McClintock Can’t Unseat GOP Leader

After a quiet, weeks-long organizing effort, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) has acknowledged that he doesn’t have enough votes to unseat Assembly GOP Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra.

McClintock said Thursday that only 14 of the Assembly’s 33 GOP members were prepared to vote against Johnson, three short of the necessary number. Two weeks ago McClintock said he had 16 anti-Johnson votes.

“No one, in Machiavelli’s words, wants to raise his cane against the prince and not kill him,” McClintock said.

A Johnson spokesman said he was “never that concerned” about the McClintock challenge.

“We argued all along that it was not a serious challenge, that he didn’t have the votes,” said Otis Turner, a spokesman for Johnson. “Events proved us right.”

But McClintock said he will continue his efforts to dump Johnson. In December Johnson pressured McClintock to quit as the Republican whip, the party’s No. 4 leadership position.

McClintock has sharply criticized Johnson for not developing Republican alternatives to Democrat-initiated programs in the Legislature and for sinking too many GOP resources into primary elections at the expense of general elections.

McClintock blamed Johnson for the defeat earlier this month of Republican Dick Lang in a special election for a Modesto-area Assembly seat the GOP had hoped to capture. Johnson and other Republican leaders had backed Lang, who lost despite a large early lead over his Democratic opponent.