SACRAMENTO — In an unusual post-election attack, Carson’s Democratic Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd has sent 100,000 letters asking voters in Republican Assemblyman Pat Nolan’s Glendale-area district whether they would back a recall of the GOP lawmaker, who is a target of an FBI investigation into Capitol corruption.
Peter Kelly, state Democratic Party chairman, said Saturday that the party-financed letters were sent to counter a direct-mail campaign orchestrated by Assembly Republican Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra and five dissident Democrats known as the “Gang of Five.”
Johnson’s efforts are aimed, in part, at pressuring four other Democrats who won close elections last month in conservative and moderate districts to oppose Assemblyman Willie Brown’s reelection as Speaker when the Legislature reconvenes Monday.
Cost About $100,000
The mailers, sent out early last week at a cost of about $100,000, were highly critical of Brown and urged voters to tell their legislators to “pull the plug” on the San Francisco Democrat.
Kelly said the Republican direct-mail effort “is clearly an escalation of normal political battling in the state.” Democrats, he said, “can’t sit back and let people take shots without retaliating.”
Typically after the fall campaigns, there is a lull in partisan political activity. It is rare, if not unprecedented, for a personal attack to be mounted by an incumbent against a colleague, especially less than a month after the Nov. 8 election.
Floyd’s letter is the latest maneuver in the jockeying that has followed an election in which Republicans lost three Assembly seats, prompting Nolan to step down as GOP leader. The lineup in the 80-member Assembly is 46 Democrats and 33 Republicans with one vacancy.
Despite Republican losses in the election, the post-election warfare may mean that Brown clings to his speakership by a slim margin.
Floyd and Nolan have been at odds since 1986 when Nolan and others allegedly prepared phony endorsement letters from President Reagan and sent them out on behalf of six Republican Assembly candidates, including Floyd’s GOP challenger.
Charges Not Sought
In September, Sacramento County Dist. Atty. John Dougherty announced he would not seek criminal charges against Nolan. But Dougherty said Nolan had asked his staff to lie to White House officials about how the letters were prepared. Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp said last week that he is still reviewing the case–a process which could take several more months.
Meantime, Nolan has been among five elected officials who are targets of the FBI’s sting investigation into political corruption at the state Capitol.
Floyd, in his letter, noted that Nolan has “been making a lot of headlines lately” regarding the sting and the presidential endorsement letters. As a result, he said in the letter, there have been calls by voters “for Nolan to step down from his Assembly seat.”
Bob Haueter, a Nolan aide, said he is unaware of any recall movement, noting that Nolan won reelection last month with 58% of the vote in the heavily Republican 41st District.
“It’s obvious that this is Willie Brown reacting through Richard Floyd to the attempts of the Republican leadership to deny him the speakership on Monday,” Haueter said.
Johnson, through his press secretary, described the letter as “an incredible act of weakness and desperation for Willie.”
Reforms Urged
“Even if you assume Willie Brown’s best scenario, he’s hanging on by his fingernails, and there will be no peace until we get some reforms” in the way business is conducted in the Assembly, Johnson declared.
Kelly said that if Republicans continue to blast Democrats in campaign-style mailings, Democrats would step up the fight, including pursuing the Nolan recall or other actions against GOP lawmakers.
“We’ll leave it to them to figure out who’s going to be next,” Kelly said.
Once upon a time in California, I went to the Orange County fairgrounds to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger give the signal for a wrecking ball to drop onto a vehicle.
The audience went wild, and Schwarzenegger went on to become governor and deliver on his promise to roll back a car tax increase, thereby blowing a $4-billion hole in the state budget.
I think it’s fair to say that in the current gubernatorial campaign season, the excitement level is several decibels below what we experienced in 2003. But once again, it’s fair to say we’ve not seen anything quite like this year’s derby.
“There’s no historical precedent in modern California history for a governor’s race with such a large field or such an amorphous field of candidates,” said longtime political observer Dan Schnur. “Unless you’re paying very close attention, it feels like a big multi-headed political blob.”
