{"id":15384,"date":"2014-01-29T19:23:48","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T19:23:48","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-01-29T19:27:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T19:27:03","slug":"sen-rod-wright-convicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/29\/sen-rod-wright-convicted\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Rod Wright Convicted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" align=\"right\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wWOh9PGXMkk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><i>Legislator faces up to 8 years for lying about his residency<\/i><\/p>\n<p>by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Rod Wright was convicted yesterday of lying about his residency in his in-district apartment. Instead, the jury found that he was actually living at a Baldwin Park house that was outside of his district. Wright claims that he thought he was following the rules, but will face sentencing for the conviction on March 12.<\/p>\n<p>The response has been rather low-key. Wright, generally considerate a moderate, was called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.calnewsroom.com\/2014\/01\/28\/sen-rod-wright-despite-a-perjury-conviction-is-californias-most-honest-politician\/\">California&#8217;s Most Honest politician<\/a>&#8221; just moments after the conviction by John Hrabe of Cal Newsroom. And Sen. Steinberg was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&#038;v=Thp8IK4AGSo\">clearly upset about the conviction<\/a>. And as you can see, Dan Walters calls his exit a big loss for the legislature.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, whomever gets elected will probably be at least slightly to Wright&#8217;s left. But Jon Fleischman <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flashreport.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/29\/if-he-doesnt-resign-senator-wright-should-be-removed-from-office\/\">called for Wright to be kicked out ASAP<\/a>. Fleischman&#8217;s point that many legislators have played fast and loose with the residency requirement is a valid one. It has come up quietly in several previous races, including some that I&#8217;ve been directly involved with. Yes, the chambers decide their own eligibility, but all members should be playing by the same rules. While residency isn&#8217;t required for Congress (and Tom McClintock still doesn&#8217;t live in the district he&#8217;s represented for several years now), the rules make sense, from a representative standpoint at the very least. And legislators know this when they first sign up as candidates. Wright doesn&#8217;t rise to the level of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/politics\/article\/Ex-Supe-Ed-Jew-guilty-of-lying-about-residence-3184347.php\">Ed Jew&#8217;s proactive sketchiness<\/a>, but the rules are the rules for all.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of Wright&#8217;s exit is still up in the air, but you would imagine that Wright&#8217;s future will be resolved soon after that sentencing date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" align=\"right\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wWOh9PGXMkk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><i>Legislator faces up to 8 years for lying about his residency<\/i><\/p>\n<p>by Brian Leubitz<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Rod Wright was convicted yesterday of lying about his residency in his in-district apartment. Instead, the jury found that he was actually living at a Baldwin Park house that was outside of his district. Wright claims that he thought he was following the rules, but will face sentencing for the conviction on March 12.<\/p>\n<p>The response has been rather low-key. Wright, generally considerate a moderate, was called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.calnewsroom.com\/2014\/01\/28\/sen-rod-wright-despite-a-perjury-conviction-is-californias-most-honest-politician\/\">California&#8217;s Most Honest politician<\/a>&#8221; just moments after the conviction by John Hrabe of Cal Newsroom. And Sen. Steinberg was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&#038;v=Thp8IK4AGSo\">clearly upset about the conviction<\/a>. And as you can see, Dan Walters calls his exit a big loss for the legislature.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, whomever gets elected will probably be at least slightly to Wright&#8217;s left. But Jon Fleischman <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flashreport.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/29\/if-he-doesnt-resign-senator-wright-should-be-removed-from-office\/\">called for Wright to be kicked out ASAP<\/a>. Fleischman&#8217;s point that many legislators have played fast and loose with the residency requirement is a valid one. It has come up quietly in several previous races, including some that I&#8217;ve been directly involved with. Yes, the chambers decide their own eligibility, but all members should be playing by the same rules. While residency isn&#8217;t required for Congress (and Tom McClintock still doesn&#8217;t live in the district he&#8217;s represented for several years now), the rules make sense, from a representative standpoint at the very least. And legislators know this when they first sign up as candidates. Wright doesn&#8217;t rise to the level of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/politics\/article\/Ex-Supe-Ed-Jew-guilty-of-lying-about-residence-3184347.php\">Ed Jew&#8217;s proactive sketchiness<\/a>, but the rules are the rules for all.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of Wright&#8217;s exit is still up in the air, but you would imagine that Wright&#8217;s future will be resolved soon after that sentencing date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[5468],"class_list":["post-15384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-5468"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-408","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}