The reasons range from district work, to disdain for Trump, to responding to Twitter polls. In all, more than 50 House Democrats are planning on skipping the event.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will attend, however, out of a sense of “responsibility” and to honor the “peaceful transition of power.” The two remaining undecided Californians are: Senator Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles. Feinstein had a pacemaker installed last week, while Becerra is going through the confirmation process to become California’s next attorney general.

While critics are already panning the boycotts, attending the inauguration is not a requirement; skipping it in protest is uncommon but not unprecedented. Around 80 Democrats skipped the ceremony for Richard Nixon in 1973 to protest a military strike in North Vietnam. 

The only real requirement surrounding the inauguration is the oath of office being administered; everything else is a matter of “custom and tradition.” But that in itself creates a problem for Trump, said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. 

“Here is Trump’s problem. He proclaims that he is a disrupter and takes pride in flouting customs and traditions. … Accordingly, he and his defenders cannot turn around and fault the other side for flouting customs and traditions,” Pitney said. “If he wants a disruptive tenure, he’s going to get it, and he won’t like all of the results.”

Proposition 66, which aims to cap death-sentence appeals at five years, stands at 51.1 percent of the vote. While such a slim margin of victory would usually suggest the electorate is divided, a competing measure to end the death penalty altogether was rejected by 53.4 percent of voters (ballots are still being counted, so totals may change).

“California voters not only want to keep the death penalty intact but they want it to work as intended,” said Anne Marie Schubert, Sacramento County district attorney, who called Prop. 66’s lead “insurmountable.”

Prop. 66 speeds up the appeals process by expanding the number of courts and attorneys able to hear and try death penalty appeals to meet a five-year cap on the appeals process that currently takes decades. A court order could be sought when cases drag on. 

Stance stands out

In a cycle when voters chose a cornucopia of liberal policies, like implementing a $2-per-pack tax on cigarettes, extending a tax on the highest incomes, legalizing recreational marijuana, placing further restrictions on guns and ammo and upholding a ban on plastic bags, the death penalty position stands out.

In fact, voters at the same time resoundingly approved a measure that would allow (but not guarantee) early parole for thousands of “non-violent” inmates, showing that Californians’ soft spot hardens when it comes to those considered the worst of the worst. 

“Californians have long been a bit schizoid when it comes to the death penalty,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. 

Pitney recalled Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s campaign ad from the 1990 gubernatorial race. Feinstein, who is currently a U.S. senator, but at the time had just finished a second term as mayor of San Francisco, pitched herself as pro-choice, pro-environment and “the only Democrat for governor for the death penalty.”

Good policy?

While some debate the morality of the death penalty, others argue it is an ineffective policy.

According to data provided by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, no one has been executed since 2006. The vast majority of Death Row inmates will die of other causes long before the state kills them (Prop. 66 will presumably speed this process up, although there’s still legal complications with the lethal injection process).

And it’s costly: The state spends $55 million each year on death penalty appeals, for both prosecutors and court-appointed defense attorneys. 

Opponents use the inefficiency and cost of the current system as grounds for abolition of the death penalty. But that may have ultimately been their undoing, said Pitney.  

“In recent years, opponents of the death penalty have argued that it is too inefficient and costly,” Pitney said. “That argument may have backfired, at least in this state. Instead of abolishing it, voters backed a measure to make it more efficient.”

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Ashley Swearengin, the termed-out mayor of Fresno, placed just behind Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom in a poll of registered voters taken prior to last week’s presidential election, conducted by The Field Poll and the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. 

Newsom drew 23 percent to Faulconer’s 16 percent and Swearengin’s 11 percent, with six prominent Democrats trailing in the single digits. Although anything can change in politics, Faulconer said early this year that he won’t run for governor, and Tim Clark, a political consultant to Swearengin, told CalWatchdog on Tuesday he didn’t “expect her to run.”

Why it matters

Having been shut out of the U.S. Senate race after the June primary, thanks in part to the state’s relatively new system where the top two candidates advance regardless of party, Republicans will need to field a strong candidate at the top of the ticket in 2018 to help with fundraising and turnout for down ballot races and to show they can still compete in statewide elections. 

In addition to legislative races, where Republicans will either be fighting off a Democratic supermajority by the narrowest of margins or trying to add a little bit of a buffer — the few races from last week that the Democratic supermajority hinges on have not yet been decided as the votes are still being counted — the 2018 gubernatorial election will elect statewide officers.

