There are already whistleblower protections in law that shield the state’s executive and judicial employees who report unethical activity, yet legislative staff does not have the same protections from retaliation.

In 2014, Democratic state Sens. Roderick Wright of Inglewood, Leland Yee of San Francisco and Ron Calderon of Montebello, were all suspended without pay after Wright was convicted of felony perjury and election fraud and the other two were brought up on federal corruption charges. 

The bill has passed the Assembly three times, only to die in the Senate Appropriations Committee, which, like the rest of the Legislature, is strongly controlled by Democrats.

“It is clear the Democrats do not want to stand up to corruption,” Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement. “It’s also clear they want to continue to protect one another as their former caucus members prepare to serve prison sentences,” Melendez 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. 

While dozens of measures are vying to make it on the November general election ballot, one proposal is ready for the June primary — even though no one is campaigning for or against it.

Proposition 50 is a constitutional amendment empowering legislators to suspend other legislators without pay with a two-thirds vote of the respective chamber.

The measure is in response to three suspensions with pay in 2014: Democratic state Sens. Roderick Wright of Inglewood, Leland Yee of San Francisco and Ron Calderon of Montebello. Wright was suspended after being convicted of felony perjury and election fraud and the other two were suspended after federal corruption charges were filed.

The measure has a good chance of passing, as public perception of the Legislature took a hit following the rash of incidents in 2014 (in February of 2015, it rebounded a bit but was still in the low 40 percent range).

“From a voter’s perspective, it’s pretty straight forward,” said Kathay Feng, the executive director of the good government group California Common Cause. “There’s not much love for misbehaving legislators.”

Feng said some may question whether this measure violates the spirit of innocent until proven guilty, but others are sure this won’t be an issue.

“Guilty until proven innocent when it comes to legislators,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic campaign strategist, noting that the measure is “totally non-controversial.”

Politics and Process

The measure doesn’t have any opponents actively fighting it. But no one is pushing for it either. When contacted by CalWatchdog, former Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who introduced the measure, deferred through an aide to sitting senators or the Senate Rules Committee for more info.

But sitting senators would refer it to an outside group to handle the campaign, yet no such committee has been formed. No one is campaigning for it.

“All of the people who were originally involved seemed to have left this as an orphan for somebody else,” said Feng.

If the measure’s passage is truly inevitable — a slam dunk — then there may be little need to push for it, especially in the absence of opposition. But some observers say it could be that the pressure is off now that no one is in trouble.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “The idea may regain currency if another legislator gets into major trouble, but until then it is in the political memory hole.”

The measure will appear on the June ballot because it is a constitutional amendment added by the Legislature. Measures that go through the signature gathering process can only appear on the November general election ballot — of which it appears there will be plenty.

How Else Can They Be Punished?

Besides suspension, legislators have other punitive actions they can take against lawmakers, although they are rarely used.

According to Alex Vassar, who runs the California political website One Voter Project, censure (it’s basically a public shaming by peers) was last used in 1982 to strongly condemn comments made about abortion rights protesters by O.C. Republican John G. Schmitz.

Expulsion, according to Vassar, was last used in 1905 against legislators colluding to solicit bribes (Wright was threatened with an expulsion vote). And members can also be stripped of committee assignments, which was used last with Yee, Wright and Calderon.

As of April 5 at 7:00 PM, the websites of Democratic Sens. Leland Yee of San Francisco, Ron Calderon of Montebello, and Rod Wright of Inglewood, all of whom have been placed on paid leave, no longer include any mention of the disgraced lawmakers. The website removal is a devastating blow to journalists and members of the public who will no longer be able to investigate past votes, bills and legislative connections of the disgraced lawmakers.

Attempt to cover up for other State Senators?

Incoming Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, has admitted that he was served with a subpoena in the Ron Calderon corruption case. De Leon, who is mentioned 49 times in the FBI’s 124-page complaint against Calderon, is believed to have arranged a $25,000 payment from the Latino Caucus to a nonprofit controlled by Ron Calderon’s brother, Tom. It remains unclear why the State Senate deleted the web archives of the disgraced Senators. However, several other California lawmakers have been cited in the ongoing public corruption cases involving Yee and Calderon. “As set forth below, Senator de Leon caused $25,000 to be contributed to Californians for Diversity, the California corporation controlled by Thomas Calderon in exchange for Ronald Calderon not to challenge Senator Lara to become the Chairman of the Latino Caucus,” the FBI affidavit states.

