California lawmakers condemn racist letter opposing maternal mortality bill

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and other California state lawmakers are condemning a racist letter sent to a Black lawmaker and other members of the chamber’s Health Committee.

The letter was sent in opposition to a bill that aims to address disparities in Black maternal and infant mortality rate to the committee. It was signed on behalf of two white supremacist groups and addressed to members of the committee and its chair, Asm. Mia Bonta, D-Oakland.

The Sacramento Bee could not independently verify the author’s identity and is not naming the person who signed it. But several lawmakers have denounced the letter’s content as bigoted, hateful and dangerous.

The author wrote in “vehement opposition of AB 2319” and said the groups “believe every non-white birth in this state is a drain on the taxpayers.”

The letter goes on to espouse additional racist and eugenic language.

AB 2319, authored by Asm. Lori Wilson D-Fairfield, would take steps to ensure hospitals and health care providers are complying with a law that requires regular implicit bias training in an effort to reduce Black infant and maternal mortality.

According to an October study by the California Department of Public Health, Black mothers are up to four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women.

The existence of the racist letter first came to light last Thursday when the Assembly Republican caucus condemned its “bigotry” and “evil ideology” on social media.

“This letter is hate speech and has no place in our legislative process, or anywhere in society,” the Republican statement read. “ We reject the hateful ideology behind this disturbing letter, and stand together as Californians against racism.”

Rivas, D-Hollister, also condemned the letter as “appalling” and said Assembly sergeants and law enforcement are investigating.

Asm. Wilson, the author of AB 2319 and chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, called the opposition letter “not only offensive but deeply disturbing.”

“It is distressing that members of my staff and I were subjected to such vile and hateful material,” she said in a statement. “The language used in this letter is not only disgraceful but dangerous and has no place in our society or legislative discourse. I want to make it unequivocally clear: there is no place for hate in California.”

The author wrote the letter on behalf of two groups, the Imperial Grand Aryan Council of California and the Western United White Knights. Neither appears in a database of hate groups maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, though both names imply ties to white supremacist groups and ideology.

Experts said smaller hate groups and offshoots have more frequently begun to emerge.

“We commonly see a much more splintered, fractured threat matrix even within ideologies,” said Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “A lot of these groups have recycled membership from other groups or share similar racist ideology.”

Levin noted record levels of hate crimes reported in 2023, particularly antisemitic hate crimes and speech. Anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ hate crimes spiked in the Sacramento region in 2022, according to an annual report by the California Department of Justice.

Marc Levine, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League and a former California lawmaker, said hate and bigotry are more commonly “breaking into the public sphere.”

“Online is where it’s been, but I’m not surprised it’s gotten to this,” he said. “People are walking into public meetings spewing racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in person. … They seem emboldened by this moment in time.”

Levine, a former chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, said he had often received hateful and antisemitic comments online during his time as a lawmaker. But he and other sources in the Legislature say it is rare for overtly racist, hateful rhetoric to appear in a formal public comment letter.

“Anyone who’s reading a letter like this, if you’re a legislator or a staff member, that can induce trauma to the person who reads it,” he said. “I feel terribly for people working in this space, for people trying to do public policy and weigh its merits. It’s awful.”