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Tag: californians

  • Billionaire tax proposal sparks soul-searching for Californians

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    The fiery debate about a proposed ballot measure to tax California’s billionaires has sparked some soul-searching across the state.

    While the idea of a one-time tax on more than 200 people has a long way to go before getting onto the ballot and would need to be passed by voters in November, the tempest around it captures the zeitgeist of angst and anger at the core of California. Silicon Valley is minting new millionaires while millions of the state’s residents face the loss of healthcare coverage and struggle with inflation.

    Supporters of the proposed billionaire tax say it is one of the few ways the state can provide healthcare for its most vulnerable. Opponents warn it would squash the innovation that has made the state rich and prompt an exodus of wealthy entrepreneurs from the state.

    The controversial measure is already creating fractures among powerful Democrats who enjoy tremendous sway in California. Progressive icon Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quickly endorsed the billionaire tax, while Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced it .

    The Golden State’s rich residents say they are tired of feeling targeted. Their success has not only created unimaginable wealth but also jobs and better lives for Californians, they say, yet they feel they are being punished.

    “California politics forces together some of the richest areas of America with some of the poorest, often separated by just a freeway,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “The impulse to force those with extreme wealth to share their riches is only natural, but often runs into the reality of our anti-tax traditions as well as modern concerns about stifling entrepreneurship or driving job creation out of the state.”

    The state budget in California is already largely dependent on income taxes paid by its highest earners. Because of that, revenues are prone to volatility, hinging on capital gains from investments, bonuses to executives and windfalls from new stock offerings, and are notoriously difficult for the state to predict.

    The tax proposal would cost the state’s richest residents about $100 billion if a majority of voters support it on the November ballot.

    Supporters say the revenue is needed to backfill the massive federal funding cuts to healthcare that President Trump signed this summer. The California Budget & Policy Center estimates that as many as 3.4 million Californians could lose Medi-Cal coverage, rural hospitals could shutter and other healthcare services would be slashed unless a new funding source is found.

    On social media, some wealthy Californians who oppose the wealth tax faced off against Democratic politicians and labor unions.

    An increasing number of companies and investors have decided it isn’t worth the hassle to be in the state and are taking their companies and their homes to other states with lower taxes and less regulation.

    “I promise you this will be the final straw,” Jessie Powell, co-founder of the Bay Area-based crypto exchange platform Kraken, wrote on X. “Billionaires will take with them all of their spending, hobbies, philanthropy and jobs.”

    Proponents of the proposed tax were granted permission to start gathering signatures Dec. 26 by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

    The proposal would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on taxpayers and trusts with assets, such as businesses, art and intellectual property, valued at more than $1 billion. There are some exclusions, including property.

    They could pay the levy over five years. Ninety percent of the revenue would fund healthcare programs and the remaining 10% would be spent on food assistance and education programs.

    To qualify for the November ballot, proponents of the proposal, led by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, must gather the signatures of nearly 875,000 registered voters and submit them to county elections officials by June 24.

    The union, which represents more than 120,000 healthcare workers, patients and healthcare consumers, has committed to spending $14 million on the measure so far and plans to start collecting signatures soon, said Suzanne Jimenez, the labor group’s chief of staff.

    Without new funding, the state is facing “a collapse of our healthcare system here in California,” she said.

    Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) spoke out in support of the tax.

    “It’s a matter of values,” he said on X. “We believe billionaires can pay a modest wealth tax so working-class Californians have the Medicaid.”

    The Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment.

    The debate has become a lightning rod for national thought leaders looking to target California’s policies or the ultra-rich.

    On Tuesday, Sanders endorsed the billionaire tax proposal and said he plans to call for a nationwide version.

    “This is a model that should be emulated throughout the country, which is why I will soon be introducing a national wealth tax on billionaires,” Sanders said on X. “We can and should respect innovation, entrepreneurship and risk-taking, but we cannot respect the extraordinary level of greed, arrogance and irresponsibility that is currently being displayed by much of the billionaire class.”

    But there isn’t unanimous support for the proposal among Democrats.

    Notably, Newsom has consistently opposed state-based wealth taxes. He reiterated his opposition when asked about the proposed billionaires’ tax in early December.

    “You can’t isolate yourself from the 49 others,” Newsom said at the New York Times DealBook Summit. “We’re in a competitive environment. People have this simple luxury, particularly people of that status, they already have two or three homes outside the state. It’s a simple issue. You’ve got to be pragmatic about it.”

    Newsom has opposed state-based wealth taxes throughout his tenure.

    In 2022, he opposed a ballot measure that would have subsidized the electric vehicle market by raising taxes on Californians who earn more than $2 million annually. The measure failed at the ballot box, with strategists on both sides of the issue saying Newsom’s vocal opposition to the effort was a critical factor.

    The following year, he opposed legislation by a fellow Democrat to tax assets exceeding $50 million at 1% annually and taxpayers with a net worth greater than $1 billion at 1.5% annually. The bill was shelved before the legislature could vote on it.

    The latest effort is also being opposed by a political action committee called “Stop the Squeeze,” which was seeded by a $100,000 donation from venture capitalist and longtime Newsom ally Ron Conway. Conservative taxpayer rights groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and state Republicans are expected to campaign against the proposal.

    The chances of the ballot measure passing in November are uncertain, given the potential for enormous spending on the campaign — unlike statewide and other candidate races, there is no limit on the amount of money donors can contribute to support or oppose a ballot measure.

    “The backers of this proposed initiative to tax California billionaires would have their work cut out for them,” said Kousser at UC San Diego. “Despite the state’s national reputation as ‘Scandinavia by the Sea,’ there remains a strong anti-tax impulse among voters who often reject tax increases and are loath to kill the state’s golden goose of tech entrepreneurship.”

    Additionally, as Newsom eyes a presidential bid in 2028, political experts question how the governor will position himself — opposing raising taxes but also not wanting to be viewed as responsible for large-scale healthcare cuts that would harm the most vulnerable Californians.

    “It wouldn’t be surprising if they qualify the initiative. There’s enough money and enough pent-up anger on the left to get this on the ballot,” said Dan Schnur, a political communications professor who teaches at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley.

    “What happens once it qualifies is anybody’s guess,” he said.

    Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, called Newsom’s position “an Achilles heel” that could irk primary voters in places like the Midwest who are focused on economic inequality, inflation, affordability and the growing wealth gap.

    “I think it’s going to be really hard for him to take a position that we shouldn’t tax the billionaires,” said Gonzalez, whose labor umbrella group will consider whether to endorse the proposed tax next year.

    California billionaires who are residents of the state as of Jan. 1 would be impacted by the ballot measure if it passes . Prominent business leaders announced moves that appeared to be a strategy to avoid the levy at the end of 2025. On Dec. 31, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel announced that his firm had opened a new office in Miami, the same day venture capitalist David Sacks said he was opening an office in Austin.

    Wealth taxes are not unprecedented in the U.S. and versions exist in Switzerland and Spain, said Brian Galle, a taxation expert and law professor at UC Berkeley.

    In California, the tax offers an efficient and practical way to pay for healthcare services without disrupting the economy, he said.

    “A 1% annual tax on billionaires for five years would have essentially no meaningful impact on their economic behavior,” Galle said. “We’re funding a way of avoiding a real economic disaster with something that has very tiny impact.”

    Palo Alto-based venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya disagrees. Billionaires whose wealth is often locked in company stakes and not liquid could go bankrupt, Palihapitiya wrote on X.

    The tax, he posted, “will kill entrepreneurship in California.”

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    Seema Mehta, Caroline Petrow-Cohen

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  • Commentary: Homeland Security says it doesn’t detain citizens. These brave Californians prove it has

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    Call it an accident, call it the plan. But don’t stoop to the reprehensible gaslighting of calling it a lie: It is fact that federal agents have detained and arrested dozens, if not hundreds, of United States citizens as part of immigration sweeps, regardless of what Kristi Noem would like us to believe.

    During a congressional hearing Thursday, Noem, our secretary of Homeland Security and self-appointed Cruelty Barbie, reiterated her oft-used and patently false line that only the worst of the worst are being targeted by immigration authorities. That comes after weeks of her department posting online, on its ever-more far-right social media accounts, that claims of American citizens being rounded up and held incommunicado are “fake news” or a “hoax.”

    “Stop fear-mongering. ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens,” Homeland Security recently posted on the former Twitter.

    Tuesday, at a different congressional hearing, a handful of citizens — including two Californians — told their stories of being grabbed by faceless masked men and being whisked away to holding cells where they were denied access to phones, lawyers, medications and a variety of other legal rights.