Kevin de Leon: CA Senate “Best Legislative Institution in the Country”

The maneuver comes within days of de Leon declaring that the California State Senate is the best institution in the country. “There is no greater political legislative body in this land than the California State Legislature … and that includes the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate,” de Leon said during the Senate’s recent debate to suspend the senators with pay. “This is an amazing legislative body, a body I love. You are all fine individuals.” “This is the best legislative institution in the country, hands down,” he said. “We’re going through very difficult times, and we’re going to get past this.” De Leon isn’t alone in having a motivation to wipe the online records of the State Senate. Last month, Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff disclosed that he potentially met with an undercover FBI agent as a part of the Yee investigation.

Thwart public, press from investigating

In addition to pictures and video clips, the websites also contained substantial information detailing the Senators’ votes and known legislative ties, which could implicate other members of the Senate. In contrast to his public image as a gun control advocate, Yee had never successfully passed a gun control bill during his 11 year career in the state legislature, as reported by CalWatchdog.com. Other outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, have published Yee’s most hypocritical press releases. Paradoxically, Yee, who has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists for his work in open government, had assembled one of the Legislature’s most comprehensive and detailed web archives.

Misinformation, revisionist history by CA State Senate

In addition to deleting information, the State Senate has provided a misleading explanation for the absence of a direct reference to Yee. “SD8 is considered an accelerated area currently represented by Senator Mark Leno and Senator Jerry Hill,” the website for the 8th State Senate district now reads. “These unique circumstances create some areas of overlap between the old and new districts (‘accelerated areas’) and some areas without coverage (‘deferred areas’).” It is unclear whether the web archives for the Senators have been permanently deleted or the public’s access to specific files has been revoked. Attempts to access Wright’s biography at the web address, “http://sd35.senate.ca.gov/biography” produced a response that read, “Access denied. You are not authorized to access this page.” However, other web pages, such as the press release section of Ron Calderon’s website, delivered a webpage that read, “PAGE NOT FOUND. The requested page could not be found.”

State Senate did not respond to request for comment

A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg did not respond to an email request for comment Saturday night. Referred to as “Uncle Leland” by his co-conspirators, Yee allegedly offered to smuggle millions of dollars’ worth of automatic weapons into the United States from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines in exchange for campaign contributions, according to the FBI affidavit. In February, Calderon was charged with a 24-count indictment in connection with bribery and corruption. In January, Wright was found guilty of eight felonies in connection with living outside of his district. Wright’s case did not involve any allegations or bribery or corruption.

Senator Leland Yee Deleted from State Senate 8 Website

Senator Ron Calderon Deleted from State Senate 30 Website

Senator Rod Wright Deleted from State Senate 35 Website

But they’ll still get paid themselves, according to the L.A. Times:

“The paid suspensions of Sens. Leland Yee, Ronald S. Calderon and Roderick Wright all but guarantee Democrats will not regain their supermajority in the Senate this session.”

Well, that’s something, I guess.

In the private sector, those accused of such wrongdoing would be suspended without pay.

Which is another reason to sharply reduce the government sector close to zero — then to zero.

By Dave Roberts

When is a tax not a tax? When it’s called a fee by Gov. Jerry Brown and fellow Democrats. But the $30 million that has been proposed to be sucked out of Californians’ wallets and fed into the wood chipper of state government definitely walks, quacks and smells like a tax, according to some Republicans.

Brown’s 2012-13 budget includes a 1 percent tax hike on retail sales of lumber and wood products. The money will pay the cost for state agencies to regulate the timber industry. Timber company officials are backing the bill because consumers get stuck with the tab instead of them, and the legislation, AB 1492, introduced by the Assembly Budget Committee, limits the amount of the judicial damages that timber companies can be hit with in the event of a forest fire.

The Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee approved the bill 11-0, with five Republicans abstaining, on Aug. 15. Although calling it a fee rather than a tax means that AB 1492 does not need the two-thirds legislative approval mandated by Proposition 26, the bill still requires two-thirds support because it’s been deemed an urgency item as the tax takes effect in January. Although the vote was lopsided in the budget committee, the bill was bashed and thrashed by several Republicans and even one Democrat before that.

That Democrat is Sen. Roderick Wright, who represents Inglewood. He sounded positively Republican as he blasted California’s expensive regulatory practices. He ended up voting for AB 1492, but was not happy about it.

“One of the things that we seem to do in California is we make stuff decidedly more expensive for absolutely no benefit,” said Wright. “Those states, Oregon and Washington in particular, seem to have figured out a way to manage their forest as well or in some cases better than we do, have a lower timber harvest plan cost, deliver more board feet of lumber at a better price. We are importing lumber from them in many instances. And their fire danger seems to be less than ours. So they end up achieving all of the benefits at a lower cost than we do.

“It seems like to me we have an ass backwards system. And I’m not sure what we do with it. Today we may have to support this because it may be the best that we have. But I don’t think anyone would even suggest that this is a good idea. It’s just better than the stupidity that we have been operating under. We’re just making an improvement over something that was before admittedly stupid. So now it’s just less stupid.”

