Today on State of Affairs:
- It was a controversial acquittal in San Francisco, as Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the undocumented man charged with the shooting death of Kate Steinle, was convicted on just one lesser charge: felon in possession of a gun. Republican response to the verdict has been heated, with President Trump taking the lead:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/936437372706836480
- Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calls on embattled Congressman John Conyers to resign after several accusations of sexual misconduct.
- One reporter says jaws dropped in the Capitol on Tuesday, as chief administrator Debra Gravert tells a committee on sexual harassment that the Assembly does not, in fact, track harassment complaints. "We only track investigations," she said.
Highlights
The verdict just came down and maybe some people don't want to jump in to try and politicize this, but it's going to happen, right? Eventually, this is going to be used somehow for some kind of political gain.
Scott Shafer: Trump is already using it. For California, we've already — in many ways — dealt with this sort of issue a long time ago, with Prop 187 back in 1994, and the repercussions of that. There was a PPIC poll out today that showed 86 percent of Californians support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, assuming they don't break the law. I don't see it playing out in a big way. It could affect some races at the margins, though.
No campaign ads, Ben? At some point in 2018, I can't imagine not seeing some kind of television ad with this verdict being the centerpiece.
Ben Adler: I think it's certainly likely that we'll see it on a national scale or in other races, much in the way that Republicans tried to tie that congressional candidate in the Atlanta suburbs to Nancy Pelosi, even though that candidate was running much more to the center than Pelosi. Yet that succeeded.
There are always efforts nationally to tie San Francisco liberal politics to candidates running in other parts of the country. Whether we see those ads in California? That's harder to say.
Guests:
- Scott Shafer, senior editor for KQED's California Politics and Government Desk
- Ben Adler, capitol bureau chief for Capitol Public Radio
