{"id":465589,"date":"2026-09-16T12:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465589\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T12:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:58:08","slug":"senate-president-monique-limon-leads-by-democratic-consensus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465589\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate President Monique Lim\u00f3n leads by democratic consensus"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kate Wolffe<\/a> and Maya C. Miller<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""A\"
\n\t\t\t\tState Sen. Monique Lim\u00f3n prior to being sworn in as Senate President pro tem during her ceremony in the Senate chambers at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 5, 2026. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters\/Pool<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

The last deal of the legislative session was supposed to be a win for Senate President Pro Tem Monique Lim\u00f3n<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After weeks of negotiations, and at least one sleepless night, Lim\u00f3n\u2019s team backed a plan to address the ballooning costs of wildfires that they said would protect survivors and keep utilities on the hook<\/a> for fires their equipment caused. The Senate had stood firm against Gov. Gavin Newsom \u2014 not folding<\/a> on all the ways he wanted to spread wildfire costs around while reducing them for utility companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then it all came crumbling down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During an hourlong caucus meeting on the final morning of the legislative session, far past the eleventh hour, the Assembly decided to walk away from the compromise Lim\u00f3n brokered with Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas<\/a> and the governor. In abandoning the deal, Rivas said it didn\u2019t \u201cdeliver the relief, accountability or meaningful reform that Californians deserve.\u201d Utilities and electrical workers had waged a dayslong lobbying effort to undermine the deal.<\/p>\n

Soon after the Assembly killed the deal<\/a>, Lim\u00f3n told reporters the Senate had the votes to approve the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere certainly is a sense of disappointment,\u201d she said, flanked by seven other members of the caucus, to whom she encouraged reporters to ask additional questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ever since Lim\u00f3n\u2019s colleagues elected the Democratic senator from Santa Barbara\u00a0 as their leader last summer, one thing has been clear: She wants the spotlight on her caucus, not on herself.<\/p>\n

Interviews with current and former legislators and staff paint a picture of a leader who eschews the top-down approach. In contrast to her predecessor Sen. Mike McGuire<\/a>, who many members and staff have privately characterized as a micromanager, Lim\u00f3n took time to reach consensus with her colleagues and gave senators more authority on issues they\u2019re passionate about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While she did not finish the session with a blockbuster victory to tout, Lim\u00f3n in her first year as pro tem made meaningful, albeit incremental, progress on thorny topics such as new taxes and changes to sexual assault liability, and protected her caucus from several particularly difficult votes on politically fraught issues from the governor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while a tough budget year threatened to fracture<\/a> the caucus and test the limits of a \u201cgovern by consensus\u201d strategy, the Senate leader\u2019s biggest wins came largely because she kept her colleagues united even at the expense of alienating the governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur ability to effectively get items across the finish line is not based simply on, you know, one or two or three or four members,\u201d she said in an interview with CalMatters. \u201cI think it is the caucus itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And for some members of Lim\u00f3n\u2019s caucus, even the failed wildfire deal still amounted to a win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not come out looking like we couldn’t make a decision,\u201d said Sen. Caroline Menjivar<\/a>, a Van Nuys Democrat. \u201cWe were united in a decision that was made, and we stayed true to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Threading the needle on budget woes<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the year, Lim\u00f3n stared down the possibility of a legislative session rife with conflict given the state\u2019s gloomy budget outlook<\/a> and a host of priorities competing for limited funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s budget proposal primarily sought to capitalize on the windfall<\/a> of AI revenue and pad the state\u2019s rainy day fund. The idea of passing any new taxes to patch holes left by federal cuts and shore up the state\u2019s long-term revenue shortfalls seemed like a long shot given Newsom\u2019s presidential ambitions, especially given the Legislature\u2019s desire to lower Californians\u2019\u00a0 cost of living on the eve of an election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet Lim\u00f3n and her caucus forged ahead with plans for a new tax known as the \u201cfair share plan,\u201d which would require corporations with a large number of employees on Medi-Cal to pay a payroll tax to help fund those employees\u2019 healthcare.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The caucus united behind the idea during a two-day budget retreat in the early spring, according to Sen. John Laird<\/a>, Lim\u00f3n\u2019s pick to chair the chamber\u2019s budget committee. The Senate\u2019s budget plan, released in April, included the tax. A month later, Newsom indicated he\u2019d be open to new revenue sources. From there, Laird said, Lim\u00f3n and Senate Democrats pressed the Assembly to get on board with the idea of at least studying the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 177<\/a>, a watered-down version that ordered a study on how the state could implement such a tax, and Newsom signed it in July. Still, Lim\u00f3n\u2019s camp considered it a win \u2014 Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra embraced the tax proposal and committed to implementing it if elected governor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe took a united caucus into the negotiations, and so I think it was a high level of skill that sort of navigated all the differences in the caucus to get to a unified position,\u201d Laird said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sen. Eloise G\u00f3mez-Reyes<\/a>, one of five women of color serving as budget subcommittee leaders under Laird, attributes some of the collaborative spirit to the number of women in leadership positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI will tell you that when we got together for the first time, when we looked around the room, we said, \u2018Hey, this is wonderful,\u2019\u201d she said, of the budget leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laird said, too, that as a member of Lim\u00f3n\u2019s leadership team and the rules committee, which manages internal Senate business such as assigning bills to committees, he often found himself in a room full of women. He pointed out that he graduated from college before 1976, when the first woman was elected to the state Senate. The Senate reached gender parity in 2024 and maintains equal representation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not a white guy herding everybody around,\u201d Laird said. \u201cThere’s diversity in the caucus, and everybody sees it in the leadership and sees it in the inclusion of all the Democratic senators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Committed to justice for victims\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sen. Sasha Ren\u00e9e P\u00e9rez<\/a>, a Pasadena Democrat who represents the fire-torn community of Altadena, said she was pleased Lim\u00f3n included her in the Senate\u2019s working group to address wildfire liability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California\u2019s three major investor-owned utilities, a formidable and wealthy force in state politics, have lobbied Newsom hard<\/a> to decrease the amount they have to pay after their own equipment causes wildfires. The utilities called for banning a practice known as \u201csubrogation,\u201d in which insurance companies try to recoup what they paid in policyholder claims from responsible parties, such as utilities.<\/p>\n

