Golden State Today

Mike Gatto, a former Assemblymember, said that following an uneventful evening, he received a distressing call from his sister who found their father dead. Gatto was a guest on a recent episode of the Next Round Podcast.

"Went home that evening, pretty uneventful night," said Gatto on the Next Round Podcast hosted by the Pacific Research Institute think tank. “That evening, I got a call from my little sister right about the time that we put our kids to bed. I don't remember if she called once and I didn't pick it up. But at some point, I thought, she doesn't usually call me at this time of night, so I picked up the phone. She was hysterical.”

“She had found him slumped over in his bedroom,” Gatto said. “Initially, she wasn't sure, I guess, that he was dead. Apparently, the room was dark. My dad was in his 70s at the time, but you have to understand he was in the peak of health. None of us expected that he would die. He was a guy who sprinted upstairs and deadlifted fig trees. He was just a very, very healthy guy."

This full episode is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Gatto, a former Assemblymember, chaired the Appropriations Committee. Following his father's unsolved murder, he explored crime investigations, law enforcement, and politics in Los Angeles. 

Next Round is a weekly podcast put on by the nonpartisan think tank Pacific Research Institute. Topics explored on the podcast revolve around California politics and free market ideas in the state. Guests include elected officials, members of the media, and policy leaders. 

Pasadena, California-based Pacific Research Institute, founded in 1979, is an advocacy organization whose goal is to “champion freedom, opportunity, and personal responsibility for all individuals by advancing free-market policy solutions,” according to the group’s website. Its president is Sally Pipes.