California focus: State Senate must restore trust

By Thomas D. Elias

After San Francisco’s Leland Yee joined his colleagues Ron Calderon of Montebello and Roderick Wright of Los Angeles on the state Senate’s indicted/convicted list, all three were suspended and other senators recognized they must restore the public’s trust.

That won’t happen if suspensions are all sitting senators are willing to mete out against their allegedly crooked brethren. Nothing less than expulsions and quick special elections for replacements can prove the Senate still knows why it exists.

The proven and alleged crimes of the Senate three would be enough to justify severe action, just as a state senator indicted for bribery was expelled in 1905.

Meanwhile, keeping Yee, Calderon and Wright on suspension – with pay, no less – leaves almost one-tenth of Californians unrepresented in their Senate. In each case, the public would be best served by not letting the Senate’s alleged crooks hang on for many months while their cases and appeals play out.

None of the three has yet shown the slightest willingness to consider stepping down. Calderon, accused of political corruption, and Wright, convicted of using a false address when filing to run for office, are both stonewalling, and their mostly Democratic colleagues keep enabling them even though their legal woes reduced the party’s Senate edge below the magic two-thirds margin needed to pass some laws.

With Wright and Calderon on leave, and now suspended, while their cases play out, Democrats failed to push through several measures, including a key bill aiming to force disclosure of “dark money” contributors to political campaigns. Not one Republican voted for that one, and if the Democrats still had a two-thirds margin, the predictable GOP solidarity against sunlight would not have mattered.

Now comes Yee, indicted in late March for both firearms trafficking and political corruption. He may yet resign his post – from which he’ll be termed out by year’s end anyhow, and his candidacy for secretary of state, California’s chief elections officer, ended with his arrest.

Yee’s absence puts Democrats another vote shy of the supermajority they held for about a year after the 2012 elections. If the three troubled senators left or were booted, voter registration numbers in their districts assure those seats would remain Democratic. Their stubborn attempts to continue political life make it clear they care less about public policy than personal interest.

Said Yee’s fellow San Francisco state Sen. Mark Leno, “Every indictment, every arrest, every arraignment, even every suspicion or allegation, reflects very poorly on each of us and all of us (in the Senate).”

Mere words like those are not enough. Until the Senate is willing to expel and not just suspend members when they fall into disgrace, voters will be justified in figuring most senators care more about their own skins and pocketbooks than the policies to which they claim devotion.