CA GOP Chairman Jim Brulte told CalWatchdog on Tuesday that the party was still focused on the outcome of last week’s election, but added the party was beginning to turn to 2018. 

“I believe we will have strong candidates for a number of statewide offices,” Brulte said. 

Challenges for Republicans

Both parties have struggled with a decline in voter registration for years, although the trend has been much more severe for Republicans, dropping from 36.4 percent of the electorate in 1996 to 26 percent late last month. Democrats in that time declined from 47.9 percent to 44.9 percent, but enjoyed a surge in registration over this campaign cycle that led to a slight uptick.

Whichever Republican candidates decide to jump into the race, they will be starting way behind Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang, who have both been running and fundraising for awhile. As of September, Newsom had $6.3 million in his campaign account, while Chiang had $2.2 million as of August.

Both Faulconer and Swearengin benefited heavily in the poll from party identification — both dropped to single digits when polled on just name ID alone. But it’s still very early in the race, said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. 

“These results reflect name recognition and partisan identification more than serious evaluation of the candidates,” Pitney said. “The good news for Republicans is that, although Faulconer and Swearengin are not running ahead, they have a chance of making the top two. The bad news is that the Democrats will be able to run well-funded campaigns.”

Money plays the odds 

Pitney pointed to the 2014 Republican gubernatorial candidate, Neel Kashkari, who struggled with fundraising despite having contacts throughout the business and financial community from his time as an investment banker and top Treasury Department official.

In 2014, Kashkari raised only slightly more than Newsom has now two years out, largely due to being seen as not having a strong shot of winning (although he was running against a popular incumbent, Gov. Jerry Brown).

“Look at Kashkari,” Pitney said. “He had extensive contacts in the business/financial community, but could not fill his warchest because nobody thought he could win.”

Other candidates

Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and Delaine Eastin, the former state superintendent of public instruction, have both announced their intentions to run. Eastin was not included in Tuesday’s poll, while Villaraigosa drew 6 percent. Chiang was near the bottom at 2 percent.  

Alejo honors his mother Woman of the Year. Courtesy of Alejo’s office.

At a time when voters are increasingly convinced the system is rigged, some state legislators are making that perception worse by giving district-wide awards to their family members, critics say.

While it’s not uncommon for legislators to participate in award ceremonies recognizing constituents for their accomplishments, it’s becoming more common for those honorees to be friends and family members of the legislators.

In March, members of the Legislature honored women from their districts to be Woman of the Year: Assemblyman Luis Alejo picked his mother. In May, Assemblywoman Nora Campos selected as Small Business of the Year a brand new political strategy firm both her brother and her longtime political consultant work for, which had also held fundraisers for her. And just a few weeks ago, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez picked her boyfriend, Nathan Fletcher, a former state legislator, to be Veteran of the Year.

“These ‘awards’ are a generally cost-free technique for buying some goodwill in the community,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “Generally, they are harmless, but when lawmakers give them to their relatives, friends and squeezes, they just contribute to the sense that the political system is rigged.”  

“We already have a surplus of cynicism, and this nonsense makes it worse,” Pitney said.

Hurts the association

This was the first year Campos, a San Jose Democrat, chose to participate in the Small Business of the Year award, selecting Voler Strategic Advisors, which had been in business less than one year and does not have a working website.

The same month the award was given, Voler held a fundraiser for Campos’ Senate campaign — Campos is challenging Sen. Jim Beall, a fellow San Jose Democrat.

“This is absolutely not the spirit of the award,” said Samantha Toccoli, legislative coordinator for the California Small Business Association, one of the groups in charge of the program.

California Small Business Day was created by an Assembly resolution in 2000. Toccoli said she was unaware of any familial relationship between Campos and Voler and added that the organization is run by volunteers who have no way of efficiently vetting every honoree.

“I would hope that this reflects on the legislator and not the integrity or intention of our organization and the 25 other organizations that host the event,” Toccoli said. 

A Campos spokesperson countered that the award was technically given to Voler’s owner, not Campos’ brother, Xavier, who is a senior vice president, or her longtime political consultant and former communications director, Rolando Bonilla, who is Voler’s chief strategy officer.

Look no further

For Alejo, a Watsonville Democrat, it’s his last year in the Legislature, having been termed out and elected to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors — he said he “could not think of anyone better” for the award than his mother, Maria Luisa Alejo Covarrubias. 

“I wanted to honor my mother during my last year in the state Assembly,” Alejo said in a statement at the time. “Our mothers are our first teachers and made us who we are today. My mother has done so much for my family and for our local communities, and I could not think of anyone better for this year’s Woman of the Year for Assembly District 30.”

Alejo did not respond to requests for comment.

Cronyism?

Because Gonzalez’s boyfriend is a former legislator, her awarding Fletcher was more conspicuous than the two prior examples. On Instagram, Fletcher said: “Honored to be chosen as Veteran of the Year by my Assemblywoman:)” 

San Diego Republicans blasted Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, for choosing her boyfriend, which she defended on Facebook by highlighting Fletcher’s work with veterans, by denouncing the attacks as partisan and by blaming the media. She pointed out that others, including Republicans, had done the same.

“It is well known that Nathan and I are in a committed relationship, but there is a long line of assemblymembers who have picked husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and other relatives for recognition,” Gonzalez wrote. “Never once has it been questioned.”

Not who it is but how it looks

But the question isn’t so much whether Fletcher or any of the others are deserving of the awards, it’s a question of what message these actions send to the public, which is already weary from the perception of widespread double standards and cronyism. 

“These examples reflect poorly on the Legislature,” said David Wolfe, legislative director for the right-leaning Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “We need to ask if the awards program as a whole is in the best interest of California taxpayers.”

“If the Legislature truly desires to honor [taxpayers] it should rededicate the hours that they currently spend on pomp and circumstance shows like these and instead focus on fixing real problems, like our state’s $500 billion unfunded pension liability,” Wolfe said.

Lax leadership?

So far, the three incidents are isolated to Assembly Democrats and it’s unclear if Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood — who waited more than two months to take action against a committee chairman accused of domestic violence and under a temporary and then three-year restraining order — will ask fellow legislators to abstain from taking actions that give the appearance of cronyism.

Rendon did not respond to requests for comment.

Unfavorable opinions among voters of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — the presumptive presidential candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively — create a do-or-die moment for Libertarians and the Green Party.

But the question is how high can they climb?

In California, probably not very high. But nationally, there’s a great opportunity to get a candidate’s name, party and message out there if they can reach 15 percent in the polls to make it to a debate. From there, ballot access is the main challenge.

The two main third-party candidates are Libertarian Gary Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, and Jill Stein, a Massachusetts physician and activist whose highest-held elected office was local, who will likely be the Green Party candidate.

Both were their parties’ nominees in 2012, but failed to gain any significant traction — Johnson won almost 1 percent of the popular vote and Stein won one-third of 1 percent. Neither won any states, which is still the biggest challenge for any third-party candidate (Johnson got 3.5 percent in New Mexico and outperformed Stein in Massachusetts). 

So why now?

It’s an open seat, so there won’t be a popular incumbent president, like Barack Obama was in 2012, to contend with.

Also, Americans widely dislike the two (presumptive) major party candidates outside of their core groups of supporters. According to the Real Clear Politics average, 61 percent of Americans see Trump — a Republican business and reality T.V. tycoon — unfavorably, while Clinton — the former first lady, former senator and former secretary of state — fares only slightly better at 55.5 percent unfavorable. “We have never had an election in which both major candidates were so unpopular — many people want to vote against Trump or Clinton without voting for the other,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “The third party option gives them the chance to register their disapproval without giving support to a candidate that they also despise.”

More than an emotional victory

The immediate goals for Libertarians in 2016 are securing ballot access in states and appearing on stage at the debates. Being on the debate stage alongside major party candidates would greatly affect how Americans see a third-party candidate — a victory in itself.

“But of course, you want to win,” said Janine Kloss, the executive director of both the Sacramento County Libertarian Party and the state party.

Kloss — who is awaiting the results of her write-in campaign for a Sacramento-area Assembly seat where a Democrat ran unopposed — noted that this election has proven anything can happen.

“We have someone under FBI investigation and someone who woke up one morning and decided he wanted to be president,” Kloss said.

Third-party candidates of yore

To gain traction, third party candidates usually need a major party candidate to fall apart. In 2006, Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic nomination in his Senate re-election campaign, but won the general as an independent because the Republican candidate collapsed. Bernie Sanders won his two Senate races in Vermont running as an independent because there was no Democratic challenger.

Jesse “The Body” Ventura was an exception to the trend. In 1998, the former pro wrestler beat two relatively strong candidates from the major parties by a narrow margin, winning the Minnesota governorship with 37 percent of the vote.

