the California GOP to anyone.

Well, it endears it to the staunch fiscal/economic conservatives that basically elect most, though not all, of the CA senate minority. But as to the median voter (or any sort of external group of voters) who'd the senate GOP would need to get anywhere close to controlling the chamber...epic fail.

They don't care, they weren't going to win it back any time soon. But they will manage to keep the 14 Senators or 27 Assemblymen that they need to have a say in the budget, and most of their members are hardcore anti-tax extremists. The state party endorsed the wacko Prop. 90, which would have essentially abolished zoning.

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Umm... wow. I sort of expected it to be an exaggeration, but they did actually oust their leader for trying to solve the problem. That can't exactly endear the California GOP to anyone.

Well, it endears it to the staunch fiscal/economic conservatives that basically elect most, though not all, of the CA senate minority. But as to the median voter (or any sort of external group of voters) who'd the senate GOP would need to get anywhere close to controlling the chamber...epic fail.

They don't care, they weren't going to win it back any time soon. But they will manage to keep the 14 Senators or 27 Assemblymen that they need to have a say in the budget, and most of their members are hardcore anti-tax extremists. The state party endorsed the wacko Prop. 90, which would have essentially abolished zoning.

So what exactly are they trying to accomplish?

Merely object for the ideological sake of objecting?  Actually get cuts in the budget (which the average Californian/and their Democratic legislator wouldn't go for?)?  Get public sympathy?

I mean theres a chance their grandstanding could get some concessions (assuming one or two don't break from the pack) but do they have any real desire other than to constitute just enough seats to block things per your amendment?

The bill is already a compromise, huge spending cuts, and a $1 billion corporate tax cut. It has the support of enough Republicans in the Assembly, the former Republican Senate leader, and one other Republican. There are 2 wavering Republicans who are blackmailing the state, while the other 12 of the 16 Senate Republicans are hardcore ideologues here. One of those wavering Republicans has to be bought off for the budget to pass.

California needs a 2/3rds majority to pass a budget, so actually Arnold's support is irrelevant. He doesn't seem to be too effective at getting support in his own party, either.

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Budget passed, California gave in to some serious blackmail. It's pretty obvious that the 2/3rds requirement has to go. What's weird is that it still needed 27 even though there's only 39 Senators thanks to a vacancy (Democratic seat).

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Oh good lord.. that's going to make future gubernatorial elections a lot of fun

Hey, we already had one with 135 candidates on the ballot, and another 28 write-ins, plus the guy being recalled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_California_recall

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Why are states switching to the Louisiana method of primary elections that even Louisiana gave up?

Doesn't Lousiana still use the "jungle primary" (a little different than the method described above, btw, as a candidate who gets a majority of the vote in a Lousiana primary is elected without the need for a runoff, so you aren't necessarily just narrowing the field to the two candidates with the most votes in the primary)?

Louisiana got rid of the jungle primary for federal races. This Proposition, which will be on the June 2010 ballot, would include all partisan races except for President.

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Now the lunatic party is trying to recall some of their own legislators who voted against the bill just for supporting their sacked leader in the vote for leadership.