Henry T. Perea was having a change of heart.
For years, the Democratic assemblyman had griped about the Central Valley getting shortchanged by Sacramento and overshadowed by Los Angeles, San Francisco and other big-city magnets for state dollars.
Now he was in a poor Fresno neighborhood, not far from where he grew up, standing in front of a constituent's home with newly installed rooftop solar panels — paid for by a program he had publicly assailed.
Perea had defied party leadership in a bid to stall a pivotal component of the cap-and-trade program, which assesses fees on California polluters in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.