Lim\u00f3n, who previously went to bat for survivors of the 2018 Thomas Fire<\/a> in her own district, told P\u00e9rez she wanted to ensure victims were central to any policy the Senate endorsed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognize that that was not something that she needed to do,\u201d P\u00e9rez said. \u201cSo it certainly meant a lot to me and it’s meant a lot to my constituents, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

P\u00e9rez said Lim\u00f3n took time to meet hundreds of residents from Altadena who traveled to Sacramento to share their frustrations about the governor\u2019s suggested plan to roll back subrogation and cap noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering for victims. At the victims\u2019 behest, the Senate successfully pushed to eliminate those two contentious proposals from the deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, Lim\u00f3n prioritized including sexual assault survivors<\/a> during discussions between the two houses over how the state could help cash-strapped local governments and school districts that were being sued by people who say they were sexually assaulted as children by employees of those entities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\""A\"Sen. Caroline Menjivar speaks during the swearing-in ceremony for Senate President Pro Tem Monique Lim\u00f3n at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 5, 2026. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters\/Pool<\/p>\n

Menjivar said Lim\u00f3n appointed her to the working group addressing sexual assault liability partially because of her background as a social worker. As a representative for Los Angeles County, which has paid close to $5 billion to survivors, Menjivar\u2019s district is in the thick of the issue. When the Senate first attempted to broker a deal on the rising costs last year, Menjivar was one of five senators, including Lim\u00f3n, who did not back the plan that she felt limited survivors\u2019 rights too much.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While cities, counties and school districts wanted to cap the amount of money that survivors could seek in damages, survivor advocates were adamant that any damage limit equated to putting a price tag on their assaults. Lim\u00f3n and the Senate Democratic caucus largely agreed with survivors and refused to accept any plan that included damage caps. Such limits were not included in the final deal<\/a>, which also introduced several new strategies and safeguards intended to prevent child sexual assault in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo listen to the people that were the most vulnerable and had no special interest funding really just showed incredible, like, strength as a leader,\u201d said Chantel Johnson, an advocate for foster and justice-involved youth with the Youth Law Center. \u201cWe certainly could have been left out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going against the governor<\/p>\n

Over the summer, Lim\u00f3n made the rare move<\/a> of not bringing up two controversial parole commissioners who Newsom reappointed to their posts after they authorized the release of men who were convicted of sexually abusing children in the 1990s, a decision that flew under the radar of both the press and Republican legislators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tactic prevented Democratic senators from having to vote on politically unpalatable appointees and left two parole board veterans without a job. Criminal justice advocates said it further politicized the process. Newsom\u2019s office declined to comment on the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lim\u00f3n\u2019s office also let local representatives weigh in on other priorities of the governor, including the tech billionaire-backed California Forever proposal<\/a> for a shipbuilding facility in Solano County and a proposed environmental carve-out for a developer in Santa Monica<\/a>. Both failed in the final hours of the legislative session last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones<\/a>, of San Diego, said Lim\u00f3n took a stronger stand against the governor than her predecessors.<\/p>\n

Especially through the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones said, \u201cthe Legislature just let the governor lead them around by their noses, so to speak,\u201d he said. This year, he said, lawmakers were aware of the governor\u2019s priority projects and then \u201cthey never came.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incoming Republican leader Sen. Roger Niello<\/a> of Roseville said the pro tem is popular on both sides of the aisle, and is always \u201caccessible\u201d to hear his party\u2019s perspective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The one upcoming challenge he sees for Lim\u00f3n is figuring out when it\u2019s time to step aside and usher in a new pro tem, a process that can either be organized or an \u201coverthrow.\u201d All legislators have 12-year term limits, and Lim\u00f3n\u2019s term ends in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA leader has to know when it’s time to change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kate Wolffe and Maya C. Miller, CalMatters State Sen. Monique Lim\u00f3n prior to being sworn in as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,2340,9,1843,8,1620,535],"class_list":["post-465589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-democrats","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-legislature","tag-california-news","tag-california-senate","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}