Incumbent protection. Ever since I got active in the CAGOP – it has been always support your incumbents. This was on display when the Tehama GOP actually reached 2/3 to endorse Bob Williams over Incumbent Assemblyman Dan Logue. The Lawyers at the top levels of CAGOP leadership overturned the endorsement on a technicality so Logue could get the statewide GOP endorsement (which requires no county committees opposed) – further when other Cent Coms deadlocked against incumbents (such as Placer failing to endorse either Gaines) the same lawyers re-wrote the GOP rules to call anything other than reaching 2/3 not acting. Please note – I think Dan Logue is awesome and was one of the best Assemblymembers we’ve had in a generation, but what was wrong is wrong. It is the BS with the endorsement procedures that caused me to abandon support for former GOP Chair Tom Del Becarro long before I knew about his personal issues.
These same feckless leaders of the OCGOP once loved Don Wagner as an Assemblyman, and then he attempted a rematch against Senator John Moorlach a year after losing a special election. They abandoned and threatened Don Wagner so much that Wagner did not file. A few years later, Don Wagner gets elected OC Supervisor and these people are helping him retaliate against his opponents in the Supervisor race! I have whiplash. Moorlach? Useless to the GOP save a short period of time when he raised a few bucks. Don Wagner had given over $500k to GOP candidates, after the way he was treated, I’d bet he is not that motivated to do a thing now.
Do you wonder why folks like Kevin Kiley (AD-06) and Steven Choi (AD-68) sat on $400K plus in 2018 when their colleagues got smoked out of office? (Beyond Kiley’s own ambition) Why should they help, there are no consequences and they can count on the party establishment’s incumbent protection plan. Former Assemblymember Matthew Harper AD-74 was useless on a party level (actually more so than John Moorlach) and had a horrendous reputation for anger and abrasiveness yet no one in the OC GOP would take out the trash. The democrats obliged and took out Harper themselves.
This willful blindness and refusal to police incumbents has had disastrous consequences. Bill Brough in AD-73 is the latest example. As your intrepid blogger is digging in to the record of Bill Brough going back to the late 2000’s there is a disturbing pattern emerging. It is the opinion of this blogger based on evidence gathered in the background that Bill Brough’s rampage through the lives of women has been enabled by people within the ranks of GOP leadership that have covered for and enabled him.
This incumbent protection plan is quite similar to the democrats being caught (but never held to account by their willing whores in the California media) covering up for one dirtbag after another, only to be forced to throw them over the side when brave people persisted in outing the skeletons. (see also Ridley-Thomas, Dabby, Filner, Wright, Yee, Calderon, Autumn Burke, Bocanegra, Christina Garcia, Bob Hertzberg, Kevin Shelley, Lockyer, Efrain Carillo and even their state Chair Eric Bauman) I’ve been told by several capitol insiders there are at least 20-30 more legislators (all of them democrats) that are dirty as sin.
As to the Republicans, Devon Mathis (AD-26) was found to have been unjustly and falsely accused apparently by a former chief of staff that was fired for actual issues. Former Senator Ted Gaines’ Chief of Staff was fired by the rules committee for years of abuses while Gaines did nothing about it. At least Chad Mayes’ (AD-42) dalliances were consensual.
The Orange County Register wrote an article detailing the OC Supervisor (then councilmember) Lisa Bartlett story regarding Bill Brough’s physical advances. BTW – thank you OC register for the attribution. Having had my stuff stolen for years without attribution (I believe mostly by the Sacramento Bee and Southern California Bloggers), the journalistic integrity of the liberal OC and the OC Register is appreciated.
The OC Register story yielded some key nuggets. They are critical to understanding why Bill Brough is mortally wounded politically.
#1 A Second woman is now on the record. She joins my source and Lisa Bartlett. Neither my informant nor Maria Elena Banks have anything to gain by coming forward.
Another woman, Maria Elena Banks — a Laguna Beach real estate agent who helped with campaigns for Brough, Bartlett and other county Republicans — on Friday described a similar encounter that took place in a Dana Point bar about five years ago.
Banks said Brough put his hand on her leg under her skirt and, without removing his hand, asked if he could come to her house. She said she told him no, and he dropped it.
She added that she’s motivated to speak up now, and to support Bartlett, in part because she hopes to send a message: “This has gotten to the point where I’m tired of guys doing this.”
Sounds awfully familiar to the story I wrote from my informant the former legislative staffer.
#2 Bill Brough has been caught in a colossal lie. He may not have even realize what he did. Quoting the OC Register:
A third woman, who has not been identified, filed a complaint against Brough with the state Assembly. The details of the complaint are not public, but a March 2018 letter from the committee, which Brough gave to the Register, says the state found “the factual findings reported by the investigator did not support a determination that (Brough) violated any Assembly policy.”
Brough said he felt vindicated by that letter, saying the outside investigator found the accusation “unsubstantiated.”
This is critical – in 2018, when Ed Sachs was lining up a primary challenge to Bill Brough, your intrepid blogger did some digging. In that research I asked Brough to his face if a complaint was ever filed with the Assembly Rules committee against him. In May of 2018, Bill Brough lied to my face, denying the existence of an Assembly Rules Committee Complaint when I asked him about it. He also appears to have lied to several other political leaders in the area in denying the existence of an Assembly Rules Committee Complaint – even as the feckless Fred Whitaker is trying to figure out how to maintain the incumbent protection plan.
Please note that Brough’s complaint was dismissed on a technicality. There was only one witness, not two. As I wrote previously, people with knowledge of the complaint indicated that the investigators may well have suppressed testimony from other witnesses and I’ve been informed of the possibility that other members of the legislature may have influenced the outcome as well. At this time, I only have confidential informants but no evidence to support either claim.
As I type this blog, Fred Whitaker is working behind the scenes to stymie any sort of rebellion against the incumbent by the rank and file committee. It is time to shell Fred Whitaker with phone calls and emails. While quick to condemn Chad Mayes, Whitaker appears to be protecting Bill Brough.
Once Bill Brough resigns, Fred Whitaker should resign in disgrace not only because of his refusal and failure to lead – but the shellacking at the ballot box under his tenure as the Chairman of the Orange County Republican Party.
To be continued.
Blogger’s Note – the story I wrote about with a confidential informant former legislative staffer was corroborated by a well-known Orange County Republican Political figure who was an eye witness to part of the incident in the bar in Sacramento. Should I be challenged on the accounts or sued for libel, both the OC political figure and the victim indicated they would back me up.
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