Fed-up California lawmaker switches from Democrat to Republican. Will more follow? | Opinion

Marie Alvarado-Gil — the state Senator representing a sprawling district that includes El Dorado, Stanislaus and 11 other counties — is leaving the Democratic Party to become a Republican.

In other states, Alvarado-Gil’s move would be notable. In California, it’s highly unusual. The 50-year-old legislator representing California Senate District 4 will give up being the chair of the Senate Human Services Committee to join a Republican Senate caucus deep in the minority.

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“This wasn’t a discussion I took lightly, but there was a last straw,” Alvarado-Gill told me. “For me, the last straw was the Proposition 47 shenanigans, the ‘poison pill’ amendments.”

Alvarado-Gil was referring to the June debacle when legislative Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom tried in vain to scuttle reform Prop. 47, the voter-approved initiative passed a decade ago that decreased the penalties for some property crimes. The feeling among Republicans and some Democrats is that retail theft, and other crimes, have increased because there aren’t enough consequences for people who steal repeatedly.

Some Democrats reflexively resist any efforts to increase incarceration sentences. When bills to do that were gaining traction in June, the majority party responded by overplaying its hand and placing liberal ideology above public sentiment.

Rejects Newsom’s ‘fall in line’

A law-and-order package of bills, including from Alvarado-Gil, were hijacked and loaded with amendments — ‘poison pills’ — that would have killed the bills if voters passed a Prop. 47 reform initiative in November.

“The governor was very aggressive to get the Democrats to fall in line,” she said. “I was one of the few that said I would not fall in line. I was vocal about it...So I sat with that for a little while. The consideration of separating myself from the majority party, their tactics and a misalignment of our values has been percolating for some time.”

Some in Sacramento may scoff that Alvardo-Gil made a political calculation to keep herself in office. Her 2022 win was a surprise, the first for a Democrat in her district in decades. A crowded field of Republicans split the vote, she ran as a moderate against another Democrat in the general election and won. Some may say Alvarado-Gill stands a better chance of being re-elected in her district two years as a Republican.

Maybe, but what if Alvarado-Gil is onto something? What if she’s right that Newsom and legislative leaders in the Democratic party are arrogant to the point of enforcing fealty to liberal ideology over voter concerns? What if Alvarado-Gil is representative of Democrats concerned that their party is on the wrong side of issues such as retail crime, fentanyl, human trafficking and sentencing reform?

Significant party moment

“This is a significant moment that neither party should dismiss,” said Mike Madrid, a Sacramento-based political consultant and the author of “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority is Transforming America.” (I helped edit and write Madrid’s book).

“Democrats are losing working-class voters and Republicans can use to rewrite a better future.,” Madrid said. “We’ll see which party is listening.”

Alvarado-Gil said she sometimes marveled at progressive Democrats who would lecture her, the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a former single mom, on discrimination when she pushed law-and-order legislation.

“I would get asked, ‘How can you side with the DA’s? This is going to put more Black and brown people in jail.’ I don’t tend to follow the race train. I’m looking at society as a whole. I also understand that if we don’t hold people accountable for their actions. There is a domino effect. Not only in our prisons system, our education system, our economic system, our housing system and whether or not Californians see themselves as part of communities or they are packing their bags and leaving.”

Alvardo-Gil said she’s not looking back.

“The Democratic party has swung too far. The pendulum is broken,” she said. “This will allow others struggling with that decision to step forward. It only takes one person to create that safety. The path to safety is to open that door and walk through it. For those who want to walk through it, I will be there to greet them.”