How Many California Lawmakers Will Pick Their own Successors?
With an unusually large number of turnovers within the California Legislature this year, several lawmakers are trying to ensure their vacated seats will be filled by relatives and staff members. Critics say they’re trying to game the system through a common and perfectly legal and ethically questionable method of last-minute withdrawals and endorsements of successor candidates.
Where such behavior can cross an ethical line is when a lawmaker effectively “denies other candidates a fair shot…by essentially gaming the system,” said John Pelissero, a senior scholar with Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
John Pelissero, senior scholar, quoted by CAL Matters.
May 12, 2022