Dan Richards of Upland was appointed to the Fish and Game Commission in 2008 (Courtesy photo)
Catch up: Richards supporters pack Fish and Game meeting | Lt. Gov. Newsom asks for Fish and Game Commission chief's resignation | Embattled California wildlife official who shot mountain lion refuses to resign | Richards under fire for hunting | Ethics complaint filed against Richards | Upland resident's killing of mountain lion causing stir | Critics of move to oust Fish and Game Commissioner did same five years ago
State lawmakers could remove Upland resident Dan Richards from the California Fish and Game Commission for shooting a mountain lion in a case that has drawn national attention.
More than 60 people turned out this week at the commission's meeting to speak in support of Richards, but hours after the largely pro-hunting crowd left, in a little-noticed move, Richards' fellow commissioners sprung a parliamentary trap.
By a 4-1 tally, they voted to change the way the commission - which sets rules for hunting, fishing and endangered species in California - chooses its president.
The vote placed an item on the commission's May 23 agenda that would repeal the current rules and allow the panel to remove Richards as president when it meets in Monterey
that day.If the rule change is successful, Richards would stay on the commission. But his influence as president - a role that allows him to set the agenda, speak for the commission and run its meetings - would be taken away.
Animal-welfare groups cheered the move.
"It goes to show that Dan has lost the confidence of all of his colleagues on the commission, as president," said Jennifer Fearing, state director of the Humane Society of the United States.
Hunting groups said they oppose any change.
"We'd like him to serve his full term as president as has every other president who has preceded him," said Tom Pedersen, a lobbyist with the California Rifle and Pistol Association. "I don't think now is the time to make drastic changes unless there is some legitimate reason to do so."
Richards ran into a flurry of controversy last month after he shot a cougar at an Idaho ranch on a hunting trip. He then sent a photo of himself holding the dead animal, while grinning broadly, to Western Outdoor News, a prominent hunting newspaper.
Mountain lion hunting is legal in Idaho. But it has been illegal in California for 40 years, since Gov. Ronald Reagan banned it in 1972 for five-year increments, and voters made the ban permanent in 1990 by passing Proposition 117.
Supporters say Richards did nothing wrong. But critics, led by the Humane Society, Sierra Club, 40 Democratic members of the state Assembly and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, called on Richards to resign, arguing that he had ignored the will of a majority of Californians, whom he was representing on the Fish and Game Commission.
Richards, a San Bernardino County Republican, lifetime National Rifle Association member and real estate agent, has said he will not resign. And he can be removed only by a majority vote in both houses of the Legislature.
Appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008, Richards is scheduled to leave the commission in January when his term runs out. He could be reappointed by Gov. Jerry Brown but is more likely to be replaced by someone who sides with environmentalists.
He became president of the commission in an unusual vote last month. One commissioner, Richard Rogers, was absent with an Achilles tendon injury. He was approved by a 2-0 vote, with two other commissioners abstaining.
After that meeting - before the lion controversy erupted - several of the commissioners complained that state law allowing the most senior member in his term to automatically become president needed to be changed.
"I think the commission, at least four of us, felt it is very important whoever becomes president of the commission, that they be properly elected by a majority of the standing members," Rogers said Thursday. "We believe that's the proper way to do it."
During the vote Wednesday, even Commissioner Jim Kellogg, who usually sides with Richards in supporting hunters' issues, voted to change the rules.
If the rules are repealed, the commission can choose a new president with a simple majority. Only Richards voted no, without comment.
It now appears Richards may not be ousted from the commission. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said Thursday that while he hasn't "closed all doors completely," he has no plans to bring up a vote.
"Sometimes you don't want to do anything that gives this guy any more attention," Steinberg told reporters in his office. "The guy has several months left on his term. ... But the people expect our focus to be on the central issues: the budget, pensions, revenues, education, all the things that already occupy us."
Steinberg called Richards "a jackass" last week on the same day that Richards said he was being hounded by "eco-terrorists," claiming he had eaten parts of a lion during the hunting trip. But on Thursday, Steinberg brushed off the pressure he's feeling from environmentalists and animal-rights groups to remove Richards.
"I always feel the heat, every day -- even when it's cold, I feel the heat from every corner," he joked.
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