The far-reaching reverberations from the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal continue to roil the state Capitol more than two weeks after 147 women released a

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Daily News published an editorial that said the only sitting lawmaker known to have been formally rebuked for sexual harassment – Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-Los Angeles (pictured) – should resign.

“While Bocanegra has apologized for his conduct, we believe the best way for him to serve the public at this point is to resign from office,” the Daily News editorial concluded.

The Los Angeles Times story that revealed Bocanegra’s rebuke could also portend headaches for Democratic lawmakers who knew about the incident that got him in trouble but who either kept quiet or actively helped Bocanegra’s career. The story was based on an interview with his victim, Elise Flynn Gyore, who provided a copy of the Assembly Rules Committee letter rebuking Bocanegra.

The incident that led to the complaint to the Rules Committee came at a 2009 Sacramento event in which Bocanegra – then the chief of staff for then-Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, D-Los Angeles – allegedly reached down the blouse of Gyore, then a staffer for state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello. Bocanegra also acted in a way Gyore characterized as stalking.

A subsequent Sacramento Bee story detailed how Bocanegra’s rebuke didn’t get in the way of his political ascent. He was elected to the Assembly in 2012. Among those who helped him with donations or endorsements: then-Assemblyman Isadore Hall, D-Compton, who served on the Assembly Rules Committee while it reviewed the allegations against Bocanegra, and then-Sen. Calderon, whom Gyore said knew about what Bocanegra had done.

Hall went on to serve in the state Senate before losing a bid for Congress last year. In January, Hall was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, with an annual salary of $142,095. Hall, 45, is expected to seek elected office again in coming years.

Calderon was convicted in 2016 of federal corruption charges and is now serving a 42-month prison sentence.

Gyore is now chief of staff for Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, who has been among the leading advocates in the Legislature for holding lawmakers accountable for their bad behavior.

Villaraigosa, Newsom may face questions over their past scandals

The Bocanegra case has many insiders wondering what California politician might next come under fire for inappropriate behavior or worse. But the increasing focus on politicians’ treatment of and attitudes about women could eventually lead to tough questions for the two Democratic frontrunners to replace termed-out Gov. Brown in the 2018 election.

In 2007, when he was mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa revealed that he was involved romantically with a much-younger TV journalist, leading to his marriage’s collapse and his divorce in 2010.

The Los Angeles Times reported then that Telemundo reporter-anchor Mirthala Salinas, 35, apparently began her affair with Villaraigosa, 54, while she was covering the mayor for her network.

Villaraigosa got remarried in 2016.

Also in 2007, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was involved in a messy office scandal. Alex Tourk, Newsom’s campaign manager and former deputy chief of staff, abruptly resigned “after confronting the mayor about an affair Newsom had with his wife while she worked in the mayor’s office,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Ruby Rippey-Tourk had been Newsom’s appointments secretary for two years.

The New York Times gave national coverage to what it described as “a fast-unfolding scandal with all the sex and betrayal of a tawdry novel,” noting that the affair came while Newsom was “in the throes of a divorce.” But after Newsom repeatedly apologized, his political career continued, seemingly unaffected.

In 2008, he got married for a second time.

Roger Hernandez retaliating against the Women’s Caucus?

Good morning. Happy Friday eve.

A bill to expand parental leave was killed in committee Wednesday, leaving the Twitterati to point to an appearance of retaliation by the chairman, Assemblyman Roger Hernández. 

The perceived retaliation came two months after the West Covina Democrat was asked to step down by the bill’s sponsor amid domestic violence allegations (that he’s denied) surfaced and after being placed under a temporary restraining order from his wife.

CalWatchdog has more.  

In other news:

• State senator and congressional candidate Isadore Hall was served with a subpoena on Election Night for an issue dating back to his time on the Compton City Council, in a dispute where owners allegedly misled tenants at a housing development Hall helped pushed through and now lives in. The Los Angeles Times has more. 
• “A Bay Area legislator is crying foul after discovering that a state audit he requested almost one year ago about psychiatric drugs prescribed to foster children has been delayed because a state agency supplied incomplete information,” writes The San Jose Mercury News.
• “Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget advisors have approved an emergency loan of $1.45 million to the California Coastal Commission after an agency staffer said it was in danger of not making payroll in July,” writes the Los Angeles Times.
• “In response to the high-profile case of a Stanford student sentenced to six months in jail after his rape conviction, state Democratic lawmakers are introducing two competing bills to mandate prison sentences in such cases,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

Assembly:

• In at 9 a.m.

Senate:

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Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

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Gage Skidmore / flickr

On the strength of an explosive presidential campaign that has pushed him out to an early lead in some polls of Republican contenders, Donald Trump has changed the political conversation in California, where members of both political parties have not hesitated in making him a political football.

Livid Democrats

Although Republican candidates across the country have found themselves muting their criticism of Trump — not wanting to draw even more media attention away from their own campaigns — Democrats have railed against him, especially in progressive states. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has stood virtually alone in backing up Trump’s more incendiary remarks, drawing a rebuke from Sacramento Democrats hoping to officially condemn both candidates.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, state Sen. Isadore Hall III, D-Compton, “offered a resolution blasting Trump for calling Mexican immigrants ‘rapists’ and drug-runners during his campaign kickoff last month.” In an interview, Hall told the Times it was intolerable “to have a president who is representing California,  [which has] the largest population of immigrants, calling immigrants rapists and thugs and criminals. We don’t have a place for that. California is a place of inclusion.”

