Why the Senate Cover Up of the Absent Senator?

Friday, after 5:00pm, the Globe received an email from Senate Rules, with a letter attached and signed by Senate Secretary Erika Contreras dripping with attitude, announcing that despite their previous stonewalled response to my California Public Records Request seeking public information about the MIA Senator Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-Colton), “as a courtesy,” they decided “to provide me additional information.”

Senator Gomez Reyes she was not at the swearing-in session in December 2024, and has not shown up once since the beginning of the year – no committee hearings, no Senate floor sessions.

After my article last week questioning if Sen. Gomez Reyes is actually serving as a Senator, people came out of the woodwork with information.

Also worth noting is that Senator Reyes has a full load of bills including a resolution that got chaptered: 

Elves must be moving her bills for her.

Another friend produced a document showing that Senator Gomez Reyes’ Oath of Office was administered by a San Bernardino County judge, in her home district.

It is filed after the motion to adjourn. Definitely added after the fact. Shady that Secretary didn’t just send the statement or copy of oath of office signature

California Attorney Laura Powell found a Facebook announcement from Senator Gomez Reyes announcing a State Capitol swearing in. But the Daily Journal record shows she was absent that day.

The second response letter from Senate Secretary Contreras (below) includes the Oath of Office document officiated by San Bernardino Superior Court Judge R. Glen Yaburo, but the seal is not from his court – it is from the Senate. I would have expected a seal from the judge.

Several people told me that Senator Gomez Reyes has been ill. Another found a December 23, 2024 X post where she explained she has been undergoing cancer treatment, and was responding well to it.

Since this was posted to X last December, and since the Senate has evidence of her swearing in, and since it apparently was a loosely guarded secret in the Senate that she has been ill, Senate Secretary Contreras could have just pointed to these issues as explanation for my inquiry.

However, the Senate Daily Journal on December 2, 2024 does not include what Senate Secretary Contreras included in her letter.

Here is what I saved from the Dec 2, 2024 Senate Daily Journal:

SENDAILYJRN Dec 2 2024

Secretary Contreras’s June 26, 2025 letter to me includes the Oath of Office document officiated by San Bernardino Superior Court Judge R. Glen Yaburo, apparently now a part of the Daily Journal record of Dec. 2, 2025. Well, good. But there are still a lot of questions, including “Why the cover up?”