We dodged this bullet with Swalwell

We MUST do the same with Fiona Ma

DO NOT VOTE FOR FIONA MA for California Lieutenant Governor.

I’ve endorsed Michael Tubbs, but this isn’t even about that. This is about making sure someone who settled a lawsuit where she was accused of ongoing sexual harassment, does not become Lieutenant Governor.

I can’t believe, after Swalwell, this is still up for debate, but here we are.

I remember this story when it first came to light back in 2021, and then everyone just stopped talking about it.

Well, we are at risk of her winning the election, so we need to talk about it.

In January 2021, her employee, Judith Blackwell, Executive Director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee was fired.

She sued Ma on the grounds that she had been discriminated against, for being Black, disabled, after having a stroke in 2020 and refusing Ma’s sexual advancements.

Ma tried to get the case thrown out, but only succeeded with the racial and disability discrimination part.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Christopher Krueger said:

Ma’s own exhibits evidence that she called [Blackwell] into her room while half-dressed on three separate occasions and climbed into bed with her on a fourth.

He continued:

While Ma may dispute this at trial, her attempt to reframe these instances as isolated incidents of ‘unannounced’ entries that typically occur in shared living spaces is not supported by her own evidence.

As you can see, Ma doesn’t even dispute any of this happened, just insists they “were not sexual” rather “random, isolated incidents that do not constitute sexual harassment.”

After everything with Swalwell, I don’t know about you, but that’s really not good enough for me.

And, in 2024, before the case went to court, the state settled for $350,000. And Ma insisted that proved Blackwell dropped the charges, even though that doesn’t make much logical sense.

Loyola law professor, Jessica Levinson told the San Francisco Chronicle back in 2024:

There’s nothing to indicate the civil claims against her were dismissed because then there would be nothing to settle.

She continued:

This just seems strange to repeatedly engage in a mischaracterization of what happened in this case.

On top of that, Ma’s original plan was to run for Governor this year, as she said at a Sacramento Bee forum in 2019. But, likely because of this scandal, she thought Lieutenant Governor would be safer and keep her out of the limelight. It seems she was right.

Obviously, the only people who know if these situations were harassment are Judith Blackwell and Fiona Ma, but we’ve already been through something very similar with Swalwell.

The vast majority of people who come forward about sexual harassment or assault aren’t making it up.

It takes guts to say something and it especially takes guts to accuse a woman, when women are typically seen exclusively as the victims.

We can’t know what happened, but we can make sure the outcome doesn’t affect California going forward.

We don’t need to take this kind of risk. And we don’t need to send the message that allegations of sexual harassment are okay if it’s a woman being accused.

She has dozens and dozens of massive endorsements from labor, to sitting members of congress, to many of her current colleagues in the California executive branch.

But this whole thing just puts a bad taste in my mouth. California deserves better and the initial assumption must be that survivors are, in fact, telling the truth.

If you’re a California voter, I encourage you not to vote for her, if you haven’t cast your ballot yet.

And maybe even vote for someone like Michael Tubbs, the former Mayor of Stockton, who wants to make the position into something that matters, rather than just something ceremonial.

So now you have my endorsement and my disapproval all in one. But what you chose to do with it is completely up to you.

Just remember, your vote is your voice and that voice is your superpower, so use it wisely.

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