California House is managed by its first rural speaker in decades, who faces big tests in holding Democrats together

California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas visits Paicines, a farmworker community where he lived as a child.
(Photo by Jason Armond, Los Angeles Times)

California has a vast rural landscape and is the nation's leading producer of agricultural products, but is one of the least rural states in population. Now the leadership of its main legislative chamber, where the membership is determined by population, is rural.

"Robert Rivas, the first Assembly speaker in decades from a rural area, aims to unite a party long dominated by big-city liberals" and "hopes small-town charm wields big political power," say the hedlines above a Los Angeles Times profile of Rivas by Laurel Rosenhall.

She writes, "Rivas is from San Benito County, a land of "golden hills, cow pastures and rows of grapevines [where] a sign inside the roadside Paicines General Store makes the point clear: 'Welcome to the country.' . . . Rivas grew up in farmworker housing on the fields east of the store. On Fridays, he recalls his grandfather driving the boys up the road to join the picket lines outside a supermarket during the United Farm Workers grape boycott. Rivas and his family still live nearby in suburban Hollister, where shopping centers crawl with a mix of gleaming sport utility vehicles and mud-spattered pickups."

To the west is Monterey, home of Leon Panetta, ex-secretary of defense, CIA director, White House chief of staff and congressman, who has long known Rivas and told Rosenhall, “For too long, it’s been basically Los Angeles and San Francisco that have determined political leadership. It’s really important for him to bring that [rural] perspective to Sacramento, which too often basically listens to the loudest voices, and not always the most important needs.”

San Benito County (Wikipedia map)

San Benito County has "a quirky reputation as the state's political bellwether," and Rivas ousted the previous speaker, Anthony Rendon of L.A. County, "by pulling together a coalition of Democrats who hail from districts both north and south, urban and rural, coastal and inland," Rosenhall reports. "His supporters included some of the Legislature’s most ardent progressives, as well as some of its most conservative Democrats." That reflects his support of liberal measures like a local ban on hydraulic fracturing as a county suprevisor, and his early support from "more moderate, business-aligned Democrats" and his brother's lobbying and "donor network largely made up of Silicon Valley venture capitalists that seeks to counter the sway that public employee unions have in California politics. . . . So far, Rivas has managed to navigate California’s varied political universes largely by playing nice. He emphasizes his role as a listener more than a speaker. He’s been cautious about laying out a political agenda. In a Capitol full of swagger, Rivas’ vibe is decidedly aw-shucks. . . . But as the Legislature heads into the chaotic final stretch of the 2023 session that ends Thursday, Rivas will be put to the test. Lawmakers must decide the fate of numerous controversial proposals" in a Legislature controlled by Democrats but riven by factions, Rosenhall notes. "Rivas used his small-town charm to build power. But will he be effective in steering a caucus dominated by big-city liberals?"