The Assembly car count
February 19, 2009 at 2:14 pm by Irene Jay Liu
February 19, 2009 at 2:14 pm by Irene Jay Liu
The Tedisco campaign took issue with our story earlier this week revealing that the Assembly minority has more state-owned vehicles assigned to members and staff than the Assembly majority does - saying that it didn’t give the complete picture and suggesting that we look into the issue of Assembly pool cars.
So we did, and this is what we found:
The Assembly majority has six pool cars, according to Assembly majority spokeswoman Sisa Mayo.
2004 Ford Taurus
2001 Chevy impala
2003 Buick Park Avenue
2001 Ford Taurus
2005 Chevy Impala
1999 Chevy Lumina
These cars reside in the garage under the Capitol and “are not assigned to anybody, but they are used for official business,” she said.
Mayo said that if a conference staffer or member wants to use a pool car, he or she may request time to travel.
In the past, minority members and staff have requested and been granted use of the majority cars, she added.
The minority has 2 pool cars — a 2002 Chevy Impala and a 2003 Chevy Tahoe, according to Mayo.
So if you total up all the cars — assigned and pool cars — the minority still has more cars that the majority.
Majority (109 members): 3 member-assigned cars + 1 staffer-assigned car + 6 pool cars = 10 cars
Minority (41 members): 10 member-assigned cars + 2 staffer-assigned cars + 2 pool cars = 14 cars
The Assembly Minority office (which, interestingly, forwarded my request to Tedisco’s Congressional campaign) has not yet responded after two days of request for comment.
Read on..
