SACRAMENTO – Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, D-Shafter, today disputed the Governor’s notion that legislation in support of agriculture is a waste of the Legislature’s time, pointing out that increased revenue for California industry translates to much-needed revenue for California.

Florez issued this statement on the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attacks on agriculture:

“While the Governor’s attempt to score political points by deriding the legislature for working on legislation to regulate blueberries, pomegranate juice and honey during the budget impasse may make great political theater, it’s certainly a blunt blow to the agriculture community that is sponsoring these proposals.

From afar, I think it is ironic that the Governor is making fun of the agriculture industry. But I think it is a sad commentary that he’s characterized what farmers are asking the legislature for as silly.

Out of all the bills that the Governor could have chosen to deride the legislative process, he’s chosen to pick ones associated with agriculture. This certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed. The commission being proposed for blueberries, for example, is similar to ones he’s supported in the past, so his ridicule of the work needed to bring it into existence is the height of insincerity.

For as much as he’s given public support to ‘Buy California’ and pep speeches about the integrity of California agriculture, on the core issue of water for example, Governor Schwarzenegger has utterly failed to bring any solution to this problem. Six long years of failure on his part to solve agriculture’s water needs now come into sharp perspective with his recent lambasting of bills to help the agriculture industry.

As a self-proclaimed reformer when he entered the halls of the Capitol, the Governor has quickly adopted the same political gamesmanship that he once scorned as an ‘outsider.’ His love for Sacramento-political-games has quickly turned a once action hero into a blunt politician.

Using agriculture-sponsored bills as a stick to whack the legislature around is just one of many more stunts to come as the Governor works towards his ultimate goal of a complete government shut down. The fact that he chose to issue IOUs over making budget adjustments one week ago, tells me that he’s betting that there is a political pay-off to his decision to increase the size of the state’s budget gap by paying the state’s bill with costly IOUs. Unfortunately for him, his IOU strategy has backfired thus far – it’s only made him the laughingstock of the financial markets.

So in the meantime, the Governor has resorted to an old strategy of trying to demean the legislature and now he’s aimed his barbs at the agriculture industry, too. I think, in the long run, his insults will hurt California’s agriculture industry in a very publicly significant way. It’s a sad testament when you have the Governor of the State of California saying that what agriculture is requesting is unimportant.”