Cruz Bustamante, Lt. Governor of California

California State Senator Dave Cox, whose first and second appearances on California Politics Today were to discuss audits of former California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's use of HAVA electoral reform money, has now proposed a state constitutional amendment that would remove "absence from the state" as a legally-valid reason for transferring gubernatorial authority from an incumbent governor to the state's lieutenant governor.

You can read the text of Senator Cox's proposed state constitutional amendment, which is called SCA6, by clicking here.

The argument is made in this legislation that it is no longer necessary to devolve gubernatorial authority to the lieutenant governor when the governor is out of the state because "modern conditions of travel, communication, and technology have eliminated the objections that the drafters of the early Constitution might have had to permitting the Governor to act from outside the state."

California Politics Today spoke today with Stephen Green, press secretary for incumbent California Attorney General Cruz Bustamante, about this proposed constitutional amendment.

Lt. Gov. Bustamante now serves as Acting Governor of California whenever Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is absent from the state. This would no longer be the case if Senator Cox's SCA6 were to receive a two-thirds vote of approval in both the California Assembly and the California State Senate and then be approved by a majority vote of California voters in a statewide election.

Mr. Green speaks out against SCA6 in a recent article in the Sacramento Union entitled Cox Offers Amendment to Preserve Governor’s Power."

During his interview with California Politics Today Mr. Green again made the point that California needs to have an on-site Acting Governor when the Governor, for example, goes out-of-state to attend the "Cannes Film Festival."

You can listen to an exchange between the California Politics Today reporter and Lt. Gov. Bustamante's spokesperson Stephen Green about the existence of a "fail-safe" communications system at an undisclosed location within the state which apparently cannot be accessed from outside the state and therefore stands as a principal reason why whoever is in charge of California's emergency responses must be physically present within the state by clicking here.

You can listen to this exclusive California Politics Today interview with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's spokesperson by clicking here.