California Senate idles 3 members

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California Senate voted Friday to suspend three lawmakers who face charges in separate criminal cases after the latest one to be hauled into court refused to step down.

Friday’s 28-1 vote in the 40-member chamber came after one of the most severe ethical crises in modern times for the Legislature in the nation’s most populous state.

The Senate leadership said that before Friday, the chamber had never suspended a lawmaker in the institution’s 164-year history, but it has taken the more serious step of expelling lawmakers, thelast time in 1905. The Assembly speaker’s office said that chamber has never suspended or expelled a lawmaker.

The resolution prevents Democratic Sens. Ron Calderon, Leland Yee and Rod Wright from exercising any power of their office until the pending criminal cases against them have been resolved. Even so, they will continue receiving their $95,291 annual salaries.

Yee, who had championed gun-control legislation and bills targeting violent video games sold to minors, is the latest of the three senators to be charged. The San Francisco Democrat was charged ina federal criminal complaint this week with accepting bribes and coordinating an international gun-running operation.

The suspensions drop Senate Democrats below the two-thirds majority they won in the last election, a supermajority that allowed them to act in all matters without needing support from Republicans.

Wright was convicted of voter fraud and perjury and faces sentencing in May. Calderon faces federal charges for purportedly accepting $100,000 in bribes for friends and family in exchange for pushing certain bills.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 03/29/2014

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