California politics somehow found a new bottom Wednesday night.

Independent journalist Nick Shirley posted video from Sacramento showing a senior California Assembly staffer turning a legitimate question about pending legislation into a stream of crude sexual insults and printed flyers.

The man in the video is Terry Schanz. Official state payroll records identify him as chief of staff to Democratic Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor.

Schanz can be seen repeatedly making an obscene claim about Shirley, offering papers to people walking past and continuing the taunt as Shirley challenged him over AB 2624.

There is one important correction to Shirley’s narration. Schanz is not chief of staff of the entire California State Assembly.

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He is chief of staff in McKinnor’s Capitol office.

That distinction does not make the display any less embarrassing.

California State Assembly payroll records dated May 31 list Schanz as a full-time chief of staff in McKinnor’s office at a monthly salary of $17,319. That makes him a senior taxpayer-funded government employee, not a random heckler on a sidewalk.

Shirley alleged that Schanz used public resources to print the flyers. The clip clearly shows Schanz carrying and distributing a stack of them, but it does not independently establish where they were printed or which equipment was used.

The confrontation came during Shirley’s longer report on AB 2624, the California bill critics have nicknamed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.” Shirley argues that the measure would chill investigations into taxpayer-funded immigration service providers.

The official record shows the fight is now at a decisive stage.

California Legislative Information shows the Assembly first passed AB 2624 by a 57-19 vote on May 26. The Senate amended the measure on July 2, moved it through three committees and passed that revised version 30-10 on August 18.

The bill then returned to the Assembly, where concurrence in the Senate amendments was pending on August 19. The official Daily File placed it on the Assembly concurrence calendar, making another Assembly vote the next procedural step before it could advance to Governor Gavin Newsom.

The measure would create an address-confidentiality program beginning October 1, 2027, for qualifying employees and volunteers at immigration support service organizations who document threats, harassment or violence. Participants could use a state-designated substitute address in public records while continuing to receive mail and legal documents through the secretary of state’s office.

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Separate provisions would allow civil remedies when protected personal information or images are posted with specific intent to incite imminent bodily harm or make a threat that places someone in objectively reasonable fear for personal safety. The bill also says program protections cannot be used as a subterfuge to avoid detection of illegal activity or apprehension by law enforcement.

The current amended text sets minimum damages of $4,000 when a court or jury finds a violation of those restrictions. That language is narrower than an automatic $4,000 fine simply for investigating suspected fraud, as Shirley summarized it.

Supporters say the bill protects workers from doxxing, threats and violence. Opponents warn that broad definitions involving immigration service facilities could still create a chilling effect for citizen journalists trying to follow public money.

There is a real policy dispute here. Californians can read the bill and decide which side has the stronger argument.

But a state-paid chief of staff answering a journalist with sexual taunts and a stack of obscene flyers is not a policy argument. It is the behavior of a political machine that believes ridicule is easier than accountability.

Schanz and McKinnor’s office had not publicly addressed Shirley’s allegation about the flyers as of publication.

Watch the confrontation for yourself. Sacramento’s ruling class just gave the country a brutally honest look at how it handles questions it does not want to answer.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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