EXCLUSIVE: Los Angeles County GOP Chair Roxanne Hoge issued an impassioned appeal for Republicans to "send help" to Democratic-controlled California, describing what she sees as rampant corruption in the state and saying most people "can't understand the level of obsession they have with controlling our lives."
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Hoge addressed the online reaction to a recent viral video posted by Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in which the mayor said the city government would match six times every dollar donated to her re-election campaign. While some social media users expressed shock, Hoge said she was not surprised.
"The rest of the country doesn't understand what we're living under here," she told Fox News Digital.
"The number one thing people need to understand about Los Angeles in particular and California in general is that they've codified all of their shenanigans," she explained. "What normal people consider cheating or weirdness in the electoral process? It's all in the rules [here]."
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In a recent viral social media post, Bass, Los Angeles' 72-year-old progressive mayor, said that "when you donate to our campaign, the city can match your donation 6 to 1," adding, "If you donate $5, the city turns it into $35."
Bass said that "thanks to LA's super match program, every qualified donation from Los Angeles residents is matched six to one by the city." She added that after this year's mayoral primary, in which Republican candidate Spencer Pratt garnered significant support, "we had to start over from scratch."
"So, we need you to rush in your matching donation right now, to help fuel this campaign," she said.
Social media users questioned and criticized Bass' comments.
Conservative activist Billboard Chris commented, "How is it legal to take money from Los Angeles taxpayers to fund your own re-election campaign?" Commentator Matt Van Swol wrote, "Can someone please explain to me like I'm 5 years old how this is not COMPLETELY illegal?????"
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Author Michael Shellenberger simply wrote, "This is grotesque."
"Is this a JOKE?!?" wrote well-known Los Angeles doctor and political commentator Houman David Hemmati. "Why on EARTH are LA City taxpayers, who can't even afford to clean up their streets or have water in their fire hydrants, forced to match contributions to Bass' Mayoral reelection campaign 6:1?!? … HUH?! Insanity!"
Hoge, however, said the matching-funds program Bass describes in her campaign video is legal under city law. Los Angeles voters approved a public campaign-financing system in 1990 that the City Council later expanded into today's six-to-one matching-funds program. Donations are subject to caps and eligibility rules.
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"Voters passed something that sounded so good; they always sound so good at the beginning. Public financing matching funds for campaigns on a one-to-one basis. That seems great, right?" she said. "And then it transmogrifies … into what we have today, this many-headed hydra of insanity where taxpayers are on the hook for $6 for every dollar raised by a city of L.A. candidate."
She noted that the rule applies not only to mayoral campaigns but also to City Council campaigns, adding that they "Have many active [Democratic Socialists of America] members currently sitting and running."
Hoge said "the message that Karen Bass is sending is the same message that those of us who live here behind the blue curtain have been getting for decades."
"And that is, 'Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown. Don't try to go against City Hall,'" she said.
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"We saw Spencer Pratt mount a very strong argument for sanity and good governance. It wasn't partisan, what he was saying. It was pure common sense, and they rose up because they were threatened."
Fox News Digital reached out to Bass' campaign and office for comment.
Despite California's political landscape, Hoge urged Republicans not to write off America's most populous state as a lost cause.
"California is totally worth fighting for because it is an absolute gem," she said, adding, "We are living with people who gleefully would reach into the shower and change the temperature while you're having a bath."
Addressing Republicans directly, she said, "We belong to the leave me alone party."
"California, being in the west, is the ultimate place where you should be free to write your own story. And that, I think, is the number one thing people have to remember," she said. "They need to send help."