“They can be factors in a race, but winning is a different story and threshold,” said Nathan L. Gonzales, publisher and editor of The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report. “Our country is polarized and primed for the two major parties.”

Spoiler Alert

Often, strong third-party runs play a spoiler role for candidates, as Republicans were worried Trump would do earlier this cycle when they asked him to sign a loyalty pledge. In 1912, Bull Moose Party candidate Teddy Roosevelt stole (a lot) of votes from Republican Howard Taft, paving the way for Democrat Woodrow Wilson to become president.

Prominent segregationist George Wallace — the southern Democratic governor of Alabama who in 1968 ran as an American Independent — took a substantial amount of Electoral College votes from Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to help Richard M. Nixon become president.

Nixon actually had enough electoral votes to beat Humphrey without Wallace’s help, but Wallace still played a prominent role. And in a it’s-a-small-world way, Humphrey’s son was the Democratic-Farm-Labor candidate who lost the gubernatorial race to Ventura in Minnesota.

And Ross Perot, a Texas business man who ran twice as an independent, largely helped Bill Clinton, a Democrat, win the presidency from Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992 and then retain the presidency in 1996 against Republican Bob Dole.
In those races, Roosevelt received 27.4 percent of the popular vote, Wallace received 13.5 percent, and Perot received 18.9 percent and 8.4 percent. Roosevelt and Wallace won several states a piece, Perot won none.

“If more states allocated their Electoral College votes on some sort of proportional grounds, something Perot pushed for, then a third party ticket would be plausible,” said Mark Petracca, chair of the Department of Political Science at UC Irvine. “Right now only Maine and Nebraska have such an allocation scheme.”

With a little luck at the ballot box, Republicans in the Legislature are set to expand on their increasingly diverse delegation, a far cry from the “Party of Old White Men” it’s been thought of by some for years.

And while Republicans have the primary goal of holding the relatively few seats in the Legislature they already have, increased diversity would show a modernizing party that could expand is electoral appeal. 

“Our party does not engage in the identity politics of the left, but we have placed an emphasis on recruiting and supporting the best candidates for every district,” said CAGOP Vice Chairwoman Harmeet Dhillon. “In our culturally rich state, that candidate is often someone with a minority background.”

Diverse candidates

In a district that includes much of Bakersfield, termed-out Republican Shannon Grove appears set to be replaced by Vince Fong, of Chinese descent. Fong won the primary with 60.8 percent of the vote in the largely Republican district.

Dante Acosta is poised to replace termed-out Republican Scott Wilk in a Republican-leaning district that includes Simi Valley and much of north Los Angeles County.

Acosta, of Mexican descent, came in second in the primary behind Democrat Christy Smith, who won 44.8 percent to 35.9 percent. However, Acosta split a majority of votes among two other Republican candidates.

In a largely Republican Orange County district, termed-out Don Wagner may be replaced by Harry Sidhu, who came to the United States in 1974 from India. Sidhu split a 67 percent majority of the vote among six Republicans and came in second behind the lone Democrat.

Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, who was born in Taiwan, is running to replace Bob Huff, the only termed-out Senate Republican, in a competitive district that straddles Orange and Los Angeles counties. Chang faces longer odds than the others, as she advanced to the general with two Democratic candidates splitting a 55 percent majority of the vote.

If Chang does win, she’d increase diversity in the Senate Republican caucus. And filling her seat in the Assembly could be Philip Chen, of Chinese descent. Chen, like Acosta and Sidhu, was the second-place finisher in the primary behind a Democrat, splitting the vote with four Republicans in the Republican-leaning district.

“As an immigrant myself, I am proud to see more and more Republican candidates that other Californians with diverse backgrounds can identify with when they visit the polls,” said Dhillon, who was born in India. “This trend increases voter turnout and enthusiasm.”

Does it even matter?

California is a huge state, filled with diverse pockets. It’s often said that as the demographics of the state changed, the Republican Party failed to keep up.

Since becoming CAGOP chairman in 2013, Jim Brulte (along with Dhillon and other party leaders) has tried to change that trend in candidate recruitment. As he said in 2015: “In a neighborhood election, the candidate who most looks like, sounds like, has the shared values and shared experiences of the majority of the people in the neighborhood tends to win.”

In 2014, California Republicans sent a relatively large delegation of women to the Legislature, with a large Asian bloc that included Chang. In 2016, they’ll aim to expand on that with Acosta, Chen, Sidhu, Fong and Chang. 