    Their testimony accompanied the release of a congressional report by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in which 22 American citizens, including a dozen from the Golden State, told their own shocking, terrifying tales of manhandling and detentions by what can only be described as secret police — armed agents who wouldn’t identify themselves and often seemed to lack basic training required for safe urban policing.

    These stories and the courageous Americans who are stepping forward to tell them are history in the making — a history I hope we regret but not forget.

    Immigration enforcement, boosted by unprecedented amounts of funding, is about to ramp up even more. Noem and her agents are reveling in impunity, attempting to erase and rewrite reality as they go — while our Supreme Court crushes precedent and common sense to further empower this presidency. Until the midterms, there is little hope of any check on power.

    Under those circumstances, for these folks to put their stories on the record is both an act of bravery and patriotism, because they now know better than most what it means to have the chaotic brutality of this administration focused on them. It’s incumbent upon the rest of us to hear them, and protest peacefully not only rights being trampled, but our government demanding we believe lies.

    “I’ve always said that immigrants who are given the great privilege of becoming citizens are also some of the most patriotic people in this country. I know you all love your country. I love our country, and this is not the America that we believe in or that we fought so hard for. Every person, every U.S. citizen, has rights,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said as the hearing began.

    L.A. native Andrea Velez, whose detention was reported on by my colleagues when it happened, was one of those putting herself on the line to testify.

    Less than 5 feet tall, Velez is a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona who was working in the garment district in June when ICE began its raids. Her mom and teenage sister had just dropped her off when masked men swarmed out of unmarked cars and began chasing brown people. Velez didn’t know what was happening, but when one man charged her, she held up her work bag in defense. The bag did not protect her. Neither did her telling the agents she is a U.S. citizen.

    “He handcuffed me without checking my ID. They ignored me as I repeated it again and again that I am a U.S. citizen,” she told committee members. “They did not care.”

    Velez, still unsure who the man was who forced her into an SUV, managed to open the door and run to an LAPD officer, begging for help. But when the masked man noticed she was loose, he “ran up screaming, ‘She’s mine’” the congressional report says.

    The police officer sent her back to the unmarked car, beginning a 48-hour ordeal that ended with her being charged with assault of a federal officer — charges eventually dropped after her lawyer demanded body camera footage and alleged witness statements. (The minority staff report was released by Rep. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.)

    “I never imagined this would be occurring, here, in America,” Velez told lawmakers. “DHS likes … to brand us as criminals, stripping us of our dignity. They want to paint us as the worst of the worst, but the truth is, we are human beings with no criminal record.”

    This if-you’re-brown-you’re-going-down tactic is likely to become more common because it is now legal.

    In Noem vs. Vasquez Perdomo, a September court decision, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that it was reasonable for officers to stop people who looked foreign and were engaged in activities associated with undocumented people — such as soliciting work at a Home Depot or attending a Spanish-language event, as long as authorities “promptly” let the person go if they prove citizenship. These are now known as “Kavanaugh stops.”

    Disregarding how racist and problematic that policy is, “promptly” seems to be up for debate.

    Javier Ramirez, born in San Bernardino, testified as “a proud American citizen who has never known the weight of a criminal record.”

    He’s a father of three who was working at his car lot in June when he noticed a strange SUV idling on his private property with a bunch of men inside. When he approached, they jumped out, armed with assault weapons, and grabbed him.

    “This was a terrifying situation,” Ramirez said. But then it got worse.

    One of the men yelled, “Get him. He’s Mexican!”

    On video shot by a bystander, Javier can be heard shouting, “I have my passport!” according to the congressional report, but the agents didn’t care. When Ramirez asked why they were holding him, an agent told him, “We’re trying to figure that out.”

    Like Velez, Ramirez was put in detention. A severe diabetic, he was denied medication until he became seriously ill, he told investigators. Though he asked for a lawyer, he was not allowed to contact one — but the interrogation continued.

    After his release, five days later, he had to seek further medical treatment. He, too, was charged with assault of a federal agent, along with obstruction and resisting arrest. The bogus charges were also later dropped.

    “I should not have to live in fear of being targeted simply for the color of my skin or the other language I speak,” he told the committee. “I share my story not just for myself, but for everyone who has been unjustly treated, for those whose voice has been silenced.”

    You know the poem, folks. It starts when “they came” for the vulnerable. Thankfully, though people such as Ramirez and Velez may be vulnerable due to their pigmentation, they are not meek and they won’t be silenced. Our democracy, our safety as a nation of laws, depends on not just hearing their stories, but also standing peacefully against such abuses of power.

    Because these abuses only end when the people decide they’ve had enough — not just of the lawlessness, but of the lies that empower it.

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Race for California governor continues to heat up, with Trump critic Rep. Eric Swalwell jumping in

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    San Francisco Bay Area Democrat Eric Swalwell, a nettlesome foil and frequent target of President Trump and Republicans, on Thursday announced his bid for California governor.

    The congressman declared his bid during an appearance on the ABC late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, adding a little Hollywood flourish to a crowded, somewhat sleepy race filled with candidates looking for ways to catch fire in the 2026 election.

    Voter interest in the race remains relatively moribund, especially after two of California’s most prominent Democrats — former Vice President Kamala Harris and current U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — opted to skip the race after months of speculation. About 44% of registered voters said in late October that they had not picked a preferred candidate to lead California, which is the most populous state in the union and has the fourth-largest economy in the world.

    The lack of a blockbuster candidate in the race, however, continues to entice others to jump in. Earlier this week, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer announced his bid, and other well-known Democrats are exploring a possible run.

    Swalwell, a 45-year-old former Republican and former prosecutor who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, said his decision was driven by the serious problems facing California and the threats posed to the state and nation with Trump in the White House.

    “People are scared and prices are high, and I see the next governor of California having two jobs — one to keep the worst president ever out of our homes, streets and lives,” Swalwell said in an interview with The Times. “The second job is to bring what I call a new California, and that’s especially and most poignantly on housing and affordability in a state where we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, and the average age for a first-time homebuyer is 40 years old, and so we need to bring that down.”

    Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot run for reelection because of term limits, and he is currently weighing a 2028 presidential bid.

    None of the candidates in the race, including Swalwell, possess the statewide notoriety, success or fundraising prowess of California’s most recent governors: Newsom, California political icon Jerry Brown and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    “If you look at the past three governors, they’ve all had personalities,” said Jim DeBoo, Newsom’s former chief of staff, at a political conference at USC on Tuesday. “When you’re looking at the field right now, most people don’t know” much about the candidates in the crowded race despite their political bona fides.

    Nearly a dozen prominent Democrats and Republicans are running for governor next year, including: former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond; former Controller Betty Yee and conservative commentator Steve Hilton. And speculation continues to swirl about billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta possibly entering the race.

    On Thursday, Thurmond proposed a tax on the wealthy to fund education, healthcare, firefighting and construction. The proposal was seen in part as a subtle dig at Steyer and Caruso, both of whom have used their wealth to fund previous runs for office.

    “The naysayers say California’s ultra wealthy already pay enough, and that taxing billionaires will stifle innovation and force companies to leave our state,” he said in an online video. “I don’t buy it.”

    Steyer painted his decision to leave the hedge fund he created in California as an example of his desire to give back to the state’s residents in an ad that will begin airing on Friday.

    “It’s really goddamn simple. Tackle the cost-of-living crises or get the hell out of the way. Californians are the hardest-working people in the country. But the question is who’s getting the benefit of this,” he says in the ad, arguing that he took on corporations that refused to pay state taxes as well as oil and tobacco companies. “Let’s get down to brass tacks: It’s too expensive to live here.”

    Porter also went after Steyer, another sign that the intensity of the race is heating up as the June primary fast approaches.

    “A new billionaire in our race claims he’ll fight the very industries he got rich helping grow — fossil fuel companies, tobacco and private immigration detention facilities — at great cost to Californians,” she wrote on X on Wednesday.

    The former congresswoman was the subject of recent attacks from Democratic rivals in the governor’s race after videos emerged of her scolding a reporter and swearing at an aide. Yee said she should drop out of the race and Villaraigosa blistered her in ads.

    Villaraigosa also attacked Becerra for his connection to the scandal that rocked Sacramento last week, involving money from one of his campaign accounts being funneled to his former chief of staff while Becerra served in the Biden administration.

    “We don’t have a strong or robust opposition party in California, so you end up like seeing a lot of this action on the dance floor in the primary, obviously, between Democrats, which is going to be interesting,” said Elizabeth Ashford, who worked for Schwarzenegger, Brown and Harris and currently advises Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “There’s obviously a lot of longtime relationships and longtime loyalties and interactions between these folks. And so what’s going to happen? Big question mark.”

    The ability to protect California from Trump’s policies and political vindictiveness and deal with the state’s affordability, housing and homelessness crisis will be pivotal to Swalwell’s potential path to the governor’s mansion. His choice to announce his decision on Kimmel’s show was telling — the host’s show was briefly suspended by Walt Disney-owned ABC under pressure from Trump after Kimmel made comments about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    Kimmel thanked Swalwell for his support during that period, which included the congressman handing out pro-Kimmel merchandise to his colleagues in Washington, D.C., before the two discussed the future of the state.

    “I love California, it’s the greatest country in the world. Country,” Swalwell said. “But that’s why it pisses me off to see Californians running through the fields where they work from ICE agents or troops in our streets. It’s horrifying. Cancer research being canceled. It’s awful to look at. And our state, this great state, needs a fighter and a protector, someone who will bring prices down, lift wages up.”

    There is a history of Californians announcing campaigns on late-night television. Schwarzenegger launched his 2003 gubernatorial bid on “The Tonight Show,” hosted by Jay Leno; Swalwell announced his unsuccessful presidential bid on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

    As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Swalwell said, he traveled to nearly 40 countries, and he would try to leverage the relationships he formed by creating an ambassador program to find global research money for California given the cuts the Trump administration has made to cancer research and other programs.

    The congressman is perhaps best known for criticizing Trump on cable news programs. But he’s faced ample attacks as well.

    In 2020, Swalwell came under scrutiny because of his association with Chinese spy Fang Fang, who raised money for his congressional campaign. He cut off ties with her in 2015 after intelligence officials briefed him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate the legislative body. He was not accused of impropriety.

    He is also being investigated by the Department of Justice over mortgage fraud allegations, which he dismissed as retribution for him being a full-throated critic of Trump.

    Swalwell served on the City Council of the East Bay city of Dublin before being elected to Congress in 2012 by defeating Rep. Pete Stark, a fellow Democrat.

    An Iowa native, Swalwell grew up in Dublin, which he said was “a town of low-income expectations” that was smeared as “Scrublin” at the time. He said that after graduating from law school, he served on the local planning commission that helped transform Dublin. The town increased housing, attracted Fortune 500 employers, exponentially improved the number of students going to college and leveraged developers to improve schools, resources for senior citizens, and police and fire services.

    “We have a Whole Foods, which no one can afford to shop at,” he said.

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    Seema Mehta

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  • News Analysis: Prop. 50 is just one part of a historically uncertain moment for American democracy

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    Is President Trump going to restart nuclear weapons testing? When will this federal shutdown end? Will Californians pass Proposition 50, scramble the state’s congressional maps and shake up next year’s midterm elections?

    Amid a swirl of high-stakes standoffs and unprecedented posturing by Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other leaders in Washington and Sacramento, the future of U.S. politics, and California’s role therein, has felt wildly uncertain of late.

    Political debate — around things such as sending military troops into American cities, cutting off food aid for the poor or questioning constitutional guarantees such as birthright citizenship — has become so untethered to longstanding norms that everything feels novel.

    The pathways for taking political power — as with Trump’s teasing a potential third term, installing federal prosecutors without Senate confirmation, slashing federal budgets without congressional input and pressuring red states to redistrict in his favor before a midterm election — have been so sharply altered that many Americans, and some historians and political experts, have lost confidence in U.S. democracy.

    “It’s completely unprecedented, completely anomalous — representative, I think, of a major transformation of our normal political life,” said Jack Rakove, a Stanford University emeritus professor of history and political science.

    “You can’t compare it to any other episode, any other period, any other set of events in American history. It is unique and radically novel in distressing ways,” Rakove said. “As soon as Trump was reelected, we entered into a constitutional crisis. Why? Because Trump has no respect for constitutional structures.”

    Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “President Trump’s unorthodox approach is why he has been so successful and why he has received massive support from the American public.”

    Jackson said Trump has “achieved more than any President has in modern history,” including in “securing the border, getting dangerous criminals off American streets, brokering historic peace deals [and] bringing new investments to the U.S.,” and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly backed his approach as legal.

    “So-called experts can pontificate all they want, but President Trump’s actions have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court despite a record number of challenges from liberal activists and unlawful rulings from liberal lower court judges,” Jackson said.

    There are many examples of Trump flouting or suggesting he will flout the Constitution or other laws directly, and in ways that make people unsure and concerned about what will come next for the country politically, Rakove and other political experts said. His constant flirting with the idea of a third term in office does that, as does his legal challenge to birthright citizenship and his military’s penchant for blasting alleged drug vessels out of international waters.

    On Wednesday, Trump raised the prospect of further breaching international law and norms by appearing to suggest on social media that, for the first time in three decades, the U.S. would resume testing nuclear weapons.

    “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote — leaving it unclear whether he meant detonating warheads or simply testing the missiles that deliver them.

    There are also many examples, the experts said, of American political norms being tossed aside — and the nation’s political future tossed in the air — by others around Trump, both allies and enemies, who are trying to either please or push back against the unorthodox commander in chief with their own abnormal political maneuvers.

    One example is House Speaker Mike Johnson (R.-La.) refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva, despite her being elected in September to represent parts of Arizona in Congress. Johnson has cited the shutdown, but others — including Arizona’s attorney general in a lawsuit — have suggested Johnson is trying to prevent a House vote on releasing records about the late Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire sex offender whom Trump was friends with before a reported falling out years ago.

    Uncertainty about whether those records would implicate Trump or any other powerful people in any wrongdoing has swirled in Washington throughout Trump’s term — showing more staying power than perhaps any other issue, despite Trump’s insistence that he’s done nothing wrong and the issue is a distraction.

    The mid-decade redistricting battle — in which California’s Proposition 50 looms large — is another prime example, the experts said.

    Normally, redistricting occurs each decade, after federal census data comes out. But at Trump’s urging, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott agreed to redraw his state’s congressional lines this year to help ensure Republicans maintain control of the House in the midterms. In response, Newsom and California Democrats introduced Proposition 50, asking California voters to amend the state Constitution to allow Democrats to redraw lines in their favor.

    As a result, Californians — millions of whom have already voted — have been getting bombarded by messages both for and against Proposition 50, many of which are hyper-focused on the uncertain implications for American democracy.

    “Let’s fight back and democracy can be defended,” a Proposition 50 backer wrote on a postcard to one voter. “It is against democracy and rips away the power to draw congressional seats from the people,” opponents of the measure wrote to others.

    H.W. Brands, a U.S. history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said, “Americans who are worried about democracy are right to be concerned,” because Trump “has broken or threatened many of the guardrails of democracy.”

    But he also noted — partly as a reflection of the dangerous moment the country is in — that Trump has long rejected a particularly “sacred” part of American democracy by refusing to accept his loss to President Biden in 2020, and Americans reelected him in 2024 anyway.

    “Americans have always been divided politically. This is the first time (with the exception of 1860) that the division goes down to the fundamentals of democracy,” Brands wrote in an email — referencing the year the U.S. Confederacy seceded from the Union.

    High stakes

    The uncertainty has festered in an era of rampant political disinformation and under a president who has a penchant for challenging reality outright on a near-daily basis — who on a trip through Asia this week not only said he’d “love” a third term, which is precluded by the Constitution, but claimed, falsely, that he is experiencing his best polling numbers ever.

    The uncertainty has also been compounded by Democrats, who have wielded the only levers of power they have left by refusing to concede to Republicans in the raging shutdown battle in Washington and by putting Proposition 50 to California voters.

    The shutdown has major, immediate implications. Not only are federal employees around the country, including in California, furloughed or without pay checks, but billions in additional federal funding is at risk.

    Democrats have resisted funding the government in an effort to force Republicans to back down from massive cuts to healthcare subsidies that help millions of Californians and many more Americans afford health coverage. The shutdown means Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits could be cut off for more than 40 million people — nearly 1 in 8 Americans — this weekend.

    California and other Democrat-led states have sued the Trump administration, asking a federal court to issue an emergency order requiring the USDA to use existing contingency funds to distribute SNAP funding.

    Jackson, the White House spokesperson, said Democrats should be asked when the shutdown will end, because “they are the ones who have decided to shut down the government so they can use working Americans and SNAP benefits as ‘leverage’ to pursue their radical left wing agenda.”

    The redistricting battle could have even bigger impact.

    If Democrats retook the House next year, it would give them a real source of oversight power to confront Trump and block his MAGA agenda. If Republicans retain control, they will help facilitate Trump’s agenda — just as they have since he took office.

    But even if Proposition 50 passes, as polling suggests it will, it’s not clear that Democrats would win all the races lined up for them in the state, or that those seats would be enough to win Democrats the chamber given efforts to pick up Republican seats in Texas and elsewhere.

    The uncertainty around the midterms is, by extension, producing more uncertainty around the second half of Trump’s term.

