California lawmaker switches parties, criticizes Democratic leadership

SACRAMENTO, California. – A moderate Democratic lawmaker from California announced Thursday that she is switching to the Republican Party, although she criticized her former party’s leadership and policies.

State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil said she was a longtime Democrat, but she and the Democratic Party no longer share the same values ​​since she was elected in 2022.

“For the past two years that I have been serving in the Senate, I have not recognized the party to which I belong,” Alvarado-Gil said in an announcement on “The Steve Hilton Show,” a YouTube series hosted by a former Fox News host and political adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron. “The Democratic Party is not the party I joined decades ago.”

Alvarado-Gil represents a predominantly rural district in the northeast Central Valley. She said Democratic Party policies are hurting California’s middle class and children and are taking the state in the wrong direction.

“It’s not a very popular decision to leave a party with a supermajority where perhaps, you know, you have much more power and capacity,” he said.

He added: “But this is the right decision for the voters who elected me to office.”

Alvarado-Gil is known for her support of a tough-on-crime strategy and her fiscally conservative outlook. She has also voted with Republicans on labor legislation.

“It takes courage to stand up to the supermajority in California and Marie has what it takes,” Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said in a statement. “Her record of fighting crime, protecting communities from sexually violent predators and putting her constituents first speaks for itself.”

His defection leaves Republicans with nine votes in the 40-member Senate, still well short of the majority they need to control the chamber. Democrats hold supermajorities in both the Assembly and Senate on Capitol Hill.

State Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire said her decision “is disappointing to the voters” who elected her in 2022.

“They trusted her to represent them and she betrayed that trust,” he said in a statement.

He added: “One silver lining is that MAGA-supporting Republicans are gaining a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ+ rights, anti-Trump colleague. We wish her the best of luck.”

Alvarado-Gil, who represents a conservative-leaning district, won the 2022 election against a progressive Democrat by more than 5 points after the duo beat six Republican candidates in the primary. Her district has become slightly more Republican since 2022, and in 2024 Republicans hold nearly 39% of registered voters, versus 34% for Democrats.

Alvarado-Gil will not run for re-election until 2026.

In California history, 273 legislators have switched parties during their tenure, and it’s even less common for a member of the majority party to switch to another party, said California State Library legislative historian Alex Vassar. The most recent example was when former Assemblyman Dominic Cortese left the Democratic Party in 1995 to become a member of Ross Perot’s Reform Party.