The backstory on a California lawmaker's 'speaker for LA’ misquote — and damage-control campaign

LOS ANGELES — The consensus among Capitol insiders immediately after Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas dumped his second-in-command could be summed up in three words: “speaker for LA.”

That was how then-Majority Leader Isaac Bryan purportedly referred to himself during a virtual meet-and-greet, according to a newsletter the Los Angeles County Business Federation, or BizFed, sent to its members last month. The phrase distilled the sense among some in Sacramento that the 31-year-old Los Angeles Democrat had big ambitions — and a grandiose view of himself.

But there was a catch about that particular quote: Bryan never actually said it.

His actual wording, according to a recording of the meeting, was that he would be “Los Angeles’ voice” — emphasizing how he would champion the city’s interests to a speaker from rural central California.

“My brother Speaker Rivas is not from here,” Bryan said at the online meeting. “... Rob is really one of my best friends in this work. But he’s from Hollister. And so I am Los Angeles’ voice.”

The BizFed email set off far more behind-the-scenes drama than the average trade association newsletter, including a damage control effort from Bryan and his team that underscores how the episode reinforced broader perceptions that Bryan’s aspirations could put him on a collision course with Rivas, his onetime ally.

Bryan went into clean-up mode after the “speaker for LA” line got noticed widely, including by Rivas’ chief of staff, Liz Snow. He got the BizFed to tell Rivas’ team that he had been misquoted.

A BizFed spokesperson said the group “clarified the error with the impacted parties as soon as it came to our attention.” But by then, the phrase had circulated widely through the Capitol community, becoming a sort of shorthand among Bryan’s detractors for his hubris.

When Rivas announced Wednesday night he was replacing Bryan as Majority Leader and moving him to chair of Natural Resources Committee, the “speaker for LA” brouhaha was quick to come to many insiders’ minds.

The speaker’s team said the BizFed misquote was not the reason for his leadership team shake-up.

“No, it did not have anything to do with it,” said Rivas spokesperson Elizabeth Ashford. “Period.”

Lara Korte contributed to this story.