California Legislators admonished for sexual misconduct

The Sacramento Bee is reporting four state legislators have received verbal reprimands for misconduct of a sexual nature.  Included in the list were Republican Governor candidate Assemblymember Travis Allen, Sen. Bob Hertzberg and Sen. Tony Mendoza, who was reprimanded while in the Assembly, and Assemblywoman Autumn Burke. 

The century old newspaper released their article late Friday afternoon with Travis Allen responding the following Monday with a request to audit the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) after more than a million driver licenses have been issued to illegal immigrants ovee the last three years.

“Californians don’t believe for one second that an inefficient state bureaucracy like the DMV has put together a fraud-proof system to prevent Motor Voter from registering illegal immigrants to vote,” said Allen. “California citizens deserve to know that they have fair and honest elections. That is why I am calling for a formal audit of the DMV.”

It is unclear whether the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) will proceed with this request.

Inglewood Assemblymember Autumn Burke, who has represented the 62nd District since 2014, did not deny participating in “office conversation” but did attribute the public knowing of her actions to a “disgruntled former employee”.

Burke has been a supporter of the #MeToo movement of women being encouraged to speak out of instances of either sexual assault and/or sexual harassment while working in the states capitol.

Colleagues, who spoke with 2UrbanGirls anonymously, admit their “shock” to find Burke was included in a report that journalists fought to have released.

Burke is up for re-election this coming November, yet many Inglewood residents feel abandoned by her office.  Although her local offices are housed in Inglewood’s City Hall, her public support for returning Inglewood Unified School District (IUSD) to local control has waned and many are not clear on her position as it relates to environmental justice.

Data shows the vast majority of her voter support comes from the unincorporated area of Athens, where her mother was the areas former supervisor and Inglewood.

On today’s JLAC agenda was a bill related to the environment.

Assembly Joint Resoluton (AJR) 29 which seeks to prohibit new oil and gas drilling in federal waters offshore California, opposes the Trump administration’s proposal to remove safety and environmental protections related to offshore drilling operations, and opposes the Trump administration’s proposed leasing plan that would expose the state to new offshore drilling.  Many prominent Black legislators, Chris Holden, Mike Gipson and Reggie Jones-Sawyer, signed on as co-authors of the bill.

Unfortunately, Ms. Burke’s name was not listed.