Just days after taking a victory lap for successfully shepherding a landmark bill to beef up sexual harassment investigations in the California legislature, two leading female Democratic legislators in the #MeToo movement wrote generous political checks to their Democratic colleague, Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia — the subject of an ongoing sexual harassment investigation.
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 donated $2,500 each to Garcia’s reelection campaign last week within two days of Gov. Jerry Brown‘s signing of a law they had pushed calling for the establishment of new investigative procedures for harassment victims, according to records on file with the CA secretary of state’s office.
The joint committee chaired by the two women legislators was convened in June with the goals of improving reporting and investigation of #MeToo allegations — as well as protecting victims of abuse in the state capitol. The bill advanced by the women allocates at least $1.5 million to form an investigative arm of the committee to enforce the legislature’s sexual harassment policy.