(Aug. 28, 2015, 12:30 p.m.) -- On Aug. 27, 2015, Long Beach area State Senator Ricardo Lara (D., Long Beach-Huntington Park), chair of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, held in his Committee and effectively blocked a Senate floor vote on AB 289 by Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R, Lake Elsinore) that would provide "whistleblower" protections to Sacramento legislative staffers who witness and report ethics violations.

The bill had received bipartisan support and no "no" votes in Assembly Committees and on the Assembly floor from both Democrats (including LB-area Assemblyman Patrick O'Donnell) and Republicans. It would extend whistleblower protection to legislative staff who report illegal or unethical behavior in the Legislature. Current CA law (CA Whistleblower Protection Act) applies to state employees in the Executive and Judicial branches but not to employees of the state Legislature.

No roll call vote was taken in the Appropriations Committee that would have put its members on record. Instead, Committee chair/Sen. Lara simply didn't include AB 289 among a list of bills that the Committee would advance to the state Senator floor. The procedure is not unique to AB 289; other bills were also withheld in the same manner.

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In a statement following Senator Lara's announced Committee action, Assemblywoman Melendez noted that three state Senators had faced or are facing various various charges (all Dems, including now-former LB-area state Senator Rod Wright [voter fraud conviction on appeal]): "It is shocking that my democratic colleagues in the State Senate would kill a straight forward bill aimed at curtailing corruption," Assemblywoman Melendez said.

The state Legislative Counsel described AB 289 as follows:

...This bill would prohibit interference with the right of legislative employees, as defined, to make protected disclosures of ethics violations and would prohibit retaliation against legislative employees who have made protected disclosures. This bill would establish a procedure for legislative employees to report violations of the prohibitions to the Legislature. The bill would also impose civil and criminal liability on a person who interferes with a legislative employee's right to make a protected disclosure or who engages in retaliatory acts, as specified.

By creating new crimes, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

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The Senate Appropriations Committee is a fiscal committee which isn't supposed to consider bill policy, only state budget costs, to which Assemblywoman Menendez added: "What is even more outrageous is that their rational for opposing this legislation is based on an imaginary cost...So I pose to my democratic colleagues this question, 'What is your price tag for eliminating corruption?'"

Asked the day after the action who made the decision to hold AB 289 in Committee, Senate Appropriations Committee Staff Director Mark McKenzie told LBREPORT.com the decision was made by Committee chair/Senator Lara with Senate President pro tem De Leon (D, Los Angeles) and Senate Dem leadership. Staffer McKenzie said that Sen. Lara had also discussed actions on Committee bills with Committee vice chair Senator Pat Bates (R., Laguna Niguel.) During the Aug. 27 Committee meeting, vice chair Bates commended Sen. Lara for what she called his willingness to discuss pending bills with her and said she looked forward to working with him in the future, while adding that she didn't always agree with his decisions. Senator Bates' Communications Director, Ronald Ongtoaboc, told LBRPORT.com (Aug. 28) that Senator Bates "had no role in holding the bill in committee."

AB 289 isn't conclusively dead; it's technically still in the Senate Appropriations Committee, just not advancing this year. It could advance in the 2016 if the state Senate's Dem leadership and Committee chair were to change their current position (for example, if the bill were amended in a way they could accept), but there's no specific procedure to force the bill from the Appropriations Committee.

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Senator Lara recently authored (carried) SB 562 at the request of the City of Long Beach (which cleared both the state Senate and Assembly with no "no" votes) that stretched to up to 50 years the allowable period in which city taxpayers might have to make payments to a private developer to build, operate and maintain a new Civic Center. The City Council, without dissent in December 2014, voted to continue advancing the Civic Center transaction without voter approval and without seeking bids for a possibly less costly City Hall seismic retrofit.

Senator Lara is also a member of the state Senate Rules Committee which chose then-Long Beach Vice Mayor Robert Garcia to fill a vacancy on the Coastal Commission during a closed door proceeding from which the public and press were excluded, no witnesses pro or con were publicly heard and no recording or minutes of the proceedings were kept. The Committee's selection of Garcia, a college acquaintance and political ally of Lara, raised eyebrows locally since Garcia had voted in favor of a PCH/2nd development that exceeded LB coastal zone height limits and the Coastal Commission's LB staff had warned in a letter to the City that it raised procedural issues under the Coastal Act (and a majority of Council members voted against.)

A year earlier, Garcia was also video recorded texting/typing during a sworn quasi-judicial appeal by a neighborhood resident under the CA Environmental Quality Act, then seconded a motion to overrule the appellant's appeal.

Following his appointment, Garcia's Mayoral campaign held a fundraiser at the San Fernando Valley home of another Coastal Commissioner...and an invitation from Garcia's Mayoral campaign told recipients that Garcia was "the pro-business candidate, and wants Long Beach to strengthen it's [sic] name, 'The International City,' by making it an economically booming, world-class city that businesses want to be a part of." [The fundraiser was privately organized and lawful, to our knowledge not using any state or public resources.]

In the June 2014 Mayoral election, Garcia outspent his runoff opponent (aided by large contributions to an "independent expenditure committee") and prevailed with 52.04% of the vote...only to learn from the State Attorney General's office that under current state law he would have to exit the Coastal Commission since he now held a non-voting office. Garcia and his allies responded by trying to change that state law.

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Their first attempt came in August 2014, using Sacramento's much criticized "gut and mend" procedure to erase text of an unrelated bill and insert new text that avoids normally required hearings. On August 28, 2014 CapitolWeekly.net reported that Garcia's "allies in the state legislature are pushing what it called the "hastily amended bill" and said critics note that Garcia "has received campaign donations from lobbyists, land-use experts, developers and others. CapitolWeekly.com said state Senator Lara was reportedly the "driver behind the bill." The revelations contributed to the bill's failure to advance in 2014.

In March 2015, the state Senate Rules Committee (using the same closed door procedure utilized to appoint Garcia) announced it had chosen Long Beach Councilman Roberto Uranga to fill the position that Garcia was forced to vacate. A Coastal Commissioner has the ability to name his/her alternate (to vote in his/her absence.) In a display of candor at the July 8, 2015 Coastal Commission meeting, Commissioner Uranga publicly acknowledged that he tried to appoint Mayor Garcia as his voting alternate, but was effectively stymied (again) by current state law [doctrine of incompatible offices applied to the alternate]...and thus Uranga's naming of Garcia as his alternate is in a "holding pattern" pending enactment of a change to state law.

That proposed law is SB 798...and Councilman/Coastal Commissioner Uranga told LBREPORT.com in July that if SB 798 passes and he is allowed to name Garcia as his alternate, he (Uranga) will remain on the Coastal Commission and has no intention of exiting to create a vacancy that could be sought by Garcia. "I am the Coastal Commissioner and Mayor Garcia would be my alternate," Commissioner Uranga said [quite firmly.]

SB 798 includes verbiage enabling LB's Mayor and a handful of other CA non-voting Mayors (including LA Mayor Garcetti) to serve on the Commission. On Aug. 27, the measure passed the Assembly as a consent calendar item and is now headed back to the state Senate...where Senator Lara will be among those voting on it with Assembly amendments.

Senator Lara, who was previously communications director for then-Assemblyman (now state Senate President pro tem) Kevin de Leon sought and won an Assembly seat in 2010, then ran for a newly drawn state Senate seat stretching from Long Beach to Huntington Park in 2012...meaning he's up for reelection in June 2016.