Would You Rather Die Slow or Die Quick? Assemblyman Mike Gipson Interview with RLn

For too long, Californians, particularly those from working-class communities of color who live next to freeways, oil refineries, chemical manufacturers, and port complexes have to choose between good jobs, public safety, and clean air and water. The Democratic apparatus, as it exists now, would have us think we can’t have all of the above. Too often we hear electeds say things like, “We can’t set more stringent emission rules without causing job losses.”

Too frequently, we are presented with the Faustian choice of dying a quick death due to gun violence or a slow death to cancer and/or some form of respiratory disease related to air pollution.

Assemblyman Mike Gipson came on to the Zoom interview with Random Lengths News all business, no collegiality on May 5. We had been trying to arrange an in-person interview with the Assemblyman since March. His staff rescheduled the interview at least twice, only for his staff to call back to reschedule again. The rescheduling likely had to do with the posting to our channel the RLN interview with his now two-time primary opponent, Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, in his battle for reelection.

In April, Gipson and his staff co-hosted a town hall meeting with Cal State University Dominguez Hills student union to discuss affordable housing and public safety. In the news reporting of Forthe.org, Gipson was described as becoming irate when a student intern with Project Super Bloom PAC, a youth-led political action committee supporting progressive candidates in California, asked about his environmental record.

Just reading between the lines, Gipson’s environmental record has become a sore spot that the Courage Campaign, the Sunrise Movement, and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have targeted with increasing success over the years.

Until facing Iqbal-Zubair, the incumbent Assemblyman has won by overwhelming 50-point landslides against Republican opponents. Against Iqbal-Zubair, the first Democratic opponent he has faced since he was elected in 2014, 20 points.

Iqbal-Zubair’s consistent attacks on Gipson’s voting record on the environment and his acceptance of money from fossil fuel companies in exchange for withholding his votes on unfavorable votes, hit as body blows in 2020 –blows Gipson was not able to easily shake off as he cruised to victory nevertheless.

In Iqbal-Zubair vs. Gipson I, Gipson was able to pretend he didn’t know the upstart challenger was. Iqbal-Zubair told Random Lengths News during the 2020 race that she served as Gipson’s education commissioner, a volunteer position intended to keep the assemblyman informed on the designated issue and carry out a variety of delegated functions. In the role, she hoped the neighborhood of Watts could get the attention it deserved. She said she left after becoming disillusioned with Gipson’s efforts and felt that her contributions weren’t resulting in policy action benefiting Watts.

This go-round in 2022, (In Iqbal-Zubair vs. Gipson II) Gipson doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring her. He’s adopted an impassioned, full-throated “offense-is-the-best-defense” response as he wields personal tragedy, his successes in police reform, racial justice, and labor outweigh any perceived weaknesses on environmental justice and protection issues. At one point, in a “sorry-no-sorry” after listing a short list of good environmental votes, he said, ” It’s not that I disregard that kind of work, but my policies and my focus have been on gun violence. Guess what? That’s what’s going to kill people the quickest in my mind and no one has been able to convince me otherwise.”

To be clear, the critique was never about him not voting for environmental protection and environmental racism bills. The critique is that Gipson has not been a reliable vote on priority climate change bills. Gipson’s response has been, “judge me on the totality of my work, not by a few votes cherrypicked by interest groups.”

Indeed, just a cursory look at the bills the Courage Campaign identifies as priority bills, Gipson has supported the vast majority of them. You can probably count on one hand the bills he’s actually opposed throughout his time in the legislature. More significant are the bills he neither supported nor opposed. But when compared to the overall number of progressive bills he has supported, it represents a small part of his record.

To my mind, the choice should never be either/or when it comes to progressive priorities. I would advise voters to be skeptical of any candidate who says we can’t work towards having safe neighborhoods from gun violence and carcinogens produced by neighboring refineries; good jobs and industries less harmful to the environment.