The lone lawmaker to vote against the resolution, SR38, was Republican Sen. Senate officials will go office-by-office to emphasize ethical conduct and to ask staffers to come forward if they are aware of any unethical or potentially criminal activity by lawmakers or Senate staffers. Steinberg also announced an unprecedented step of cancelling a Senate floor session in April for a mandatory ethics review, saying it is time for the Senate to "take a deeper look at our culture." "I know of no ethics class that teaches about the illegality or the danger of gun-running or other such sordid activities." "But there are some things, members, that you just can't teach," he said.
Steinberg noted that the Senate already has "intensive" ethics training for its lawmakers and staff. "Given the extraordinary circumstances of these cases - and today's unprecedented suspensions - the best way to restore public confidence is for these Senators to resign," Brown said. Later Friday, in a statement issued by the Democratic governor's office, Brown weighed in for the first time since Yee's arrest. Representatives for Calderon and Wright said they would have no comment on the suspension vote. DeMeester, issued a statement immediately after the Senate vote saying suspension was "the right step for now" because it acknowledges the presumption of innocence. Even so, they will continue receiving their $95,291 annual salaries. Rod Wright, who is awaiting sentencing in a voter fraud case, from exercising any power of their office until the criminal cases against them have been resolved. Ron Calderon and Leland Yee, who face federal corruption charges, and Democratic Sen. The Assembly speaker's office said that chamber has never suspended or expelled a lawmaker.
The Senate leadership said that before Friday, the chamber had never suspended a lawmaker in the institution's 164-year history, but it has taken the more serious step of expelling lawmakers, the last time in 1905. Jerry Brown also called on the three lawmakers to resign. (AP) - The California Senate voted Friday to suspend three lawmakers caught up in separate criminal cases after the latest one to be hauled into court refused to step down, the most serious house-cleaning action the chamber has taken in more than a century.įriday's 28-1 vote in the 40-member chamber came amid one of the most severe ethical crises in modern times for the Legislature in the nation's most populous state.
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