Alex Padilla Senate pick makes history but leaves California with $34 million bill
As expected, Gov. Gavin Newsom picked Secretary of State Alex Padilla to replace Kamala Harris in the United States Senate. The historic choice makes Padilla, 47, California’s first Latino senator.
“The son of Mexican immigrants — a cook and house cleaner — Alex Padilla worked his way from humble beginnings to the halls of MIT, the Los Angeles City Council and the State Senate, and has become a national defender of voting rights as California’s Secretary of State,” Newsom said in a press release. “Now, he will serve in the halls of our nation’s Capitol as California’s next United States Senator, the first Latino to hold this office.”
The historic nature of Padilla’s appointment — he’s the first Latino U.S. senator in California’s 170-year history — cannot be overlooked. Padilla’s rise will rightly be celebrated as a milestone for Mexican-Americans, who have endured a history of prejudice and racism in this nation. Such anti-Latino attitudes are not just relics of the past, as President Donald Trump proved by constantly targeting Latinos with his racist policies and comments.
Newsom’s pick of Padilla is a victory for Latinos and a rebuke of the racism promoted by people like Trump. In a state that’s nearly 40% Latino, children will now grow up seeing someone like them serving in one of the highest offices in the land. It’s hard to detract from the importance of something like this.
Unfortunately, Padilla’s history-making moment is marred by the fact that he will leave California taxpayers holding the bag for an apparently illegal $34 million contract he signed but has no money to pay. What is Newsom’s plan to pay SKD Knickerbocker the millions that Padilla owes them?
Earlier this year, Padilla’s office signed a $35 million state contract with the public affairs firm. Under its terms, SKDK agreed to run a statewide voter education and outreach campaign to encourage Californians to vote in 2020. SKDK did the work and billed the state for $34 million.
Unfortunately, it appears that Padilla did not have the authority to spend the money. As a result, State Controller Betty Yee refused to approve the contract and the state’s Department of Finance declined to write a check. Yee’s office says the money in question was supposed to go directly to voter outreach efforts in California’s 58 counties, not get funneled to one PR firm by the secretary of state’s office.
The no-bid contract to SKD Knickerbocker, which markets itself as part of “Team Biden,” also drew strong criticism from Republicans who saw it as a questionable politicization of the voting process.
“As written in the state budget, this funding was supposed to go to local elections officials to administer November’s election, not to bankroll a partisan firm,” wrote state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, and state Sen. Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, in a Sacramento Bee op-ed.
They called the contract “an abuse of power.”
To make matters worse, Padilla’s office initially tried to hide the contract from public view, refusing to disclose it after a Bee reporter requested it.
Newsom’s decision to promote Padilla essentially lets him off the hook for the unpaid $34 million bill, though it could complicate Padilla’s senate re-election plans if a challenger decides to use his bad judgment against him in 2022.
For the most part, however, this becomes yet another political headache for Newsom. Now that he’s picked Padilla, the governor must explain to Californians how he plans to clean up his $34 million mess. The Editorial Board reached out to ask the governor’s office how he plans to address the issue. We’ll keep you posted on what he says.
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 11:23 AM with the headline "Alex Padilla Senate pick makes history but leaves California with $34 million bill."