The Daily Signal - How California Can Impose the ‘Strictest Voter ID Laws’ in the US | Elaine Culotti & Carl Demaio

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

California is notorious for its high cost of living, homelessness epidemic, widespread crime, and failing public schools. These are all “symptoms of a bigger problem,” argues Carl DeMaio, a member of the California State Assembly. “ The fact that we're worse in all those areas is because we are confronting the biggest problem. And that is California's political system is fundamentally corrupt,” DeMaio told Elaine Culotti, The Daily Signal’s California contributor, on her podcast. DeMaio explains that meaningful change requires a grassroots voter revolt, not reliance on party elites or national figures. “If you want true populist grassroots reform, then those of us in the streets, the grassroots, we have to narrow our focus on a couple targets and take out the establishment. Because you know what? When we focus, their money can’t compete with us. We’re an army. It’s a public uprising. It’s a rebellion. A revolt. And they can’t stop that.” 👉For more videos like this, subscribe to The Daily Signal’s YouTube channel and enable notifications to be alerted the second a new video drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We can talk about the cost of living. We can talk about homelessness and prime and failing schools. But you know what? Those are symptoms of a bigger problem. The fact that we're worst in all those areas is because we are confronting the biggest problem. And that is California's political system is fundamentally corrupt and broken. The Minnesota graft and drift and fraud, it was invented in California. It was perfected in California.

It was exported to places like Minnesota. Hi, this is Elaine Collotti for the Daily Signal. And I have with me today an excellent guest. I have Carl DeMaio, who is one of my big, big, big heroes in California, especially when it comes to Republican politics. But not only that, he dies on the sword every time I see him in front of Congress, Senate and everything, trying to figure out our budget and where the money went. How are you?

Elaine, thanks for having me on. We're working hard. If you hear some background noise, it's because I am in a live campaign office. You know, there are not a whole lot of Republicans that have campaign offices in California anymore. But we are still behind enemy lines in the trenches fighting. So if you hear any noise, it's because our volunteers are hard at work today, processing our petitions for the California Voter ID Initiative and save Prop 13, our initiative to block tax hikes in California.

I'm a big fan of the Howard Jarvis group who defend, you know, constantly. Susan, is it Susan Shelley, is that right? Yeah, we work very closely with Susan, John, and the other folks over at Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. So we're proud to partner with them on the tax fights. And hopefully we'll get this initiative on the ballot along with California voter ID. It's a nice combination. You know, deal with the cost of living crisis by rejecting the Democrats tax hikes while also restoring public trust and confidence in our elections by enacting voter ID.

It's going to be an amazing package. We could give both of them on the ballot. It would be wonderful. So you, I hear you, you're pretty close. You got the million signatures. You're just getting more. Is that what you're doing on the voter ID thing? Voter ID we did announce as of 1231. We had a million signatures. We're closing in on 1.2 million signatures now. I want extra signatures because I don't trust Democrat politicians to give us a fair review of the signatures. They don't check IDs. They don't check signatures on ballots that are harvested. But by golly, if there's a reform measure like voter ID, boy, they take a microscope to every damn signature. So we want 200,000 extra because we know that they're going to cheat.

We know that they're going to play games and we want to make sure we can overwhelm them with the amount of public support to get this on the ballot. The Save Prop 13 initiative we have less signatures on. I'm a little bit more worried about that one, but we're working as hard as we can to close the gap in the final weeks to get this on the ballot. Now, if it goes on the ballot, is it in effect in November? It's not in effect in November, the voter ID. Both initiatives, Save Prop 13 and California voter ID. The earliest they're going to be voted on would be in the November, 2026 ballot. And they would not take effect until a month after that, a month after the election,

which would be December of 26. So when we pass voter ID in this November's election, it would kick in for the 2028 election in two years. That would be the first election that the voters would be required to show their ID. I can't believe that. It's so depressing to me that we have this terrible problem where we actually can walk into any voting poll and anybody can vote without any questions asked. And there's no. What's worse than that. It's that anyone can register to vote and anyone is getting a ballot without any verification of whether they're a citizen or whether they even live here in California anymore.

