U-Turn

Add On ... with the reversal.

Not particularly good.

... With little more than three weeks left in the legislative session, Kevin De Leon is demanding big changes to efforts to expand California’s $100 million Film and TV Tax Credit Program. If the influential state Senate Appropriations Committee chairman doesn’t get his eleventh-hour way, I’ve learned that he intends to kneecap the multi-sponsored Film and Television Job Creation and Retention Act before it reaches the Legislature’s floor for a vote this month. “Following a long meeting this weekend, and numerous conversations over the past year, Senator De Leon has decided he will not support the extension of the current lottery allocation system,” said a curt email that went out earlier today from De Leon’s Chief of Staff to politicians and industry leaders. ...

Apparently Senator De Leon thinks that a blue-ribbon board granting green lights to chosen productions is the way to go.

No problem with that, except for the risk of bribery, malfeasance and general incompetence that a standing committee of movie deciders would entail. And why this issue is being raised when the bill is midway through the legislative process, is known to the Senator, but not to others. (Others are probably going, "What the Faaa ...?!")

Add On: Twenty-four hours later, a change of heart:

Looks like one of the biggest stakeholders in the expansion of California’s $100 million Film and TV Tax Credit Program have forgiven Kevin De Leon for temporarily turning against the issue. Soon after the influential state Senator did an about face from yesterday’s lack of support for the widely supported and multi-sponsored Film and Television Job Creation and Retention Act and today said he was “100% committed” to seeing the legislation passed, the California Film and Television Production Alliance came out with a statement of their own saying they are “pleased that Senator De Leon has clearly expressed his strong and unequivocal commitment to passing an expanded and extended California Film and Television production incentive this year.