Underachieving Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) is using video of his detainment by Secret Service agents when he rushed Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to push for partisan gerrymandering in California.
“First they tried to silence me, now they’re stealing congressional seats to rig elections,” Padilla says in an ad.
No one “tried to silence” Padilla; it was Padilla who “tried to silence” Noem. As Breitbart News reported:
California Sen. Alex Padilla interrupted — and was pushed out of — a press briefing where Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem was describing the attacks on federal police forces by California rioters.
UPDATE: DHS made a statement about the incident, saying that “Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands,” and that the Secret Service “acted appropriately”:
“Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem. Mr. Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.
“@SecretService thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately. Secretary Noem met with Senator Padilla after and held a 15 minute meeting.”
Padilla did not obtain his Senate seat by winning an election — at least, not initially. He was appointed by Newsom in 2021 after his predecessor, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), left her seat to be Vice President.
Padilla is urging Californians to support a gerrymandered congressional district map in a special election that will cost the state $250 million to remove 4-5 Democrat-held seats to counter Texas’ own redrawn districts.
The difference: California has an independent redistricting commission that voters enshrined in the state constitution by referendum in 2008, meaning that Democrats’ gerrymandering there is likely unlawful.
Texas also acted to redraw its districts after being told by the Department of Justice that its original map relied unconstitutionally on race to establish “majority-minority” districts. The new map also will not cost Texas any money to redraw, unlike California, due to California calling a special election to undo its non-partisan redistricting commission. Republicans say that even that vote is unlawful and unconstitutional.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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