According to POLITICO, two prominent female Democratic legislators in the #MeToo movement donated a good amount of money to Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia. Assemblywoman Garcia is the subject of an ongoing sexual harassment investigation. The two lawmakers who donated money are Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, chair of the Joint Legislative Subcommittee on Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response, and state Senator Holly Mitchell, the committee’s vice-chair. Each of them donated $2,500 to Garcia’s reelection campaign last week. Daniel Fierro, the former legislative staffer who alleged that Garcia was inebriated in 2014 when she groped him, told POLTICO the following,
At the end of the day, it says something to me about the institution of the legislature — that you can have the co-chairs of the committee formed to address the #MeToo problem saying, Well, who cares?
The initial findings had cleared Garcia, but Fierro appealed the decision and the investigation was reopened in June. Since then, Garcia has been stripped of committee assignments and had to attend mandated sensitivity training after it was reported that she made homophobic comments regarding former Assembly Speaker John Perez. According to state records, there are other female legislators who have been a part of the #MeToo movement and that have donated to Garcia’s campaign, such as Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner and Senator Hannah Beth Jackson, who wrote checks for $4,400, and $2,500 respectively. We will have to wait and see what the investigation reveals about Assemblywoman Garcia.
