After Setencich Opposes GOP Bills, Pringle Ousts From Him Committee

Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle unceremoniously yanked maverick Republican Brian Setencich off a committee Thursday after the Fresno freshman helped Democrats defeat a trio of privatization bills that top the GOP agenda.

At the behest of Pringle, a GOP conservative from Garden Grove, Republicans on the Assembly Rules Committee voted to pull Setencich and Democrat Assemblyman Wally Knox of Los Angeles off the Local Government Committee.

The move, reminiscent of the sort of back-room games that Republicans often criticized former Democratic Speaker Willie Brown for playing, reduces the committee to nine members--five of them Republicans who support privatization--from its original 11. That altered lineup almost certainly ensures that the privatization bills will be approved when the panel takes them up again next week.

Republicans took exception to any comparison to Brown. “There’s a big difference,” said Mark Watts, Pringle’s chief of staff. “Willie just did it on his own behind closed doors. This took the full action of the Rules Committee in public.”

Setencich, who ran afoul of his Republican colleagues last year by siding with the Democrats in a string of Assembly leadership battles, raised the hackles of the GOP anew Wednesday by rejecting the privatization bills.

“It did not go unnoticed that Mr. Setencich voted against every Republican bill in the Local Government Committee yesterday,” said Gary Foster, Pringle’s spokesman. “This is not punishment, but it is acknowledgment that he no longer believes in the Republican agenda of reducing the size of government.”

Setencich said he has always voted his conscience, and not as a rubber stamp for the Republican Party.

“They can threaten me all they want, it’s not going to change the way I vote,” he said. “I vote on the merit of a bill, not in lock-step with them. I always have and always will. I joke that they can threaten to kill me, but it’s not going to change the way I vote.”

Among the bills Setencich helped scuttle was a measure by Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) that would allow bankrupt Orange County and other cash-strapped counties to contract out many public services. Two other privatization measures would help cities and special districts.

“We’re happy with the change in the committee,” said Chris Manson, Conroy’s chief of staff. “We feel that the bill now has a fair chance.”

Setencich, who served a three-month stint as Speaker before Pringle and the Republicans dethroned him in early January, stressed that his opposition to the privatization bills by Conroy and Assemblymen Jim Battin (R-Palm Desert) and Gary G. Miller (R-West Covina) sprang out of concern for the fate of public employees who would lose their jobs.

But given that Setencich voted for a similar Conroy bill that failed last year on the Assembly floor, most Capitol insiders chalked it up to political payback.

Last month, a cadre of wealthy Republicans angry over what they considered Setencich’s political treason in last year’s leadership wars bankrolled a last-minute campaign by a GOP challenger against him. Robert Prenter Jr., a political newcomer and nephew of a founding member of the conservative California Independent Business PAC, eked out a narrow victory over Setencich in a low-turnout GOP primary.

Setencich discounted any political motive, but said he is seriously considering a possible attempt to run as a write-in candidate in November’s general election.