Aliso Viejo's MAGA-heavy City Council doesn't care about proper representation.
Nonpartisan, Schmonpartisan—let's make the libs suffer.
So there’s a local story that has received far too little attention. And, if I’m being honest, part of that is my fault. I’ve just been busy these past few months, what with the release of my latest book and my brother’s wedding and the holidays and “Love is Blind” and …
My bad.
The address: Aliso Viejo.
The location: City Hall.
The situation: Three months ago, Richard Hurt, a liberal Democrat representing one of the city’s more liberal regions, resigns from his District 3 seat on the City Council. He is moving to northern California, and therefore needs to step aside. Hey, it happens.
Now, in a normal, functioning society, where brains haven’t been rotted by the MAGA rip-your-spleen-out awfulness, the City Council opens the vacancy for applications. That’s how it’s generally done—a fair, decent, democratic process where all-comers (left, right, center, indifferent) have a shot to be involved in local government. It’s sorta what makes this whole thing so awesome: If you’re neighborhood skinhead wants to be on the City Council, he has a shot. If your neighborhood priest wants it, they have a shot, too. Literally anyone in Aliso Viejo (over age 18) has a shot. City Councils are supposed to be non-partisan enterprises. You are not there to represent your party. You are there to represent your city. Period.
But … no.
Not here.
Not now.
Not in Aliso Viejo.
Not in 2025.
Not in the climate we call home.
No.
Led by a hateful emu carcass named Mike Munzig, the MAGA-heavy remaining council members vote, 3-1, to appoint someone to fill Hurt’s vacant seat. And the dude they select is (gasp!) Garrett Dwyer, a (gasp!) hard-right (gasp!) Trump Head who ran for a seat in 2018, only to place a distant fourth to Tiffany Ackley, the current mayor. Dwyer is one of those straight-laced, right-angled, keep-government-out-of-my-business dudes, which would be fine were he not now, well … eh … part of the government.
And, truly, this isn’t about Dwyer (a mortgage broker in his real life), so much as it is about the lack of proper representation. Hurt’s District 3 seat is progressive. It’s been progressive for a long time, it will continue to be progressive. So to have the three MAGA bros ignore the dynamics, ignore the demographics—and shove the square pegged Dwyer into a round hole is just … wrong. I wanna emphasize that: It’s wrong. It’s not what government is supposed to be about. We, as a people, are deserving of proper, appropriate representation. I wouldn’t want to force-feed a Democrat to a bunch of harrd-right Republicans, and I wouldn’t want to force feed Dwyer to District 3.
Alas, here we sit.
Munziged by those in power.
America without the America.
Republicans hate the voters, and voting. This is similar to the legislative-driven gerrymandering in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and now maybe Indiana. Here in California, the voters were asked. Imagine that. Republicans hate our democratic republic. They hate governing. They want to rule.
I am so sorry that South OC has lost Richard Hurt. But my question is, what does the city charter say about replacing a council representative? Are they required to consider all comers, and are they required to hold an election? Or did they just do what MAGA does - which is the equivalent of gerrymandering that district?
I'm asking because that is where the solution can be found. Can this appointment be contested legally? Or is a rules-change required? If the latter, the good people need to wait until the next election. In the meantime, what ever it is that allowed this to happen, I hope Aliso Viejo residents express their collective disgust loudly and consistently. I will be cheering from the sidelines.