    What will Trump do, particularly if Republicans stay in power? Is he stationing troops in American cities as part of some broader play for retaining power, as some Democrats have suggested? Is he setting the groundwork to challenge the integrity of U.S. elections by citing his baseless claims about fraud in 2020 and putting fellow election deniers in charge of reviewing the system?

    Is he really gearing up to contest the constitutional limits on his tenure in the White House? He said he’d “love” to stay in office this week, but then he said it’s “too bad” he’s not allowed to.

    Fire with fire?

    According to David Greenberg, a history professor at Rutgers University, it is Trump’s unorthodox policies and tactics but also his brash demeanor that “make this a more unsettled moment than we are used to feeling.”

    “Sometimes when he’s doing things that other presidents have done, he does it in such an outlandish way that it feels unprecedented,” or is “stylistically” but not substantively unprecedented, Greenberg said. “Self-aggrandizing claims, often untrue. The brazenness with which he insults people. The way he changes his mind on something. That all is highly unusual and unique to Trump.”

    In other instances, Greenberg said, Trump has pushed the boundaries of the law or busted political norms that previous presidents felt bound by.

    “One thing that Trump showed us is just how much of our functioning system depends not just on the letter of the law but on norms,” Greenberg said. “What can the president do? What kind of power can he exert over the Justice Department and who it prosecutes? Well, it turns out he probably can do a lot more than should be permissible.”

    However, the appropriate response is not the one seemingly gaining steam among Democrats — to “be more like Trump” themselves or “fight fire with fire” — but to look for ways to strengthen the political norms and boundaries Trump is ignoring, Greenberg said.

    “The more the public, citizens in general, feel that it’s OK to disregard long-standing ways of doing things that have stood the test of time until now, the more likely we are to enter into a more chaotic world — a world in which there will be less justice, less democracy,” Greenberg said. “It will be more subject to the whims or preferences of whoever is in power — and in a liberal democracy, that is what you are striving to fight against.”

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  • Proponents of Nov. 4 redistricting ballot measure vastly outraise opponents

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    Supporters of Proposition 50, California Democrats’ ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts to help the party’s effort to take power in the U.S. House of Representatives, raised more than four times the amount that rivals raised in recent weeks, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state by the three main committees campaigning about the measure.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s committee supporting the redistricting measure raised $36.8 million between Sept. 21 and Oct. 18, bringing its total to $114.3 million, according to the report filed with the secretary of state’s office on Thursday, which was not available until Monday. It had $37.1 million in the bank and available to spend before the Nov. 4 special election.

    “We have hit our budget goals and raised what we need in order to pass Proposition 50,” Newsom emailed supporters on Monday. “You can stop donating.”

    The two main opposition groups raised a total of $8.4 million during the 28 days covered by the fundraising period, bringing their total haul to $43.7 million. They had $2.3 million in cash on hand going into the final stretch of the campaign.

    “As Gavin Newsom likes to say, we are not running the 90-yard dash here. We’ve seen a groundswell of support from Californians who understand what’s at stake if we let [President] Trump steal two more years of unchecked power,” said Hannah Milgrom, a spokesperson for the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign. “But we are not taking anything for granted nor taking our foot off the gas. If we want to hold this dangerous and reckless president accountable, we must pass Prop. 50.”

    Newsom and other California Democrats decided to ask voters to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, which are currently drawn by a voter-approved independent commission, in a mid-decade redistricting after Trump urged GOP-led states to redraw their districts in an effort for Republicans to retain control of Congress in next year’s midterm election.

    The balance of power in the narrowly divided House will determine whether Trump is able to continue enacting his agenda during his final two years of office, or is the focus of investigations and possibly an impeachment effort.

    Major donors supporting Proposition 50 include billionaire financier George Soros; the House Majority PAC, the campaign arm of congressional Democrats; and labor unions.

    Among the opponents of Proposition 50, top contributors include longtime GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of the investment partner of billionaire Warren Buffett; and the Congressional Leadership Fund, Republicans’ political arm in the House.

    “While we are being outspent, we’re continuing to communicate with Californians the dangers of suspending California’s gold-standard redistricting process,” said Amy Thoma, a spokesperson for the committee funded by Munger. “With just ten days to go, we are encouraging all voters to make their voice heard and to vote.”

    Ellie Hockenbury, an advisor to the committee that received $5 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the organization was committed to continuing to raise money to block Newsom’s redistricting effort in the days leading up to the election.

    “His costly power grab would silence millions of Californians and deny them fair representation in Congress, which is why grassroots opposition is gaining momentum,” Hockenbury said. “In the final push, our data-driven campaign is strategically targeting key voters with our message to ensure every resource helps us defeat Prop. 50.”

    There are several other committees not affiliated with these main campaign groups that are receiving funding. Those include one created by billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, who donated $12 million, and the California Republican Party, which received $8 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund.

    These reports come a little more than a week before the Nov. 4 special election. More than 4 million mail ballots — 18% of the ballots sent to California’s 23 million voters — had been returned as of Friday, according to a vote tracker run by Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed maps on the ballot. Democrats continue to outpace Republicans in returning ballots, 51% to 28%. Voters registered without a party preference or with other political parties returned 21% of the ballots that have been received.

    The turnout figures are alarming Republican leaders.

    “If Republicans do not get out and vote now, we will lose Prop 50 and Gavin Newsom will control our district lines until 2032,” Orange County GOP Chair Will O’Neill wrote to party members on Friday, urging them to cast ballots this past weekend and sharing the locations of early voting centers in the county.

    Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) was more blunt on social media.

    “Right now we’re losing the fight against Prop 50 in CA, but turnout is LOW,” he posted on the social media platform X on Friday. “If every Republican voter gets off their ass, returns their ballot and votes NO, we WIN. IT. IS. THAT. SIMPLE.”

    More than 18.9 million ballots are outstanding, though not all will be completed. Early voting centers opened on Saturday in 29 California counties.

    “Think of Election Day as the last day to vote — not the only day. Like we always do, California gives voters more days and more ways to participate,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement. “Don’t Delay! Vote today!”

    The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that it plans on monitoring polling sites in Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties at the request of the state GOP.

    “Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”

    Newsom, in a post on X on Friday, said the Trump administration is sending election monitors to polling places in California as part of a broader effort to stifle the vote, particularly among Californians of color, in advance of next year’s midterm election.

    “This is about voter intimidation. This is about voter suppression,” Newsom said, predicting that masked border agents would probably be present at California polling places through the Nov. 4 election. “I hope people understand it’s a bridge that they’re trying to build the scaffolding for all across this country in next November’s election. They do not believe in fair and free elections. Our republic, our democracy, is on the line.”

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  • Newsom warns Californians’ SNAP benefits could be delayed because of federal shutdown

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    Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stark warning Monday that food assistance benefits for millions of low-income Californians could be delayed starting Nov. 1 if the ongoing federal shutdown does not end by Thursday.

    The benefits, issued under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and formerly called food stamps, include federally funded benefits loaded onto CalFresh cards. They support some 5.5 million Californians.

    Newsom blamed the potential SNAP disruption — and the shutdown more broadly — on President Trump and slammed the timing of the potential cutoff just as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches.

    “Trump’s failure to open the federal government is now endangering people’s lives and making basic needs like food more expensive — just as the holidays arrive,” Newsom said. “It is long past time for Republicans in Congress to grow a spine, stand up to Trump, and deliver for the American people.”

    The White House responded by blaming the shutdown on Democrats, as it has done before.

    Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the “Democrats’ decision to shut down the government is hurting Americans across the country,” and that Democrats “can choose to reopen the government at any point” by voting for a continuing resolution to fund the government as budget negotiations continue, which she said they repeatedly did during the Biden administration.

    “Newscum should urge his Democrat pals to stop hurting the American people,” Jackson said, using a favorite Trump insult for Newsom. “The Trump Administration is working day and night to mitigate the pain Democrats are causing, and even that is upsetting the Left, with many Democrats criticizing the President’s effort to pay the troops and fund food assistance for women and children.”

    Congressional Republicans also have blamed the shutdown and resulting interruptions to federal programs on Democrats, who are refusing to vote for a Republican-backed funding measure based in large part on Republican decisions to eliminate subsidies for healthcare plans relied on by millions of Americans.

    Newsom’s warning about SNAP benefits followed similar alerts from other states on both sides of the political aisle, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned state agencies in an Oct. 10 letter that the shutdown may interrupt funding for the benefits.

    States have to take action to issue November benefits before the month ends, so the shutdown would have to end sooner than Nov. 1 for the benefits to be available in time.

    Newsom’s office said Californians could see their benefits interrupted or delayed if the shutdown is not ended by Thursday. The Texas Health and Human Services Department warned that SNAP benefits for November “won’t be issued if the federal government shutdown continues past Oct. 27.”

