California Democrats are rallying around Donald Trump for this reason

SACRAMENTO, California — The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has revived efforts in California to let candidates spend more money on their own security.

Democrats in the state Legislature have no love for Trump, but after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, they are rallying around a push to lift campaign spending limits on security for elected officials and candidates.

“It’s important to remember that he is a candidate,” said state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a San Diego Democrat, adding that the assassination attempt made the California security spending bill “even more clear and urgent.”

“All candidates for public office are facing increasing threats and fear of violence. There’s a civic environment that has become a less safe feeling for many of us who are in elected office and who are candidates for office.”

The bill would eliminate California’s $5,000 cap on campaign funds that candidates and elected officials can use on security. It would instead allow them to cover “reasonable costs” for safety measures such as a home or office monitoring system, personal security details and related expenses for “tangible” items.

The proposal enjoys bipartisan support.

State Sen. Brian Dahle, a Republican from Northern California, called it a “commonsense measure.”

“Political candidates should be allowed to allocate campaign funds at their discretion to ensure they are adequately protected,” Dahle said in a statement.

The bill’s fate will ultimately be decided by one of Trump’s primary foes: California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Democratic governor vetoed a similar bill last year because it didn’t clearly define what was a security expense. He also worried the measure could “lead to use of political donations for expenditures far beyond what any reasonable donor would expect.”

His office declined to comment on the 2024 version, but Newsom’s decision will come under more scrutiny this year given the assassination attempt if the proposal clears the Senate floor in August and lands on his desk again. The veto deadline is the end of September — just over a month away from the presidential election.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, a Democrat from Oakland who is carrying the measure, said in March that the governor was concerned about elected officials using the bill to “arm people in excess.” She said this year’s proposal would ban spending campaign funds on firearms.

“We’ve addressed those concerns,” Bonta said.

The bill has the approval of the state’s ethics watchdog, which worked closely with Bonta on language. Adam Silver, chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, told POLITICO in a statement that the commission is “naturally hesitant to support any legislation that expands the permissible use of campaign funds,” but that “it is an unfortunate reality that elected officials and their families report facing an unprecedented threat of physical violence on a daily basis.”

Silver said the commission believes the measure “addresses this serious public safety concern without undermining the Legislature and voters’ intent to strictly limit the use of campaign funds.”

Bonta, in a statement, said she introduced the measure because of harassment and intimidation she faced when she first ran for office.

“What we saw on Saturday was proof that political violence continues to plague our democracy and reaffirms to me that we urgently need to allow state candidates to invest in their safety and fund security for themselves, their families and their staff,” Bonta said, referencing the attack on Trump.

Assembly Elections Committee Chair Gail Pellerin, a Democrat who previously served as Santa Cruz County’s chief elections official for decades, cited both last week’s assassination attempt and the 2022 attack on former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband as reasons to pass the bill.

“Violence has no place in our communities, including our political system,” Pellerin said.

The bill’s supporters include Todd Spitzer, the Republican District Attorney of Orange County. Audrey Ratajczak, a lobbyist for Spitzer, told a committee in June that the former state lawmaker has faced numerous threats throughout his political career, including a stalker who showed up to his home multiple times.

“He has had to implement a myriad of necessary security protections that far exceed the cap under current law,” Ratajczak said.

There has been no formal opposition to the measure.

Blakespear said she received a rape threat by a caller who identified her by her name.

“Something like a threat of physical violence or of sexual violence — the idea of a man being able to overtake a woman in any way is very scary,” Blakespear said. “Women in particular need to feel that they are safe.”

Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and leading supporter of LGBTQ+ rights who’s likely to run for Pelosi’s seat when she retires, said he’s been the target of many death threats.

“Someone saying they are going to kill you, rape you, decapitate you, whatever the case may be — it’s absolutely jarring,” Wiener said. “And that never gets any easier. It’s not just me: It’s also my staff and interns who have to see that kind of horrific language.”

Removing the cap on campaign spending for security expenses may make elected officials safer, but Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman — who voted for the bill in a committee and has faced a death threat himself — doubts the measure will lower the temperature of the current volatile political discourse.

“I can see where there’s certainly a natural impulse on the part of candidates to want to be better protected from all of the noise and the apprehensions that it creates,” Newman said. “But the question is, ‘Does it make our politics better?’ I’m not sure that it does.”