As it stands many leaders in California who scam the people while in office can ream y'all one more time by taking healthy retirement benefits home when they hang up their fangs.

It sucks, we know. People like some former members of the Bell city council, accused of getting fat on the people's dime, could still get paid a healthy package, on you, for their golden years — theoretically, anyway.

Felipe Fuentes, a California assemblyman repping the East Valley, wants to change that:

He introduced a bill today, AB 1433, that would take away the public pension of any elected official convicted of a felony — ever.

Current law says only those electeds who took office after Jan. 1, 2006, can be stripped of such goodies. Fuentes' office states that ” … the majority of elected or appointed officials statewide took office before that time.”

Fuentes:

I believe that an elected official who is convicted of a felony – particularly one that involves their official duties – has abdicated their responsibility to the people they serve and should lose their right to a publicly funded pension Public service is an honor, and an official that breaks that trust shouldn't be rewarded with a pension of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The bill, according to his office, covers “any felony involving perjury, accepting or giving, or offering to give, any bribe, the embezzlement of public money, extortion or theft of public money, tampering with a witness, money laundering, the preparation of false documents, any felony arising directly out of his or her official duties, or conspiracy to commit any of these crimes arising directly out of his or her official duties, shall forfeit all rights and benefits under any public retirement system in which he or she is a member, effective on the date of conviction.”

And carjacking. (Joking).

Good work, Felipe. Sure beats writing letters about Ching Chong Ling Long.

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