“Under the leadership of Jim Brulte, California Republicans have done yeoman work in recruiting candidates who look like their constituents,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “It’s a smart move: monochrome does not fit California, and in the long run, this strategy could help the party rebuild its strength.”

But, Pitney cautioned, the effect Trump — the presumptive nominee who has a tendency to say things sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly viewed as racist — will have at the top of the GOP ticket is unclear.

“The problem is that people tend to see political parties through the prism of presidential candidates,” Pitney said. “Trump could ruin much of California GOP’s progress.”

The state’s primary system pushes the top two candidates into the general election, regardless of party. As it stands now, Republicans will likely be out of the running after next Tuesday when voters submit their ballots.

If Republicans could coalesce around one candidate, they’d have a shot at one candidate making the November runoff. Republican candidates account for 20 percent of the vote among likely voters, with Sanchez, of Santa Ana, polling at 14 percent. 

However, the five highest-polling Republican candidates are between three and four percent a piece, with each having little incentive to drop out in favor of another. And none of the Republican candidates are well known and have raised little money to increase their name ID.  

“Republicans probably wish that someone could clear the field and unite the party behind one candidate,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “But nobody has that power.” 

Harris leads with 30 percent, having the backing of the California Democratic Party. But a large percentage of respondents are undecided —  27 percent said they either hadn’t made up their minds or are not voting — meaning a lot can happen on Tuesday.

Top Two

The top-two system, approved by voters in 2010, theoretically favors more moderate candidates by removing partisan primaries.

While Sanchez is widely viewed as the more centrist candidate, as one of the few remaining members of the fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Democrat coalition, Harris has nearly double the support among those who have declined to state a party preference, 16 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

But neither Harris nor Sanchez are polling well with Republicans, five percent and four percent, respectively. It’s unclear which way voters would lean after June, once the field narrows.

“It’s always a fallacy to extrapolate from a primary to tell what’ll happen in the general,” said Democratic strategist Garry South, who is not working with any of the candidates.

Voters want a dealmaker 

Another poll from last week showed 69 percent of voters prefer someone who “is willing to make compromises to get legislature passed over one who holds true to their beliefs without compromise.”

Despite her liberal philosophy and voting record, Boxer long ago mastered the art of legislating. Even at a time when Congress is getting little done, she managed to broker a deal last year on a highway bill with her ideological opposite, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.

Harris does not have legislative experience for voters to draw from. Sanchez has run heavily on her reputation as a dealmaker, having made Congressional Quarterly’s recent list of the 25 most influential women in Washington, for being a “debate shaper and swing vote.”

With her legislative abilities, Sanchez changed how sexual assaults in the military are reported and tracked, thereby increasing accountability and consistently helped secure federal funding for Orange County’s groundwater replenishment system which provides water to millions of residents.

Yet the polls show voters still turning to Harris in larger numbers. South attributed this to Harris’ statewide name recognition, compared to Sanchez’s limited reach to mainly within her congressional district.

“She is a representative of one of the 53 seats in California, nobody knows her in the other 52,” South said, adding that a Democrat on Democrat race in the general could change the dynamic. 

Republicans

Arguably the two most well-known Republicans in the race are two former state party chairmen, Tom Del Beccaro and Duf Sundheim. Ron Unz, who ran for governor against fellow Republican Governor Pete Wilson and is an outspoken critic of bilingual education, seemed to raise his profile substantially during the two debates.

None of the three have raised enough money to compete though. Sundheim has raised $621,000, Del Beccaro has raised $365,000 and Unz has raised almost $52,000. All of that is nominal compared to Harris, who has raised almost $10 million, and Sanchez, who has raised $3.5 million.  

In a state with several expensive media markets and without any noteworthy amount of name ID, the financial shortcomings of the Republican candidates is holding them back.

“Nobody knows who any of them are and none have two nickles to rub together,” said South.

Particularly for a seat that’s rated “Safe Democrat” by The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report, Republican donors will largely look to spend money elsewhere on more competitive races. 

“Even if they could get a GOP candidate into the top two, that person would still lose the general election,” said Pitney. “The GOP leadership has to focus its very scarce resources on races it might win.”

It’s what Republicans fear and Democrats embrace: How the controversial presumptive nomination of Donald Trump as the GOP’s presidential candidate will affect races further down the ballot.

