(The Center Square) – California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, removed key GOP lawmakers from committees, using a 2020 resolution.
This move is a departure from precedent, under which minority party leaders customarily but informally have say over their members’ committee assignments.
Among those stripped was Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, who used hearings to reveal the state is spending $9.5 billion on health care for undocumented people in California this year and is still awarding COVID-19 outreach funds to politically active, Democrat-aligned groups.
Using HR-1, a measure passed by the Democratic supermajority, Rivas targeted Republicans like DeMaio, who’d leveraged their roles to challenge state spending.
“The fact that we have a COVID-19 outreach program surviving past 2021 is a problem,” said DeMaio in a recent hearing. “Is the funding going to politics? We looked at Ring [of] Democracy. They have a whole program that they fund on voter engagement and empowerment campaigns. They’re not COVID-19 or healthcare experts. They’re a political organization. When we dug deep into the people you’re giving money to … these 76 ‘community-based’ organizations that you say are ‘experts’ — these are political groups.”
California Democrats defended their decision as one supported by voters.
“Voters elected Democrats to lead, the Legislature adopted HR 1 to empower the Speaker to choose committee membership and leadership, and these changes will allow the Assembly to best conduct the people’s business,” said the California Assembly Democratic Caucus.
Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona, who was stripped of his position as vice chair of the Assembly Committee on Elections, responded by noting that the reason the United States is a constitutional republic, not a democracy, is that the government is structured to protect the rights of the minority from the majority.
“In the United States, the majority rules, but the minority have rights. That’s the difference between a democracy and a republic,” said Essayli. “To the Democrats in Sacramento: Your tyranny is showing.”
Democrats maintain a two-thirds supermajority in the state legislature, requiring no GOP support to govern.