New tax

Another Senate Democrat who voted for the bill, Gloria Negrete McLeod, also seemed skeptical about how the new tax on wood products would be implemented. “What if I go to the lumber store and I want a lath, and I only want six inches of a lath because I want to shore something up,” she asked. “Are you going to charge me six inches of a lath as opposed to a board as opposed to a bunch? What about toothpicks? They are made out of wood. [Laughter in the audience.] I’m serious.”

Although the specific wood products that will be taxed have yet to be identified, the intent is to focus on building products, responded Matt Paulin, assistant program budget manager for the California Department of Finance. But that answer did not satisfy Mira Guertin, a lobbyist representing Home Depot.

“Home Depot has concerns this new assessment burdens retailers like Home Depot,” she said. “The definitions are vague. The toothpick example raised by Sen. Negrete Mcleod is not really all that farfetched. There’s a lot of things like doors, window frames, lattice work, gardening barrels, tool handles, all sorts of things, thousands of products in these stores that could potentially be subject to the tax. And that is a big burden for retailers to try to program around that. And also the list will change every year.

“We are also concerned that this is potentially a double increase for our customers. They may be facing or choosing to impose on themselves a half-percent sales tax increase in the fall [Proposition 30]. This would go on top of that. It’s currently unclear in the language whether the sales tax is applied to the 1 percent lumber assessment or not. That’s something we’d like to see clarified at the very least.”

Quick decision

Senator Doug La Malfa, who represents Butte, led the Republican attack on the bill, which he said should first have been considered by other committees dealing with governance, finances and natural resources.

“Here we are with 16 days to go in the session taking up some very important policy that should be heard and fully vetted in these committees,” he said. “And we are doing it once again as a budget trailer item on some key tax and resource policy. Traditionally, when we have the implications on the regulatory side and the new tax that’s going to be involved, I think we would like to vet out in the committee process and have input on … what is going to be deemed a wood product that’s going to be subject to the 1 percent sales tax.”

Hearing the word “tax,” Committee Chairman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, smiled and corrected La Malfa, calling it a “regulatory fee.”

La Malfa responded, “If it walks and quacks like a tax …” He went on to agree with Wright about incompetent regulations: “I’m just really troubled by this. And this is something that I care passionately about. I’ve served here almost eight years in the Legislature. And forestry management issues, the ability to harvest timber within our state instead of exporting our so-called environmental problem to other states or countries, I think great strides need to be made. Yet what we are doing is conceding California’s costs are going to be tremendously higher for timber harvest plans than Oregon or Washington, which are very successful in managing forests.”

Tax or fee?

Sen. Bill Emerson, R-Riverside, is concerned that the lumber tax revenue will be sawed off to other programs, especially if more money comes in than is needed to regulate timber.

“What happens when the economy improves and the dollars go to, say, $60 million?” Emerson asked Paulin. “You’re telling me that any excess funds would be protected and not ripped off as we’ve done traditionally in this state of California. Will they go into the General Fund and just be used for whatever?”

Paulin responded, “No, they clearly can’t go into the General Fund, being a regulatory fee.”

Emerson interrupted, “Sir, sir, it’s not a regulatory fee. Individuals are paying. This is a tax. It’s a consumer tax that individuals are paying. It has nothing to do with regulatory. You may use it for regulatory, but it has nothing to do with a regulatory fee. Let’s be honest about that one.”

But the committee Democrats were persuaded by the pleas from timber company officials, some of whom said that they are in danger of going out of business if AB 1492 is not passed. One of those is Chuck Henderson, manager for Shasta Forest Timberlands, who said his family-owned company owns 140,000 acres of timberland in northeast California and has been in business since 1894. It is being sued by the federal government for $791 million in connection with the Moonlight fire, which burned 65,000 acres in the Plumas National Forest in 2007. If the federal government is successful in court, Henderson called it “a virtual economic death penalty.

“This law is critical to the survival of family-owned timberland companies such as ours as well as farmers, ranchers, ski areas and anyone else whose business abuts government property. This law sensibly seeks a balance between economic and environmental damages and the value of the land damaged. It recognizes the cost of negligence while also ensuring the risk of accidents is insurable. Last year our insurance doubled for half the coverage. And what’s more, we now have four layers of insurance where we used to have two. This is not sustainable. If we are no longer able to afford insurance, we will no longer be able to stay in business and no longer be able to stewards of our land and no longer able to deliver the economic and environmental benefits that we have provided to the community and to the citizens of California for over a century.”

Leno cited the pleas from Henderson and other timber harvesters as he called for the vote. AB 1492 received two-thirds support, 47-23, in the Assembly on March 22. No Republicans voted for it, but four abstained. The full Senate still is considering it.