Democrats are hoping to tie Trump around the necks of Republican candidates throughout the state, particularly among Latino voters who have so far largely rejected Trump in polling — and the ads are just beginning. 

Democratic PACs announced one such ad yesterday for a coastal congressional race, while another ad has been floating around online for an Assembly seat in Los Angeles County. 

Much of Trump’s strength is derived from his “outsider” status — a strong personality untainted by Washington. He’s mastered the art of winning headlines by making brash statements often seen as anti-immigrant and misogynistic. 

But it’s those outlandish comments that may make it hard to paint a fellow member of the GOP with the same brush, absent an endorsement, which neither of the two attacked candidates have done. 

“The problem for them is Trump is not transferable that way,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant who specializes in Latino issues. “No one believes someone is a Trump Republican. Trump’s whole rise is that he’s not a typical Republican nor a typical politician. Very little evidence to suggest this will work.”

Ads

The House Majority PAC and CHC BOLD PAC are spending almost $300,000 in an ad campaign attacking Republican Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian as a Trump-like, anti-immigrant demagogue.

The ad supports Democrat Salud Carbajal. Both men are running to replace the retiring Democratic Congresswoman Lois Capps in a district that runs from Santa Barbara to north of Morro Bay. 

The district is more than one-third Latino, but has a close partisan split — Democrats have 39.79 percent of registered voters to Republicans’ 33.65 percent, with 22.87 percent declining to state. 

In Los Angeles County’s South Bay, former Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi is trying attacks like www.hadleytrump.com against the man who knocked him out of the Legislature in 2014, Republican David Hadley. Slightly different than the Achadjian ad, Muratsuchi is attacking Hadley for not denouncing Trump.

Hadley won by only 1 percent of the vote in the 21-percent Latino district. Democrats have nearly an 8 percent voter registration advantage, with 22.74 percent declining to state a preference. 

“These ads are exactly what Trump exposes Republicans to in swing districts,” said GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who launched a campaign to stop a Trump nomination earlier this year. “Hadley’s answer is savvy though. I’m not convinced there’s a huge liability for ‘refusing to denounce’ him in general. But Trump will surely get trounced in (Hadley’s) district.”

Polling

A Field Poll last month showed 83 percent of Latino voters in the state had an unfavorable view of Trump, with even 69 percent of white voters having an unfavorable view (which is the most favorable of all the ethnicities).

And tying a candidate to an unpopular figure is a successful technique, to the extent that it can drive voter turnout. In 1996, President Bill Clinton tied his Republican challenger, Sen. Bob Dole, to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The Trump connection will be successful to the extent that it can drive voter turnout. 

“When it comes to motivating Hispanic turnout, Trump is the greatest gift that Democrats could want,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.

While critics say they lack a definitive agenda, Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes, who was elected in 2014 and chosen as leader just 10 months later, has been working behind the scenes to unite his caucus and build relationships on the other side of the aisle to fortify for the future.

There’s little room for error. They can only lose one seat and remain above super minority status — the difference between having the power to block tax increases on their own or not. Their troubles are compounded by the fact that voter turnout in presidential years typically leans Democrat. And presidential campaigns have a way of framing the narrative and stealing attention away from down-ticket races like state Legislature.

It’s not an easy spot for Chad Mayes, the Assembly Republican leader from Yucca Valley.

“We’re at the point now we’re thinking a lot more of that messaging is going to have to take place probably after November, to be able to tell folks what our agenda is and to begin rebuilding the brand,” Mayes told CalWatchdog on Thursday. “2016 is tough.”

It’s not that Mayes and his colleagues won’t be selling their ideas to the public — they’re going to have to if they expect to win elections. Instead, Mayes believes that most voters will chose based on the “strength of the candidates” as opposed to an automatic party preference, meaning they’ll rely on individual campaigns and not the Republican brand. 

“Our work outside the building is to continue to advance our principles, to be able to tell the folks that live here in California that our ideas are the ideas that are going to move California forward,” Mayes said. Mayes is confident Republicans will hold their seats, but was iffy about picking up many seats.

Mayes often speaks of the need to address poverty. The son of a preacher, having grown up in a Yucca Valley community of modest means, he points to exorbitant housing costs, gas prices and the fact that 40 percent of Californians live near or below the poverty line as a need for a new direction.

“Obviously, we’re not doing something correctly,” Mayes said of the overall direction of state policies. 

