Election denial in California

From: POLITICO California Playbook - Friday Jul 21,2023 01:08 pm
Presented by Connected Commerce Council: Lara Korte and Dustin Gardiner’s must-read briefing on politics and government in the Golden State
Jul 21, 2023 View in browser
 
POLITICO California Playbook

By Lara Korte and Dustin Gardiner

Presented by Connected Commerce Council

DRIVING THE DAY: California’s school boards certainly know how to bring the drama. Late Thursday night, Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, went before the Chino Valley Unified School District to testify against a measure that would require schools to inform parents about a student identifying as transgender.

Things, unsurprisingly, got ugly, and Thurmond was removed. More on that below.

STRIKE A POSE: Picket lines are proving to be a popular backdrop for campaign photos — at least for the Democrats vying for California’s soon-to-be-open Senate seat. Rep. Barbara Lee is expected to join striking actors Friday in Los Angeles. Both Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Katie Porter have already put in their appearances on picket lines — demonstrating yet another area where the three major contenders all seem to agree.

Voters fill out ballots on Election Day inside the Ruben F. Salazar Park recreation center, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Voters fill out ballots on Election Day inside the Ruben F. Salazar Park recreation center on Nov. 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. | (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

THE BUZZ — The legacy of election denial in 2020 is haunting California in one of the last bright red corners of the state.

The last time we had a presidential contest on the ballot, rampant misinformation and false claims about rigged voting systems led to an epidemic of distrust across the country that culminated in a conspiracy-driven siege on the U.S. Capitol.

California, despite its deep blue roots, was not immune.

Beneath the thick top layer of the state’s Democratic control is a passionate base of conservative voters that even the Republican Party sometimes has to rein in. Pandemic rage, Donald Trump’s loss in his reelection bid and conspiracies peddled by cable news pundits have encouraged suspicions about how the state conducts its elections.

It’s a troubling paradox for the state GOP, which for years has advocated for early and mail voting to counter some of the distrust within the party. Alienating voters could drive down turnout in a state where Republicans haven’t held a statewide office since 2006.

Headwinds could get even stronger depending on the Republican presidential nominee. If Trump earns the party nomination and continues to sow doubt in voting systems (as he did on Hannity earlier this week), it could hamper Republican outcomes in California — not ideal considering the several battleground House races shaping up here.

Election doubts have taken root in a very real way in Shasta County, 200 miles north of Sacramento, where a vote this year by far-right supervisors has election officials on edge about how to conduct upcoming vote counts.

The county, which for years used Dominion voting systems to tabulate the ballots of its more than 100,000 registered voters, is now going to rely on humans to hand-count the tens of thousands of pieces of paper. It’s a move that was encouraged by pro-Trump conspiracy mongers, including MyPillow exec Mike Lindell. It could make the count harder to verify and end up costing the small, rural county millions of dollars over several years.

"It's more prone to error, and it's also prone to fraud and interference," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. "The more people involved in handling ballots, the more risk there is that somebody is going to be able to mark a ballot."

To comply with California’s election rules, Shasta County will need 1,300 people to count votes in November 2024, according to a preliminary estimate from Cathy Darling Allen, the county clerk and registrar of voters and board chair of the voter foundation.

"It's a dramatically different operation, a dramatically different focus and a dramatically different amount of staff and time required,” she said. “Whether we can meet reporting deadlines hand-tabulating the presidential general elections — I have serious doubts about the feasibility of that."

This doesn’t happen anywhere else in California as of now. Secretary of State Shirley Weber is in the process of creating regulations around the uncommon process, which could include requiring an electronic voting system to verify the results of the hand count — something that Shasta is prepared to do, according to Allen.

The Legislature has also taken note. Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Democrat who spent more than 25 years as the chief elections official in Santa Cruz County, is carrying a bill to prohibit hand-counting paper ballots in any county with more than 1,000 registered voters.

Among the opponents are state Sen. Brian Dahle, who represents Shasta County.

At a hearing in June, Dahle said he doesn’t agree with everything that the Board of Supervisors has done, but “for me, it boils down to local control and the ability for locals to choose their destinies on what systems they choose.”

Dahle voted against the bill, as did his wife, Assemblymember Megan Dahle, who also represents the county.

Pellerin’s bill passed the Assembly and needs a vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee before heading to the floor. If it's adopted, it would spare Shasta from having to undergo a "convoluted and complex" voting process, as Allen, the registrar of voters, called it.

But it won’t necessarily stop election skepticism from taking root in other places around the state.

"I have been doing this job in the same way for 20 years. and the last three years, the narrative around elections being conducted in our county has changed dramatically,” Allen said. “It's not because of anything I've done, or anyone in my office has done."

 

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WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.

 

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FRESH INK

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) looks on during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol May 17, 2023. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images)

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) looks on during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol May 17, 2023. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images) | AP

COMIC BOOK CAUCUS — Rep. Robert Garcia has been to the Comic-Con in San Diego at least 20 times — as a high schooler, as Long Beach mayor and now as a member of Congress.

The first-term Democrat is attending the premier comics convention not just as a fan — which he unabashedly is — but also to conduct official business: The launch of a new Popular Arts caucus.

