Rep. Tony Cardenas: The Democrats’ West Coast #MeToo Problem
Congressional Democrats have done a good job sweeping this one under the rug, but a court of law will have the final say.
Two sexual assault allegations made against Viriginia’s Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax this month have become a major source of embarrassment for the Democratic party.
But the Democrats have another #MeToo problem, and it’s one that has conveniently fallen off the national radar: Rep. Tony Cárdenas.
Cárdenas has represented California’s 29th congressional district since 2013. Before that, he served on the LA City Council and in the California State Assembly.
In April 2018, the LA Times reported that a woman who went by the name “Jane Doe” filed a lawsuit claiming she was sexually assaulted in 2007 by a “public figure” who she did not name in the court filing:
Jane Doe met the politician in 2005 at a golf tournament, when she was a “star teenage athlete” and he was an “elected politician,” according to the suit. The politician “grew close to and became an integral part of Ms. Doe’s and her family’s lives,” the lawsuit states.
John Doe invited her to play at Hillcrest Country Club in January 2007, when she was 16, according to the lawsuit. Several hours into their game, the suit said, the man handed her a cup of ice water; it had an unusual taste, so she took just a few sips. The pair played golf for four or five hours, when the teenager “suddenly collapsed to the ground but did not lose consciousness.”
The man drove her to the emergency room. During the ride, he reached inside her shirt and rubbed her breasts, the suit alleges. He also reached down her shorts and fondled her vagina, according to the suit. Jane Doe was “frozen from shock,” according to the lawsuit.
The abuse continued for 30 to 45 minutes as he drove, according to the lawsuit. “Ms. Doe remained motionless and speechless throughout the entire incident in fear of what he might do if she did not feign sleep.”
Cárdenas, who is the chair of the CHC’s BOLD PAC, later identified himself as the accused man in the lawsuit, and through his lawyer strongly denied any wrongdoing.
The response from Democrats in the immediate aftermath was muted, almost clinical.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA), who was then the House Minority Leader, called for a “prompt” ethics probe into the allegations at the time. Then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) told reporters he was ok with Cárdenas keeping his leadership positions while the Congressional investigation was ongoing, citing due process.
Soon after the allegations were first reported, the story fell off the map. A month later, he won his primary. The LA Times noted “Cárdenas appears to have received stronger support in his district than in the primary two years ago.”
Just a few months after that Cárdenas was easily reelected to Congress with 80.6% of the vote in his district.
In spite of Cárdenas success at the polls, his accuser did not go away. In fact, in January 2019 Angela Villela Chavez spoke publicly for the first time about the allegations, saying she was inspired by Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
Susan Crabtree from Real Clear Politics wrote a follow up story this week on that House Ethics Committee investigation that Pelosi ordered into this matter last year, and as it turns out, the investigation has not yet taken place:
In an email Monday to RCP, Chavez’s attorney chided House leaders for failing to follow through with their promised probe.
“We absolutely believe that Congress should do what Rep. Pelosi said they were going to do: conduct an expeditious and thorough investigation into Ms. Chavez’s claims of sexual abuse against Rep. Cárdenas,” Lynne Ciani, Chavez’s attorney, said in a lengthy statement.
Ciani cited Chavez’s formal legal complaint, relaying that she “gained courage” to come forward with her allegations of child sexual abuse when she became pregnant with her daughter and she saw other “brave women coming forward as part of the #MeToo movement.”
Chavez, who filed a formal complaint against Cárdenas with the House Ethics Committee, also said through her attorney that she is “ready, willing, and able to testify before members of Congress if she is asked to do so in connection” with an investigation into her allegations against the California lawmaker.
[…]
Neither Pelosi’s office nor the House Ethics Committee responded to requests for comment. Cárdenas’ congressional office and his attorneys also did not respond to inquiries.
Is it because the House may not have the jurisdiction to investigate the allegations, or is Pelosi waiting out the clock? Cárdenas’s trial is scheduled to start in August, which will be at a time when the campaigns for the House, Senate, and presidency heat up.
Should Cárdenas be found guilty, Pelosi wouldn’t have to worry about the seat falling to Republicans. It’s in a heavily Democratic district. But the negative publicity it could bring to the party at a crucial time in the election season is something the House Speaker and vulnerable Congressional representatives in her party won’t be able to avoid.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Machismo privilege for the cultural sensitive.
Sexually assaulting young girls is only evil if done by white males of Europeans heritage.
As you say, you get a machismo pass if you are democratic Hispanic. And if you are a democratic Muslim, you can do anything to a young child – because we can’t interfere with your (superior) culture.
Who is Bill Cosby?
democrat
[dem-uh-krat] noun
1-a person who practices sexual perversion.
2-Pathology . a person affected with perversion.
3-to lead into mental error or false judgment.
1) Neither laws nor the Constitution can be used to restrict the actions of Leftists, including Democrats, in any way. They are not covered by them IN REALITY.
2) In Virginia, the top three elected officials in the chain of succession are Democrats. The Governor has been caught having a picture of two individuals, one of which may be himself, dressed in Blackface and KKK uniform in his Medical School yearbook. And yes, he selected and submitted the pictures to the yearbook himself . . . in 1986 long after the Civil Rights era changed what was acceptable. To do something like that carries a strong implication of racism.
The LT. Governor, who will take over if the Governor is forced to resign is facing possible criminal charges for the alleged sexual assault of 2 women and possibly 2 more victims yet to file. Oh, the LT. Gov. is Black, which has political implications in the Democrat Party.
The next in line for the Governorship is the Attorney General, who has admitted appearing in Blackface in public in the same time period.
If the Democrats were subject to the same political and legal rules as the rest of us, all three would have to resign. But that would mean that the #4 would take office as Governor, the Republican Speaker of the House. Which the Democrats will not allow.
With all three accused, but the only one with actual criminal charges being the Black LT. Governor, the Democrats dare not let him be the only one punished while the Whites above and below him get by. So all three will be given a pass.
3) With that happening in Virginia, there is no way that the Left will allow a Hispanic Congress-critter from California be charged and possibly convicted of sexual assault on a child. It would not be politically correct.
Subotai Bahadur
Well, they are – kinda. By the Fourth Estate, which acts to inform the voters. But it’s been corrupted.
When you think of how the GOP has laid on the ground and got its belly rubbed by the left while they left looted the nation, they appear to be exaxctly the dogs that they are.
Caramba, the Democratic party is becoming the face of anti-Semitism and sexual perversion. Keep it up and they’ll hand the 2020 presidential race to Donald Trump.
Demtard Leadership will tolerate this kind of accusation and permit the members of their caucus to continue working on committee assignments.
By contrast, all you have to do is oppose Republican Minority “Leader” Kevin “McBoehner” or be a conservative and you’ll get taken off of everything, e.g., Rep. Steve King of Iowa.
Come 2020, Kevin “McBoehner” (aka McCarthy) HAS GOT TO GO !!! The fact that he survived winning reelection in 2018 when so many Republicans got voted out of office via “Ballot Harvesting” and other means to effect Voter Fraud, is a clue that ole Kevin “McBoehner” is an liberal RINO and Establishment Republicrat.