Termed-out Assembly Member Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, an early supporter of Barack Obama, is interested in landing a job in his administration, she recently told The Bee.

Today, I ran that idea by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, who dropped by the Capitol bureau for an hour-long chat with McClatchy reporters.

Her response? She just laughed, and then said, "no comment."

Let's just say that the reference letter from California Democrats won't be coming any time soon.

(Watch the exchange, plus other interview hightlights, at CapitalAlert.)

Parra angered her party earlier this year by refusing to vote on a Democratic budget proposal because it was not accompanied by money for dams in the Central Valley, a long-time wish of farmers. The move angered Bass, who tossed Parra out of her Capitol office into smaller digs across the street.

Then Parra crossed party lines to endorse Republican Danny Gilmore to fill her seat. They are still counting votes, but it looks like Gilmore will win.

The night before the election, Parra said she was out stumping for Obama in the swing state of Nevada. She has also said she was one of the first California Democrats to endorse him, back when a lot of Golden State Democrats were behind Hillary Clinton.

But Bass's relationship with Obama goes back years, she said.

"I met the senator when he was running for Senate," she said. "What we have in common is we're both community organizers. I will say no more."

Bass conceded that Parra's support of Gilmore might have helped him. But "I don't think that it was decisive," she said. "Nicole has huge negatives as well."

She does not regret booting Parra from her office.

"I was fully aware that she was trying to martyr herself. I knew that and I resisted it up until the end," she said. But "at a certain point in time, making a decision like that that, though, is really about unifying the overall caucus."

Translation: Party leaders must keep renegade members in line.

Parra has also said she might become a lobbyist. If so, Bass suggested she would have problems bending the ear of California Democrats, who are still upset at her endorsement of Gilmore.

"She might have been thinking about the fact that in a few years we'll all be gone and no one will remember what happened," Bass said. "It is true that all of us in office will be gone. But do you know there are hundreds of staffers that are going to have really long memories."