The two Republicans could be the top two vote-getters because the Democrats have arranged themselves into a circular firing squad. While the Dems scramble for votes in the June 2 primary, the two Republicans lead in the polls because they’re splitting the GOP vote, and under the rules of the top-two primary, they could face off in the November election.
That means that California, which is one of the bluest states in the country and has nearly twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans, could end up with a Republican governor, which would be like having a Dodgers manager who wears a Yankees jersey in the dugout.
And by the way, if it happens, the Republican would be able to shuffle regulatory boards, attempt to squeeze budgets and create a bit of chaos, but still not get much accomplished because of Democratic super-majorities in the Senate and Assembly.
And he would be targeted for recall even before he takes office. (More on that in a minute.)
There is a way for the Democrats to avoid this humiliation, but they can’t seem to agree on anything at the moment. Party leaders have all but asked the candidates at the bottom of the polls to bow out, but understandably the response has been, “Why me? I’m no worse than the others.”
USC decided to host a debate night, a simple enough proposition, but then flubbed the deal by leaving four candidates off the invitation list — four candidates of color. A kerfuffle followed, and the debate was dumped, and an attempt to let everyone into the party fell apart.
So now what?
It’s possible the Dems will huddle around one or two candidates who then move up in the polls and remove the threat of the unthinkable — two Republicans head-to-head. That would be Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco going against former Fox TV host Steve Hilton.
It’s also possible the Dems will play dirty and either spend money to promote one of the two Republican candidates or torpedo one of them. All they want, at the moment, is for a Democrat to make it past the primary, because that would all but ensure victory in November, given voter registration advantages.
And then, if that doesn’t work, there’s the recall scenario.
“You could shut it down probably within five or six months,” said Mike Madrid, a longtime California GOP political consultant.
“It would surely happen,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who helped Schwarzenegger knock Gov. Gray Davis out of office, and take his job, in the 2003 recall.
A wealthy Democratic donor could bankroll the recall campaign, Stutzman said. Or public employee unions might put up the money, given that a Republican winner is likely to create a state version of Elon Musk’s ham-handed attempt to fire nearly everyone on the federal payroll.
“The pitch,” Stutzman said of the recall strategy in an email, would be that “Trump still looms and CA must resist, and a GOP gov is a fluke of weird election law. Difficult to imagine it wouldn’t succeed.”
I thought of one more approach the Democrats could use to make sure at least one of them is on the ballot in November. Tom Steyer, a leader for many years on one of the most critical issues in California and the world, climate change, has already spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads that run about every two minutes, promoting him as the best candidate for governor.
They’re so repetitious, you can’t help but tune them out.
But everyone would pay close attention if Steyer instead ran ads offering incentives for either Bianco or Hilton to leave the state. Steyer could offer $10 million cash for Bianco to move to Hawaii, and maybe throw in a beach house. He could buy a private jet for Hilton to take him back to his native Britain. Every day, there could be new ads upping the ante until one of them leaves the Golden State.
Wouldn’t that be a better use of Steyer’s money? It might even get him elected.
To be honest, having some honest pushback against Democratic authority in California wouldn’t be a terrible thing. It’s not as if Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats are winning the battle against homelessness, housing shortages, affordability and other big challenges, and voters understandably want more — way more — for their tax dollars.
An experienced, no-nonsense, sensible, fiscally conservative GOP candidate would do the state good.
The problem is that the two Republicans in the running, Bianco and Hilton, are Trump toadies.
In an embarrassingly amateurish political stunt, Bianco blew the president a kiss and all but begged for an endorsement by seizing 650,000 ballots from last November’s election to determine whether they were fraudulently counted.
Hilton recently said in an interview with ABC’s Eyewitness News 7 that he believes “everybody supports” Trump’s immigration policies.
Hilton might have missed the news that U.S.-born residents are carrying their passports in case they’re targeted by skin color. That Californians by the thousands have joined the resistance. That despite claims, most deportees don’t have criminal records. And that even some of the state’s GOP lawmakers have begged Trump to stop raiding industries that rely on immigrant help (and are often owned by Republicans).
