2022 CA Senate race: on Government Reform


Alex Padilla: Implemented same-day voter registration

Source: 2022 California Senate campaign website Alex-Padilla.com Dec 23, 2020

Alex Padilla: Gave voter outreach money to consulting firm, not counties

Bypassing the state's regulations that ensure fair contracting, Padilla gave a $35 million "voter outreach" contract to a partisan Washington D.C. based political consulting firm. In an affront to public trust, Mr. Padilla ignored the Legislature's intended purpose for the money. He spent this money instead of sending it to the counties. As written in the state budget, this funding was supposed to go to local elections officials to administer November's election, not to bankroll a partisan firm.
Source: Sacramento Bee on 2022 California Senate race Dec 3, 2020

Alex Padilla: Has focused on lowering barriers to voting

Padilla has focused on lowering barriers to voting in California. He's been sued by Republicans who say he's failed to rid voter rolls of dead or duplicated voters. "If you're a Republican, you probably see Alex Padilla as really supporting Democratic causes. If you're a Democrat, you probably see Alex Padilla is doing what he should be doing, which is expanding the ability of people to easily vote to make sure that the barriers to vote are very low," said Loyola Law School's Jessica Levinson.
Source: KQED San Francisco 88.5 FM on 2022 California Senate race Oct 12, 2020

Alex Padilla: Supported allowing let 17-year-olds vote in primaries

[OpEd by Padilla]: Allowing those who turn 18 by the general election the right to vote in primary elections will kick start voter education much earlier And when people start voting at a younger age, they are more likely to become higher propensity voters and be more engaged in their communities.

A civically engaged citizenry feeds oxygen to our democracy. Teaching young voters the value of this right and responsibility will show them the power they possess to shape their future.

Source: San Diego Union Tribune on 2022 California Senate race Sep 17, 2020

Alex Padilla: Reducing city council districts an assault on voting rights

The state's top elections official showed up in Santa Clara to denounce the city's effort to shrink the number of council districts. Secretary of State Alex Padilla said Measure C would unlawfully exclude people of color from representation in their local government. At a presser hosted by the Council on American Islamic Relations in Santa Clara, Padilla said the initiative echoes the "strategic assault" on voting rights by the White House and GOP-led state legislatures throughout the country.
Source: San Jose Inside on 2022 California Senate race Sep 17, 2020

Alex Padilla: Vote by mail works in blue states and red states

Alex Padilla condemned Trump's latest tweetstorm threatening to pull federal funding to Nevada and Michigan if they proceed with vote-by-mail drives, calling it Trump's "clearest example yet of using disinformation to try and influence the November election."

"It's particularly appalling because there's many blue states that do a good amount of vote-by-mail, like California - as well as many red states, like Utah," Padilla said.

Source: Politico e-zine on 2022 California Senate race May 2, 2020

Alex Padilla: Yes to expanding Supreme Court; not sure on term limits

Expanding, in my mind balancing the Supreme Court, absolutely. Anybody who tries to criticize those proposals and tries to reframe it as stacking, stacking is what McConnell and Trump have been doing the last several years. So yes, it's time to rebalance the Supreme Court. In terms of term limits, I have mixed feelings on that. There are good arguments to be had there.
Source: Washington Post on 2022 California Senate race Mar 23, 2021

James Bradley: Party to suit challenging state election laws

A lawsuit is attempting to impugn the integrity of the last election. Among the plaintiffs is James Bradley, a Republican who has run unsuccessfully in California for the U.S. Senate and the 48th and 33rd congressional districts. The complaint takes aim at election rules like ballot harvesting and mass vote by mail. The lawsuit claims these laws, and others, harm the legitimacy of elections in the state. The complaint argues that election observers were not granted proper access to the polls.
Source: Orange County Spectrum News-1 on 2022 California Senate race Jun 8, 2021

Mark Meuser: Time to start reining in the unelected bureaucrats

Meuser told The Chronicle he is running because he's a "constitutionalist" who believes in limited government authority and seeing the past few years of COVID mandates made him want to go to Washington to pare it back. "It became abundantly clear that it was time for the legislature to start reining in the unelected bureaucrats, and that the only way I could do that was really by becoming a legislator," Meuser told the editorial board.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle on 2022 California Senate race Jun 8, 2022

Mark Meuser: Can't have confidence in the results of 2020 election

Perhaps not surprisingly, Meuser also questions the results of the 2020 election. "There are so many irregularities about this election that I do not feel any American who looks at it can have confidence that they know what the actual results are," he said.
Source: KPIX TV CBS-5 on 2022 California Senate race Jun 3, 2022

Mark Meuser: So many irregularities about the 2020 election

Earlier this year, California Republican nominee Mark Meuser told television station KPIX 5 of the 2020 election: "There are so many irregularities about this election that I do not feel any American who looks at it can have confidence that they know what the actual results are."

Meuser is making a longshot challenge to incumbent Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who beat him in the 2018 secretary of state race. Meuser's campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Source: CNN on 2020 Election Denial in 2022 California Senate race Sep 15, 2022

  • The above quotations are from 2022 California Senate race: debates and news coverage.
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Candidates and political leaders on Government Reform:

Retired Senate as of Jan. 2015:
GA:Chambliss(R)
IA:Harkin(D)
MI:Levin(D)
MT:Baucus(D)
NE:Johanns(R)
OK:Coburn(R)
SD:Johnson(D)
WV:Rockefeller(D)

Resigned from 113th House:
AL-1:Jo Bonner(R)
FL-19:Trey Radel(R)
LA-5:Rod Alexander(R)
MA-5:Ed Markey(D)
MO-9:Jo Ann Emerson(R)
NC-12:Melvin Watt(D)
SC-1:Tim Scott(R)
Retired House to run for Senate or Governor:
AR-4:Tom Cotton(R)
GA-1:Jack Kingston(R)
GA-10:Paul Broun(R)
GA-11:Phil Gingrey(R)
HI-1:Colleen Hanabusa(D)
IA-1:Bruce Braley(D)
LA-6:Bill Cassidy(R)
ME-2:Mike Michaud(D)
MI-14:Gary Peters(D)
MT-0:Steve Daines(R)
OK-5:James Lankford(R)
PA-13:Allyson Schwartz(D)
TX-36:Steve Stockman(R)
WV-2:Shelley Capito(R)
Retired House as of Jan. 2015:
AL-6:Spencer Bachus(R)
AR-2:Tim Griffin(R)
CA-11:George Miller(D)
CA-25:Howard McKeon(R)
CA-33:Henry Waxman(D)
CA-45:John Campbell(R)
IA-3:Tom Latham(R)
MN-6:Michele Bachmann(R)
NC-6:Howard Coble(R)
NC-7:Mike McIntyre(D)
NJ-3:Jon Runyan(R)
NY-4:Carolyn McCarthy(D)
NY-21:Bill Owens(D)
PA-6:Jim Gerlach(R)
UT-4:Jim Matheson(D)
VA-8:Jim Moran(D)
VA-10:Frank Wolf(R)
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Page last updated: Feb 14, 2023