Karen Bass was sworn in on Tuesday as the first African American to become California's Assembly speaker in the state's 159-year history.
Bass, a Democrat from Los Angeles, promised urgent action to work with Arnold Schwarzenegger and other legislators to solve California's budget crisis, vowing to fight the state's budget crisis.
Bass, 54, was chosen by her peers in February to replace outgoing Speaker Fabian Nuez in leading the 80-member Assembly.
"California is a giant in crisis, and now it is up to us to solve that crisis," Bass told her Assembly colleagues. "It is up to us to take the fear out of California's future."
Bass announced that she had asked former governors Pete Wilson and Gray Davis to help set up a bipartisan commission to study overhauling the state's tax structure. The panel will be asked to come up with recommendations "to identify more consistent sources of revenue," Bass said.
Bass takes over official duties at a crucial time: On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger will release a plan to address a budget shortfall that he says could be as much as 20 billion dollars. His negotiations with Bass and other legislative leaders on spending cuts and tax increases will then begin in earnest.
Bass has said that she wants a balanced approach to the budget that protects vital services.
She is the second woman to lead the Assembly, after Republican Doris Allen, who held the post for three months in 1995.
Unlike most of her colleagues, Bass held no elected office before joining the Assembly. She won her seat in 2004, representing a district that includes West Los Angeles, Culver City and Baldwin Hills.
Bass, a physician's assistant raised in the Los Angeles area, left the medical field in the early 1990s to try to find solutions for drug addiction, gun violence and other social ills she witnessed in treating emergency room patients.
Source:Xinhua
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