While Mayes has generally spoken in broad strokes about poverty, a few members of his caucus (including him) have introduced specific proposals. One provides additional funding for homeless youth centers, one expands the child tax credit and another funds grants to help underprivileged children do “normal” activities like buy prom dresses, attend summer camp and receive test preparation. And last year, the caucus introduced an entire education package. 

But is it enough?

The bunkered approach to 2016 and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering for 2017 leaves the strategy open to criticism.

“If the Assembly Republicans have a distinct agenda, they have been quiet about it,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. 

Pitney noted the difficulties Republicans face in the Legislature dominated by Democrats, being handicapped by less resources than the majority party. Even if they labored over an exhaustive agenda, it’s possible no one would notice, said Pitney — a reflection of his own struggles in the mid 1980s as a House Republican staffer. 

Pitney likened Mayes to Jack Kemp, the former New York Republican congressman and vice presidential candidate, known for inclusivity and “bleeding-heart conservatism.”

“But as Kemp learned, it is very hard to make political headway with a conservative war on poverty,” Pitney added. “Many rank-and-file Republicans just are not interested.” 

On the other side of the rotunda

Life is no less difficult for Republicans in the Senate, who have even less of a margin of error in 2016, with no room to lose any seats. The Senate unveiled a package of bills earlier this week aimed at making life in California more affordable, with Leader Jean Fuller of Bakersfield making a similar pitch to Mayes.

On Tuesday, Fuller cited damning stats: CNBC ranked California the 5th most expensive state to live in the country in 2015, average monthly rent is 50 percent higher here than in the rest of the country, 40 percent of Californians are living at or near the poverty line and Californians have one of the highest tax burdens in the country. 

Legislating

According to Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Republicans in the Legislature face three legislative options. The first is to have an idea embraced by Democrats, which carries the bill to the governor’s desk. The other two are that the bill is dead on arrival or gets a hearing and then fizzles out. 

“There’s three outcomes, two of which are negative,” said Whalen, who served as chief speechwriter and director of public affairs for former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

Whalen pointed to a constitutional amendment in 2010 that reduced the two-thirds majority approval of a budget to just simple majority, stripping Republicans of an annual leverage point. 

“For a few weeks anyway, Republicans had a lot of relevance in the process,” Whalen said.

Whalen suggested Republicans focus on greater ethics rules as a way to engage in a value debate with Democrats, adding that Republicans should be holding press conferences pressuring Roger Hernández to take a leave of absence at least while under a court order to stay away from the West Covina Democrat’s wife amid domestic violence allegations, similar to the approach used by former Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich in the early 1090s.

Gingrich used both the policy-driven Contract with America and a focus on ethics issues — like Jim Wright’s book deal, the House banking scandal and the Barney Frank/male prostitute scandal — to make the argument that Democrats had become corrupted during decades of power and engineered the first Republican majority in 40 years. However, Whalen added, the numbers for Republicans in the Legislature are much further from a majority than what Gingrich had. 

“They made it a value debate against Republicans and Democrats,” Whalen said. “And I think Republicans need to introduce that conversation into Sacramento.”  

Whalen also suggested luring undecided voters with a greater focus on the University of California system — where one chancellor is mired in salary and spending troubles while a recent audit showed preferential treatment to out-of state admissions in an effort to bring in higher tuitions — including audits, hearings where chancellors explain their budgets and “completely turn the UC upside down.”

Mayes told CalWatchdog that individual Assembly Republicans had already adopted the UC issue, and added that it was Democrats’ responsibility to hold their members, like Hernández accountable. 

Politics

In general, the governor and the legislative caucuses are the main messaging arm of the state parties, making the Legislature that much more important when not occupying the Governor’s Mansion. But California Republican Party and legislative leaders shy away from a top down approach.

“Messaging in campaigns is important, but that messaging has to be delivered by the candidate or the elected officials of that party,” said Jim Brulte, chairman of the California Republican Party. “And that’s because voters vote for candidates not political parties. Political parties can be helpful with technical and financial support.”

Modern campaigns, particularly in a large, diverse state like California, need to be tailored to the district — voters in Torrance have different needs from voters in south Orange County. 

“One-size-fits-all messaging may have worked 30 or 40 years ago, but with the technology advances in the ability to micro target, this approach is stale and outdated,” Brulte said.

Brulte added that the Contract with America was pushed from members of Congress and not the Republican National Committee. Brulte said timing was crucial, noting it was unveiled merely six weeks before the midterm elections, when voters were paying the most attention to Congress.