And so our voter rolls are completely a mess. And so part of what we do with voter ID and this is the part of the United. that I think people are not really understanding and reading about is that it's not just a voter ID initiative. It is a voter verification initiative. It requires citizenship verification, and it requires that we audit the voter rolls to make sure that only eligible current U.S. citizens residing in California still, only those eligible people are getting ballots. So it is a game changer. It's cleaning up our voter rolls and then verifying that people who cast ballots are.

are indeed who they say they are. These are the ways we can reduce the risk of voter fraud and restore public trust and confidence. Do you think that there is anything that's going to change in November's election this year if voter idea isn't installed? Is there going to be any big surprise that could happen from maybe the Trump administration

or some other oversight that might bring us some relief in these questionable elections? No, because what you're seeing are the Senate Republicans are basically folding like a cheap suit. when it comes to things like the SAVE Act, which would be federal legislation to improve election integrity in our country, across the country. Senate Republicans are all top, but no action. And President Trump has signed a number of great executive orders.

But those are all caught up in the courts. And an executive order does not have the same, you know, enforceability as a federal law or in this case, what we're doing is state constitutional amendments. that is game set match. And that's why we're keeping our eye on the ball here in California, amend the California state constitution to impose the strictest voter ID and voter election integrity initiative in the nation. Can you imagine California has the worst election and voting practices? And we're going to go from being the worst to being the best overnight by passing this initiative. It's really exciting. I don't question it. all that this is going to be a massive improvement. I'm so excited about it. But I am deeply

concerned, obviously, about the very shallow bench that we have for potential governors in California and what that's going to look like, you know, when you also have a voting system that we don't trust. I mean, it's just really overwhelming to me that we could wind up in the same situation in November where we have a governor that's sworn into office that none of us really did vote for. That just concerns me to death. Well, the first thing, we have to make sure Republicans can unite behind a good candidate so that we can make it through the runoff, make it to the runoff. Right now, the concern I have Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco right now are neck and neck, about 15% of the vote each, which means that it's quite possible that two Democrats would

make it in the runoff. And so in the November election, we'll have no candidate at the top of the ticket. That's depressing. And people will have no real choice. Who are you going to vote for? The socialist or the socialist? I mean, that's just not a choice. That's not a choice.

So I love you. I am hoping that we can unite behind one candidate and do so in every statewide race because, you know, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, all these statewide races are important for us to unite behind one fighting conservative candidate, someone who we can rely on to really put the effort into trying to win. And if they get elected to do what they said that they were going to do. I recently, there's a new Madison McQueen poll that's going to be out here. And I saw some preliminary numbers that showed that Hilton was at 13% and Bianca was at 10%.

But on the Democratic side, which I thought was really, really interesting, none of the candidates are out of the single digits. Katie Porter is like 8%. Stiger is like 4%. It was pretty interesting that you have so many candidates that are sitting there in stasis. You know, they're not really moving. And none of them can really get much out of the single digits. And if they are in the double digits, it's very early double digits. I don't buy that poll.

I'm privy to private polling. And right now the Democrats are saying that they actually think there's a good shot that they would have the top two. Katie Porter right now is in the lead on the Democrat side. She is at 8 percent, though. No, not at 8 percent. She's at 18, 17, 16 percent, the private polling I've seen. these public polls that are put out, taken with a grain of salt. How is it that Katie Porter can have anything more than 8% with that crazy thing that happened?

You know why? Take a look at what these venomous far left wing nut jobs are doing. They're spinning at ICE officers. I know. Yes, yeah. So, you know, Katie Porter viciously attacking a young, you know, 20-something staffer, most of those far-left-wing nut jobs are like, yeah, you know, she's, she's, she's, at least got fight in her.

Well, she's so mean. I'm not saying you need to be the nicest person in the world to be the lieutenant governor, but it is an, I mean, the governor, but to be like in a position where you're, you know, you can't have a camera in your face, so you can't answer questions and you can't have a dialogue. I mean, that's just deadly to me. Oh, to you and I, because we're normal people, but there are people on the left that are vicious. I mean, remember, they're spitting in the face of police officers and ICE officers. They want to docks them.

