California's Republican Assembly caucus removed Heath Flora as minority leader less than a year after he took the post, a move that followed two ethics investigations and a second alleged extramarital affair uncovered by The California Post.
Flora, a farmer and former firefighter who represents Ripon in the state's Central Valley, lost his leadership position after months of mounting trouble. The Sacramento Bee previously reported that Flora had an affair with former lobbyist Emily Hughes. Now a retired hairstylist named Kimberly Pebbles has come forward to allege she carried on a simultaneous two-year relationship with Flora, and that he routinely picked up tabs at Sacramento bars, hotels, and restaurants using money she believes came from his campaign account.
Flora did not respond to requests for comment about Pebbles' allegations, the latest campaign expenditure reports, or whether donor money paid for personal expenses tied to their relationship. The state's Fair Political Practices Commission, which has two active investigations involving Flora, including one centered on alleged misuse of campaign funds, also declined to comment on the pending cases.
Campaign finance filings paint a striking picture. Between late April and mid-June, Flora's committee reported 21 separate charges at Chargins' Bar & Grill, an East Sacramento dive bar located more than 50 miles from his district. Those tabs totaled more than $5,400. Twenty of the 21 were categorized as "District Meeting" meals. One charge, $1,010.61 on June 2, was labeled an "Election Night" meal. Roughly a week later, another tab hit $961.17 and was again described as a district meeting.
Since the start of 2025, Flora's reported spending at Chargins alone exceeds $16,000, The California Post reported. Pebbles said she and Flora spent time together at that bar and at nearby Club 2 Me, both part of a Sacramento strip locals call the "Barmuda Triangle."
California law permits campaign money to be used for expenses reasonably related to political, legislative, or governmental purposes. It generally prohibits personal use. Whether $16,000 in bar tabs at a dive bar an hour's drive from a legislator's district qualifies as political business is the kind of question the FPPC exists to answer, and its investigators are already looking.
Pebbles told The California Post that she and Flora became friends in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The friendship became a two-year affair that ended in 2022, she said, months after she discovered Flora was still married and simultaneously involved with Hughes. Pebbles, who was going through her own divorce at the time, subsequently entered treatment. She described herself as now being in a much better place.
Her account of the relationship's culture is blunt. Pebbles described Flora's Sacramento world as one where the lines between politics and personal indulgence blurred completely:
"It was always party time, lobbyists, drinking and going out."
She said Flora consistently picked up tabs during their time together, and that she now doubts the money was his own. Political scandals involving personal conduct have forced difficult reckonings within the GOP before, from state capitols to Washington.
"Knowing what I know now, the spending he was doing did not reflect his own personal budget."
Pebbles added a sharper point about the nature of the spending itself:
"Paying for your mistress and a hotel is not at all campaign-related."
The California Post noted it was not able to independently confirm that Flora spent campaign money on hotels specifically related to his relationship with Pebbles. But the campaign filings speak for themselves on the bar and restaurant charges, and the descriptions Flora's committee attached to them raise their own questions.
The bar tabs were not the only eyebrow-raising line items in Flora's filings. His campaign reported a $22,500 fundraising charge for the Las Vegas Raiders' season-opening game against the Miami Dolphins on September 13. A $2,476 charge at Bighorn Golf Club was categorized as a campaign meeting expense.
Two purchases at liquor retailers, $200.79 at BevMo and $358.05 at Total Wine & More, were listed as "office expenses." Whether a legislator's campaign committee routinely needs nearly $560 in retail liquor classified as office supplies is a question that, again, the FPPC may eventually have to sort out.
Flora's campaign treasurer stepped back from directly managing his books in early 2024, a detail previously reported by The California Post. That timeline means much of the spending now under scrutiny occurred without the treasurer's direct oversight.
Pebbles also spoke about how Flora presented himself to her, as a devout Christian from a farming family. She said that image has curdled in hindsight. Voters and donors across the country have grown increasingly impatient with elected officials whose personal conduct contradicts their public platforms.
"I'm very spiritual and god-fearing myself. I took this as a Republican, hard-working man, comes from a farm, comes from religion."
She continued:
"Just the fact that he attempted to use god and religion in a manipulative way, it's just gross."
Flora's personal troubles alone might not have cost him the leadership. But in July, he and fellow Republican Assemblymember Juan Alanis sided with Democrats to allow local cities and counties across California to approve new tax hikes. For a caucus already uneasy about their leader's ethics probes and tabloid headlines, that vote was the final straw.
Flora's standing with his own voters had already collapsed. In the June primary in Stanislaus County, he received just 30.6% of the vote, described as the lowest level of support for any incumbent state legislator in the state. Every Republican party organization within his district declined to endorse him. He is now seeking what would be a final two-year term in the Assembly.
The caucus voted to replace Flora with Alexandra Macedo, a first-term assemblywoman from Tulare. Macedo framed her selection as a fresh start. Scandals that erode public trust in elected officials are hardly unique to one party or one state, but they carry a particular sting for a California GOP that can ill afford self-inflicted damage.
"I am deeply honored by the trust my colleagues have placed in me, and I am proud to stand alongside a unified caucus dedicated to real, common-sense solutions."
Joel Campos, chair of the Stanislaus County Republican Party, Flora's own home county, welcomed the change. He told The California Post via text message that Macedo "offers a strong conservative voice from the Valley and will advance our values with credibility and integrity."
Alanis, who had joined Flora on the tax vote, issued what he called a statement about the transition. He pushed back on the idea that the caucus stood united behind Macedo.
"The election of a new minority leader was fiercely divided."
Alanis added that "a significant portion of caucus members opposed the leadership change and the direction it represents." The exact vote count was not disclosed. But a divided caucus is still a caucus that chose to act, and the reasons for acting are now a matter of public record, from campaign filings to ethics complaints to a second woman's on-the-record account.
Macedo, for her part, stuck to policy in her public remarks, saying California "is becoming unaffordable for working families" and pledging to fight the cost of living, improve public safety, and "hold state bureaucrats accountable." Whether her caucus can hold its own house accountable will be the more immediate test. Political leaders who face scandal-driven scrutiny rarely see the questions fade on their own.
California Republicans hold a slim minority in the Assembly and cannot afford leaders who hand Democrats easy attack lines. Flora gave them two affairs, two ethics probes, $16,000 in bar tabs at a dive bar an hour from his district, and a tax vote that broke faith with the base. The caucus did the only thing left to do, and voters who sent those campaign dollars deserved it a long time ago.