Area Lawmakers Split Over Bailout

By John Canalis; Paul Eakins

LONG BEACH – Congressional representatives from the Long Beach area split their three votes Monday in the shocking defeat of the financial bailout plan.

The tally did not fall along party lines.

Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, and Linda Sanchez, D- Lakewood, voted with the 228-205 majority to oppose the proposal.

Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach, voted in favor of the package.

Rohrabacher, whose district includes a sliver of coastal Long Beach, the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina, said the bill had not undergone due diligence.

“The most important factor in my opposition to this piece of legislation was that it was brought up in such a manner that it was not permitted the type of scrutiny that is necessary for spending such large sums of money,” he said.

Without reforms in the bill to address the root causes of the financial industry’s turmoil, nor adequate time to consider the bailout plan and other alternatives, Rohrabacher said he couldn’t support the proposal.

However, he said he would be open to alternate plans, so long as Congress isn’t rushed into making a decision.

As for some economists’ and White House claims that the economy would tank if the bailout failed, Rohrabacher said that may have been exaggerated, but he couldn’t be certain.

“Whether or not we’re going to drop immediately into a Great Depression … that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” Rohrabacher said.

Sanchez said that the bill did not contain proper oversight or go far enough to reform executive pay for those she called “responsible for the mess.”

The representative for a district that includes Artesia, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, La Mirada, Lynwood, Paramount and South Gate also wanted greater bankruptcy reform.

“Families want to be sure that their hard-earned tax dollars aren’t spent without sufficient oversight and accountability,” Sanchez said. “The revised plan we voted on today was better than the three-page White House version we were given a week ago, but it still fell short of something my conscience would permit me to vote for.”

Richardson, however, supported the bill in hopes of shoring up the nation’s economic system.

The Long Beach Democrat, who has a business background and an MBA, attended eight House Caucus meetings, participated in a conference call with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and reached the conclusion that the bill would help stabilize the economy and “ensure protections that taxpayers deserve.”

“I understand my colleagues’ concerns and reluctance as reflected in the vote today,” she said in a statement. “However, I urge all of us to return to the bargaining table, provide fiscally sound legislation, establish reform policies to prevent reoccurrences, protect the taxpayers and implement programs to eliminate this crisis equally in neighborhoods on Main Street and in financial institutions on Wall Street.”

john.canalis@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1273

paul.eakins@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1278

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