Hall’s bill, SR39, would do more than merely criticize Trump and Cruz; it “calls upon the State of California to divest from Donald Trump, The Trump Organization, and any affiliated entities,” while urging “private businesses and individuals throughout California to end all business ties with Donald Trump, The Trump Organization, and any affiliated entities[.]”

According to the Los Angeles Times, which compared Trump to former Gov. Pete Wilson, “there was a flashback quality to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s hour-long denunciation of illegal immigration at a campaign stop Friday in Beverly Hills.”

“He appeared with a group of people who have lost family members in crimes or traffic accidents involving immigrants in the country illegally. ‘The illegals come in, and the illegals kill their children,’ Trump said.”

Complications for Harris

Influential figures in the state GOP, meanwhile, have trained their fire on Trump’s connections to the opposing party, which have extended remarkably far into recent times.

Shawn Steel, a member of the Republican National Committee and a former chairman of the California Republican Party, went after Trump’s support for state Attorney General Kamala Harris, the leading candidate to replace outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. “In the past four years, Harris’s campaign has accepted a total of $6,000 in campaign contributions from Trump — with the most recent contribution on February 20, 2013,” wrote Steel at the Flash Report. “When national embarrassment Donald Trump isn’t busy attacking immigrants, he’s writing big checks to Democrat Kamala Harris,” he continued, calling on Harris to “denounce” Trump’s words and “give her ‘Donald Dollars’ to charity.”

Harris was just one of two Democrats Trump donated to since 2012, according to Politifact. “Data from the Federal Election Commission and state elections offices provided by the two websites show that Trump has given $584,850 to Democrats and $961,140 to the GOP over the last 26 years,” the site noted.

The connection threatened to complicate Harris’s current posture toward Trump. The two have staked out starkly different positions on immigration, with Trump recently slamming the “sanctuary city” status of San Francisco — where Harris laid the groundwork for her political future by serving as its District Attorney. Under pressure in the wake of a stunning murder along the city’s waterfront, perpetrated by an unlawful immigrant, Harris refused to criticize San Francisco’s lenient approach.

“Let’s react to that specific case in prosecuting that specific murder, and making sure he faces very swift consequences and accountability,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. “On the issue of immigration policy, let’s be smarter.” Turning to Trump’s comments on the matter, she described him as “‘ignorant’ and representative of ‘someone who clearly cannot be a leader,'” according to the Chronicle.

By Chris Reed

So let’s get this framed correctly: California is the leader in a form of home entertainment that is immensely popular around America and the world, for better or worse. If California adopts rules that wipe this industry out, it is 100 percent certain to move to other other states and continue flourishing — and with the same seemingly minor health downsides that led the Golden State to push the industry away. So moral posturing by California leaders will achieve nothing but destroying jobs and driving an unsavory but legal and very profitable state industry to other states and nations.

Stupid, right?

But this is California. Stupid moralistic posturing is what we do best.

So first Los Angeles County voters declared war on this industry. And now, according to the Contra Costa Times, a lawmaker thinks that it is the state Legislature’s turn.

“Assemblyman Isadore Hall III, D-Los Angeles, announced he’s holding a news conference … to introduce a bill requiring condom use in all adult films produced in California.

“Hall will be joined by Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Darren James, a former adult film actor who contracted HIV while working in the porn industry. The assemblyman’s news release said his bill would ‘provide statewide uniformity needed to ensure that the thousands of actors employed in this multi-billion dollar industry are given reasonable workplace safety protections needed to reduce exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.’

“About 57 percent of Los Angeles County voters in November approved Measure B, requiring the use of condoms in all adult films produced within the county.

“The Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation conducts regular screenings of porn performers, which has minimized the spread of HIV and other diseases. But James was believed to have contracted the virus during a film shoot in Brazil, and transmitted it to several actresses here in California before he tested positive a few weeks later in 2004.”

Notice the economic ignorance on display in Hall’s legislation, specifically the presumption that “this multi-billion dollar industry” will stay in California once it faces regulations that are unusual in its niche field and that won’t be the norm elswhere.

Posturing vs. facts vs. unexpected consequences

But Sacramento is so mindbogglingly stupid that recent governors and a majority of legislators believe higher energy costs are good for the economy, so who knows? Maybe they think smut will bloom once it is micromanaged by state bureaucrats.

Here’s what the rational people sound like — namely, the First Amendment defender, the Libertarian Party official, the businessmen and the physicians who wrote the ballot statement against Los Angeles County’s condom measure:

“Every single actor is tested at least monthly. In 8 years, not one has contracted HIV on a set anywhere in the U.S. In fact, by driving film productions underground where there is no testing and no industry regulations, actors would be less safe, not more.”

No real health issues? Possible unexpected consequences? Who cares! Let’s regulate.

As a libertarian, I feel like this is a no-brainer. I honestly would be surprised if any rational person of any ideology who detaches the factual details (exaggerated problem, ease of industry exit, legality of conduct) from the moral preening (it’s porn!) thinks a Los Angeles County or state ban makes sense. I know they might not say this in public because it’s easily smearable and easily mocked. But in their heart of hearts, or their brain of brains, smart people have to know it’s true.

Jobs are good. Losing jobs? Bad.

Duh.