California lawmakers, bidding a fond adieu to automobile perks axed in April last year by the state’s Citizens Compensation Commission, awarded themselves a few parting gifts, according to a report by Don Thompson at the Associated Press.

Numerous legislators rushed to have repairs, paid for by the state, done to state-provided vehicles before giving them up by the first of the year, and then bought the refurbished vehicles back from dealers who had purchased them from the state.  

The AP report doesn’t allege the lawmakers got bargain prices on the cars, but 37 of the 64 legislators who gave up their vehicles bought them back. Sixteen of 18 senators and 21 of 46 Assembly members knew a good deal when they saw it.

Repairs to vehicles in the nine months before cars had to be surrendered totaled $78,000.   

The seven-member commission, created by voters in 1990 to set compensation for elected officials, took away the lawmakers’ state leased cars, in addition to insurance, repairs, gas and oil, and gave them a $300-a-month automobile allowance instead. The perk had been around since the 1950s.

Among those who bought back their cars was Republican state Senator Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga who had $5,984 worth of work done to his leased 2005 Chevy Tahoe before it was sold to a dealer in December 2011. Dutton bought the car back in his own name a year later for $12,681, just before he made an unsuccessful bid for Congress.

He paid for it with leftover campaign funds, a move being examined by the Fair Political Practices Commission. 

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Lawmakers Bought Cars Fixed at California Taxpayers’ Expense (by Don Thompson, Associated Press)

California Citizens Compensation Commission Salary and Benefit Resolution April 14, 2011 (pdf)

Calif Watchdog Opens Inquiry on Lawmaker's Vehicle (by Don Thompson, Associated Press)