Republican-backed recall committee forms against Bay Area Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab

Freshman Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Hayward, who pushed three major bills through committee last week — and sparked some controversy in the process — is the subject of a recall movement, according to a filing with the Secretary of State.

The phone number associated with the Committee to Support the Recall of Aisha Wahab belongs to its treasurer, Thomas E. Montgomery of Political Communications Inc., which provides compliance, communication and voter data services to campaigns and committees, according to the firm’s website.

The website says that Montgomery, who is also Vice Chair of the Marin County Republican Central Committee, is a “Republican businessman and political activist” who “knows full well what a daunting task being a Republican in the Golden State can be, especially when it’s home to such famous, and ‘well-liked’, politicians as Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi.”

Montgomery referred a request for comment to a spokesperson for the committee, who did not respond to a message Monday evening.

“I’m here to do the work of the people,” Wahab said in a statement to The Bee on Tuesday. “These retaliatory efforts will not distract me, and I will continue to advance bills that have the potential to positively impact the lives of millions of Californians.”

Per California law, the committee must serve Wahab with a notice of intention to recall, and the state would need to approve the language of the recall petition.

According to the Secretary of State, the number of signatures needed on a petition to recall a State Senator must equal at least 20% of the last vote for the office. In Wahab’s 2022 race for Senate District 10, a total of 214,008 votes were cast. A recall petition will need almost 43,000 signatures. If the committee collects enough valid signatures, a recall election would be held.

Wahab, a Bay Area progressive and former Hayward City Councilwoman, has already made waves in her short time as a Senator. Last week, SB 403, a bill that would formally ban caste-based discrimination in California, made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee with unanimous, bipartisan support.

But the measure has drawn intense scrutiny from Indian Americans, many of whom came to the Capitol last week to voice their dissent. They say that the bill itself is racist and will result in racial profiling against Hindu Americans.

Two other bills also passed through their respective committees — the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights and the Safe Minors Act, the latter which would make it a crime to arrange or officiate marriage between a minor and an adult.

But amid her successes, Wahab’s comments during a hearing for her lobby reform bill prompted outcry from members of a Sacramento women-run nonprofit.

At the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee hearing last month for SB 573, which would bar legislative staffers from becoming lobbyists for two years after they leave the Capitol, Wahab angered members of We Said Enough, founded in 2017 to speak out against workplace sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying in professional and academic settings.

The group strongly opposes the bill because it may “create unfair limitations” on legislative staff’s future career opportunities and, as they wrote on Twitter, it could “TRAP staff in hostile or abusive work places by preventing them from holding meaningful, well compensated employment elsewhere.”

Wahab pushed back.

“I find it ... insulting and harmful to the men and women that experience sexual assault, let alone as an advocate and survivor, that an organization would utilize the trauma of people to oppose a bill that strictly is about lobbying reform,” she said. about the group’s opposition last month.

Her comments drew demands for an apology, notably from Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, D-Inglewood. Wahab has not apologized, but she has delayed action SB 573 until next year.