Legal Insurrection readers may remember my post on a launch of a California recall effort to remove state Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), who voted for the $52 billion road repair package, paid for by fuel taxes and registration fees, just four months after he took office.

Unhappy that their super-majority status is in jeopardy, Democratic politicians in Sacramento inserted language into a bill for a veteran’s cemetery that would kick a recall vote into the next general election.

Over impassioned objections from GOP lawmakers, California Democrats on Thursday used a budget maneuver to help out a freshman colleague, Sen. Josh Newman, who faces an ugly recall battle in Southern California after voting for increasing the state’s gas tax six months after he was elected. Slipped into a budget-related bill on a veteran’s cemetery was a provision to add new requirements for qualifying a recall petition for the ballot. Such changes would almost certainly delay a Newman recall to a general election. General elections typically have better turnouts than special elections and favor Democrats.

Independent-minded Californians are angry at the political manipulation and dirty tricks. On The Liberator Today website, San Diego pundit B-daddy pointed out that while the rest of the nation was focused the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise, as well as congressional associates and police responders, California was solidifying into a monolithic, one-party state.

Going Hugo Chavez one better, the Democrat controlled California legislator is taking action to ensure that one of their own who voted for the hated gas tax won’t get recalled….How long before a third party movement among disaffected Democrats arises to resist this tyranny? Don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile, people are voting with their feet, leaving California.

San Diego conservative talk show host, Carl DeMaio, is one of those leading the recall efforts. DeMaio is gay, as are several of the volunteers who are assisting in gathering signatures for the petition. They were verbally assaulted by a leading Orange County Democratic Party representative during an event this weekend.

A local Democratic Party official was caught on videotape verbally accosting signature gatherers in California during Pride weekend with a torrent of curse words and demanding to know, “Which one of you —holes is the gay?” The official, Jeff LeTourneau, followed up by saying, “You are a f—ing disgrace to any gay person I know, you piece of s—.” The exchange occurred in the parking lot of a Fullerton, Calif., Walmart where LeTourneau, a Vice-Chair with the Democratic Party of Orange County who is gay, discovered that gay volunteers were helping a grassroots group collect signatures to unseat Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman. The effort is in response to a gas tax hike that recently passed the Legislature along party lines. …Throughout the exchange, DeMaio and the publisher of a gay news site could be heard trying to placate LeTourneau with phrases like “Don’t be hateful” and “Don’t be so angry.” At one point, LeTourneau got into an exchange with a shopper who approached the petition table and criticized the Vice-Chair for blocking access. She asked him to move. “I don’t need to step away, are you kidding me?” he said. “I’m not stepping away.”

DeMaio’s team went on to collect a number of signatures after the incident, despite having a slow start prior to LeTorneau’s verbal assault. DeMaio shared these thoughts about the tirade.

It is both arrogant and offensive for a Democratic leader to suggest that, unless you toe the Democratic Party line, you are unwelcome in the LGBT community. Democratic politicians do not get to say who is LGBT or not. Being LGBT is not a choice – we are born this way. But we do get to choose our political party and which issues and candidates we want to support or oppose and that is exactly what the gay volunteers in the Recall against Senator Josh Newman are doing. They oppose the higher gas and car taxes that Senator Newman has voted for and simply want him removed from office before he raises more taxes on working families. For a party that preaches tolerance and diversity, this Democratic leader is showing intolerance and is resorting to bullying tactics to force conformity of political thought.

Americans don’t take kindly to being bullied. If the approach in the video is the one that the party intends to use nationally, then 2018 should be another epic year…for Republicans. And, given the response of Californians who witnessed the exchange and coupled with the legislative dirty tricks, the Golden State may get a bit redder then as well.

Doubt me? Stranger things have happened.