And by the way, is this a smart time for a GOP candidate in California to be doing his best Trump impression?
The president’s popularity is down, consumer prices are up, he’s shamelessly pardoned drug lords and Jan. 6 barbarians, he thinks the presidency is a game of Battleship after promising to keep us out of wars, gas prices are sky high, he just said he was glad that Vietnam War hero and former FBI Director Robert Mueller had died, and he’s playing golf all day as if everything’s hunky dory.
Like I said, there’s not a big-name character like Schwarzenegger in the race, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good options. If you like Bianco or Hilton, so be it. Otherwise I suggest you read up on the other eight:
Steyer, Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former L.A. Mayor and legislative leader Antonio Villaraigosa, former Rep. Katie Porter, former state attorney general and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former State Controller Betty Yee, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, and U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.
Umar Muhammad Mustapha had just stepped out of the mosque when he heard someone say an explosion had gone off in the Maiduguri Monday Market area on the evening of March 16. He panicked and asked when. “Just a moment ago,” someone replied, “while we were praying.”
Immediately, Umar began dialling his nephew’s number as he rushed toward the scene without first returning home. “The phone kept ringing, but he did not answer. A few moments later, it prompted ‘switched off’,” he recalled.
That was when the panic deepened.
“I began dialling those whose shops were close to ours.”
Umar sells gabgab at the market. His nephew, Muhammad Ibrahim, makes the local incense while he sells it. The 27-year-old has been with Umar since he was nine.
As he moved through the city that Monday evening, his thoughts raced ahead of him. “I began to imagine the condition in which I would meet him,” Umar said. “Is he alright? Is he alive? Is he dead? Is he injured? And how bad his injuries might be.”
They both work at the market, but that day, Umar stayed at home.
That night, at around 7 p.m., three explosions simultaneously rocked parts of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital in northeastern Nigeria, including the Monday Market, the Post Office area along Ahmadu Bello Way, and the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).
As he hailed a tricycle to rush to the market, Umar was restless. “I felt as though the keke was not going fast enough and kept urging the driver to go faster,” he said.
From the market to the ward
Before he reached the market, Umar’s phone rang, and Muhammad’s name was displayed. But when he answered, a different voice spoke. “Come to the emergency ward of General [State Specialist Hospital],” the person said.
In that moment, uncertainty gave way to reality. “An explosion occurred; he was affected,” the person continued. “He was brought to the hospital. You are the last person he talked to, so we are reaching out.”
Immediately after the explosions at the Monday Market and Post Office area, victims were rushed to the emergency ward of the State Specialist Hospital, Maiduguri. Photo: Al’amin Umar/HumAngle.
The blasts at the market and the Post Office were especially devastating. The two locations sit minutes apart. Traders had closed for the day and were heading home when the first explosion tore through the Elkanemi junction, near the market.
Following the explosions the next morning on March 17, the Monday Market was locked, and traders had delayed entry. Security operatives, including the police and NSCDC, scan the site for leftover explosives while sanitation workers clean the site of blood stains. Photo: Al’amin Umar/HumAngle.
In the immediate aftermath of the first blast, many people scattered and ran towards the Post Office area. Muhammad was among them. At the time Umar was trying to reach him, he had already escaped the market blast. In the confusion, he could not hear his phone. As he ran towards the Post Office area, another explosion went off.
It caught him, and he sustained injuries to his chest and legs.
When HumAngle visited the hospital on Tuesday, March 17, Muhammad could not speak, only nodding when spoken to. Umar said he was scheduled for surgery later in the evening.
Muhammad lies on his hospital bed on the morning of March 17. He sustained injuries on his right leg and chest. Photo: Al’amin Umar/HumAngle.
Other survivors also carry similar stories.
Mohammed Babagana Bukar had just bought a pair of shoes for Eid al-Fitr, which is in a few days, with money he earned as a porter at the market. When the blast happened, the 15-year-old said, “We panicked and began running towards the Post Office when another one went off, close to where the flyover is being constructed.”
He was brought to the hospital by a stranger. “He carried me as I could not walk.”
Fantami Modu didn’t escape the first blast that rocked the market; he was injured.
“It affected my leg,” the 40-year-old said. “We were brought to the hospital by the police.” Fantami sells clothing materials and earns about ₦7,000 daily. It is what he uses to feed his family.
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Now, he cannot work. Beside him, his brother, Babagana, said they are contributing to support the household until he recovers.
According to the Borno State Police Command, 23 people were killed, and 108 were injured in the multiple bomb blasts. No terror group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Nigerian Army said they were “carried out by suspected Boko Haram terrorist suicide bombers”.
“Preliminary information further indicates that the terrorists may have deployed multiple suicide bombers into Maiduguri with the intention of carrying out coordinated suicide bombings at crowded locations,” Lieutenant Colonel Sani Uba, Media Information Officer of the Joint Task Force North East Operation Hadin Kai, said in a statement.
At the State Specialist Hospital, where victims were first rushed to, HumAngle counted 13 survivors on admission. The hospital is less than two kilometres from the scenes. Of these 13, 11 were males and two females, with varying degrees of injuries to the arm, leg, and chest.
Nurses at the hospital said at least 40 people were brought to the emergency ward that night, with many later referred to the UMTH. Only 14 survivors were eventually admitted, but one died on arrival.
Many of the over 40 survivors that were rushed into the State Specialist Hospital on the night of the attack were later referred to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. Photo: Al’amin Umar/HumAngle.
UMTH was also targeted that night. An explosion that went off at the hospital’s entrance. Although no civilian casualties were recorded, sources said that a suspected suicide bomber, who tried to enter the hospital on a bicycle before he was stopped by security operatives, died in the incident.
A city remembering fear
For some residents, the events revived familiar anxieties.
“We had just broken our fast and were waiting for a tricycle to return home when we heard the explosion close to the Monday Market,” Sulaiman Muhammad, a resident, recounted. “Less than 20 minutes after, we heard another one from the Post Office area. In panic, we scattered.”
He did not go to the scene. “It is dangerous,” he said. “I remember in one explosion like this inside the market at the peak of the [Boko Haram] insurgency, another explosion went off immediately people gathered to help victims.”
The second explosion on the evening of March 16 occurred at the Post Office area, near a flyover construction site. Most people fleeing the Monday market blast were caught here. Photo: Al’amin Umar/HumAngle.
Now, those memories are resurfacing. “People are in panic,” he said. “We had begun to experience relative calm until the past few days.”
Sulaiman has sold shoes at the market for more than 20 years. He believes the attacks will affect business. “As you can see, no one is out [to sell],” he said.
These incidents are part of a broader pattern of escalating violence.
The explosions came barely 24 hours after terrorists attacked a military base in Kofa, a community close to Ajilari on the outskirts of Maiduguri, on March 16. Joint security operatives repelled the attack, leaving many terrorists dead.
However, before then, there had been attacks by terror groups across Borno State, including assaults on rural military bases and resettled communities like Ngoshe and Dalwa. Also, on Dec. 25, 2025, a suicide bomber detonated at a mosque in the Gamboru Market area of Maiduguri. Five people were killed, and 35 others were injured.
Taken together, these incidents point to what observers describe as a violent resurgence. HumAngle has reported that the terror groups operating in the region have undergone several technological shifts that have aided their expanded attacks and operations, including the use of artificial intelligence and drones.
For Umar, the incident has narrowed into something smaller, more personal.
Muhammad, he said, loves to read.
“He would read verses from the Qur’an after his morning prayer. And after breakfast, he would head to the market. And by evening, he would return home. He would read in the evening too, before going to bed.”
When asked what he hopes for, Umar paused.
“I would have hoped for more security or for more vigilance,” he said. “But what would an empty hope solve? Authorities know what to do. They would act properly if they intend to.”
