Note: The video above was recorded yesterday afternoon, before the news broke of the California Supreme Court refusing to take up the emergency writ filed by GOP legislators concerned about Constitutional violations by Democrats in the legislature.
A reminder that morning posts (like this one) are always available to all subscribers. You can get a reminder of the posting schedule (and what is behind the paid firewall here). I’m still getting a handle on this, so at the normal 5am time I sent to paid subscribers only (by mistake). So here it is again, apologies to paid folk getting it again. I will master this!
You literally cannot make this stuff up. Everyone knows exactly what is going on going in the State Capitol this week.
Let me sum it up for you in a sentence. Democrats are checking boxes to, by the end of the week, vote to put an extremely gerrymandered set of U.S. House lines in front of voters in snap low-turnout special election in November, accompanied by a false and misleading ballot title, summary and question. That’s it.
But it’s like watching the Keystone Cops as these Democrats collectively can’t see to get their heads out of their… posteriors. In my video commentary above, really more a “rant” — I highlight one of the low-points — when Assembly Elections Committee Vice Chair Alexandra Macedo appropriately goes aggressive on majority Democrats who literally do not want to say who wrote the maps in consideration by the legislature. The way they all evaded the question, with answers like “The Assembly” wrote the maps, or “The Leadership” wrote the maps, or “The Elections Committee” wrote the maps.
Watching this is definitely worth two more minutes of your time.
To be abundantly clear, we all know that Paul Mitchell of Redistricting Partners wrote these maps. Paul is really good at it, and in fact in the latest Capitol Weekly Podcast, they have Paul on their program who talks in great detail about doing it. (I linked this Podcast in my ICYMI column last Sunday.) If that wasn’t enough proof, just go to the infamous leaked document which was the entire set of maps being sent to the State Legislature from the Democratic National Campaign Committee (DCCC) - the official campaign arm of House Republicans. All of the maps are branded as being from Redistricting Partners.
The real question, as I asked in my video, is why this collective group of extremely lame Democrats in that Committee room couldn’t actually say the following words, “These maps were written by an outside redistricting consultant for the DCCC, and were then sent to us — we like them and are advancing them.”
You literally got the sense that being able to say that was above the pay grade of every Democrat in that room. That Assemblywoman sitting and being a Luddite in the hearing (wearing white) is Assembly Majority Leader Cecelia Aguiar-Curry, who clearly is leading nothing. Nothing quite says “I don’t have agency” than refusing to answer a direct question, and then later muttering, “I didn’t draw the maps.”
Look, will all of this theater in the process ultimately matter? Maybe some of this ends up in legal pleadings? Maybe somehow some of this idiocy ends up in voter contact materials. But it is a stark reminder that the people in charge of the State Capitol may include the Senate President and Assembly Speaker (the ones getting their own new House seats in this plan, the subject of a different rant), but it’s mostly the special interests outside of the building that choreograph what happens under the Capitol Dome.
I did want to share with you this great short-form video from Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, who shows, along with Macedo, that there are people with brains in the Capitol. (I can’t embed a video player for YT shorts, you can see it here.)
I will close by saying that Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo really shined in this moment. She’s a freshman member who is definitely one to watch! (Hint: you may see her appear in my Winners & Loser of the Week In California Politics column this Friday!)
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