    Newsom’s office said a cutoff of funds would affect federally funded CalFresh benefits, but also some other state-funded benefits. More than 63% of SNAP recipients in California are children or elderly people, Newsom’s office said.

    In her own statement, First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom said, “Government should be measured by how we protect people’s lives, their health, and their well-being. Parents and caregivers should not be forced to choose between buying groceries or paying bills.”

    States were already gearing up for other changes to SNAP eligibility based on the Republican-passed “Big Beautiful Bill,” which set new limits on SNAP benefits, including for nonworking adults. Republicans have argued that such restrictions will encourage more able-bodied adults to get back into the workforce to support their families themselves.

    Many Democrats and advocacy organizations that work to protect low-income families and children have argued that restricting SNAP benefits has a disproportionately large effect on some of the most vulnerable people in the country, including poor children.

    According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served by SNAP benefits per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. The USDA has some contingency funding it can utilize to continue benefits in the short term, but does not have enough to cover all monthly benefits, advocates said.

    Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy at the advocacy group End Child Poverty California, urged the USDA to utilize its contingency funding and any other funding stream possible to prevent a disruption to SNAP benefits, which he said would be “disastrous.”

    “CalFresh is a lifeline for 5.5 million Californians who rely on the program to eat. That includes 2 million children. It is unconscionable that we are only days away from children and families not knowing where their next meal is going to come from,” Cheyne said.

    He said the science is clear that “even a brief period of food insecurity has long-term consequences for children’s growth and development.”

    Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, said a disruption would be “horrific.”

    “We speak out for the needs of kids and families, and kids need food — basic support to live and function and go to school,” he said. “So this could be really devastating.”

    Times staff writer Jenny Gold contributed to this report.

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  • ‘Democracy is on the ballot,’ Obama says, urging Californians to pass Prop. 50 in new ad

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    As Californians start voting on Democrats’ effort to boost their ranks in Congress, former President Barack Obama warned that democracy is in peril as he urged voters to support Proposition 50 in a television ad that started airing Tuesday.

    “California, the whole nation is counting on you,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, which the main pro-Proposition 50 campaign began broadcasting Tuesday across the state. The spot is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy promoting the congressional redistricting ballot measure through the Nov. 4 election.

    Proposition 50 was spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democratic leaders this summer after President Trump urged GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts to boost the number of Republicans elected to the House in next year’s midterm election, in an effort to continue enacting his agenda during his final years in office.

    “Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in the ad, which includes footage of ICE raids. “With Prop. 50, you can stop Republicans in their tracks. Prop. 50 puts our elections back on a level playing field, preserves independent redistricting over the long term, and lets the people decide. Return your ballot today.”

    Congressional districts were long drawn in smoke-filled chambers by partisans focused on protecting their parties’ power and incumbents. But good-government groups and elected officials, notably former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have fought to take the drawing of congressional boundaries out of the hands of politicians to end gerrymandering and create more competitive districts.

    Obama, long a supporter of ending gerrymandering, had already endorsed the ballot measure.

    In California, these districts have been drawn by an independent commission created by voters in 2010, which is why state Democrats have to go to the ballot box to seek a mid-decade partisan redistricting that could improve their party’s chances in five of the state’s 52 congressional districts.

    The ad featuring Obama, who spoke Monday on comedian Marc Maron’s final podcast about Trump’s policies testing the nation’s values, appears on Californians’ televisions after mail ballots were sent to the state’s 23 million registered voters last week.

    The proposition’s prospects are uncertain — it’s about an obscure topic that few Californians know about, and off-year elections traditionally have low voter turnout. Still, more than $150 million has been contributed to the three main committees supporting and opposing the proposition, in addition to millions more funding other efforts.

    Obama is not the only famous person to appear in ads about Proposition 50.

    In September, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the independent redistricting commission while in office and has campaigned for similar reforms across the nation since then, was featured in ads opposing the November ballot measure.

    He described Proposition 50 as favoring entrenched politicians instead of voters.

    “That’s what they want to do, is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” the Hollywood celebrity and former governor says in the ad, which was filmed last month when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

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  • California ballot design prompts false conspiracy theories that the November election is rigged

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    California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Monday pushed back against a torrent of misinformation on social media sites claiming that mail-in ballots for the state’s Nov. 4 special election are purposefully designed to disclose how people voted.

    Weber, the state’s top elections official, refuted claims by some Republicans and far-right partisans that holes on ballot envelopes allow election officials to see how Californians voted on Proposition 50, the ballot measure about redistricting that will be decided in a special election in a little over three weeks.

    “The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” Weber said in a statement released Monday.

    Weber said voters can insert ballots in return envelopes in a manner that doesn’t reveal how they voted, or could cast ballots at early voting stations that will open soon or in person on Nov. 4.

    Weber’s decision to “set the record straight” was prompted by conspiracy theories exploding online alleging that mail ballots received by 23 million Californians in recent days are purposefully designed to reveal the votes of people who opposed the measure.

    “If California voters vote ‘NO’ on Gavin Newscum’s redistricting plan, it will show their answer through a hole in the envelope,” Libs of TikTok posted on the social media platform X on Sunday, in a post that has 4.8 million views. “All Democrats do is cheat.”

    GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier retweeted a similar post that has been viewed more than 840,000 times, and Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator, called for the November special election to be suspended because of the alleged ballot irregularities.

    The allegation about the ballots, which has been raised by Republicans during prior California elections, stems from the holes in mail ballot envelopes that were created to help visually impaired voters and allow election workers to make sure ballots have been removed from envelopes.

    The special election was called for by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats in an effort to counter President Trump urging GOP-led states, notably Texas, to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election to boost GOP ranks in the House and buttress his ability to enact his agenda during his final two years in office.

    California Democrats responded by proposing a rare mid-decade redrawing of California’s 52 congressional boundaries to increase Democratic representation in Congress. Congressional districts are typically drawn once a decade by an independent state commission created by voters in 2010.

    Nearly 600,000 Californians have already returned mail ballots as of Monday evening, according to a ballot tracker created by Political Data, a voter data firm that is led by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell, who drew the proposed congressional boundaries on the November ballot.

    Republican leaders in California who oppose the ballot measure have expressed concern about the ballot conspiracy theories, fearing the claims may suppress Republicans and others from voting against Proposition 50.

    “Please don’t panic people about something that is easily addressed by turning their ballot around,” Roxanne Hoge, the chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, posted on X. “We need every no vote and we need them now.”

    Jessica Millan Patterson, the former chair of the state GOP who is leading one of the two main committees opposing Proposition 50, compared not voting early to sitting on the sidelines of a football game until the third quarter.

    “I understand why voters would be concerned when they see holes in their envelopes … because your vote is your business. It’s the bedrock of our system, being able to [vote by] secret ballot,” she said in an interview. “That being said, the worst thing that you could do if you are unhappy with the way things are here in California is not vote, and so I will continue to promote early voting and voting by mail. It’s always been a core principle for me.”

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  • Contributor: California Democrats aren’t just resisting; they’re governing

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    Gov. Gavin Newsom answering the Republican redistricting power-grab in Texas with a plan of his own is a powerful example of how Golden State Democrats are standing up to President Trump and firing up their base. But while the partisan fireworks draw attention, California Democrats are also quietly offering a different kind of model for the national party that may prove more meaningful in the long run. They’re not just resisting Trump; they’re actually governing.

    Forget what you think you know about California and its lefty Democrats. They’re inching to the center, meeting voters where they are, and it’s improving people’s lives.

    Just look at San Francisco, long seen as a dysfunctional emblem of failed progressive governance.

    The city’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit leader and philanthropist, has shaken off left-wing taboos and focused on delivering results. Instead of defunding the police, he’s hiring more officers and cracking down on shoplifting and drug crimes. Instead of demonizing the business community, he’s partnering with them. He’s also reforming zoning laws to make it easier to build more housing, which should ease the city’s affordability crunch and the homelessness crisis. Lurie has been in office less than a year, but already crime is plummeting and his approval rate has reached 73%.

    National Democrats can find a lesson here: Voters care about results, not just empathy and ideology.

    In Sacramento, Newsom and legislative Democrats are taking a similar tack, with a stubborn focus on affordability and the courage to stare down opposition, even in their own coalition. For example, the Legislature recently reformed the California Environmental Quality Act, a well-intentioned 50-year-old law that had been twisted to obstruct construction projects, clean energy development and public transportation. This angered some powerful environmental activists, but it will ultimately help bring down costs for housing and energy.

