The California voter guide for the June 2 primary election contains a candidate’s statement full of virulent antisemitic conspiracy theories, leaving Jews in the Bay Area and across the state upset and bewildered over how it could have happened.
Longtime fringe political candidate Don Grundmann presented bizarre language in his candidate statement for governor, including that “Israel ‘art students’” were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that an Israeli “shape-charge bomb” killed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The statement also included a link to the antisemitic website run by the Goyim Defense League.
Berkeley Rabbi Zac Kamenetz alerted his Facebook network Friday morning, describing the statement as “full of the worst antisemitic libels and conspiracy theories.”
“The first amendment protects the speech,” Kamenetz wrote to J. via text. “It does not require the state to hand out the megaphone.”
A group of community organizations in Southern California submitted a letter Tuesday to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, asking how the statement made it into the voter guide with “inflammatory and conspiratorial claims unrelated to any permissible category of content.”
“Public institutions have a heightened responsibility not to amplify or legitimize harmful and false narratives,” the letter read. “By including a statement containing antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories in an official voter guide, the State has effectively provided a government platform for rhetoric that fuels division and undermines the safety and dignity of Jewish communities.”
The letter was co-signed by Orange County–based organizations Jewish Community Action Network (JCAN), Jewish Federation of Orange County, the Anti-Defamation League and Israeli American Council.
“The point of a candidate statement is to tell me what you’re running about. It’s not, you know, ‘the Jews killed Christ,’” JCAN’s CEO Ilana Meirovitch told J. Thursday. “That’s not the point. You have to explain what is your platform.”
California certified the voter guide on March 9. Physical copies were mailed out earlier this week, and the guide is available on the Secretary of State’s website.
Emily Winston, owner of Boichik Bagels, said she was disturbed when she read the statement. “Do we really need to spend tax dollars printing and promoting hate and conspiracy theories to every household in California?” Winston wrote in an April 23 Facebook post.
The statement made Winston wonder what candidates are allowed to include in official state documents such as the voter guide — a question most people are asking.
“Are you just allowed to put anything at all in this statement and have it sent to everyone in the whole state?” she commented to J. on Friday. “Can you just run on anything, make up anything you want that has nothing to do with anything?”
According to guidelines on the Secretary of State’s website, candidate statements “should be limited to a recitation of the candidate’s own personal background and qualifications.”
The office did not immediately respond to J.’s requests for comment. Meirovitch told J. there was no response to the co-signed letter as of Friday afternoon.
Grundmann, who is a notorious fundamentalist Christian and anti-LGBTQ activist, has led several “straight pride” marches that attracted heated interactions with counterprotesters in Modesto.
He has also run for the U.S. Senate six times since 2010.
According to the California Elections Code, any candidate who in their statement “knowingly makes a false statement of a material fact” is subject to a $1,000 fine.
But Grundmann believes what he submitted is the truth, he said on Friday after J. called the number listed with his statement. He answered the phone himself and denied being an antisemite.
“This is a war against Christianity… I’m not antisemitic at all. I’m anti-rat,” he said. “I’m against people who are harming humanity.”
The voter guide attached a disclaimer to Grundmann’s candidate statement: “The views and opinions expressed by the candidates are their own and do not represent the views and opinions of the Secretary of State’s office.”
Many are saying it does not make up for the potential harm.
“A disclaimer at the top does not change what the state has done. It has opened its official channels as a platform for hate speech,” Kamenetz told J. “Tomorrow it will be Muslims, immigrants, trans Californians, Black communities.”