Fletcher accused of sexual harassment, assault + CalChamber’s updated ‘Job Killer’ list

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

LAWSUIT ALLEGES FLETCHER SEXUALLY HARASSED, ASSAULTED WOMAN

Last weekend, Democratic San Diego Supervisor Nathan Fletcher announced he was dropping his State Senate campaign and entering long-term treatment for combat-related PTSD, childhood-related trauma and alcohol abuse.

At the time, Fletcher was praised by many for the courage it took to admit he needed help. But was Fletcher just trying to get ahead of a damaging news story?

That story dropped Wednesday, as a former San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) employee named Grecia Figueroa filed a lawsuit alleging that Fletcher sexually harassed and assaulted her.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was shared by NBC San Diego, contends that Fletcher began stalking Figueroa’s Instagram account before engaging in increasingly aggressive behavior, including allegedly sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions.

In the lawsuit, Figueroa alleges she was fired from her job the same day Fletcher announced his bid for Sen. Toni Atkins’ Senate seat.

“Ms. Figueroa is informed and believes and thereon alleges that MTS terminated her employment because she was sexually harassed by Defendant Fletcher,” the lawsuit contends.

Fletcher previously served as chair of the MTS board of directors.

Before news of the lawsuit spread Wednesday, Fletcher’s Twitter account shared a statement from both Fletcher and his attorney, Danielle Hultenius Moore. .

“The simple truth is that Ms. Figueroa pursued my client, their interactions were consensual and Mr. Fletcher does not and never had authority over her employment,” Moore said in a statement.

Moore vowed to fight this lawsuit in court.

Fletcher admitted to making “a terrible mistake” that violated the trust of his marriage to Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former assemblywoman and current head of the California Labor Federation.

“I made it clear it could not continue or advance and desperately hoped I could leave this mistake in my past. However, this individual and an attorney demanded millions of dollars from me and my family with the threat of not only embarrassment but a willingness to lie about the circumstances and nature of the interactions,” Fletcher said in a statement.

According to the statement, Fletcher is at an out-of-state treatment center.

CALCHAMBER RELEASES CURRENT LIST OF ‘JOB KILLER’ BILLS

The California Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday released its most recent list of 13 so-called “Job Killer” bills, measures that the pro-business group alleges would damage California’s economy.

CalChamber President Jennifer Barrera said in a statement that while private employers account for more than 17 million jobs and $1.6 trillion in annual wages, the bills on the group’s list will “stifle job creation, reduce investent in our economy, and drive outward migration.

“Job killing policies make California unattractive both to current employers and entrepreneurs who, incidentally, generate the preponderance of the state’s tax revenue, and to those who might want to come here to invest in our future economy,” she said.

The bills — all of which have Democratic authors — include AB 259 and ACA 3 by Assemblyman Alex Lee,D-San Jose, which would create a tax on California’s richest residents.

You can see the list of bills here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Coward.”

- Gov. Gavin Newsom, referring to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who refused to answer questions about how to respond to the Nashville school shooting, via Twitter. Newsom once avoided overtly criticizing the Bakersfield Republican, but has begun doing so more frequently since McCarthy took up the speaker’s gavel last January.

Best of The Bee:

• Combustion trash trucks, with their short and fixed routes, are prime candidates for speedy conversion to electric. The resulting zero-emission waste collection would improve local air quality, especially in communities already burdened by industrial pollution. But new California rules governing big rigs could keep trash trucks from going all-electric until 2042. The exemption is a boon to waste companies that spent the last decade investing in natural gas, mainly methane extracted from the ground, via Ari Plachta.

• How Xavier Becerra went from working construction in Sacramento to launching Obamacare, via Gillian Brassil.

• Amid ongoing concerns that missing Black women and girls are too-often ignored by law enforcement and the media, a California legislator has proposed alert notifications to mandate immediate action when those cases happen, via Marcus D. Smith.

• It’s a bad year for California salmon. Here’s how it hurts the economy and environment, via Jacqueline Pinedo.

• It’s not often that federal California lawmakers across parties and congressional chambers unanimously agree. But amid months of catastrophic weather in California, every member of the state’s delegation asked President Joe Biden to declare another major disaster and lend more federal support, via Gillian Brassil.

• A powerful California lawmaker has proposed ending the state’s ban on taxpayer-funded travel to states that have passed anti-LGBTQ laws, arguing that the ban — while good-intentioned — has resulted in unintended consequences, via Andrew Sheeler.