    CEQA reform is emblematic of California’s new, more balanced approach on some thorny issues, like energy and climate. The state recently announced that two-thirds of its power now comes from clean energy sources — a major achievement. At the same time, Newsom and the Legislature agreed to a package of bills that will increase oil drilling while extending the state’s cap-and-trade program. Together, the package can reduce energy costs for Californians and strengthen our state’s chances of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045. Some environmental justice advocates and climate purists oppose the deal, but it’s an example of how to make progress in the long term while addressing affordability in the short term.

    Immigration is another example: Newsom and other leading California Democrats continue to stand up to the Trump administration’s inhumane immigration policies, including suing to stop the deployment of troops to Los Angeles. But they also recently passed a budget that pulls back on costly plans to provide health insurance to all low-income undocumented immigrants.

    This reflects the new California model: principled resistance and pragmatic governance. The results speak for themselves. The Golden State recently surpassed Japan to become the fourth-largest economy in the world.

    Democratic leaders are making these moves because they are listening to voters who consistently say that the high cost of living is their top concern.

    In 2024, these concerns contributed to a surprising number of Californians abandoning Democrats, even with Kamala Harris, the state’s former U.S. senator and attorney general, on the ticket. Trump flipped 10 counties and boosted his support in 45. Since 2016, 72% of California counties have gotten redder, including many with heavy Latino populations.

    Democrats are paying attention and are wisely changing course. Being responsive to voter concerns doesn’t have to mean sacrificing core values, but it does require new approaches when the old ways aren’t working.

    Karen Skelton (whose father is a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times) is a political strategist, having worked in the White House under Presidents Clinton and Biden and at the United States Departments of Energy, Transportation and Justice.

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    Ideas expressed in the piece

    • California Democrats are demonstrating effective governance by moving toward the political center while maintaining their core values, offering a model for the national Democratic Party that goes beyond mere resistance to Trump’s policies.

    • San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie exemplifies this pragmatic approach by hiring more police officers, cracking down on shoplifting and drug crimes, and partnering with the business community rather than demonizing it, resulting in plummeting crime rates and a 73% approval rating.

    • Sacramento Democrats are prioritizing affordability and practical results over ideological purity, as demonstrated by their reform of the California Environmental Quality Act despite opposition from environmental activists, ultimately helping to reduce housing and energy costs.

    • The state’s balanced approach to energy and climate policy shows how Democrats can make long-term progress while addressing immediate affordability concerns, achieving two-thirds clean energy power while also increasing oil drilling through a cap-and-trade package.

    • On immigration, California Democrats maintain principled resistance to Trump’s policies while making pragmatic budget decisions, such as pulling back on costly plans to provide health insurance to all low-income undocumented immigrants.

    • This strategic shift reflects Democrats’ responsiveness to voter concerns about the high cost of living, which contributed to Trump gaining support in 10 counties and 45 others in 2024, with 72% of California counties becoming redder since 2016.

    Different views on the topic

    • Republican leaders view California’s redistricting response as a partisan power grab rather than principled governance, with some vowing to challenge the maps in court and arguing that the redistricting process violates the California Constitution by relying on outdated population data[1].

    • Environmental activists and climate advocates oppose California’s pragmatic approach to energy policy, particularly the package that increases oil drilling while extending cap-and-trade programs, viewing it as a betrayal of environmental justice principles.

    • Progressive organizations initially opposed California’s redistricting efforts, with Common Cause, a good governance group supporting independent redistricting, originally opposing the state’s partisan response before later reversing its stance[1].

    • Some Democratic constituencies argue that pulling back on progressive policies like universal healthcare for undocumented immigrants represents an abandonment of core Democratic values rather than pragmatic governance.

    • Critics contend that the centrist shift represents capitulation to conservative pressure rather than principled leadership, arguing that Democrats should maintain their progressive positions rather than moderating in response to political setbacks.

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  • On U.S. direction under Trump, Californians split sharply along partisan lines, poll finds

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    California voters are heavily divided along partisan lines when it comes to President Trump, with large majorities of Democrats and unaffiliated voters disapproving of him and believing the country is headed in the wrong direction under his leadership, and many Republicans feeling the opposite, according to a new poll conducted for The Times.

    The findings are remarkably consistent with past polling on the Republican president in the nation’s most populous blue state, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies Poll.

    “If you look at all the job ratings we’ve done about President Trump — and this carries back all the way through his first term — voters have pretty much maintained the same posture,” DiCamillo said. “Voters know who he is.”

    The same partisan divide also showed up in the poll on a number of hot-button issues, such as Medicaid cuts and tariffs, DiCamillo said — with Democrats “almost uniformly” opposed to Trump’s agenda and Republicans “pretty much on board with what Trump is doing.”

    Asked whether the sweeping tariffs that Trump has imposed on international trading partners have had a “noticeable negative impact” on their family spending, 71% of Democrats said yes, while 76% of Republicans said no.

    “If you’re a Republican, you tend to discount the impacts — you downplay them or you just ignore them,” while Democrats “tend to blame everything on Trump,” DiCamillo said.

    Asked whether they were confident that the Trump administration would provide California with the nearly $40 billion in wildfire relief aid it has requested in response to the devastating L.A.-area fires in January, 93% of Democrats said they were not confident — compared with the 43% of Republicans who said they were confident.

    In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, the effect is that Trump fared terribly in the poll overall, just as he has in recent presidential votes in the state.

    The poll — conducted Aug. 11-17 with 4,950 registered voters interviewed — found 69% of likely California voters disapproved of Trump, with 62% strongly disapproving, while 29% approved of him. A similar majority, 68%, said they believed the country is headed in the wrong direction, while 26% said it’s headed in the right direction.

    Whereas 90% of Democrats and 75% of unaffiliated voters said the country is on the wrong track, just 20% of Republicans felt that way, the poll found.

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the poll.

    Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said the findings prove Trump’s agenda “is devastating communities across California who are dealing with the harmful, real life consequences” of the president’s policies.

    “The Trump Administration does not represent the views of the vast majority of Californians and it’s why Trump has chosen California to push the limits of his constitutional power,” Padilla said. “As more Americans across the nation continue to feel the impacts of his destructive policies, public support will continue to erode.”

    G. Cristina Mora, co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, or IGS, said the findings were interesting, especially in light of other recent polling for The Times that found slightly more nuanced Republican impressions — and more wariness — when it comes to Trump’s immigration agenda and tactics.

    On his overall approval and on other parts of his agenda, including the tariffs and Medicaid cuts, “the strength of the partisanship is very clear,” Mora said.

    Cuts to Medicaid

    Voters in the state are similarly divided when it comes to recent decisions on Medicaid health insurance for low-income residents, the poll found. The state’s version is known as Medi-Cal.

    For instance, Californians largely disapprove of new work requirements for Medicaid and Medi-Cal recipients under the Big Beautiful Bill that Trump championed and congressional Republicans recently passed into law, the poll found.

    The bill requires most Medicaid recipients ages 18 to 64 to work at least 80 hours per month in order to continue receiving benefits. Republicans trumpeted the change as holding people accountable and safeguarding against abuses of federal taxpayer dollars, while Democrats denounced it as a threat to public health that would strip millions of vulnerable Americans of their health insurance.

    The poll found 61% of Californians disapproved of the change, with 43% strongly disapproving of it, while 36% approved of it, with 21% strongly approving of it. Voters were sharply divided along party lines, however, with 80% of Republicans approving of the changes and 85% of Democrats disapproving of them.

    Californians also disapproved — though by a smaller margin — of a move by California Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom to help close a budget shortfall by barring undocumented immigrant adults from newly enrolling in Medi-Cal benefits.

    A slight majority of poll respondents, or 52%, said they disapproved of the new restriction, with 17% strongly disapproving of it. The poll found 43% of respondents approved of the change, including 30% who strongly approved of it.

    Among Democrats, 77% disapproved of the change. Among Republicans, 87% approved of it. Among voters with no party preference, 52% disapproved.

    More than half the poll respondents — 57% — said neither they nor their immediate family members receive Medi-Cal benefits, while 35% said they did. Of those who receive Medi-Cal, two-thirds — or 67% — said they were very or somewhat worried about losing, or about someone in their immediate family losing, their coverage due to changes by the Trump administration.

    Nadereh Pourat, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said there is historical evidence to show what is going to happen next under the changes — and it’s not good.

    The work requirement will undoubtedly result in people losing health coverage, just as thousands did when Arkansas implemented a similar requirement years ago, she said.

    When people lose coverage, the cost of preventative care goes up and they generally receive less of it, she said. “If the doctor’s visit competes with food on the table or rent, then people are going to skip those primary care visits,” she said — and often “end up in the emergency room” instead.

    And that’s more expensive not just for them, but also for local and state healthcare systems, she said.

