As California lawmakers returned Monday to Sacramento for the legislative session, Democrats acknowledged a clear message from voters: California’s sky-high cost of living needs to drop back down to Earth.
“We get it,” Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese said. “The Democratic Party, has, in effect, just been called out by the voters on that issue.”
The state’s Democrats say they’ll focus this year on making California more affordable, and party leaders are increasingly railing on the high costs of staples such as groceries and home electricity bills.
The reason? Even though Democrats kept their supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature after November’s election, anxiety about inflation helped Republicans make significant inroads with working class voters in California, including in the heavily Democratic Bay Area. And in the Legislature, the GOP gained three seats.