“Other than specific messaging by individuals in the district they represent, a global messaging strategy during a hotly contested presidential election between the five remaining candidates is bound to get lost,” Brulte said.

In a statement to CalWatchdog, Rendon, a Paramount Democrat, condemned domestic violence, but said he will not seek action at this time against Hernández, a Democrat from West Covina. 

It was just last month when Rendon announced his leadership team, which included Hernández atop the Labor and Employment Committee, the same leadership role he was in under Rendon’s predecessor, Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. 

“Since the temporary restraining order was filed against Assemblymember Hernández last week, there have been several conversations about what the next steps should be,” Rendon said. “If the allegations are more fully validated, I will be prepared to take further action.”

Calls to step aside

On Thursday, the Democratic chair and vice chair of the women’s caucus, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara and Asm. Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens, issued a statement calling for Hernández to step down until the matter with his estranged wife, Baldwin Park City Councilwoman Susan Rubio, is resolved.

“In the wake of the serious allegations against Assemblymember Roger Hernández, we believe he should step down from his committee assignments and his position as chair of the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee while his case is pending in court and take a leave of absence,” Jackson and Garcia wrote.

“While a determination is still pending on these most recent allegations and we respect his right to due process, it’s important that the Legislature send a strong and consistent message to victims about our commitment to confronting domestic violence and demonstrate that we take allegations seriously when they occur among one of our own,” Jackson and Garcia added. 

Rendon did not expand on what would constitute “more fully validated,” but no charges have been filed against Hernández. The situation places the new speaker in an awkward position between being cautious and appearing to set a soft behavioral standard for members.

“(Rendon) should have anticipated that such a problem would come up,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. “It is not exactly unprecedented for California legislators to face accusations of bad behavior.”

What’s been alleged

Rubio is alleging that Hernández — who is seeking a seat in Congress — pushed, shoved, hit and choked her during their marriage, according to the Los Angeles Times. The couple is 16 months into divorce proceedings.

After an April 5 divorce hearing, Rubio alleges that Hernández “came ‘aggressively’ toward her and began shouting in her face,” prompting her to seek a restraining order. In the filing, Rubio included pictures of a bruised and scratched arm, the Times reported.  

Hernández denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times on Thursday and other outlets and said he will not take a leave of absence or step aside from committee responsibilities.

Hernández was re-elected to a third and final term in 2014, beating his opponent by 9 points. 

Mostly quiet 

Besides Jackson, Garcia and one Republican assemblyman who has been calling for Hernández to be stripped of his chairmanship since he had security forcibly remove the Republican’s microphone at a committee hearing, other lawmakers have been quiet, as have outside groups.

In a long statement condemning domestic violence, the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence issued a statement of “concern” about the situation, but refused to take a position “(b)ecause the case at hand is open and ongoing, we do not have all the facts and cannot presume the nature of the evidence, nor the legal implications thereof.”

Troubles in the other chamber

Not that long ago, several Democratic senators ran afoul of the law. All were eventually convicted, unlike Hernández, who has not been charged. Although some were removed from leadership roles at the first sign of trouble. 

Sen. Roderick Wright of Inglewood was convicted of multiple voter fraud felonies, according to the Los Angeles Times. During the appeals process, he was removed from his committee chairmanship. 

Sen. Ron Calderon of Bell Gardens was removed from the executive board of the California Latino Legislative Caucus and from his legislative committee assignments after allegations of bribery surfaced. He had not been charged with any crimes at the time, but eventually took a leave of absence after federal corruption charges were filed. 

The apex of trouble was when Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was indicted on charges of gun trafficking and public corruption (while in cahoots with a gangster named Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow). Yee was immediately stripped of all of his committee assignments. 

At the time, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, had had enough. “Every indictment, every arrest, every arraignment and even every suspicion or allegation reflects very poorly on each of us and all of us,” Leno said at the time.

Leno did not respond to requests for comment on Friday about whether those feelings remained and if they applied to Hernández.

History

It’s not the first time Hernández has been accused of wrongdoing. In 2012, an ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence, although charges were never filed due to insufficient evidence. 

That same year, Hernández was arrested for drunk driving in a state vehicle, but was acquitted by a jury on one charge, while the jury was hung on another. 

In 2015, allegations of political money laundering against Hernández were dropped by the Fair Political Practices Commission after two key witnesses were unable to testify — one had serious medical issues while the other had passed away.