They want to disrupt their church services. They want to threaten their families. These people are insane. These leftists are absolutely violent. And so the idea of, well, how in the world are all these Democrats voting for someone like Katie Porter who viciously attacked a staff member? Do you see the Minnesota pilferage and theft coming to California in the same way, only 10 times, 10xing? Do you see that we're not. No, no, no, no, no, you got it wrong. It's not coming to California. It was invented in California. The Minnesota's grafting, you know, drift and fraud was simply, you know, it was invented in California. It was perfected in California. It was exported to places like Minnesota. So we're expecting a big, big, big number, I guess then. Is that what you're saying? In California, it is atrociously bad, okay? You think it's going to be?

We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. The Democrats have used taxpayer money to fund their NGOs, their campaigns, to line the pockets of rich developers and special interests. You know, I want to make sure people understand, you know, because we can talk about a lot of issues. We can talk about the cost of living. We can talk about homelessness and crime and failing schools. But you know what? Those are symptoms of a bigger problem. Because you can fix all those problems, just be as screwed up as the average state in the union.

And, you know, in California will be great. You know, if we're just the average on homelessness, the average on schools or cost living, we're going to be an amazing state just by getting the average mediocre governance. Now, the fact that we're worst in all those areas is because we are confronting the biggest problem. And that is California's political system is fundamentally corrupt and broken. And until you start viewing every issue and problem and, and news story from the lens in California that these people are liars, cheats, and thieves full stop.

Nothing will make sense. And therefore, you will not be able to develop a battle plan. And so I've said it time and time again, and I'll say it until literally the day I pack up by bags and leave. You want change in California? We have to break the corrupt political system that we are in group. I agree with you. I think that there is a good.

good sense about California right now that the theft that has happened is 10x to Minnesota. And I think that people are waking up to the fact that this has happened and they are interested in knowing how it was done. I'm not saying that they are buying into the fact that it was stolen by government officials, but I do think that there is a climate change. I can feel it in the air. I think people do really want to know. Where if you'd ask me this a year ago, I think that most Democrats certainly would say, I don't want to know or I don't believe it. I think now they're starting to like really believe it. And once you once you can get them to believe that it's possible, I think that you can get them to change. The problem is getting voters to understand

that we've been stripped mind. And I agree with you. The things you're working on are really, I'm really passionate about, first of all. I may be quite clear. As much as I blame Democrats for their bad ideas or extremism, their failures and their corruption, I have to blame the establishment Republicans for selling us out. Let's be quite clear. They gave them. up California, and they are not organizing a fight, and they are not engaging in a fight. And so I keep telling Republican activists and conservatives across the state, if you're sick and tired of what's going on, don't expect a politician to come in and save you. You got to get into the streets, rise up like a rebellion.

This has to be a voter revolt in order for us to actually see change happen in California. because this political system elements, even of the Republican side, fundamentally corrupt. I lived it and experienced it in Sacramento myself. It's why I went in the belly of the beast. And that's why both political parties actually opposed my race when I ran for state assembly. I had the Democratic Party and the Republican Party both attacking me. And they manipulated the primary. You know how I talked about earlier, the top two and, you know, Democrats being the top two in the runoff?

In my race, the Democrat Party actively split their own race by putting extra candidates in so that they would have two Republicans, another Republican against me. And then they said, well, at that point, all the Democrats and all of the, you know, groups of Republicans that we can get, you know, scrounge together. But the Democrats, plus enough of these Republicans that we can fool, will put an acceptable go along, get along, sell out Republican into the, assembly. And you know what? I won by 20 points because I went to all the voters, even Democrats, and I said, do you know what your own party just did you? They screwed you. And you know what? If you're sick and tired of being screwed at, you know what you're going to get with me. You're going to get an honest Republican. I'm not going to lie to you. I always vote for you you even if I wasn't a Republican, which I'm not independent. I would vote for you because you

bring it up. I think it's important that you bring it up. I mean, a lot of people are to bring it up. I'm actually doing a series right now, Carl, it's called Mayors Matter. And I'm an independent. And it's called Mayors Matter. And I'm going around traveling from Humboldt County to Chula Fista, and I'm visiting all these mayors. And I'm finding about how does their town work? And what I am finding, and you know, you're going to do your own research on this, but I think you're going to agree with me. I am finding that both the Democrat and the Republican mayors all want the same two things. They want economic development back. They want people that want to spend money in their towns and they realize and they all know it that they can't get there with no crime low crime slow

