THE BUZZ — WELCOME TO THE PARTY: Democracy was a prime topic at this weekend’s California Democratic Party convention — both its fragility and its fractiousness.
Party luminaries framed midterm elections as a contest for the global small-d democratic order, more than a few of them linking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to what they described as Republican backsliding on voting rights and elections. Preserving Democrats’ House majority by defending purple-district Democrats like Katie Porter and Mike Levin or unseating GOP House members like Young Kim and Michelle Steel, in this framing, was about building a bulwark against authoritarianism. “Democracy is under attack here at home and abroad,” state party chair Rusty Hicks told delegates. Sen. Alex Padilla warned “it’s all on the line” when “Russia is on the march in Europe and there’s a systematic attack on…
