FREMONT, CA — Blaming California’s budget crisis on Republican shenanigans, a ranking California assemblyman said Thursday he wants to add an additional tax to “the goods and products associated with the adult entertainment industry.”During his annual State of the Assembly District speech, Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico [D-Newark] said he plans within the next few weeks to introduce legislation that will add an excise tax to the consumption of pornography. Monies raised would be used to fund surveillance of sex crime and domestic violence parolees.
If passed, the bill would make California the 12th state to require monitoring of domestic violence offenders, according to Torrico spokesman Jeff Barbosa, who said specifics about the draft legislation are not yet available. Torrico also would like the monitoring provisions to expand measures voters approved in 2006 as part of Proposition 83, which requires sex-crime parolees to wear GPS monitoring devices for the rest of their lives. Under Torrico’s proposal, the lifetime monitoring would be applied to sex offenders who were convicted before Prop 83’s passage, as well as to domestic violence offenders.
This is not the first time Torrico has asked for a tax increase within the state. In the past he sought more revenue from taxes on oil companies and millionaires. Torrico indicated provisions to increase state funds from those sources also may be included in the draft legislation: He said he wants to increase taxes on the rich and reassess property valuations on commercial lots. He sees all three measures as necessary in order to staunch the flow of budgetary red ink from the state capitol.
“In a word, California is in a financial meltdown,” he said during the speech.
California is on a collision course with bankruptcy. The state’s debt is expected to exceed $40 billion within the next 18 months. As the budget stands now, state coffers dedicated to infrastructure projects will be empty by December 20th, and all of the state’s accounts will have zero balances by March.
Torrico blamed the financial crisis on Republicans in the state assembly, saying previous Democratic budget proposals have stalled because although Democrats talk tough about financial matters and have majorities in both state legislative chambers, they continually back down on tax-hike proposals in order to reach compromises about other issues.
“I think we don’t win because they delay, and shutting down the government is what Republicans want,” Torrico told The Argus, a Bay Area newspaper, after the speech.
He also said he favors keeping the state legislature in session during its traditional holiday break in order to address the financial crisis.
“My hope is that being locked in the chamber during Christmas will help both of us move past our partisan ways,” he said.
