Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.
It might be time for the legislature to slow down, according to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
The legislature has been “incredibly effective” over the past decade, Rendon said in an interview in his Sacramento office. So as this year’s session gets underway — and as legislators are preparing to tackle the governor’s request to penalize big oil companies that raked in profits while gas prices skyrocketed — Rendon has his sights set on oversight.
“I want to make sure that we slow down, and we don’t pass reforms on top of reforms without knowing the stuff we’ve been doing is effective or not,” said Rendon, D-Lakewood.
That oversight includes money spent on major issues like broadband, utilities and wildfire prevention and housing.
“We’ve doled out a lot of money to the counties and municipal governments (for housing),” Rendon said. “I think now is a really good time to do oversight and figure out how they’re spending that money to the extent that it’s been effective, to the extent that it’s been ineffective and how we can make corrections to some of the things we’ve been doing on that issue.”
Rendon, whose district included just a sliver of Cypress before redistricting, has said he plans to retire as speaker this summer after holding the powerful Assembly leadership position for about seven years. He will term out of office in 2024.
Under his tenure, Rendon granted committee chairs greater authority over the fate of legislation that comes before them. It’s this system — where committee chairs can “attack the issues how they want to” — that allows the legislature to be effective and prioritize a wide array of issues, Rendon said.
Housing and homelessness, a massive budget deficit,…
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