Garcia says 20 members from both parties are on board with the new group, which aims to highlight the industry which includes comics, sci-fi, fantasy fiction and video games.

“Think about where the most successful TV and movies come from — it's the popular arts:

Marvel, DC Movies, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Star Trek,” Garcia told POLITICO. “It drives the Hollywood economy, the California economy.”

Garcia proved his comics-obsessed bonafides from his first day in the House, when he took the oath of office holding – along with a photo of his parents and his certificate of U.S. citizenship — an original Superman #1 on loan from the Library of Congress.

He touted the caucus as “a gathering place of all of the nerds of Congress” — or, more succinctly, “the nerd squad.”

But beyond geeking out, there are real policy issues the group could tackle, including concerns around intellectual property and piracy.

To highlight those substantive issues, Garcia will host a panel discussion Sunday featuring a librarian at the Library of Congress, a comic writer-creator and the director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Looming over the weekend’s festivities are the simultaneous writers’ and actors’ strikes which have effectively shut down the entertainment industry. Many A-listers, barred from promoting films during the walkout, have canceled their appearances and major studios are skipping the event.

Garcia says he intends to participate in an action on Saturday to show support for the workers.

“I stand 100% with those who are striking,” Garcia said, adding “I would never and will never cross a picket line.”

—  Melanie Mason

THURMOND GETS THROWN — An attempt by the state’s superintendent of public instruction to intervene on behalf of trans kids didn’t go as planned Thursday night.

Tony Thurmond appeared before the Chino Valley Unified School District to testify against a parental notification policy that would require schools to disclose if a student identifies as transgender.

After he testified for one minute, board president Sonja Shaw cut off Thurmond’s mic and accused him of “proposing things that pervert children.” Thurmond tried to continue despite the time limit on public comment. Video footage circulating on Twitter showed multiple security guards approaching the state superintendent at the podium, and then escorting him out of the room while parents cheered.

Later on Twitter, Thurmond, who is considering a 2026 run for governor, said he didn’t mind being thrown out. “I can take the heat — it’s part of the job,” he tweeted. “What I can’t accept is the mistreatment of vulnerable students whose privacy is being taken away.”

The meeting comes on the heels of similarly tense fighting about LGBTQ issues at the Temecula school board, just an hour down the road from Chino. Attorney General Rob Bonta, prior to the meeting where Thurmond was escorted out, sent a letter to the board voicing “serious concern” about how the measure about informing parents could violate a trans student’s right to privacy. The AG also warned that he “will not hesitate to take action as appropriate to vigorously protect students’ civil rights.”

Something else to note — GOP Assemblymember Bill Essayli, who has authored a similar bill about informing parents if a student comes out as trans, was also at the meeting, and took to the podium after Thurmond was removed.

“Let me just say one thing,” Essayli told the board. “Mr. Thurmond was granted more respect and decorum than I have even been by the supermajority Democrats in Sacramento.“

The board ultimately voted to adopt the policy.

 

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INFLUENCERS

COMPANY TOWN COOLDOWN — As triple-digit days scorch Sacramento, legislative staffers and a Third House denizen are preparing to cool off together. Marathon Petroleum’s Gary Link is circulating an invite to his annual whitewater rafting trip for Capitol staff — an exhibition that Link, a longtime river guide, said he has been organizing since his days as a legislative staffer and through his prior roles at organizations like Ducks Unlimited. Participants have to pay their own way, Link said, in addition to taking the day off, and he said he avoids talking about legislation or “bigger issues” while they’re on the water.

— Jeremy B. White

 

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WHAT WE'RE READING TODAY

— “White House moves on from confirmation effort for Julie Su as Labor secretary,” by POLITICO’s Jennifer Haberkorn: “The Biden administration is ready to move on from Julie Su’s nearly five-month confirmation battle, looking instead to indefinitely leave her in the role as acting Labor secretary, according to two people familiar with the discussions.”

— “ChatGPT wrote California Rep. Ro Khanna's new AI bill,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Shira Stein. “Khanna’s bill would have the Office of Management and Budget issue guidance on how federal agencies could use AI in their website search functions. The legal counsel that typically drafts legislation is understaffed, he said, so he decided to try using ChatGPT to speed up the process.”

“Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change?” by the Los Angeles Times’ Sammy Roth: “It’s a highly technical dispute. But it’s part of a larger conversation about how much blackout risk we consider acceptable in modern society — and whether our expectations should evolve in the name of preventing climate catastrophe.”

“Netflix’s Ted Sarandos says he knows pain a strike can bring; ‘Super committed’ to a deal with WGA & SAG-AFTRA, co-CEO claims,” by Deadline’s Dominic Patten: “Despite his usual upbeat tone today, pitchman supreme Sarandos has to know that he and the company has been at the center of a lot of the ire that guild members have about the tightening economics of the industry.”

“Meet the Stanford student whose reporting led to resignation of president Marc Tessier-Lavigne,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jill Tucker: “Baker, 18, carries at least some journalistic DNA. His father is Peter Baker, the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, and his mother is Susan B. Glasser, a writer at the New Yorker magazine.”

BIRTHDAYS

Sarah Robinson, a senior strategist at J&Z Strategies … Bob Shrum … Google’s Ali-Jae HenkeKatherine Schneider

 

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