This week, Elex is joined by political analysts Brian Goldsmith and Dan Schnur to discuss the politics of crime in California. Elex Michaelson and an esteemed group of journalists break down those topics and more, this week on "The Issue Is. The two discuss the controversy this week in Sacramento, where Democratic members of the Assembly initially blocked a bill that aimed to make child sex trafficking a "serious felony.
The whole incident leading to a larger discussion about the politics of crime in the Golden State. Also on the agenda: This, as President Biden sees his poll numbers remain underwater, amid calls from some to "step aside," and as President Trump solidifies his lead in state and national polls, over the rest of the GOP field. But with 16 months left until Americans cast their final ballot, does any of it matter just yet?
This, on a week when SAG-AFTRA, representing , actors and performers officially went on strike, joining picketing writers who have been on strike themselves for nearly three months. And through the eighties and nineties, this was the issue that they used as a wedge against Democrats. Now, as we find out so often, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And just as after Democrats had been perceived as being weak on crime in the s and seventies, Republicans benefited from the overcorrection.
We've now seen over the last couple of decades here, Democrats in California pursuing a much less aggressive stance on criminal justice. Because crime has dropped so much in California, that hasn't really hurt them over the years, but now the crime rates are going up again, it IS a challengeβ¦".
It cost the Democratic Party probably 12 to 14 House seats in It cost the Democrats the House itself in the '22 cycle, especially in two big blue states, California and New York. There are about a dozen Biden districts that are now represented by Republican members of Congress, and that alone is more than double Kevin McCarthy's margin. So Democrats have got to go right at this issue. They've got to fix this issue. And any time the word or phrase, 'child sex trafficking' is anywhere near the Democratic Party, that is a big problemβ¦".
