December 15, 2009

In Case You MIssed It
Assembly Drags Down Race to the Top - Delay, Detain, Derail

The Sacramento Bee - 12/13/2009 

"Legislators strategically use abstention and absences to avoid controversial "yes" or "no" votes, often killing bills in the process.
  
Obama announced in July that states could compete for $4 billion in new Race to the Top funds to move the bar in those reform areas. Applications are due Jan. 19.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped on the opportunity, delivering a package to legislators by mid-August. The Senate passed a bipartisan package (Senate Bill X5 1) on Nov. 4.

In the Assembly, however, the guiding principle has been delay, detain, derail. And priming this has been the California Teachers Association, which has opposed the Obama initiative from Day One.

That's where strategic non-voting comes into play. In the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday, six members avoiding controversy took a pass on voting. That killed the Senate bill -- Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, abstained." 

For the full editorial click here...

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Buchanan's non-voting appears to be part of a pattern.  In a December 21, 2008 article at the height of the budget battle, the Sacramento Bee once again daylighted Buchanan's non-voting behavior -
- "Californians saw a failure of leadership in the state Capitol on several levels.  Many of those failures made the headlines.  Here's one that didn't - five Assembly Democrats abstained from votes on tax hikes" ... among them was Joan Buchanan of Alamo who abstained twice.