DeVore fails in push for Villines' ouster

SacBee: Capitol Alert ^ | 2/16/9 | Shane Goldmacher

[SmithL]

The first GOP leadership challenge resulting from the budget negotiations came and went Saturday night as Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, moved unsuccessfully to unseat Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines.

In a closed-door Republican caucus before the marathon floor session, DeVore made a motion to remove Villines as GOP leader (known as "vacating the chair" in Capitol-speak). None of the other 28 Republican Assembly members seconded the motion.

"The discussion was a credit to the caucus. Nobody raised their voice, everything was logical, people made their case and I lost," said DeVore, who is plotting a 2010 run for U.S. Senate.

DeVore's motion was not seconded despite the fact that 25 of his colleagues have endorsed him in his bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer, including Villines himself.

The leadership challenge came a day after a supposedly private e-mail from DeVore to Villines was publicized on the John and Ken radio show in Los Angeles.

In the e-mail, DeVore wrote that "for the caucus, for the party and for the upcoming elections, if this is the final (budget) deal and you believe it to be good...then I think you need to resign or be replaced the day of the vote," according to the radio show.

DeVore confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, though he denied that he leaked it to the conservative radio shock jocks. Only a day earlier, John and Ken had blasted DeVore on air for not challenging Villines' leadership more directly.

How then would a private e-mail between the two become public?

DeVore said he had forwarded the e-mail to "some of my members, colleagues" -- at their request -- "because it contained kind of a logical rundown of why I thought what we were about to do was in error."

[SmithL]

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, reads his computer screen during floor debate on the state budget on Feb. 14 after his attempt to oust GOP leader Mike Villines failed.