California Assembly’s treatment of Buffy Wicks exposes Anthony Rendon’s dysfunction
My last column clearly got under the skin of California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. At 9:21 p.m. on Saturday, hours after it published, the powerful legislator responded on Twitter.
“Enough,” Rendon tweeted. “I take full responsibility for what happened with @BuffyWicks. @gilduran76 I’m fair game. My staff is not. Carrie Cornwell’s work & integrity is beyond reproach. She was sticking up for Assembly staff-they’ve worked very hard to pass critical bills under threat of COVID19.”
Rendon and his staff clearly didn’t work hard enough. Critical bills dealing with police reform, housing and the environment died on their watch. The clock ran out, dooming key legislation. Was it chaos, cowardice or conspiracy? Depends on who you ask.
My column detailed a leaked email that Rendon’s chief of staff, Carrie Cornwell, sent to his entire team as the week ended.
Her message revealed raw feelings about an episode during which Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, went viral for taking her month-old baby to a vote on the Assembly floor. Wicks did this after Rendon denied her the ability to vote by proxy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Legislative failures
As bad as it looked, however, the Wicks episode was just one of the California Legislature’s many stunning “failures” this year. Rendon’s weak leadership style helped fuel the debacles.
The Assembly leadership’s treatment of Wicks also provided a clear example of the chamber’s dysfunctional dynamics. First, there’s the chaos. Rendon was fine with Wicks voting by proxy until he wasn’t, and he was fine with her staying home even though, as it turns out, her vote proved to be important.
Then there’s Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego. A key Rendon ally, she acted as the speaker’s chief public defender. And as the Capitol buzzed with outrage over Wicks on the last day of the legislative session, Gonzalez apparently worked behind the scenes to undermine a key part of Wicks’ story.
Many screenshots
Screenshots of messages obtained by The Sacramento Bee show that Gonzalez had privately contradicted Wicks’ claim that Rendon had denied her a proxy vote. Since Rendon has now fully admitted this, it seemed odd that Gonzalez would deny it even while proclaiming Wicks a “shero” on Twitter.
Some women, who asked not to be identified, told me they saw it as the latest example of powerful women defending powerful men in California’s State Capitol. Gonzalez called that suggestion “offensive.”
Unlike Rendon, Gonzalez readily agreed to an interview. When asked why she had denied Wicks’ story to others, she at first seemed inclined to deny it.
“No, no, I don’t think I ever said that,” Gonzalez said.
After I mentioned the screenshots, she clarified.
“I didn’t know she had asked to vote by proxy until the day after she came in,” Gonzalez said.
An apology
Gonzalez told me she’d originally thought that Wicks was fine coming to Sacramento. But she said she had been unaware of Wicks’ subsequent request for a proxy vote, which Rendon had denied earlier in August.
“I already have apologized to her,” said Gonzalez. “I apologized to her by text. I said, ‘you know, this is crazy. I apologize.’ Because I had asked her to come in and I had … no idea that she asked for a proxy because her texts with me were all about when she was coming in.”
“I think it’s really s----- to share texts with you,” Gonzalez said, using a curse word to disparage the apparently widespread Sacramento practice of sharing screenshots.
She then sent me some screenshots of her own.
Paid family leave
Gonzalez praised Wicks during our interview, saying “she made all the right decisions.” Yet Gonzalez, like Rendon’s chief of staff, also seemed to have mixed feelings. For example, Gonzalez said I was wrong to say Rendon had “forced” Wicks to appear on the Assembly floor.
But if Wicks felt that she had to show up or let critical bills die, didn’t Rendon’s decision force her to act?
“Well … that’s her feeling, and I appreciate that,” Gonzalez said, admitting that it was unclear whether a bill to guarantee paid family leave had enough support to pass without Wicks. “I commend her for being a legislator so committed to ideals that she felt like she had to, but that’s different than the speaker forcing her to, wouldn’t you say?”
Actually, I’d say that it’s the job of leaders like Rendon to make sure crucial bills have the votes to pass without making a nursing mother feel the need to show up in person. With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?
“Can we also talk about how the Assembly Democratic Caucus has 61 members and yet a new mom had to get herself to Sacramento to be the 41st vote on PAID FAMILY Leave?!” tweeted Alma Hernandez, executive director of SEIU California, in a shot at Democratic moderates. “Any one of the 19 Dems could have voted yes. Oh wait…”
(Hernandez later clarified that moderate Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno, provided the 41st vote at the last minute.)
Tense undercurrent
During our conversation, Gonzalez suggested that other mothers in the Legislature have had it even worse than Wicks.
“When it comes to being a mom in the Capitol, have things gotten better? Oh my gosh, yes,” Gonzalez said. “Yes, we have a long way to go. But, you know … the things that I’ve been through, I’m telling you. We know the difference. If you’ve lived it, you know the difference.”
Gonzalez added that people often ignore the plight of Latinas in the Capitol. Fair point, and I plan to explore that issue.
Gonzalez’s comments, like Cornwell’s email, seemed to confirm an undercurrent of tension. No one can publicly attack Wicks, but some clearly think Rendon got a raw deal.
Rendon’s team may be overreacting to criticism as a result. Sources told me that Rendon’s operation conducted outreach over the weekend to urge allies to “like” his tweet criticizing my column. The speaker’s press secretary declined to answer questions about it.
I hope it’s not true. Because if Speaker Rendon’s people had the time and energy to whip votes for a tweet, it shows they could have put some effort into marshaling support for important bills. Why is there so much passion for petty squabbles and semantic battles, but not for the progress Californians have been promised?
California’s Assembly needed real leadership last week, but Anthony Rendon fell short. In a twist, some now speak of Buffy Wicks as his possible replacement.
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM.