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SACRAMENTO — With no votes to spare, the California Legislature Thursday night narrowly mustered the support it needed to pass a $52 billion transportation package with a two-thirds vote.

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With Syria and tax increase, California gas prices are heading up The second and final vote on the Assembly floor was exceedingly suspenseful. Three Democrats — Assemblymen Jim Cooper,of Elk Grove; Tim Grayson of Concord and Al Muratsuchi of Torrance — waited about 10 minutes before casting their votes in favor of the plan. A tense and quietly chaotic scene ensued, with lawmakers encircling their undecided colleagues or pacing nervously, watching the vote tally.

Adding to the suspense: Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Democrat from Orange County, was taken to the emergency room earlier Thursday after experiencing nausea and other symptoms. She returned in time to vote yes.

Senate Bill 1, which would fix California’s pothole-ridden roads and unstable bridges by hiking gas taxes and vehicle license fees, squeaked by in the Senate 27-11. It then headed to the Assembly, where it passed narrowly, 54-26. Earlier Thursday, the Legislature’s Democratic leaders began showering reluctant legislators with transportation projects for their districts.

In a news conference after the bill’s passage, a group of Democratic lawmakers, looking tired and relieved, emerged from the governor’s office for a celebratory news conference.

Gov. Jerry Brown — who threw his full political force behind the package — began by saying he was glad to be a Democrat.

“The Democratic Party is the party of doing things,” he said. “And tonight we did something to fix the roads in California.”

Brown has Sen. Anthony Cannella to thank for passage of the package. The governor said he was “very proud” of the senator. The Republican from Ceres in the Central Valley, who terms out next year, had said previously that he would support the package if the state supported the extension of the Altamont Corridor Express to Ceres and Merced and a parkway project between the UC Merced campus and Highway 99.

And that is exactly what he will get under amendments to a separate bill, SB 132, which amends the Budget Act of 2016 to include $500 million for the projects.

In an interview after the Senate vote, Cannella said he was at the governor’s mansion on the eve of the vote, having “my arm being twisted.” By the time he left after 10 p.m., Cannella said, he and Brown had a deal.

​”​I started this two and a half years ago​,” he said. “I made the things that were important to me very clear: Number one was ACE train from where it currently terminates to Merced … ​ and when they gave me the things I asked for, I have to vote for it.”

The largesse was also aimed at persuading Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, to vote for SB 1. He also had been on the fence.

Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes, of Yucca Valley, said pointedly on the floor that it appeared some of his colleagues had been “bought off” for their districts. “More than a dozen of you didn’t want to go up on this bill a week ago,” he said.

Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, the only Senate Democrat to vote against the bill, issued a statement saying the measure did not have the support of his district “for good reasons.”

“Even after a multimillion dollar lobbying effort supporting the $52 billion bill, sentiment in my district ran 2-to-1 opposing these new gas taxes and car registration fees,” he said. “My constituents have told me loud and clear that they want any new taxes to be spent more wisely and effectively. For instance, it doesn’t make sense to spend billions of dollars on an unpopular high-speed rail system that backers claim might be completed by 2029 when it could go for transportation improvements today.”

A second Democrat — Assemblyman Rudy Salas, of Bakersfield, also voted against his party, but other rumored holdouts ultimately backed the plan.

For the last several days, Brown and the Democratic champions of SB 1 had tried to secure the votes — after a week of back-to-back rallies and deal making.

On Thursday, lawmakers also amended a budget trailer bill to give $427 million in transportation funding to Riverside County, home of two other swing voters: Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, and Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes, D-Corona.

Brown said SB 1 was critical for public safety and the economy and that it would create tens of thousands of jobs. It was also seen as the first test of whether the Legislature could leverage its new Democratic supermajority to accomplish an ambitious agenda.

The Senate stalled for hours Thursday afternoon, waiting for holdouts in the Assembly to get behind the bill, before reconvening at 5:30 p.m. for a debate and vote.

The deal will hike gas taxes 12 cents per gallon and diesel taxes 20 cents per gallon, starting Nov. 1. It will create a new vehicle license fees starting Jan. 1. The nearly half of California drivers whose cars are worth under $5,000 would pay a $25 fee each year, while those with vehicles valued between $5,000 and $25,000 — about 40 percent of drivers in the state — would pay $50. Drivers of the highest-end luxury cars would pay as much as $175 more.

The state also would charge $100 per year, starting in 2020, for electric vehicles.

The bulk of the money would go to road repairs, though it also includes more funding for public transit.

“This bill will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs for poor people who need work and it will stimulate the economy,” said Sen. Jim Beall, D-Campbell, SB 1’s author. “For me, this is a wise plan that’s a modest plan.”

Hours after making a final appeal at a Capitol rally Wednesday, alongside a powerful coalition of business, labor and local governments, Brown assured the Assembly Democratic Caucus on Twitter that he “heard” their concerns. He acknowledged an outcry from advocates of “environmental justice” for low-income and working-class communities over a concession to the trucking industry that was slipped into the bill last week. He promised to work on climate programs to “help communities impacted most by dirty air.”

The trucking provision could make it harder for air-quality regulators to force commercial trucking companies to replace, retrofit or retire their vehicles before they reach a certain age or miles on the road. The Air Pollution Control Officers Association, which represents employees in all of the state’s air quality management districts, on Tuesday urged lawmakers to drop that provision.

“It’s going to create a right to drive dirty trucks,” said Adrian Martinez, an attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit.

Beall downplayed the air-pollution concerns at a hearing on Monday. He said the provision would “do no harm” and that its intent was merely to provide a measure of predictability to an industry that would be heavily taxed under the law’s increase in diesel taxes.

But as Beall knows well after years of working on this issue, tax increases are a tough sell for the average Californian — and their legislative representatives. Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in a September 2015 UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll said they opposed higher vehicle license fees, while 63 percent opposed a gas tax hike.

But ignoring the problem could also come with a political cost. When infrastructure falls apart, it signals dysfunction in state government, said Barbara O’Connor, a communications professor emeritus at Sacramento State University who directed its Institute for the Study of Politics and Media.

“When you can’t get down Highway 1 this summer because the bridge is still out or you can’t get into Yosemite, Californians start to say ‘Wait a minute, what is all this money we’re spending?'” O’Connor said.

Brown last week told a crowd that the bill wasn’t perfect, but he called it a responsible, common-sense measure that charges those who use the roads: “The only choice is: Do we borrow from the next generation, or do we really belly up to the bar and say, ‘Here’s what it costs, and we’re going to pay it.’”