A University of California workers union was successful in its fight to oust an Orange County Democrat from the state Senate after he did not support a bill it backed in the Legislature. But in doing so, the union may have helped elect a Republican who has a history of opposing organized labor.
Democratic Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton lost reelection after American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 spent more than $1 million supporting candidates to replace him in the primary and later in ads bashing him and tying him to high gas prices and crime.
Although the union, which represents service workers across UC campuses, did not support Republican Steven Choi, a conservative from Irvine, its decision to oppose a largely pro-labor Democrat probably helped cinch the race in a close contest.
It was a strategy that demonstrates how much power labor unions can wield in California politics. In a Legislature where Democrats hold more than enough seats to form a supermajority, retaining a member of the party may have been less important to the union than making a point about the consequences of crossing labor.
“This is an unprecedented circumstance where a labor union spent well over a million dollars of their members’ monies to take down a Democrat with a solid labor record to the benefit of a Republican that has been anti-labor throughout his legislative career,” Newman said. “It’s really stunning.”
The California Federation of Labor gave Choi a 6% on its annual legislative scorecard in 2022 when he served in the state Assembly, where he voted against bills to support fast-food workers, allow striking workers to keep health benefits and protect farmworkers who unionize. The same year, Newman received an 87% score, voting in favor of many union-backed bills.
Representatives for AFSCME Local 3299 did not respond to requests to comment.
Newman conceded last month after losing to Choi by less than 2 percentage points, or about 6,000 votes. The Democrat said the union’s 35,000 members should be “furious” with its leadership for helping Choi — who has been unfriendly to labor in the past — win a seat in the Legislature.
He believes that the union’s campaign against him was spurred by his reluctance to support a bill last year that would have put a measure on the ballot asking voters to enshrine basic labor standards for all UC employees. The bill was sponsored by AFSCME Local 3299 and fizzled before it ever made it to the governor’s desk, facing a long list of opponents who said it was unnecessary and unfairly singled out one group of public workers.
Choi, an 80-year-old immigrant from South Korea who previously served as the mayor of Irvine, is reluctant to give the union any credit for his win. Like Newman, he too said he would not have supported the bill that sparked the union’s ire.
A conservative who opposes gay marriage, Choi said his plans for his four-year term are to “achieve a balance of power” in the Democratic-dominated Legislature.
He opposed a union-backed measure on last month’s ballot that would have raised the minimum wage to $18 an hour and said he has concerns about how large unions such as the California Teachers Assn. use their power — often donating millions to support Democratic candidates and winning some of the strongest worker laws in the country.
In an interesting twist, Choi is considering proposing legislation that would prohibit unions from financially supporting and endorsing their preferred candidates in elections, saying that they “take hostage” politicians who don’t vote their way.
“It’s very unfair, how powerful they are,” he said. “It’s a very unhealthy practice.”
Unions spent big in the 2024 election, with the Service Employees International Union and the California Teachers Assn. spending more than $1 million in independent expenditures alone to support Democrat Michelle Chambers in the hotly contested race for Senate District 35. The unions spent about $2 million in ads opposing her Democratic opponent Laura Richardson, who narrowly won the South Los Angeles race.
Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, didn’t comment on the specifics of the Senate District 37 race between Newman and Choi but said in an email Friday that “whenever and wherever working people hold elected officials accountable for the promises those officials make to voters, it seems to make people nervous.”
It’s unlikely that Choi will have much influence in the California Capitol, where Republicans struggle to get any major policies signed into law.
He thinks that the union that targeted Newman knew that and chose to risk helping elect a candidate it disagrees with in order to send a message to other Democrats about what happens when you oppose them.
“I think this was a power play to show how strong they are,” Choi said. “And what kind of penalty they can play against uncooperative legislators.”