crime no crime and they can they bucket into crime rate homelessness and filth and dirt because that interrupts small business on the street and main street so i've got a really great like handle on i'm only through 20 i think i went 22 or 23 mares and i've got 52 on my list and my goal is to say hey what how can Sacramento help you because at the end of the day, Sacramento has not just... Sacramento can help by getting the hell out of the way. That's right. Sacramento can help by just get the hell out of the way. They could just mail it down a bit, you know, get rid of most of the bureaucrats and put people in office that can actually sign the front of a paycheck that understand a little bit how to count. I mean, I think we really

got a big eye opener. You were on it too, on Davos. And I also did a small podcast on what I saw there. And my biggest takeaway was when Basson said, you know, look, I mean, the Barbie thing was funny, but the most important thing that that I got out at that is that Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom both seem to be like very fiscally, like uninformed, just completely uninformed. They don't even like the left is economically illiterate. You know, because remember, socialism doesn't work. You know, you have countries that have tried it decade after decade and it's a complete disaster. But literally the prescription of the left is let's just do more socialism. But circling back to mayors and independent voters, when you go local, there's no party label

behind filling a pothole or responding to a 911 call. Correct. When it comes to how to do that. And also, when you talk to voters, 70% of California voters actually agree on the most important issues. They don't want tax increases. They see a cost-living crisis. They don't like mandates and regulations.

They want clean and safe streets. They want to enforce rules of clean and safe, sober living for homeless people. They don't want condo towers built in single family home plots. They want to have strong testing standards in our schools and get back to basics. Okay, so if 70% and they even want to secure board, by the way. 70% don't want to give welfare out to illegal immigrants. They want to secure board. So if 70% of the voters consistently agree with,

on things, 93% want to protect the integrity of girls' sports. Why is it that our political system is so far left? And people say, oh, it's so divisive. No, you know who the dividers are? The mainstream media and the political groups that are in this state, pitting people against each other based upon income, based upon skin color, based upon gender, based upon, you name it. They want to divide and conquer us because they don't want you to realize just how much we do agree on a common sense agenda for the people. That benefits, the division that has been created by these politicians and the special interest groups and mainstream media, the division of the masses on these core issues benefits one group and one group alone, the very rich special interests that

purchased our government. Because as long as they keep us, you know, having debates on the fringe in dividing us, they realize no one's going to notice the no-bid contracts. No one's going to realize that we're benefiting from this chaos and corruption. And we need to start getting populist-oriented Republicans in my point of view to speak forward, speak up about and articulate the broken political system that we live in because a lot of independence and a lot of Democrats, when they hear me, they're like, are you sure you're a Republican because you're saying the same thing that I'm thinking. I said, look, I'm a Republican because you have to pick one side or the other.

But what I'm saying is what the people say, and I'm not trying to be a politician, I'm trying to be your voice inside this broken system. And when they get that, they realize party label is not as important as to whether you are establishment or anti-establishment. And I think we need a lot more anti-establishment people because guess what? The system sucks and the establishment has betrayed us. When you were when you were a younger, were you ever a Democrat like me or no? I was an orphan at age 13.

Lost my parents taken in by the Jesuits. And by the way, I'm a gay Republican. So people look at me and I'm an oddity. Orphoned at 13, raised by Jesuits. Jesuits are social justice warriors. Very familiar. Yeah, are known to be more, people think more liberal. And I said, wait a minute.

Social justice is actually a conservative idea. Where were you raised here in California? Mainly in Huntington Beach, California, up until 13. And then was taken into a boarding school that the Jesuits have in Rockville, Maryland at age 13. And then they gave me a free ride scholarship, high school and college. immediately had to get a job, you know, while I was in college because I didn't have parents. Started my first company by maxing out two credit cards I was able to get. Built that out, you know, a multi-million dollar company by age 30.

