California lawmakers are feeling the heat after critics blasted their choice to attend a bipartisan conference in Maui that seemed more like an excuse for a lavish vacation, then a necessary event, in light of the state’s recent escalation of public restrictions.
The four-day Hawaiian conference, which focused on re-opening the economy, was held at the lux Fairmont Kea Lani Hotel in Wailea, where rooms typically go for $500 a night.
Nearly twenty California lawmakers attended the Independent Voter Project conference, which draws scrutiny during a normal year, for connecting politicians with the corporate lobbyists who subsidize the exorbitant event.
The non-profit group charges corporations to send their representatives, then typically funds legislator’s attendance expenses, reportedly covering $3,500 per official last year.
Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court is appalled at the access given to lobbyists and the setting in which they encounter politicians. They “basically play rounds of golf and drink Mai Tais by the pool and claim they’re in an educational seminar,” Court commented. “It happens every year and it is appalling.”
During the pandemic, when millions are not allowed to work, unable to travel, and placed under curfew, “I think the whole thing is despicable and none of them should have gone,” remarked Harmeet Dhillon, whose law firm has sued Gov. Newsom for Covid restrictions. “Traveling to Hawaii for a junket is somehow necessary travel? It isn’t.”
The conference’s first day coincided with Gov. Newsom’s announcement that 28 counties were moving back into the state’s highly restrictive purple tier to curb virus transmission.
“It seems a little, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ if you will,” said Hawaii Representative Tina Wildberger. “I’m not begrudging someone going on a conference to learn, but secretly going on a lobbyist-paid trip to Hawaii maybe doesn’t look good right now while your own state is on crisis-level lockdown.”
California Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo was quick to defend her attendance with a tweet, clarifying that her trip was “not funded through tax-payer dollars,” the event followed “the strictest” health and safety protocols, and that her “intent” was to “find solutions on how we can safely live through COVID-19.”
But followers didn’t accept her explanation or non-apology. One user wrote, “The people you want to put back to work are the people dying to serve your comfort and convenience. You’ve offered no solutions here. Only excuses.”
Another replied, “Maybe you could have used “Zoom” to attend this insightful conference. However, enjoy Hawaii. Aloha.” A disgruntled constituent aptly wrote: Let them eat cake!
They go every year and of course lib dems aren’t subject to Covid 19; only conservative church goers get covid in Ca … even other states … when have you been told that a looter, BLM or anarchist came down with Covid … it’s only Trump supports that seem to spread covid … that’s what’s in the ‘news’ …
And don’t forget all the ” homeless ” in California are also immune to the CV-19 virus, because they have such sanitary conditions .
This countries government has turned into Rome all over again. These politicians have some nerve when the rest of us are sweeting out a phony Virus scare. Kick them all to the curb and let them feel what its like
The curb isn’t where you should be kicking them. there is a much better place and most of them have a very large one that would be hard to miss.
globalists and globalist puppet $oro$ and globalist puppet democrat criminal party and globalist puppet rino criminal party and globalist media have turned into Rome all over again .
So true and if they look at Rome’s history they will see that they fell after doing all the stuff that is going on here…sex diviants, pedophiles, no Christianity, no family and the list goes on. Every country that followed that pattern has fell and disappeared from the land. Here we go America.
Typical liberal hypocrisy