Gloria Romero. (Photo: publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu)
Former CA Senate President Gloria Romero Defects from Democrat Party, Joins Republicans
A Globe contributor, Romero warned for several years, she was ‘on the brink of leaving the Democratic Party once and for all’
By Katy Grimes, September 5, 2024 1:55 pm
Former California Democratic State Senate President Gloria Romero announced Wednesday that she has defected to the Republican Party.
“In this Capitol behind me, I served as both Senate Democratic Caucus chair and the Senate majority leader. But today I say goodbye. Adios! I’ve had enough,” she said.
Romero announced her decision at a press conference hosted by Former Fox News Commentator and fellow Republican Steve Hilton, who posted it live to his Twitter/X page.
Romero was joined by Republican California Rep. Kevin Kiley, and Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher, as well as other Republican legislators.
Notably, Romero’s announcement comes just two weeks after California State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil left the Democrat Party, switching her party affiliation to Republican, as the Globe reported.
Romero’s announcement also follows three straight voter registration cycles where Republicans gained and Democrats lost ground, Rep. Kiley noted. Indeed. August 9th, it was announced that Republicans have once again increased their share of registered voters in every Assembly, State Senate, and congressional districts, and all 58 counties, according to the California Secretary of State’s first voter registration report update since February,” Rob Pyers, Research Director for the non-partisan California Target Book reported.
This is thanks to Ric Grenell and his “Fix California,” that Republican voter registrations are up for every district for three consecutive reports now.
And while it was a national announcement, Democrat-turned-Independent, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his presidential campaign recently and joined forces with Donald Trump in what could shake up and reshape election results in key battleground states.
Both Gloria Romero and Robert Kennedy Jr. said the Democratic Party is not the same party they each once championed. “I do not recognize it anymore, and I cannot continue,” Romero said. “I changed my voting registration today as the sun was rising to Republican, which has, under Donald Trump, become the champion of working people … and indeed, I will vote for Donald Trump this fall.”
Romero has been a contributor to the California Globe for several years, writing thoughtful op-eds about crucial education reforms, she weighed in on the Newsom Recall, as well as expressing her deep concern for the Democrat Party, as she did in November 2021 in, “Gloria Romero: Memo to My Party. Former Dem. Senate Majority Leader: Democrats have foolishly suffered the political courage of lemmings.”
Here is an excerpt:
As a lifetime Democrat, I am horrified to see a Democratic Party I once revered—a party that sent us to the moon and back and inspired a new generation of youth like me with messaging replete with opportunity, hope, optimism, and belief in working-class Americans—now on the path to irrelevance and political extinction across major swaths of our country.
It’s been called a political earthquake; a political tsunami; a Red Dawn. I’ll just be blunt: I’ll call it the abject stupidity of the Party elites who have embraced the vilest expressions of woke-ism and an abdication to the promise of education as the key to the American Dream that still matters to so many, particularly Latinos and African-Americans, and the commitment to ensuring the public safety for all. Even Democratic strategist James Carville has—finally—called out Democrats on our pending national suicide if this is what continues to define Democrats today.
Flabbergasted at the direction her political party was headed, Romero said:
today’s Democratic Party has become so unrecognizable that I—the former Democratic Majority Leader of the California Senate–actually made the extraordinary choice to endorse a pro-school choice Republican candidate in last month’s California gubernatorial election as a way of warning my Party that it is leaving too many Democrats behind.
Romero also warned in April 2022:
“Latinos are Soundly Rejecting the Democratic Party.” “The Democratic Party has lost its moral compass with working class voters in America,” she said. “Latinos across the country are rejecting the Democratic Party for going so woke that even our mamas must now be labeled “birthing people” and our mujeres, comadres, abuelas, hermanas can no longer be called women or even be defined unless it is biologist approved.”
In June 2021, Romero even cautioned:
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ Border Crisis Has Gotten Worse – For Everyone.” “The Democratic message on the border is being rejected by the Latino community.”
Romero predicted that Kamala Harris’ snarky answer “And I haven’t been to Europe,” to NBC anchor Lester Holt’s question of why she had not bothered to visit the U.S. Mexico border – “That comment will follow her. Forever. It was that bad,” Romero said.
She continued, almost prophetically:
But even this performance by the first woman Vice President made me cringe as I watched her flail, flounder, dodge, tilt her head, giggle, laugh and snap. All of those actions invoke stereotypical feminine behaviors in order to try to win approval which, unfortunately, she has been allowed to utilize by an unquestioning liberal press.
She notified her Party:
I am on the brink of leaving the Democratic Party once and for all. During last year’s recall election, I broke party ranks and endorsed Larry Elder on the issue of school choice. As the former California Senate Majority Leader representing East Los Angeles, I have seen firsthand from the bowels of Sacramento the unwillingness spineless elected officials have to stand up to party interests to just do the right thing for Latinos in California. And since I left Sacramento as Public Enemy #1 by the California Teachers Association and its education affiliates that command every Democratic Governor and Legislature (ironically, since I paid union dues to them for the bulk of my adult life as a professor in the state education system), I have only seen it worsen.
The California Republican Party is fortunate to have such a thoughtful and intellectually honest new member.