Built a second company, sold both. And then, you know, when I made a lot of money, I went into politics. And because I made money, I'm able to be independent. I tell, you know, people, I don't need the job. I don't need to worry about what's my next, you know, gig. And I put a lot of my own money into politics because I've been blessed. But what my childhood experiences taught me, and I was an angry, scared kid for a long time, but able to process through that, some of the blessings of that bad experience was,

you know, you don't sweat the small stuff. My mom had terminal cancer. That's what she passed away from. and, you know, she did her best to basically try to give us as normal childhood experience by having a good sense of humor. And so in politics, I try to keep a good sense of humor because otherwise it's brutal. But also, no matter how bad it gets, if you really believe in what you're trying to do, don't bend, don't back down. Just go through the storm. And then it also taught me a lot about personal responsibility.

Government failed me. Government failed my brother and sister. Not like social services protected us. Government was more of an impediment than a help. And so we need to be creating situations where people aren't dependent upon government, that they really are given opportunity. And that if you give people opportunity, then that's always going to produce the best outcome for society.

So I'm very concerned. I love your story. It's such a great story. You should tell it. Have you written a book? No, I don't have time to write a book. You didn't find some time to write a book, Carl. I've got a podcast.

I know, but you're not going to be talking. You're always talking about getting, how much does it cost to get 800 to a million signatures? Oh, my gosh. What do people need to know about that? I really think that's something we should be telling people like this, because it's expensive, right? And you've got to constantly raise money to do this.

Well, so there's a couple of things. In order to get something on the ballot in California, there's a whole industry called paid signature collection. Okay. They disrespect these people by calling them carnies, carnival workers, carnies, are hired to sit in front of stores to collect signatures. They're paid by each signature they collect. And as a result, the process to get a signature, a ballot measure on the ballot with signatures cost about $10 million, $20 million in some cases. Wow. You're talking about for a million signatures by the time you're all done.

We do not have that money. So I said from the get-go, if we're going to get voter ID on the ballot, we have to build an army, a grassroots army of volunteers to collect the signatures and raise money to cover the hard costs. Because even in a volunteer operation, there are hard costs. You have to mail the petition kits out. You have to do the events. You have to pay for the lawyers.

Yeah, yeah. You have to print the petitions, all that stuff costs money. So we built this. You've built this. people you've built this you have this like group we raise three million and we're continuing to raise money three million dollars and then we got 18,000 volunteers we thought we'd only need 10,000 we're up to 18,000 now and and even then we still had to raise money for paid gathering and thankfully we had some matching funds that donors put up but we were able to qualify voter ID on a shoestring

budget but what this shows is that conservatives grassroots activists can put ideas on the ballot you don't need some big special interest to write a big check and fund it. We, the people can actually put something on the ballot. And that's a huge, huge legacy of this besides getting voter ID on the ballot. I called it the karate kid strategy, wax on wax off. Wax on wax off was not just about a shiny car. In this case, putting voter ID on the ballot is a shiny car. But it's about building the muscles that you're going to need to fight into the future.

Now we have an army of 18,000 volunteers. And we have a small dollar regulation network that we can do for next year. If I wrote a bill or I gave you legislation, I took it to you and you read it and you're like, Elaine, this is really good. I really like this. Wait, would you, are you the kind of person that we go, we should get this on the ballot? And then you have together people. But here's the problem.

I have more good ideas and we have got capacity. So what we have to do is winnow down the one or two ideas per cycle in order to get this on the ballot. But that's all you need, really. Or you need more money. and more people. You need more money. You need all of the above. Right.

I'm big in politics on being a smart bomb because the establishment, the special interests have more money than we're ever going to have because the system benefits them. You know, rich people who benefit from a broken system have a lot of money to spend to continue to benefit from the broken system. If you want true populist grassroots reform, then those of us in the streets, the grassroots, we have to narrow our focus on a couple targets and take out the establishment because, you know what, when we focus, their money can't compete with us. We're an army. It's a public uprising. It's a rebellion or a revolt, and they can't stop that.

They'll sit there and write checks saying, oh, no, no, you know, you guys really don't want voter ID and people are like, step aside. We're about to get voter ID. So I want to make sure that people understand on our side. I want to do it all. However, we have to do it one step at a time. That's right. And I know that I'm asking you to be patient.

