Bipartisan blowback to ‘bullying’ in California’s single-payer health care debate

June 30--SACRAMENTO -- Since Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon revealed this week that he had received death threats on social media for his decision to block a single-payer health care bill from advancing this year, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed back against the highly charged rhetoric and violent images targeting the Democrat.

Labor unions, at least one gubernatorial candidate and lawmakers from both parties have criticized the tenor of the campaign by the California Nurses Association to persuade Rendon to change his mind, including one violent image its leaders circulated -- a meme featuring a California bear with a knife bearing Rendon's name stuck in its back.

"A depiction of violence in any form is unacceptable and inappropriate," tweeted Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield, with the image of the bear.

On Wednesday, Rendon acknowledged to reporters that he had received death threats on social media. One tweet said someone should check out Rendon's schedule for "baseball practice," alluding to the recent shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise while the Republican team was practicing for the annual congressional baseball game.

On Friday, Assembly Democrats circulated an open letter signed by all 54 of Rendon's Democratic colleagues, condemning the "bullying tactics, threats of violence and death threats" lobbed at the speaker.

"We have seen the impact of bullying in schools and now in the political arena," the letter said. "We have written numerous bills to protect persons in school and in the workplace from being harassed and bullied. That is not the type of culture we believe allows for open discourse and good decision-making."

Republican legislators agreed, with Assembly Republican leader Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, tweeting a link to the letter with the statement: "There is no place for violence in today's political arena. Today it may be @Rendon63 tomorrow it may be another elected. It has to stop." Other Republicans expressed similar sentiments.

Don Nielsen, a lobbyist for the California Nurses Association, said Friday that the union does not condone violence and that he was assured by one assemblyman that "the letter is not directed at us, our members or our nurses."

"That's not what nurses do -- they protect and take care of human life," Nielsen said. "They would not do such a thing."

Two leading Democratic candidates for governor, state Treasurer John Chiang and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, released brief statements decrying violence in politics.

"We condemn threats against @Rendon63rd and violence of any kind," Chiang posted on Twitter Thursday.

Newsom, whom the California Nurses Association has endorsed for governor, wrote, "Threats of violence have no place in our political discourse -- on this issue or any other."

But another Democratic candidate, former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, appeared to take the nurses' union to task -- without specifically naming the group -- in a blog post Thursday.

"The organizations and leaders raising the temperature of this discussion to the boiling point should also pause and reflect on their own responsibility to dial down the rhetoric and return to a civil debate," Villaraigosa wrote. "The supporters of single payer are not responsible for these death threats. But we are all responsible for elevating the level of our civic discourse and speaking out at once against violence and threats."

As tensions cool, experts say, the question is what will come next -- and whether the controversy will hurt the nurses' union or hinder its goal: replacing the private health insurance market with a government-run plan for all.

"I think the nurses probably did make a mistake," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a veteran political analyst at the University of Southern California. "This is not going to help them."

Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Atherton's Menlo College, said she doubted that the nurses' union -- which represents a beloved profession -- will be politically weakened in the long run. But, she said, it seems that the decision to relentlessly attack a popular fellow Democrat could have been fueled by anger rather than strategic thinking.

She wondered aloud whether the coarsening of American politics in the era of Donald Trump might have something to do with the political bullying.

"Is Trump teaching us that the way to get what you want is to bully them on social media and trash them in public?" she asked. "It's not working for Trump, so I'm not sure why the nurses thought it would work for them."

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