    Cuts to high-speed rail

    Californians also are heavily divided over the state’s efforts to build a high-speed rail line through the Central Valley, after the Trump administration announced it was clawing back $4 billion in promised federal funding.

    The project was initially envisioned as connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2026, but officials have since set new goals of connecting Bakersfield to Merced by 2030. The project is substantially over budget, and Trump administration officials have called in a “boondoggle.”

    The poll found that 49% of Californians support the project, with 28% of them strongly in favor of it. It found 42% oppose the project, including 28% who strongly oppose it.

    Among Democrats, 66% were in favor of the project. Among Republicans, 77% were opposed. Among voters with no party preference, 49% were in favor while 39% were opposed.

    In Los Angeles County, 54% of voters were in favor of the project continuing, while 58% of voters in the Bay Area were in favor. In the Central Valley, 51% of voters were opposed, compared with 41% in favor.

    State Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said political rhetoric around the project has clearly had an effect on how voters feel about it, and that is partly because state leaders haven’t done enough to lay out why the project makes sense economically.

    “Healthy skepticism is a good thing, especially when you’re dealing with billions of dollars,” he said. “It’s on legislators and the governor right now in California to lay out a strategy that you can’t poke a lot of holes in, and that hasn’t been the case in the past.”

    Cortese said he started life as an orchard farmer in what is now Silicon Valley, knows what major public infrastructure investments can mean for rural communities such as those in the Central Valley, and will be hyperfocused on that message moving forward.

    “There is no part of California that I know of that’s been waiting for more economic development than Bakersfield. Probably second is Fresno,” he said.

    He said he also will be stressing to local skeptics of the project that supporting the Trump administration taking $4 billion away from California would be a silly thing to do no matter their politics. Conservative local officials who understand that will be “key to help us turn the tide,” he said.

    Last month, California’s high-speed rail authority sued the Trump administration over the withdrawal of funds. The state is also suing the Trump administration over various changes to Medicaid, over Trump’s tariffs and over immigration enforcement tactics.

    Mora said the sharp divide among Democrats and Republicans on Trump and his agenda called to mind other recent polling that showed many voters immediately changed their views of the economy after Trump took office — with Republicans suddenly feeling more optimistic, and Democrats more pessimistic.

    It’s all a reflection of our modern, hyperpartisan politics, she said, where people’s perceptions — including about their own economic well-being — are “tied now much more closely to ideas about who’s in power.”

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    Kevin Rector

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  • California voters undecided in 2026 governor’s race, but prefer Newsom over Harris for president in 2028

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    Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to forgo a run for California governor has created a wide-open race in next year’s election to run the nation’s most populous state, according to a poll released Tuesday by UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times.

    Nearly 4 in 10 registered voters surveyed said they are uncertain about whom they will support in the 2026 contest to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    “It’s very unsettled. Most of the voters, the plurality in this poll, are undecided,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, which was conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times. “They don’t really know much about the candidates.”

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    Among those who had a preference, former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine had a small edge as the top choice, with the backing of 17%. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, was the only other candidate who received double-digit support, winning the backing of 10% of respondents.

    DiCamillo said Porter’s unsuccessful 2024 U.S. Senate campaign boosted her recognition among California voters, but cautioned that she had a small, early lead more than nine months before the June 2 primary. Bianco’s support was driven by voters focused on crime and public safety, taxes and the budget deficit, perennial concerns among GOP voters, according to the survey.

    Other top candidates for governor — former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former state legislative leader Toni Atkins, current California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former state Controller Betty Yee, wealthy businessman Stephen Cloobeck and conservative commentator Steve Hilton — received single-digit support as voters’ first choice in the poll. A few potential candidates also had single-digit support, including billionaire Los Angeles businessman Rick Caruso, former Trump administration official Ric Grenell and former GOP state Sen. Brian Dahle.

    The survey is among the first independent public polls since Harris announced in late July that she would not run for governor in 2026, dramatically reshuffling the calculus in a crowded race that the former vice president was widely expected to dominate if she mounted a campaign. The poll also took place after Lt. Gov Eleni Kounalakis dropped out of the contest this month to run for state treasurer instead.

    “It’s pretty wide-open,” DiCamillo said. “And when you look at the second-choice preference, first and second together, it’s bunched together.”

    When voters were asked to rank their top two choices, Porter received 22% as the first or second choice, Becerra got 18%, Bianco notched 15% and Hilton won 12%, according to the poll.

    None of the politicians running are well known by Californians compared with the state’s last three governors: Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco and lieutenant governor, who during his two terms as governor has positioned himself as a foil to President Trump ; former two-term Gov. Jerry Brown, who along with his father left an indelible imprimatur on California’s history; and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a global celebrity who returned to the Hollywood limelight after he left office, along with launching efforts to fight climate change and support independent redistricting nationwide.

    A pressing question is whether anyone else enters the race, notably Caruso, who has the ability to self-fund a campaign. The deadline to file to run for the seat is March 6.

    Whoever is elected as California’s next governor will face the difficult task of contending with a hostile Trump administration and an electorate looking to the state’s next leader to address its most pressing concerns.

    Economic issues are top of mind among all registered voters, with 36% saying the cost of living is their greatest concern and 25% focusing on the affordability of housing, according to the poll. But there were sharp partisan disparities about other issues. Democrats were more concerned about the state of democracy, climate change and healthcare, while Republicans prioritized crime, taxes and immigration.

    Two of California’s most prominent Democrats, Newsom and Harris, are longtime friends grounded in their Bay Area roots and both viewed as potential 2028 presidential candidates.

    As a potential White House hopeful, Newsom has an edge over Harris among Californians overall as well as the state’s Democrats, according to the poll.

    Roughly 45% of the state’s registered voters said they were very or somewhat enthusiastic about Newsom running, compared with 36% who expressed a similar sentiment about Harris. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of registered voters and 51% of Democrats said Harris should not run for president again after two unsuccessful White House bids — in the primary in 2020 and in the general election in 2024.

    “She lost, which is always a negative when you’re trying to run again,” DiCamillo said. “It’s interesting that even after Harris bowed out of the governor’s race, most Californians don’t really think she should run for president.”

    While he described Newsom’s support as a “mixed bag” among the state’s registered voters, DiCamillo pointed to his strength among Democrats. Nearly 7 of 10 registered Democratic voters in the state said they are very or somewhat enthusiastic about Newsom running for president, compared with 54% who expressed similar feelings about Harris.

    The poll took place during a tumultuous period as Trump’s far-right policies begin to hit their stride.

    Drastic cuts to healthcare, nutrition, reproductive rights and other federal safety-net programs are expected to disproportionately affect Californians. The Trump administration‘s aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles and across the state and country have caused the nation’s partisan divide to widen, driven by the president’s decision to deploy the military and target all undocumented immigrants, including law-abiding workers. Higher-education institutions across the nation have been targeted by the Trump administration, including UCLA, which is being threatened with a $1-billion fine.

    Californians were surveyed shortly before Democratic state lawmakers, trying to fight the Trump administration’s agenda, voted Thursday to call a special election in November to redraw the state’s congressional districts. The action was taken to counter gerrymandering efforts in Texas and other GOP-led states as both parties fight for control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

    The Berkeley IGS poll surveyed 4,950 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from Aug. 11 to 17. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

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    Seema Mehta

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  • Commentary: Newsom’s redistricting move isn’t pretty. California GOP leaders are uglier

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    King Gavin is at it again!

    That’s the cry coming from Republicans across California as Newsom pushes the state Legislature to approve a November special election like none this state has ever seen. Voters would have the chance to approve a congressional map drawn by Democrats hoping to wipe out GOP-held seats and counter Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Trump-driven redistricting.

    The president “doesn’t play by a different set of rules — he doesn’t believe in the rules,” the governor told a roaring crowd packed with Democratic heavyweights last week at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. “And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done. It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be. … We have got to meet fire with fire.”

    California Republicans are responding to this the way a kid reacts if you take away their Pikachu.

    “An absolutely ridiculous gerrymander!” whined Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents the state’s rural northeast corner, on social media. Under the Democratic plan, his district would swing all the way down to ultra-liberal Marin County.

    The California Republican Party deemed the new maps a “MASTERCLASS IN CORRUPTION” (Trumpian caps in the original). National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Christian Martinez said “Newscum” was giving “a giant middle finger to every Californian.”

    Intelligent minds can disagree on whether countering an extreme political move with an extreme political move is the right thing. The new maps would supersede the ones devised just four years ago by an independent redistricting commission established to keep politics out of the process, which typically occurs once a decade after the latest census.

