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Tag: late father

  • Commentary: She won a landslide election. But Trump and Jeffrey Epstein have her stuck in limbo

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    Last month, in a special election, voters in southern Arizona chose Adelita Grijalva to succeed her late father in Congress.

    The outcome in the solidly Democratic district was never in doubt. The final tally wasn’t remotely close.

    Grijalva, a Tucson native and former Pima County supervisor, crushed her Republican opponent, 69% to 29%.

    The people spoke, loudly and emphatically, and normally that would have been that. Grijalva would have assumed office by now, allowing her to serve her orphaned constituents by filling a House seat that’s been vacant since her father died in March, after representing portions of Arizona for more than 20 years.

    But these are not normal times. These are times when everything, including the time of day and state of the weather, has become politically charged.

    And so Grijalva is residing in limbo. Or, rather, at her campaign headquarters in Tucson, since she’s been locked out of her congressional office on Capitol Hill — the one her father used, which now has her name on a plaque outside. She’s been denied entry by Speaker Mike Johnson.

    “It’s pretty horrible,” Grijalva said in an interview, “because regardless of whether I have an official office or not, constituents elected me and people are reaching out to me through every social media outlet.

    “‘I have a question,’” they tell Grijalva, or “‘I’m afraid I’m going to get fired’ or ‘We need some sort of assistance.’”

    All she can do is refer them to Arizona’s two U.S. senators.

    House members are scattered across the country during the partial government shutdown and Johnson said he can’t possibly administer the oath of office to Grijalva during a pro forma session, a time when normal business — legislative debate, roll call votes — is not being conducted. “We have to have everybody here,” Johnson said, “and we’ll swear her in.”

    But, lo, dear reader, are you sitting down?

    It turns out there were two Republican lawmakers elected this year in special elections, each, as it happens from Florida. Both were sworn in the very next day … during pro forma sessions!

    Shocked? Don’t be. In the Trump era, rules and standards are applied in flagrantly different ways, depending on which political party is involved.

    But partisanship aside, what possible reason would Johnson have to stall Grijalva’s swearing-in? Here’s a clue: It involves a convicted sex trafficker and former buddy of President Trump, whose foul odor trails him like the reeking carcass of a beached whale.

    Yes, it’s the late Jeffrey Epstein!

    “On my very first day in Congress, I’ll sign the bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Grijalva said on the eve of her landslide election. “This is as much about fulfilling Congress’ duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors.”

    Jeffrey Epstein. Gone but very much unforgotten.

    For years, his perversions have been an obsession among those, mainly on the right, who believe a “deep state” cover-up has protected the rich and powerful who partnered with women procured by Epstein. After Trump’s marionette attorney general, Pam Bondi, suggested a client list was sitting on her desk, awaiting release, the Justice Department abruptly reversed course.

    There was no such list, it announced, and Epstein definitely committed suicide and wasn’t, as the conspiracy-minded suggest, murdered by those wishing to silence him.

    Trump, who palled around with Epstein, urged everyone to move along. Naturally, Johnson fell into immediate lockstep. (Bondi, for her part, tap-danced through a contentious Senate hearing last week, repeatedly sidestepping questions about the Epstein-Trump relationship, including whether photos exist of the president alongside “half-naked young women.”)

    Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a GOP lawmaker and persistent Trump irritant, and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna have led the bipartisan effort to force the Justice Department to cough up the government’s unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend and fellow sex trafficker.

    The discharge petition, overriding the objections of Trump and Johnson and forcing the House to vote on release of the files, needs at least 218 signatures, which constitutes a majority of the 435 members. The petition has been stalled for weeks, just one signature shy of ratification.

    Enter Grijalva.

    Or not.

    Johnson, who may be simply delaying an inevitable House vote to curry Trump’s favor, insists the Epstein matter has “nothing to do with” his refusal to seat Grivalja.

    Righto.

    And planets don’t revolve around the sun, hot air doesn’t rise and gravity doesn’t bring falling leaves to Earth.

    More than 200 Democratic House members have affixed their signatures to the petition, along with four Republicans — Massie and Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The latter three are all MAGA stalwarts who have bravely broken ranks with Trump to stand up for truth and the victims of Epstein’s ravages.

    “Aren’t we all against convicted pedophiles and anyone who enables them?” Greene asked in an interview with Axios.

    Most are, one would assume. But apparently not everybody.

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    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Newsom leaves the Vatican with pope’s praise for refusing to impose the death penalty

    Newsom leaves the Vatican with pope’s praise for refusing to impose the death penalty

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    VATICAN CITY — 

    In an opulent hall in the Apostolic Palace framed in marble and adorned with Renaissance murals, Gov. Gavin Newsom waited in a line of governors, mayors and scientists for an opportunity to greet Pope Francis.

    The queue wasn’t the ideal setup envisioned by the governor’s advisors. Newsom traveled more than 6,000 miles from California to the Vatican to give a speech before — and hopefully talk with — the pope about climate change.

    Pope Francis, however, had other topics on his mind besides the warming planet.

    “I was struck by how he immediately brought up the issue of the death penalty and how proud he was of the work we’re doing in California,” Newsom said afterward. “I was struck by that because I wasn’t anticipating that, especially in the context of this convening.”

