Nearly three months have passed since we last gawked at the revolving door that is Assembly member Nora Campos’ office. Not to worry—unless you’re a constituent—things are just as dysfunctional as ever. Interim chief of staff Erasmo Viveros and district director Anissa Basoco-Villarreal both jumped ship in the last two weeks, leaving Campos with vacancies at her two most important positions. The running staff total since Campos was elected five years ago is now an astounding 55. Back in February 2014, when she was awarded the championship belt as “Sacramento’s Worst Boss,” the body count was already an alarming 41. Not a single one of those employees still works for the legislator. Campos has responded by ignoring critics and requests for comment, but a tipster at the Capitol says her staffers “look numb” as they walk the halls. To help tune out the noise, Campos has been blocking people from her Twitter account, which she inexplicably operates with legislative resources. A recent records request by a concerned citizen found that Campos had blocked seven Twitter users, including San Jose Inside, as well as her former communications director, Steve Harmon, who dished dirt after being emancipated (i.e. fired). Campos also inexplicably blocked a fair trade coffee shop in San Francisco—because Nora. But it appears the Campos Clan, which includes baby brother Xavier and husband Neil Struthers, is starting to see its own access denied. The X-man went to consulting after losing his seat on the San Jose City Council last year, and Struthers has been mostly invisible since resigning his post as head of the local Building and Construction Trades Council. In June, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo sent an email to his staff telling them he’d had enough of Struthers’ calls about a retrofitting project. “Neil has called me repeatedly, frustrated that there's been no action from the city,” Liccardo wrote. “I’d rather somebody else take his calls going forward. Thanks.”
The Fly
Nora Campos’ Continued Staff Turnover Is the Stuff of Legend
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Nora Campos accused two senators of orchestrating an attack on her husband, but others say her husband was drunk and throwing out racial and homophobic slurs. (Photo via Twitter)
I think as far as Struthers is concerned, he just overstepped his bounds with some of Sam’s supporters one too many times. It’s not *just* that he’s spending an inordinate amount of time calling Sam.
What get’s me though with both Camposes is how folks in the Democratic party still want to support them despite their bad behavior. I’m tired of the local Dem party for this. I suppose it’s the same in the Republican party. Why do we want to let the Campos’s, after numerous bouts of bad behavior continue to hold power in our politics and our party?
Nora has probably convinced herself that she is not the problem, it’s the staff members…all 55 of them who have quit. Nora and Baby X are both clueless; but even more clueless are the people who keep electing them. The voters in their districts are poster children for arguing against the concept of mandatory voting now making the rounds, a concept that will dumb down the electorate. The Founding Fathers established a republic, not a democracy, for reasons that are still valid today. They recognized that not everyone should be allowed to vote. How far we have drifted from that concept.
You have to give the D5 voters some credit because they didn’t keep voting them in and in fact they totally rejected Baby Huey Campos and made him the first incumbent city council member to not be re-elected in decades (maybe ever)
Nora is the problem. Her office must be toxic for that many people to leave. The curious thing is why folks even keep applying to work for her with her very public track record. Let’s hope that the same voters that rejected her brother will reject her the next time she puts her name on a ballot. Kinda funny how Mayor Liccardo passed off the non-relevant Struthers to his staffers. I guess they just don’t want to accept that since the fall of Shirakawa that they are ALL toxic and non important to voters and D5 residents.