When a politician switches parties in California, it usually only goes one way – to the Democrats. When that happens, Democratic politicians tell us they simply saw the error of their ways. They’ve come into the light.
The reality is, it’s just politics. State Sen. Bill Dodd switched parties the year before he ran for, and ultimately won, a Democratic-held Assembly seat. Assemblyman Brian Maienschein switched from R to D as his formerly red district began to turn blue.
It’s probably a smart political move where Democrats have a sizable registration and fundraising advantage over their Republican opponents. But that’s what made it so surprising when Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil of Jackson announced she was switching parties – to become a Republican.
“In the past two years that I’ve been working in the Senate, I have not recognized the party that I belong to,” Alvarado-Gil said during an appearance on Fox News. “The Democratic Party is not the party that I signed up for decades ago.”
The reality is, the then-Democrat won the Republican-leaning 4th State Senate district because six Republicans split the primary vote, and two Democrats made it through to the general election. It seems unlikely that she would win reelection in 2026 as a Democrat.
It’s just politics. But then again, that all sounds a lot like the crisis of conviction we’re told to believe when it happens the other way, doesn’t it? She saw the light! Certainly, Democratic leaders applauded Alvarado-Gil’s principled stance, right? Don’t count on it.
Instead, she was stripped of all her committee assignments, accused of betraying her constituents (who are majority Republican) and was kicked out of the Legislature’s Latino Caucus.
Whether you believe her or not, it does take guts to leave the party in power and take the slings and arrows for it. Plus, at least one thing she said is absolutely true.
“The status quo under a supermajority Democratic rule in the legislature is simply not working for this state,” she said.
The supermajority controls every step of the legislative process and yet they still rush through bills without reading them, pass them with fiscal impacts they do not know and when procedural rules meant to enforce good governance get in their way, they just circumvent them with tricks and pretenses.
One of these is the so-called gut-and-amend, which involves taking an existing bill, gutting it of all its language, and amending it into an entirely new piece of legislation.
Another trick is performed by passing stacks of blank bills with no language in them at all, except for a single line of placeholder text.
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For example, after the budget is negotiated in secret by the governor and legislative leaders, the agreed-upon provisions become “amendments” to these blank bills. Those are called “trailer bills.” There are no hearings in policy committees and no opportunity for amendments or debate. There’s simply an up-or-down vote on each of them and they go to the governor’s desk.
Further, this opaque process rewards holding back important, and controversial, legislation until the last minute. Why argue when you can simply bypass the process in the waning days of the session? To see the rush of bills passed under the cover of darkness on the last day will make your head spin.
The new Republican from Jackson is right, the supermajority is simply not working for this state. California desperately needs legislative reforms that enhance transparency and that allow both citizens and legislators in the minority party meaningful participation. If Marie Alvarado-Gil fights for that, she’ll be bringing some much-needed sunshine to disinfect Sacramento’s grimy process. Maybe she has seen the light.
Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