    The talk was brief and informal. But the politically astute head of the Roman Catholic Church still took advantage of the moment to support one of Newsom’s most controversial actions as governor.

    Through executive order two months after his inauguration, Newsom issued a temporary moratorium on the death penalty and ordered the dismantling of the state’s execution chambers at San Quentin State Prison. Families of murder victims criticized the decision, and legal scholars called it an abuse of power.

    Newsom’s refusal to impose the death penalty could hurt him politically if he runs for president.

    As a Catholic, however, the governor’s decree is in line with the church and the pope’s teachings.

    In an interview with The Times after he left the Vatican, Newsom said he has yet to propose a statewide ballot measure to abolish the death penalty because he doesn’t have confidence that it would pass. California voters rejected measures to ban executions in 2012 and 2016.

    Newsom said recent polls conducted by his political advisors show soft support for a ban.

    “We constantly put it in our surveys that I do,” Newsom said in an interview with The Times. “It’s in the margin. But I’m thinking a lot about this beyond that because we’re reimagining death row. I’m thinking about when I’m leaving; I mean, I’ve been pretty honest about that. I’m trying to figure out what more can I do in this space.”

    There were more than 730 inmates on death row when Newsom took office. Death row at San Quentin was the largest of any prison in the Western Hemisphere. Under his plan to reform the prison to emphasize rehabilitation, Newsom said California is just weeks from emptying death row entirely.

    The governor said he was outspoken about his opposition to capital punishment when he campaigned in 2018. He endorsed the 2012 and 2016 ballot measures to abolish the death penalty.

    “I campaigned very openly as lieutenant governor, as governor. I went out of my way to say, ‘If you elect me, this is what I’m going to do,’” Newsom said. “And also I have the legal authority. So I wasn’t challenging that.”

    Currently, 21 of the 50 states impose the death penalty. The remaining 29 either have no death penalty or paused executions due to executive action — including California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Newsom’s moratorium might not play well with voters in some swing states in a potential presidential campaign, adding to perceptions that leftist California and the Democratic governor are soft on crime and misaligned with the rest of the nation. The governor has repeatedly dismissed speculation that he’s eyeing the White House, and he has actively campaigned for President Biden’s reelection.

    Kevin Eckery, a political consultant who has worked with the Catholic Church in California, said the death penalty isn’t going to be a deciding factor in an election.

    “Nationally, the death penalty has been carried out so infrequently for the last 50 years that I don’t see people voting based on your position on [the] death penalty,” Eckery said. “They are going to vote on pocketbook issues. They are going to vote on other things, but not that issue.”

    The Catholic Church has long said the death penalty could be justified only in rare situations. Francis updated church doctrine in 2018 to say “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

    Newsom lunched in an arched courtyard covered in jasmine at the American Academy in Rome after he, in a speech at the Vatican, accused former President Trump of “open corruption” by soliciting campaign donations from oil executives.

    Sitting in a weathered wood chair under the shade of a tree, the governor explained how his Catholic background and the inequities in the criminal justice system influenced his refusal to sign off on executions as governor.

    His paternal grandparents were devout Catholics, and his late father, William Newsom, who served as a state appellate court justice, went to church every day growing up, he said.

    Later in life, Newsom’s father considered himself “a Catholic of the distance,” the governor said, and “kind of pushed away” because of the politics of the church.

    Newsom said Jesuit teachings at Santa Clara University, where he attended college, spoke a language he appreciated “of faith and works.” His own religious beliefs, he said, have always been exercised “around a civic frame.”

    “The Bible teaches many parts, one body,” Newsom said, mentioning a quote he often references. “One part suffers, we all suffer, and this notion of communitarianism.

    “You can’t get out of Santa Clara University without the requisite studies and sort of a religious baseline: God and common thought type frames,” he said.

    As a Catholic and San Francisco native, Newsom said his beliefs follow “the Spirit of St. Francis” and the idea of being good to others, but not necessarily a strict religious doctrine.

    The governor said he attended the private Catholic school École Notre Dame des Victoires in San Francisco for a short time during early elementary school. He said his family often attended Glide Memorial, a nondenominational church in San Francisco. The governor said he attended church on Easter with his family.

    Newsom mentioned religion at other points during his trip, telling reporters outside the hall where he spoke at the Vatican about the importance of the bridge between science and the pope’s moral authority on climate change.

    “As we know from church, it’s faith and works,” Newsom said. “So, as we pray, we move our feet. It’s that action with our passion.”

    Daniel Philpott, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, said it’s smart for politicians in either party to talk about faith.

    “We’ve learned over the last 30 years that presidential candidates in general benefit when they can be shown to be religious, or practicing their religious faith,” Philpott said.

    Newsom said he didn’t want to overplay the influence of religion on his position on the death penalty, which his father also opposed.

    His father and grandfather were involved in the case of Pete Pianezzi, a friend who was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting and killing a gambler and busboy in Los Angeles in 1937.

    Pianezzi escaped the death penalty by a single vote and served 13 years in prison. He was later exonerated.

    Even if it were possible to limit inequity and wrongful convictions in the criminal justice system, Newsom said he would still be against the death penalty.

    “It just never made sense to me, the basic paradigm, that we were going to kill people to communicate to the general public that killing is wrong,” he said. “I could never understand that. I could never sanction that.”

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    Taryn Luna

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