This morning I posted up a commentary on the ongoing, depressing situation where State Senator Rod Wright has been convicted on eight felony charges including voter fraud and perjury, and yet continues to serve in the State Senate. Senate President Darrell Steinberg has not called for a vote of the Senate (it takes a two-thirds vote to remove Wright). In fact he has said he intends to wait well into next month (or longer). Apparently he feels that the legislature doesn’t just make the laws, but is above the law. Rod Wright no longer has a presumption of innocence — he was found guilty.
But it’s not just Senate President Steinberg who bears responsibility for Wright continuing to serve — the rank and file members of the Senate have been overwhelmingly silent on this issue, save for three Republican Senators — Anderson, Knight and Vidak.
In my commentary this morning I posted up a mock up of a fictitious mailer that could be prepared by someone, going after a Senator who is silent on Wright’s continued service in the legislature. I randomly picked Senator Ted Lieu (out of those going into a tough election this year) to go into that mock up. But since I said ethics should be a non-partisan issue, a number of readers have said that I should also have a mock-up of a Republican legislator facing election this year. So we randomly pulled one, and had Senator Anthony Cannella plugged into the very same mailing. Both mock-ups are below. Again, these aren’t real mailing. It’s just a way to show how legislators could be held accountable to the public.
P.S. As an aside, I’m a Republican, and it would distress me to no end if any Republicans lost their elections because of this issue.
The mock ups: