My Take on the Sudden Love of Abortion By GOP Nominees in California

It is quite a gamble. If you read no further, that is the punchline of this post.

I know Suzette Valladares. She was a long-time member of the CRA. She has always been pro-life until voting to put the Write-Abortion-in-to-the-California-Constitution measure on to the ballot. Why did she do this? She was drawn from AD38 which was about D+1 to AD40 which is now about D+12.

Will this protect her from the expected attacks of being part of the anti Roe V Wade Party?

Nathan Hochman also tweeted the following:

Hochman’s play is that he supports abortion on demand and thusly, Rob Bonta can not use that dog whistle against him in the General election. With that issue resolved, Hochman says, the focus can be on smash-and-grab robberies and the apparently deliberate action of Bonta’s office to expose all the private data of CCW Permit Holders. (I happen to believe that Bonta did it as a temper tantrum over the SCOTUS decision, I am willing to back away from this given evidence to the contrary. Bonta is getting sued and rightly so over this)

But Lanhee Chen went Next-Level Left. Lanhee says, not only am I out there on the abortion issue, but I also hate Trump!

Lanhee Chen has a few confessions to make.

The Republican candidate for California state controller, who will face off against Democrat Malia Cohen in the November general election, told me in an exclusive interview on Thursday that he did not vote for Donald Trump for president in either 2016 or 2020 — and doesn’t plan to support Trump if he runs in 2024. “There are a lot of people who I believe would be better for the job than the former president,” he said.

Chen has taken pains to distance himself from Trump — in an April interview with CalMatters, he described the Jan. 6, 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol as an “abomination” and “an attack on democracy” — but has never before publicly revealed whether he voted for the former president.

So why now, a few weeks after the June 7 primary when California voters made him the top vote-getter for controller?

“He’s still an issue in our politics,” Chen told me. “I’ve been watching these hearings that have been going on, on what happened on January 6th … and I think it’s disgusting. The more I look at it, the more disgusted I am with the kind of behavior we saw that day from people. … I believe that the former president bears some culpability for what happened on January 6th, and I think now we’re discovering the extent of that culpability.”

He added, “As more is revealed, people are gonna want to know” how he voted.

• So here’s how he voted: Chen said he’s “pretty sure” that in 2016 he wrote in Mitt Romney, on whose presidential campaign he had previously worked. And in 2020, “I actually left my ballot blank,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I could vote for either President Biden, nor could I vote for former President Trump.”

Chen also shared his stance on abortion in more specific terms than he has in the past. Cohen, who has vowed to “do everything under my power to uphold funding for our reproductive freedom,” has repeatedly called on Chen to disclose his views on abortion. Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week striking down the federal constitutional right to an abortion, Chen pledged to “never restrict nor interfere with a woman’s ability to get an abortion or access to abortion services.”

But he went a bit further in our Thursday conversation. “I support women’s reproductive freedoms,” he told me. “And that includes access to family planning services, to contraceptives and abortions, as allowed under California law.”

• Nevertheless, Chen said he has “some concerns” about a November ballot measure to enshrine in California’s constitution the right to abortion and contraception — an initiative Cohen says she supports.
• Chen: “On the one hand, I have heard from people who are abortion rights advocates that there’s a concern that the way the amendment’s been written” could “result in more litigation and potentially endanger women’s reproductive freedoms. I don’t think we want to do that. … On the other side are people who oppose abortion, who argue that this would open the door and create a possibility to go beyond what’s allowed in California law now, and potentially, for example, raise the possibility of late-term abortions, which I oppose.”

Chen stressed that he’s sharing his views on these topics not because of pressure from Cohen, or because of the mathematically uphill battle he faces in solidly Democratic California — a challenge he plans to tackle with sustained outreach to Asian American, Latino and African American voters — but because “it’s just a sense I have” that “they continue to be questions that people are asking.”

• Chen: “Let’s answer them, let’s make it clear kind of where the perspective is, and then let’s move on to talk about the issues that the controller really has control over. And, you know, by the way, abortion is not one of them. And nor, by the way, is who’s president in four years.”

Here’s the thing. I knew Hochman was a social liberal when I decided to help him. His resume’ and record is impeccable as a prosecutor and he has a host of issues to run for office on that relegate Abortion down the list. Can Hochman raise the money to successfully sell California on Law and Order? Will the Republican base bail on him over his abortion comments? I am not convinced that being Pro-Choice loses that many votes anymore. I just don’t think it has an up-side either. People vote for Democrats if murdering unborn children is that big of a deal to them. I also contrast what Hochman did to the out-of-character move by Valladares that makes her vote look like obvious politics. Hochman has been consistent for years on his values.

I am not convinced that Valladares’ vote to put that horrific amendment to the California State Constitution on the ballot gets her a thing. If anything, the small Republican base in that district might be upset by that as the action is beyond just the words of Hochman.

I do believe that Lanhee Chen punked the CAGOP. He went further than the other two in to trashing the president and by extension the core of the GOP who love them some Trump. He also demonstrated some severe hubiris in his comments. I believe that Mr. Chen has disqualified himself from serious consideration as a candidate. The CAGOP leaders that helped clear the field for him should once, again be run out of leadership on a rail. There is a part of me that believes that Patterson, Reade, Ross, Gimmecandy, et. al. actually planned to have Chen make this move once nominated. If I can prove this, I sincerely hope it results in a complete cleansing of the GOP. This is unprincipled harlotry and the willingness to crap on your own base for political expediency is appalling.

IN conclusion – Hochman told us the truth. Chen Lied to us. Valladares made a move she thought might get her favor in a D+12 district. We are going to find out in November which strategy worked the best. I will be sure to follow up then. (I wrote my predictions 7-3-2022 on a piece of paper as well)