Bee Opinionated: A question of ethics + Feinstein finally gives in + Newsom moves in secrecy
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Hiya, it’s Robin Epley again, with The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board. Did you miss me?
My apologies for the unexpected newsletter hiatus, but I took a short vacation that turned into a much longer break when I finally caught the dreaded Coronavirus on an airplane coming back from NYC. I managed to avoid it for nearly three years and it still took me out like a freight train.
(I’m doing OK — thanks for asking! — but I’ve still got that nasty “covid cough” and my lungs often feel like a small child is sitting on them. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.)
Anyway, I wanted to make sure I came back with a bang so last week I teamed up with Fresno Bee opinion editor Tad Weber for an editorial on California Assemblymember Mia Bonta’s breach of ethics when she agreed to sit on a budget subcommittee that oversees the budget for her husbands’ office: California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The news was first broken by KCRA’s Ashley Zavala, who reported that Mia Bonta had been appointed by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon to chair a budget subcommittee that has responsibility for public safety agencies.
The assemblymember’s response to Zavala’s and other outlets’ questioning was jarring to say the least, especially when she seemed to imply that it was somehow both racist and misogynistic to ask her any questions about it:
“Almost within my lifetime, there would have been the ‘appearance of impropriety’ for me to marry my husband of a different racial background. I’m certain a woman voting ‘appeared improper’ as well in our recent history,” Mia Bonta wrote.
“There certainly are many examples in our legislative history where policy and budget chairs had spouses serving in another branch of government. Yet, I wonder if the reason I am being asked these questions is because I am a female legislator.”
The Bontas comparing their current situation, which is entirely self-inflicted, to historically institutional racism and misogyny is not only an obvious diversion, it’s a blatant insult to the many people who have suffered — and continue to endure — under those rampant prejudices.
With this argument, Mia Bonta is attempting to deflect blame and play the victim in what can only be described as an outright ploy to skirt the transparency we demand of our government officials.
This story is ongoing so stay tuned.
Finally, Feinstein
“It’s been a sad spectacle, not befitting a leader of her stature. But that’s what happens when leaders stay too long.”
Bee editorial cartoonist and humor columnist Jack Ohman wrote last week about longtime California politician, Dianne Feinstein’s decision to finally step down after more than 30 years of service in the U.S. Senate and longer than that on the California political scene.
Feinstein became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from California in 1992, but in recent years, there have been multiple media reports focusing on her cognitive decline.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2022 that “when a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years. Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.”
Prominent U.S. House members Adam Schiff and Katie Porter have already announced that they are running for Feinstein’s seat, with Schiff almost immediately gaining the endorsements of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and of the Sacramento mayor, Darrell Steinberg.
“At 89, it’s time for Feinstein to call it a career, a great career, and do what all of us have to do eventually,” Ohman wrote. “We make way for the next generation.”
Supercilious Secrecy
“Where there is no transparency, there can be no accountability. That is not a partisan ideal, but an American one; and every American politician, president and governor — all the way down to an ad hoc committee on school lunches — should hold themselves to it, or be held to it.”
Why, then, is California Gov. Gavin Newsom dodging such basic, everyday transparencies like sharing his schedule?
Last week, reporters from The Bee and other outlets attempted to follow Newsom’s schedule for two days through Washington D.C., as he took multiple meetings with high-profile names such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Alex Padilla and President Joe Biden.
But Newsom’s office never made public where he was going or who he was meeting with until after the meetings had occurred.
“Newsom’s high-handed attitude toward transparency is beyond arrogant. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris release a portion of their schedules in advance. Congress, too, makes its detailed committee schedules available days in advance on its House and Senate websites,” The Bee Editorial Board wrote.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and newly elected Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders also share their schedules with the public — surely a comparison Newsom would rather no one draw.”
Opinion of the Week
“One woman told me her son with a serious brain disorder has been in solitary confinement in a county jail for four years. You know, getting the very latest in care as of the year of our Lord 1292.” — Metro Columnist Melinda Henneberger on California families fighting to get their loved ones into the new CARE Court system, despite the disability lobby’s opposition.
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Insert pleasantry here,
Robin Epley
