During the week of November 16, 2020, a group of California State legislators traveled to Fairmont Kea Lani Hotel in Maui, Hawaii for an annual conference hosted by the Independent Voters Project, a non-profit group based out of San Diego.
The conference came as many counties in California saw spikes in COVID-19 cases and returned to the purple tier (widespread) in the California blueprint for a safer economy. The week prior, Governor Newsom told everyone not to travel out of state for the holidays, and to quarantine if you are to travel out of state.
The Independent Voters Project paid for travel expenses of select legislators. State ethics laws allow lawmakers to have travel expenses paid for by groups if they are speakers at events away from the state.
Heath Flora, Assembly Member for CA District 12, said “Participants are discussing how to safely re-open larger sectors of the economy and the discussion suddenly became more urgent with Newsom’s announcement on Monday. Simply shutting down 95% of the state might’ve made sense back in April or May, but we understand so much more now than we did then. We’re way passed blanket solutions.”
The following legislators reportedly attended the conference:
- Assm. Frank Bigelow (AD5 – central Sierra Nevada)
- Assm. Jim Cooper (AD9 – Sacramento and San Joaquin)
- Assm. Heath Flora (AD12 – San Joaquin and Stanislaus)
- Assm. Jordan Cunningham (AD35 – San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara)
- Assm. Chad Mayes (AD42 – Riverside)
- Assm. Blanca Rubio (AD48 – Los Angeles)
- Assm. Wendy Carillo (AD51 – Los Angeles)
- Assm. Jose Medina (AD61 – Riverside)
- Assm. Tom Daly (AD63 – Orange County)
- Assm. Mike Gipson (AD64 – S. Los Angeles and South Bay)
- Assm. Bill Brough (AD73 – Orange County)
- Sen. Bill Dodd (SD3 – Napa, Solano, Yolo)
- Sen. Andreas Borgeas (SD8 Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, Tuolumne, parts of Madera and Stanislaus)
- Sen. Scott Wilk (SD21 – Los Angeles and San Bernardino)
- Sen. Susan Rubio (SD22 – Los Angeles)
