Shasta County’s transformation into MAGAtopia looks nearly complete. As MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell works to overhaul the county’s election system, a state secessionist is poised to take over as county CEO.

The board of supervisors has tentatively offered the job to Chriss Street, Vice President of New California, which advocates for the creation of a 51st state. He is expected to get a formal offer on March 28 pending a background investigation.

And what an investigation it will be.

Street served as Treasurer of Orange County until 2010. He opted not to run for reelection after a bankruptcy judge found he had mismanaged a company's trust. He lost twice on appeal but successfully sued his lawyer for malpractice.

In 2018, he sued a hotel resort for an injury he sustained at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). That injury, Street claimed, made him unable to have sex with his wife.

Now he helps lead an organization that wants to split California in two, with the 51st state keeping most of the red, rural areas plus San Diego and Orange counties.

Street would succeed Matt Pontes, who resigned as Shasta CEO last year. According to Pontes, Supervisor Patrick Jones had been ‘blackmailing’ him — a claim Jones has denied.

Pontes’ departure followed the firing of health officer Dr. Karen Ramstrom and the ouster of longtime supervisor and former Redding police chief Leonard Moty in a militia-backed recall campaign. It was all part of a hard-right shift that has continued apace in Shasta County, culminating in a takeover of the Board of Supervisors. 

The board, driven by conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, recently voted to cancel its contract with Dominion Voting Systems with no plan to replace it. One supervisor, Kevin Crye, has met with businessman turned far-right provocateur Mike Lindell to discuss a pilot hand-counting system, evidently on the taxpayers’ dime. The sordid affair has now caught the eye of California’s attorney general.  

Which is all to say, there’s probably not a whole lot in Street’s background that could dissuade this board from a formal appointment.

Read more about Shasta’s CEO pick here.