Senator Leland Yee's "Surprise" Vote on Health Care Isn't Much a Surprise for Yee Watchers

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

"The problem with the 58-year-old Yee is his troubling tendency to do the wrong thing, for the wrong reasons, when he thinks no one is paying attention," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle last year when it endorsed Yee's opponent for the State Senate in 2006.

And now it appears Yee has once again done the wrong thing for the reasons.

But this time, everybody noticed. Including State Senate President pro Tem Don Perata.

Yee surprisingly announced his opposition to the Democratic health care bill co-authored by  Don Perata on Tuesday in a press conference sponsored by the California Nurses Association, one of his major campaign contributors. That was enough get Perata to tweek Yee in his opening statement to the Senate Health Committee for making his decision before the hearing and before reviewing the Legislative Analyst's opinion of the bill. As Capitol Weekly's "Roundup" put it on Tuesday: "... Leland Yee might want to make sure those keys to his office are still working this morning... ," a reference to Perata's changing the locks on the doors of other moderate State Senators who crossed the Democratic Caucus position on a key issue last year.

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