Source: Steinberg to be next Senate leader

  Sacramento-area legislator Darrell Steinberg has been selected to replace Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, as the next president of the state Senate, according to Douglas Johnson, a fellow with the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College.

Johnson said senate legislators are meeting in caucus right now about a replacement for Perata, who will be termed out in December after the failure of Prop. 93 on Tuesday. The lawmakers will likely make the announcement that Steinberg has beaten out chief rival Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, when they get out of caucus this afternoon.

Johnson pointed out that the Democratic majority has "almost always" assigned leadership of one legislative chamber to a Northern Californian and the other to a Southland lawmaker. If that pattern holds, Steinberg's selection should improve local legislators' chances at succeeding Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez when he leaves office in December. Among the top candidates for the job, according to area political experts who spoke to the Sacramento Bee and the Tribune, are assemblymen Charles Calderon, D-Industry, and Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena. Also on the short list for the speakership are Karen Bass and Kevin De Leon of Los Angeles and Hector De La Torre of South Gate.

Steinberg's selection would seem to hurt the chances of another top candidate, Bay Area Democrat Fiona Ma. 

Bass and De La Torre have lots of money (a major requisite for a speaker run), but are each termed out in 2010. Democrats are said to be eying first-term legislators in order to guarantee long-term continuity in the speaker's chair, which gives De Leon (a childhood friend of Nunez), Calderon and Portantino an advantage. Calderon and Portantino are also prolific fund-raisers, each collecting collecting more than $480,000 and $535,000 respectively in 2007. De Leon has about $530,000.