California Assembly GOP Leader Heath Flora Faces Two Ethics Probes and Party Revolt After Backing Tax-Cap Vote

Heath Flora, the Republican leader in the California State Assembly, is fighting on two fronts at once. He's under two separate state ethics investigations, and members of his own party want him gone from leadership.

The trigger was Senate Bill 762. Flora and fellow Republican Assemblymember Juan Alanis voted with Democrats last month to advance the bill, which lets 13 California cities and counties ask voters to approve local sales taxes above the state's longstanding 2% cap, according to the New York Post.

That single vote has blown up Flora's standing back home. Stanislaus County Republican Party Chairman Joel Campos told the Post his local party is furious. Flora pulled just 30.6% of the vote in his June primary, the lowest support of any incumbent state legislator, and every Republican party organization within his district declined to endorse him, per the Post's reporting.

"Were disappointed by our state assemblyman and hearing from constituents," Campos said. He went further, pointing to Flora's expense reports: golf courses across the state, Las Vegas Raiders trips, and bar tabs. "We don't think this is appropriate behavior for the minority leader," Campos told the Post.

Two Separate Ethics Investigations

Separate from the tax vote, Flora is facing two investigations opened by California's Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency that enforces campaign finance and ethics law.

The first dates to October 2025 and concerns "behested payments," donations that flow through a government official acting as an intermediary between a donor and a third party. State records reviewed by the Post show Flora has brokered more than $1.15 million in these payments since May 2023, much of it from entities with business pending before the Legislature.

The second complaint, filed March 4, 2026, alleges misuse of campaign funds. It names Flora, his 2026 reelection committee, and Kelly Lawler, founder of the campaign finance firm The KAL Group. A source told the Post that Lawler stepped down as treasurer in early 2024, and campaign finance records confirm Flora has since served as his own campaign treasurer while continuing what the Post describes as extravagant expenditures, including golf course charges logged as "meetings."

These are complaints and open investigations, not findings of wrongdoing. The Fair Political Practices Commission has not announced any conclusion, penalty, or charge against Flora. Behested payments themselves are legal in California and require disclosure, not an automatic violation. The question the FPPC is examining is whether Flora's specific arrangements crossed a line. Flora did not respond to the Post's requests for comment, so his side of the behested-payment and campaign-spending questions is not yet on the record.

A Leadership Fight Brewing

Inside the Capitol, Flora's SB 762 vote has become the flashpoint. "The problem with that [GOP minority leader] title is he just voted for a tax increase, so that title becomes a liability for us," one Republican caucus source told the Post. Another called it a "red line." A third was blunter: "He's a leader in name only. He doesn't actually lead. He's closer to the Democrats than he is a leader to the Republicans."

A minority leader whose job includes rallying his caucus against tax increases just helped Democrats get one through. For a party built around fiscal restraint and opposition to raising the tax burden on Californians, that's significant. Whether SB 762 is good policy for the specific 13 jurisdictions it covers is a separate question from whether it fits what Assembly Republicans exist to fight.

What's Unresolved

SB 762 does not itself raise anyone's taxes. It authorizes local ballot measures; voters in those 13 cities and counties still have to approve any increase for it to take effect. That distinction matters and is largely absent from the framing used by Flora's critics in the Post's reporting, who describe his vote simply as "backing tax hikes."

Neither FPPC investigation has produced a public finding. There's no indication in available records of a hearing date, a settlement, or dismissal on either the behested-payments matter or the campaign-fund complaint. Whether Flora keeps his leadership post likely depends on how Assembly Republicans respond in coming weeks, and whether the FPPC's findings, whenever they land, add fuel to a caucus that's already looking for a reason to replace him.