By California Legislator Kevin Kiley
The Legislature’s latest scandal has gotten attention for its sordid details: One of the Capitol’s most powerful Legislators had a four-year affair with a homeless domestic worker, which he began by impersonating another Legislator on the “What’s Your Price?” dating site.
But what’s important is where this led: to the woman being abused by special interests to help pass one of the most destructive laws in California history.
When she testified last year in favor of AB 5, claiming the bill would help workers like her, the affair with the powerful Assembly Budget Chairman who supported the law had been going on for years. She’s now gone on the record saying she was “exploited” by the lawmaker as well as by the California Labor Federation and other special interests to advance their legislation.
It’s hard to imagine a more tawdry set of revelations, but it only confirms the larger scandal that’s played out in plain sight: special interests hijacking our government and running roughshod over anyone who gets in the way.
As background, AB 5 is a bill that has destroyed the lives of countless Californians, by banning independent contractors from working in hundreds of professions. The legislation was written and muscled through the Legislature by the large union conglomerates who spend more money electing California politicians than anyone else by a mile.
Here’s what the exploited woman said in her own words, a quote that should be inscribed on the dome of our State Capitol:
These unions controlled my testimonies, got stories out of me, and then tossed me out. It was a payday for them, not to help domestic workers.
She added she had “never experienced abuse on this level” and was used as a prop to bolster AB 5.
I’ve spent the last two years fighting against AB 5, and sadly it comes as no surprise that the same interest groups who abuse workers collectively through legislation also abuse workers individually through the process of getting it enacted.
They’ll do whatever it takes to push their agenda. And many California politicians are only too willing to go along, no matter who gets hurt, and no matter that it’s ruining our state.
That’s why this story is a matter of more than prurient interest. It tells you everything about the brutality of Sacramento politics and the special interests who dominate it.
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