California needs more like Gloria Romero running this state.
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Our next governor…hopefully?
Welcome to the party of common sense, Ms. Romero.
President Trump welcomes free thinkers. We must unite people from all sides to save our great constitutional republic.
Our children’s health and safety should be a top priority.
Blessings to you.
She is a brave woman. She will face hate and abuse from the CTA and the Democrats for the rest of her time in California.
WOW! Just heard your interview with Laura Ingraham and I’m floored! You have tremendous courage and moxie! I left CA after 28 yrs when I retired in ‘22 because I no longer could live in an area that had lost its soul and moral compass. I applaud you and pray that you will be safe and successful in your future endeavors. Please help save America!
WOW! Just heard your interview with Laura Ingraham and I’m floored! You have tremendous courage and moxie! I left CA after 28 yrs when I retired in ‘22 because I no longer could live in an area that had lost its soul and moral compass. I applaud you and pray that you will be safe and successful in your future endeavors. Please help save America!
This is not the democrat party I remember from the seventies. It’s like the tables have turned and the party has been captured slowly. We used to be the anti war , watch dogs against government and corporate misbehavior , but not any more.
Being in lockstep with Neocon values is not a good sign for the democrats.
The party left you and many of us years ago.
…. But I do hope we can get past this inflamed tribalism too.
Yes, Old Man And A Dog, there does appear to be a top-down bottom-up political realignment taking place. The RFK Jr. move along with prominent former Democrats including Tulsi Gabbard (and Elon Musk) away from the current Democrat Party, appears to be generating momentum in that direction. My question is where will people like Mitt Romney, George Bush, Paul Ryan and Liz Cheney ultimately end up? WIll the old establishment GOP join forces with the DEMONcrats…..or will the GOP abondon MAGA and revert to RINO when Mr. Trump leaves the scene?
This is wonderful news, and it also has the potential to be a significant shake-up in California, alongside the general shift that seems to now be happening here.
Gloria Romero was quite a radical back in the day. I know, because I was enrolled in a class she taught when I was a student at UCLA in the late 80s. It has been interesting to see her become increasingly sensible over time and, in the past few years, I have been delighted to hear her on the radio and read her here at the Globe and realize that she sounds almost like a conservative although, until now, still a registered Democrat.
Making the commitment to the Republican Party will be a rewarding fit for her, I think, and it is definitely good for us. She is smart and passionate, influential and charismatic. Very happy to have her in our camp now and working beside us for a brighter future in California.
Welcome to the Republican Party, Gloria Romero.
It’s good to hear that another Democrat politician has come to their senses? While the Republican party is not perfect by any means, the Democrat party had devolved into a lawless criminal mafia full of pedos and satanists.
While Ms.Romero deserves praise and gratitude for her contributions to the Democratic Party, it is stunning that her list of grievances with it seem to be of higher priority than an entire party that endorses the lie that Donald Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him, who willfully, for political expediency, look past the attempt to overturn a free and fair election, who ignore his vileness, vengefulness, demands of loyalty, who has no regard for our Constitution, the rule of law or what it means to live in a democracy!! I do not support indiscriminate ultra progressiveness in the Democratic Party, hamstringing schools, removing parental rights, etc., We must get back to a proper balance. As for Trump being a “champion of the middle class”, nothing could be further from the truth. He doesn’t give a fig for workers or the middle class…lowest job creations ever in his administration. All tax relief has gone to the wealthiest under his regime. He, also killed legislation that was a bi-partisan huge reform to the immigration problem b/c it was not politically expedient for him, politically, for Joe Biden to be credited with anything positive. Trump is power hungry, supports thugs and dictators, has the vocabulary and grasp of foreign and domestic affairs of a second grader. If Ms. Romero is this blind, then best wishes in her new right wing extremist party, which, is totally unrecognizable from anything the Republican Party once stood for!!
While Ms.Romero deserves praise and gratitude for her contributions to the Democratic Party, it is stunning that her list of grievances with it seem to be of higher priority than an entire party that endorses the lie that Donald Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him, who willfully, for political expedience, look past his attempt to overturn a free and fair election, who ignore his vileness, vengefulness, demands of loyalty, his lack of regard for our Constitution, the rule of law or what it means to live in a democracy!! I do not support indiscriminate ultra progressiveness in the Democratic Party, hamstringing schools, removing parental rights, etc., We must get back to a proper balance. As for Trump being a “champion of the middle class”, nothing could be further from the truth. He doesn’t give a fig for workers or the middle class…lowest job creations ever in his administration. All tax relief has gone to the wealthiest under his regime. He, also killed legislation that was a bi-partisan huge reform to the immigration problem b/c it was not politically expedient for Joe Biden to be credited with anything positive. Trump is power hungry, supports thugs and dictators, has the vocabulary and grasp of foreign and domestic affairs of a second grader and spews lies w abandon. If Ms. Romero is this blind, then best wishes in her new right wing extremist party, which, is totally unrecognizable from anything the Republican Party once stood for!! Are there faults and failings in the Democratic Party? Yes, but, at least it is not advocating the complete overthrow of our democracy!!
Gloria Romero for Governor 2026?