On Thursday the Assembly Democrats cam to their senses and voted to make child sex trafficking a serious crime. Were it not for the media exposure, they would have gotten away with protecting the cartels from China and Mexico, bringing young kids into California for the sex trade.
Why did they do it? Because there were no consequences for their votes.
“In theory, if an elected official does something unpopular they could lose their re-election bid.
If they do something unconscionable – like blocking harsher penalties for convicted child sex traffickers – they should lose their re-election bid.
But for the six Democrats who “abstained” (same as a no but now they can lie and say they didn’t technically vote against it) from voting on SB14 by Republican Senator Shannon Grove, that is – horribly – not a concern.
That’s because all six represent safe to the point of rotten Democrat seats.
They literally do not have to care what the public thinks…about anything.”
California’s Rotten Districts Result in Rotten Result
Dems who ‘abstained’ on child sex traffic vote all from safe seats
By Thomas Buckley, California Globe, 7/13/23 https://californiaglobe.com/articles/californias-rotten-districts-result-in-rotten-result/
In theory, if an elected official does something unpopular they could lose their re-election bid.
If they do something unconscionable – like blocking harsher penalties for convicted child sex traffickers – they should lose their re-election bid.
But for the six Democrats who “abstained” (same as a no but now they can lie and say they didn’t technically vote against it) from voting on SB14 by Republican Senator Shannon Grove, that is – horribly – not a concern.
That’s because all six represent safe to the point of rotten Democrat seats.
They literally do not have to care what the public thinks…about anything.
Let’s start with the chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), the man caught on tape chuckling after a member of the public yelled “Horrible!” after Tuesday’s vote. Jones-Sawyer represents the 57th district, which runs south from downtown Los Angeles. Last fall, he ran unopposed for re-election in a district that has a population of about 508,000 but a “citizens of voting age” rate of only about 48% and one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the state.
Jones-Sawyer, a former union rep, got about 40,000 votes, the fourth lowest number of any Assemblymember – and the other three actually had opponents.
Assemblywoman Liz Ortega represents the 20th district – in and around Fremont in the Bay Area. Her opponent in the general election was another Democrat and she got about 65% of the vote.
Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur hails from the 51st district, which includes part of the westside of Los Angeles and Santa Monica. He, too, faced another Democrat last November.
Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, 54th district (Boyle Heights, downtown Los Angeles) Assemblyman got 54,000 of the 68,000 votes cast in November against a write-in candidate.
Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, 55th district, Culver City and the surrounding area, actually had a Republican opponent. He beat him 84 to 16 percent.
And now Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, 18th district assemblywoman and wife of Attorney General Rob Bonta. Rob held the seat before her until he was tapped by Gavin Newsom to become the Attorney General after Xavier Bockarrhea – sorry, Becerra – was picked by Biden to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Biden didn’t actually get that right, either, throwing in an “education” when he made the announcement.)
Mia won a special election in 2021, defeating fellow Democrat Janani Ramachandran. That particular race was highly-charged, with cries of nepotism, sleaze, and other political shenanigans from Ramachandran – https://www.ebar.com/story.php?ch=news&sc=latest_news&id=306908 .
While that race was close, last fall she faced only token write-in opposition and took nearly 90% of the vote.
In other words, they all have safe seats due to the supposedly “independent” California Redistricting Citizens Commission so they ain’t going anywhere.
Their placement by Democrat leaders on the potentially controversial public safety committee is not a coincidence. Since their re-election is never in question, they can safely do the dirty work of enforcing the progressive/woke/equitarian “empty the jails, no cash bail, victims be dammed” party line without forcing the few other Democrats who are not in safe seats to actually cast a vote that could enrage the public.
These six rotten districts are far from the only ones created by the redistricting commission. Based on the most recent available figures (in their latest report, for whatever reason, the commission did not break out that figure) “citizens of voting age” equals about 85% of the number of people of voting age. These figures, however, are not consistent statewide while some districts have higher – or much lower – number of citizens of voting age – let alone voter turnout – even though they all have just about the same number of people.
From a 2021 story on the issue:
An average district has about 275,000 legal voters. Districts that have more than 300,000 legal voters (about 10 percent higher than the average) returned seven Republicans, 16 Democrats, and one independent, results roughly in line with statewide party registration figures.
But districts that have fewer than 250,000 legal voters showed a very significant tilt, electing three Republicans and 17 Democrats, more than twice the difference that could be expected vis a vis statewide party affiliations.
It should be noted that the turnout and citizen rates appear to be intertwined. The competitive districts with the highest percentages of citizens had the highest turnouts, with the top eight turnout districts showing an average citizenship rate of 87 percent, while the lowest 10 districts by turnout carried a citizenship rate of 62 percent (Republicans and Democrats split the top eight districts four to four while the lowest went Democrat by nine to one).
And that’s why they abstained.
That and they’re evil cowards, of course.
