Politics

After internal strife, California speaker-in-waiting seeks to unify

Assemblyman Robert Rivas is set to assume the speaker’s gavel later this month.
California Assembly Speaker-Designate Robert Rivas (D) (Photo courtesy of Rivas’s legislative office)

SACRAMENTO — After more than a year of internal leadership battles that set powerful factions of California Democrats against each other, the man who will lead the state Assembly is pledging a new era of transparency in the face of rising challenges and shrinking budgets.

Assemblyman Robert Rivas (D), 43, is set to assume the speaker’s gavel later this month. In a wide-ranging interview, Rivas said he was clear-eyed about the catalogue of crises facing the nation’s largest state.

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