California Democrats Want Data on Lobbyists’ Race, Sexual Orientation

Democrats in the California state legislature are asking lobbyists to provide data on the race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation of their firms’ employees — while the state refuses to give voter data to President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission.

The Sacramento Bee reports that the leaders of the “Legislative Asian Pacific Islander, Black, Jewish, Latino, LGBT and Women’s caucuses” sent letters “to more than 400 lobbying firms, associations and major groups that employ lobbyists” asking for them to provide data on their employees, including their sexuality.

Though lobbying firms are not legally required to provide such information to the state government, companies fear that they could lose access to legislators if they fail to comply.

A retired lobbyist, speaking to the Bee, slammed the legislature’s request: “This is about as valuable as the stuff Trump wants on voter data. I don’t understand what he wants to do with that either.”

California’s Democratic Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, has refused to cooperate with the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (PEIC), citing privacy concerns, among other reasons.

“I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally” in 2016, he said last month in a statement quoted by The Hill, adding: “California’s participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, Vice President, and [commission head Kris] Kobach.”

And yet California Democrats believe it is their right to know the sexual orientation of private employees working for lobbying firms in Sacramento.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.