Experts Expound

“Juan Arambula, a lifelong Democrat from Fresno, has fled his party and re-registered as a Decline-to-State. Is this an isolated event or an indication that Assembly Democrats are in turmoil?”

Arambula is smarter than your average bear is. He also is a moderate CV Democrat who always has shown an independent streak. My guess this does not mark a wholesale revolt but is an isolated incident by a termed-out member who’s mostly had it up to his keister with his colleagues — on both sides of the aisle.

Humorist Will Rogers once said, “I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat.” Seriously, the Assembly Dems are starting to act like the legislative Republicans—if you are not 99.4% ideologically pure, you are NOT WANTED. What ever happened to the Big Tent theory?

More and more elected officials that are in the middle will be looking at this option. Who wants to be associated with Ron Nehring and John Burton?

California is in turmoil because of the Dems.

Both. Hard to imagine anyone else, even another termed-out member not eyeing another office, changing their party registration. However, the Assembly Democrats have defined turmoil ever since they went through the year’s first budget debacle in February.

This is the kind of thing Republicans should be able to exploit – except that they can’t, because they are so far out of touch with a large majority of Californians.

Better than re-registering as a Reep. We always have losses among Demo officeholders, especially when we have so many of them. This is less important than GOP registration being at the all-time low of 31%.

Glad to see one (former) Democrat who didn’t like getting threatened by the purple-shirted goons…

It is an isolated incident but it shows the leader’s lack of control. If all republicans were asked to vote for any cut- only budget proposal, similar defections would occur.

The Assembly was in turmoil long before Juan’s move, which is consistent with his go-it-alone approach to politics. He may be too idealistic for our dysfunctional Legislature.

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