California politics will be a lot less interesting without Lorena Gonzalez in Sacramento
Lorena Gonzalez worked the first day of her new job as a titan of California labor on Monday, which is great for her but bad for Sacramento.
The former San Diego assemblywoman, who resigned from her seat last week, was one of the most — if not the most — effective California legislators of the last decade. She was also more interesting, more courageous, and, yes, more profane and combative than many of her legislative peers. Gonzalez added intrigue to the dreary churn of sausage-making at the Capitol.
The 50-year-old former Stanford cheerleader, the daughter of a nurse and a farmworker, left the Legislature to become the leader of the California Labor Federation, an alliance of 1,200 unions that represents some 2 million workers. She officially takes over for the outgoing executive secretary-treasurer, Art Pulaksi, in July, but she is already working for the organization she will soon lead.
Gonzalez compiled an impressive record of legislation, from securing overtime for farmworkers to changing how California classifies independent contractors. She fought for women and immigrants. She wasn’t afraid and didn’t care what people thought of her.
Gonzalez is taking on one of the most high-profile jobs in the labor movement. Being a child of a single mother, a cancer survivor, a mom, and a Latina, her ascension as a political force is a smashing success by any measure.
But Gonzalez’s exit from the Legislature is a regrettable loss for a community dominated by all the double-talking do-nothings who work under the dome on L Street. Even when Gonzalez went too far and cussed out Tesla founder Elon Musk on Twitter for defying public health orders, her fury came from a righteous place.
“California has highly subsidized a company that has always disregarded worker safety & well-being, has engaged in union-busting & bullies public servants,” Gonzalez tweeted after leveling an F-bomb at Musk.
It was Gonzalez who stood up to powerful agricultural interests to secure overtime for farmworkers in 2016. It was Gonzalez who nearly secured organizing rights for farmworkers by allowing them to vote in union elections from home — rights many other workers have — until the bill she co-authored was vetoed by Newsom. And it was Gonzalez who shook up ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft and vilified them publicly for denying rights to workers.
Did being tough and driven cost her politically? You bet it did. Gonzalez wanted to be California’s secretary of state, but Newsom had other ideas, appointing former Assemblywoman Shirley Weber to the position when it became vacant. Gonzalez also had the chops to be Assembly speaker — but not the support she would need from fellow legislators.
If Gonzalez had been a man, would opportunities have arisen to keep her in Sacramento? What if she weren’t named Gonzalez? We’ll never know, and it’s not as if there’s an appetite for engaging with those kinds of questions in Sacramento.
For her part, Gonzalez is looking forward to her next challenge, focused on what is and what can be — not what might have been.
After undergoing a bilateral mastectomy, “I was facing my own mortality last year,” she said.
Will she miss being an essential legislator in Sacramento?
“I love my constituents and I’ll miss them, but there is so much pettiness in the Legislature,” she told me. “It’s like middle school. I won’t miss that.”
She’s right about Sacramento’s pettiness and all the performative “leaders” who care more about empty virtue signaling than actual progress. Gonzalez was different, and because of that, she will be missed.
This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 11:20 AM.
