It’s a first in California state history: Governor Gavin Newsom called a special session on gas prices last week, but the State Senate said it will not meet this fall.
That was after Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire, a Democrat representing the Healdsburg area, said Senators wanted to pass the proposal during the regular legislative session.
“The Senate Democratic caucus is 100% united that we’re not going to come back for a special session,” McGuire said. “Here’s why: For weeks we have had the votes. For weeks we were calling for a vote. For weeks we had consensus within our caucus to be able to provide Californians with the relief they need immediately.”
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat representing the Salinas area, took a different approach and the Assembly convened the special session shortly after Newsom’s call for one.
While special sessions are fairly regular in the state’s history — this is the second one Newsom has called during his time as Governor — this is the first time a legislative body refused to heed a governor’s call for a special session in California.
“We definitely got into unusual territory when the State Senate declined to meet,” said Alex Vassar of the California State Library.
There have been special sessions when lawmakers convened and did not take legislative action, according to Vassar. The unprecedented schism raises constitutional questions that will need to be answered before Newsom’s proposal to lower gas prices will make it through the Legislature.
What could happen
While California’s constitution gives a governor the authority to call the Legislature into a special session, it does not indicate what should happen if lawmakers do not convene.
According to David Carrillo with the California Constitution Center at UC Berkeley Law, the most obvious thing to happen next would be for Newsom to take legal action against the Senate. Though the lengthy nature of the judicial process means that isn't a likely path forward.
“It's very unlikely that the issues could get resolved before this legislative session expires before November 30th,” Carrillo said. “So the Senate can simply try to run out the clock.”
Carrillo also said California’s separation of powers makes it a complicated case — judges are not keen on ordering how the Legislature conducts internal business.
Another option is for the governor to mobilize law enforcement. Similar situations have happened in other state legislatures where lawmakers refused to convene a quorum.
But Carrillo says this is also improbable for California.
“It’s unlikely that you're going to see California Highway Patrol officers looking sharp in their Smokey Bear hats going out across the state grabbing state senators by the collar and calling them back to Sacramento,” Carrillo said.
The discord between the three leaders — Newsom, McGuire, and Rivas — could be resolved through political negotiations, which Carrillo argues would be best.
“This strikes us as not really a legal problem. It's a political problem which calls out for a political solution,” Carrillo said.
Police in front of the state Capitol ahead of anticipated pro-Trump rallies on Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
Special session so far
The Assembly gaveled in a special session hours before the midnight deadline for the legislature’s regular 2024 session. Since then, legislation was introduced by Assembly members Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Democrat from Winters, and Greg Hart, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, to increase fuel capacity with the goal of reducing the cost of gas for consumers.
In the hours after the legislature’s session deadline, Rivas said his willingness to mitigate California’s high cost of living is top of mind.
“It’s exactly why, upon learning that the governor had proclaimed this special session, why we moved very quickly to answer that call, why we opened up and gavel down the session,” Rivas said.
Rivas also indicated that the Assembly would begin with informational hearings and bill vetting this month.
But the bill will have to be heard by both houses to move forward, making it difficult for a proposal on gas prices to make it through this fall absent an agreement between legislative leaders and the Governor.
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