The Assembly is voting on AB 93, which would gut the California Enterprise Zone program — including Anaheim’s and Santa Ana’s Enterprise Zones. The Assembly GOP Caucus asked for a recess and the vote hasn’t been completed — standing now at 49 “yes” votes. 54 votes are needed to pass the bill and kill the Anaheim and Santa Ana EZs.
Assemblyman Tom Daly – the former Anaheim mayor who represents Santa Ana and much of Anaheim — has surprisingly cast a “yes” vote to gut the two EZs in his district. Still getting my head around that one.
Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, who also represents part of Anaheim, hasn’t voted yet.
Assemblyman Don Wagner, who represents Anaheim Hills, voted “no.” Kudos to Don to standing up for private sector job creation.
If Quirk-Silva votes “no” and Daly switches his vote to “no,” then this job-killer bill will die. This is a bright line vote, and will say much about commitment to real economic growth.
UPDATE: The Assembly is back from recess. Sharon Quirk-Silva has voted “yes” on AB 93 – i.e., in favor of killing the Anaheim Enterprise Zone. That brings it to 50 of the 54 votes necessary to pass.
AB 93 passed the Senate yesterday on a 39-0 vote – Senator Lou Correa among the “yes” votes.
UPDATE: AB 93 hit the necessary 54 votes to pass. Unbelievably, several members of the GOP Caucus joined the Democrats.
GOP Assemblymembers Curt Hagman, Marie Waldron, Jeff Gorrell and Katcho Achadjian voted with the Democrats to kill the Enterprise Zone program. Hagman and Waldron switched from “no” to “yes” votes!
By putting up their “yes” votes, these Republicans allowed three Assembly Democrats take a pass on casting an anti-business vote. Effectively, those Assembly Republicans cast anti-business votes so those Democrats wouldn’t have to! How are Republicans supposed to have any hope of taking out Democrats when they can’t master the basics like forcing Democrats to cast bad votes?
Enterprise Zones are essentially corporate welfare. No need to have balkanized concept…every sector of the economy gets equal footing and no special treatment.
Are you kidding me, Allen? May I suggest you re-register as a member of the Let-The-Perfect-Be-The-Enemy-Of-The-Good Party?
And don’t forget to send your endorsement to the Democrats who are (with a solitary exception) voting to kill EZs on a party line vote.
Why should Anaheim and Santa Ana get special treatment while other 32 cities in OC have no EZ?
What am I thinking, Allen? Of course, any part of the state that enjoys any relief at all from the state’s poisonous business climate ought to have those advantages stripped away until everyone gets them. How come i didn’t think of that?
We can put you in charge of informing businesses and their employees in those EZs why it isn’t fair to everyone else, and then you can help them plan their re-locations out-of-state.
Daly’s voting IN FAVOR of killing Enterprise Zones??? What the..??
Can someone tell me why the business community spent so much money to help him win the Assembly seat last year? Julio Perez would have voted to kill the Enterprise Zones, too.
I am confused on the real results of the EZ. Last election I heard a lot of candidates refer to the EZ zone, and job creation, the EZ was helping really no one 2 years ago. As of less than a year ago I referred a new local business to the EZ idea and gave them the contact info and no one called them back, they left 3 messages. So does anyone know the real numbers are? How many jobs HAS this created?