Posted on 01/13/2007 8:59:44 AM PST by calcowgirl
SACRAMENTO - Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez on Friday barred lawmakers from handing out badges bearing the chamber's seal after one legislator awarded policelike "Assembly commissioner" badges to friends, relatives and campaign contributors.
Nuñez, D-Los Angeles, said badges with the seal should be carried only by lawmakers themselves "for security and identification purposes. Period. This change in policy will prevent any possible misuse in the future."
He acted after the Assembly Rules Committee chairman reported that Entenmann-Rovin, the Los Angeles company that makes the badges, had been selling ones carrying the seal without approval of the Assembly's sergeant at arms.
The chairman, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate, said the chief sergeant at arms, Ron Pane, had contacted the company and told it to stop selling badges carrying the seal without permission from his office.
De La Torre said the company had the mistaken impression that lawmakers were authorized to buy more than one badge containing the seal.
Nuñez asked De La Torre to look into who was carrying Assembly badges after a newspaper reported that aides to Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton, had ordered at least 30 badges containing a likeness of the seal and bearing the words "California State Assembly Commissioner" on them. The report said many of the recipients were Dymally campaign contributors.
There is no such post as "Assembly commissioner," and misuse of the Assembly seal is a misdemeanor.
Under Nuñez's order, lawmakers can continue to buy Assembly badges for their own use but will have to order them through the sergeant at arms' office, said Steve Maviglio, a Nuñez spokesman.
The speaker also ordered an annual audit of badge orders to prevent future misuse.
The Assembly seal features a bear, poppies and a coat of arms that includes images of a gavel, a palm tree, mountains and a pillar. It also contains the words California State Assembly and a Latin phrase saying that it is the duty of legislators to make just laws.
Dymally's practice of handing out the "commissioner" badges came to light last month after the Redondo Beach city attorney charged one of the recipients, Pirikana Johnson, 27, with impersonating a state official.
According to the published report, Johnson flashed the badge in March when he was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence. The newspaper said Dymally went to the police station to pick up Johnson, whom he described as an acquaintance and community college student leader.
Dymally, who is black, contended last month that De La Torre's investigation was racially motivated. He called De La Torre "the most racist legislator" he'd met in 40 years.
He later said he regretted his comments.
Dymally's spokeswoman, Jasmyne Cannick, said Friday that the assemblyman would not have a comment about Nuñez's order.
De La Torre said his investigation went back eight years and found "just a small handful" of lawmakers who had ordered extra badges carrying the seal.
Badges ? We don't need no stinkin badges !
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