And that's frustrating because I'm eager and I'm in a hurry. And so are all the people being hurt by things like bad schools and high cost living and crime and crime? Understood. But all it will take is a couple smart bombs taking out the target before we turn to the establishment and say, which one of you wants to be next, honey? Because we're going to take one of you out. And you know what? If I have to stand in front of the steps of the Capitol.

Which one of you wants to be next, honey? Yeah, I'm going to start, you know, drawing names out of a hat, saying all the ass hats are going to be put in the ass hat. And then we're going to draw a name out. And one of those politicians, they're going to lose their political career because guess what? We have the small dollar donors and the army to actually go into one district at a time and take back. politicians out. All you have to do is have a couple dead bodies at the step of the steps of the Capitol, and a lot of these politicians will get the message and start doing better. Have you ever ran any campaigns for a bill for a bill or to get a wait that there's

just not so much legislation? Like, every time something passes, something comes out. I've always talked about any new piece of legislation would require that you repeal five laws for a period of five years. Yes. Yes. Or how about this one? If a law that a politician authors and the governor signs gets overturned by the Supreme Court for being an infringement on our freedoms, the governor and that author lose their salary for a full year. You'd be running these unconstitutional, because almost everything that Newsom does is unconstitutional, but they don't care because when they pass an unconstitutional bill that infringes on our First Amendment, our Second Amendment, they don't care because you got to sue.

And what happens to me, nothing. I get headlines for when I signed the bill. But when you sue 18 months later and when, after having your freedoms infringed upon for 18 months, it just the law gets overturned. And then they tweak it and they pass the same long. So, yes, there are some of those clever bills I've been thinking about. But I try to keep it strategic, simple, one big, bold reform at a time. And that's what voter ID is. That's what Save Prop 13 is.

And we have a lot more to do. Are you pretty sure that this billionaire's tax bill thing is going to come on done? What do you, what your, what your, I have my own, I have my own ideas about it. But let me say this. I'm against all tax increases because government already steals way too much money from us. And they have so much waste that we can balance the budget overnight just by cutting the waste. There'll be a surplus. Government owes you a refund.

Okay. That's how bad it is. So I'm against every tax increase. full stop because it's just, you know, taking good money throwing it after bad. But let me tell you this. You know how the Democrats say, oh, you know, we're against the billionaires. Oh, until you raise taxes on billionaires and then you are panting in heat to try to help those billionaires out to save them from a billionaire's tax.

Every single candidate running for governor on the Democrat side has said they're against the billionaires tax. Hold on a second. You said Republicans are the party of the billionaires and the millionaires. And you said that the billionaires ought to pay their fair share. So, you know, the reason why they're against a billionaire's tax is that it's good rhetoric, but they want the campaign contributions from the billionaires. Well, I mean, I do think it's a really.

He's like, billionaires tax, what the hell are you talking about? And these Democrat politicians, they fall right into line. Absolutely fall in the line because they're hoarse. Well, this has been the best time ever. And I want to, can I keep, can we keep doing this? I feel like we should just definitely keep doing this. I'm going to get updates from you. This is for the Daily Signal.

I limit my podcast to try to keep them a little short so I don't lose anybody's attention. And I think that there's going to be a lot of comments. Where can people find you? So my website, you want to get updates from us? Sign up at the website. Reform, California.org. Go to the bottom of the website.

Put in your first name, last name, email, phone, and zip code. And you will be getting updates only on your area of the state. In terms of our voter guide we give out, the plain English voter guide to tell you what the ballot measures are that you're voting on, because politicians love to lie to you about what a ballot measure does. We also have a podcast called Reform California with Carl DeMio every day at 5 o'clock on YouTube. Please check it out and subscribe and share it. And if you haven't signed the voter ID initiative yet, time is running out.

Find the voter ID initiative. Find it, right? ReformCalifornia.org. It's the top bar. You can sign it online. Thank you. And for all of you at the Daily Signal, thank you for watching. And please hit the like button and we love comments.

Tell us what you think. Tell us if you want more. And if you want to help Carl out, you have all this information. If you cannot find it or you forgot it and didn't write it down, please just hit me in the DM and I'll make sure I get it to you. Thank you and have a great day. And thank you so much, Carl DeMau, for all your hard work in California. Thank you so much.