Speaker Rendon made California Assembly more democratic

Anthony Rendon stepped apart as Meeting speaker on Friday after greater than six years on the job.

Simply two folks have held the place longer within the trendy full-time Legislature — Jesse “Massive Daddy” Unruh, who dominated the Meeting for greater than seven years within the Sixties, and Willie Brown, who earned the nickname “Ayatollah of the Meeting” for his almost 15 years on the helm.

However not like these two larger-than-life figures with nicknames to again it up, Rendon leaves behind a legacy that isn’t centered on a singular cult of persona. As an alternative, he’s achieved one thing you hardly ever see from politicians: He relinquished his personal authority and put it into the fingers of his colleagues.

For individuals who know Rendon, this management fashion isn’t too stunning. Not like many politicians, he has a basic disdain for glad-handing lobbyists and donors at night receptions, as an alternative opting to spend his restricted free time along with his spouse and younger daughter, studying or watching an obscure European soccer match.

However these traits don’t imply he isn’t as efficient of a pacesetter. The truth is, it has made him — and the Meeting as a complete — even stronger.

By not in search of the highlight for himself, he’s created a extra democratic system of governing throughout the Meeting by empowering committee chairs to personal their domains quite than rule top-down. That’s allowed extra legislators — every with their very own life experiences and views from the districts they characterize — to steer within the lawmaking course of and form insurance policies to learn the folks of California.