    Good government types, from the League of Women Voters to Charles Munger Jr. — the billionaire who bankrolled the 2010 proposition that created independent redistricting for California congressional races — have criticized Newsom’s so-called Election Rigging Response Act. So has former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fierce Trump critic who posted a photo of himself on social media working out in a T-shirt that read, “F*** the Politicians / Terminate Gerrymandering.”

    I’m not fully convinced that Newsom’s plan is the MAGA killer he thinks it is. If the economy somehow rebounds next year, Republicans would most likely keep Congress anyway, and Newsom would have upended California politics for nothing.

    I also don’t discount the moderate streak in California voters that pops up from time to time to quash what seem like liberal gimmes, like the failed attempt via ballot measure to repeal affirmative action in 2020 and the passage last year of Proposition 36, which increased penalties for theft and drug crimes. Nearly two-thirds of California voters want to keep redistricting away from the Legislature, according to a POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll released last week.

    If Californians reject Newsom’s plan, that would torpedo his presidential ambitions and leave egg on the face of state Democratic leaders for years, if not a generation.

    For now, though, I’m going to enjoy all the tears that California Republicans are shedding. As they face the prospect of even fewer congressional seats than the paltry nine they now hold, they suddenly care about rescuing American democracy?

    In this image from video, Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa speaks at the U.S. Capitol in 2020.

    (House Television via Associated Press)

    Where were they during Trump’s fusillade of lawsuits and threats against California? When he sent the National Guard and Marines to occupy parts of Los Angeles this summer after protests against his deportation deluge? When his underlings spew hate about the Golden State on Fox News and social media?

    Now they care about political decency? What about when LaMalfa and fellow California GOP House members Ken Calvert and Darrell Issa — whose seats the Newsom maps would also eliminate — voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 victory? When the state Republican Party backed a ridiculous recall against Newsom that cost taxpayers $200 million? Or when the Republican congressional delegation unanimously voted to pass Trump’s Big Bloated Bill, even though it’s expected to gut healthcare and food programs for millions of Californians in red counties? Or even when Trump first pushed Abbott to pursue the very gerrymandering Newsom is now emulating?

    We’re supposed to believe them when they proclaim Newsom is a pompadoured potentate who threatens all Californians, just because he wants to redo congressional maps?

    Pot, meet black hole.

    If these GOPers had even an iota of decency or genuine care for the Golden State, they would back a bill by one of their own that I actually support. Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose seat is also targeted for elimination by the Newsom maps, wants to ban all mid-decade congressional redistricting. He stated via a press release that this would “stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country.”

    That’s an effort that any believer in liberty can and should back. But Kiley’s bill has no co-sponsors so far. And Kevin: Why can’t you say that your man Trump created this fiasco in the first place?

    We live in scary times for our democracy. If you don’t believe it, consider that a bunch of masked Border Patrol agents just happened to show up outside the Japanese American National Museum — situated on a historic site where citizens of Japanese ancestry boarded buses to incarceration camps during World War II — at the same time Newsom was delivering his redistricting remarks. Sector Chief Gregory Bovino was there, migra cameramen documenting his every smirk, including when he told a reporter that his agents were there to make “Los Angeles a safer place, since we won’t have politicians that’ll do that, we do that ourselves.”

    The show of force was so obviously an authoritarian flex that Newsom filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding to know who authorized what and why. Meanwhile, referring to Trump, he described the action on X as “an attempt to advance a playbook from the despots he admires in Russia and North Korea.”

    Newsom is not everyone’s cup of horchata, myself included. Whether you support it or not, watching him rip up the California Constitution’s redistricting section and assuring us it’s OK, because he’s the one doing it, is discomfiting.

    But you know what’s worse? Trump anything. And even worse? The California GOP leaders who have loudly cheered him on, damn the consequences to the state they supposedly love.

    History will castigate their cultish devotion to Trump far worse than any of Newsom’s attempts to counter that scourge.

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    Gustavo Arellano

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  • To counter Texas, California lawmakers take up plan to redraw congressional districts

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    SACRAMENTO — California Democrats on Monday kicked off the process to redraw the state’s congressional districts, an extraordinary action they said was necessary to neutralize efforts by President Trump and Texas Republicans to increase the number of GOP lawmakers in Congress.

    If approved by state lawmakers this week, Californians will vote on the ballot measure, labeled Proposition 50, in a special election in November.

    At a news conference unveiling the legislation, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said they agreed with Gov. Gavin Newsom that California must respond to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the 2026 midterms by working to reduced by half the number of Republicans in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.

    They said doing so is essential to stymieing the president’s far-right agenda.

    “I want to make one thing very clear, I’m not happy to be here. We didn’t choose this fight. We don’t want this fight,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park). “But with our democracy on the line, we cannot run away from this fight, and when the dust settles on election day, we will win.”

    Republicans accused Democrats of trying to subvert the will of the voters, who passed independent redistricting 15 years ago, for their own partisan goals.

    “The citizens seized back control of the power from the politicians in 2010,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), flanked by GOP legislators and signs in the Capitol rotunda that said, “Rigged map” and “Defend fair elections.”

    “Let me be very clear,” DeMaio said. “Gavin Newsom and other politicians have been lying in wait, with emphasis on lying … to seize back control.”

    After Trump urged Texas to redraw its congressional districts to add five new GOP members to Congress, Newsom and California Democrats began calling to temporarily reconfigure the current congressional district boundaries, which were drawn by the voter-approved independent redistricting commission in 2021.

    Other states are also now considering redrawing their congressional districts, escalating the political battle over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional districts are typically reconfigured once every decade after the U.S. census.

    Newsom, other Democratic lawmakers and labor leaders launched a campaign supporting the redrawing of California’s congressional districts on Thursday, and proposed maps were sent to state legislative leaders on Friday.

    The measures that lawmakers will take up this week would:

    • Give Californians the power to amend the state Constitution and approve new maps, drawn by Democrats, that would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections, if any GOP-led states approve their own maps.
    • Provide funding for the November special election.
    • Return the state to a voter-approved independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional districts after the 2030 census.

    Whereas Texas and several other GOP-led states are considering an unusual mid-decade redistricting to keep the Republican Party’s hold on Congress, Ohio is an anomaly. If its congressional districts are not approved on a bipartisan basis, they are valid for only two general elections and can then be redrawn.

    McGuire said California would go forward if Ohio does.

    “The state of Ohio has made it clear that they are wanting to be able to proceed. They’re one of the few states in the United States of America that actually allow for … mid-decade redistricting,” he said. “We firmly believe that they should cool it, pull back, because if they do, so will California.”

    Republicans responded by calling for a federal investigation into the California Democratic redistricting plan, and vowed to file multiple lawsuits in state and federal court, including two this week.

    “We’re going to litigate this every step of the way, but we believe that this will also be rejected at the ballot box, in the court of public opinion,” DeMaio said.

    He also called for a 10-year ban on holding elected office for state legislators who vote in support of calling the special election, although he did not say how he would try to do that.

    McGuire dismissed the criticism and threats of legal action, saying the Republicans were more concerned about political self-preservation than the will of California voters or the rule of law.

    “California Republicans are now clutching their pearls because of self-interest. Not one California Republican spoke up in the Legislature, in the House, when Texas made the decision to be able to eliminate five historically Black and brown congressional districts. Not one,” he said. “What I would say: Spend more time on the problem. The problem is Donald Trump.”

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    Seema Mehta, Laura J. Nelson

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  • Wealthy first-time candidate Cloobeck drops $1.4 million on TV ads in the California governor’s race

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    Wealthy first-time political candidate Stephen J. Cloobeck is spending $1.4 million on television ads starting Tuesday — the first barrage of cable and broadcast messaging that Californians will likely be bombarded with in next year’s governor’s election.

    The ad features images of and commentary about President Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    “Trump is for them,” Cloobeck says in the 30-second ad, as a picture flashes on the screen of Trump, flanked by Epstein, and his long-time accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein sexually abuse girls. “Stephen Cloobeck is for you.”

    The candidate confirmed the size of the ad buy on Monday. Public records of advertising purchases show that Cloobeck bought space in every California market on cable, as well as broadcast television time in Sacramento. He also bought time in New York City and Washington, D.C. — as well as West Palm Beach, the location of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

    A campaign advisor confirmed that the ads would run through Monday and that he was also launching a social-media effort.

    “I will always Fight for California. All Californians deserve the contract to be fulfilled for an affordable livable workable state,” Cloobeck said in a text message. “Watch [the ad] and you will see how a conservative Democrat fights for All Californians.”

    The move comes after former Vice President Kamala Harris opted last week against running for governor, leaving a race without a clear front-runner with a large field that is widely unknown to most California voters.

    The candidates need to raise their name recognition among California’s 22.9 million registered voters, which makes Cloobeck’s early advertising understandable, according to Democratic strategists.

    “It’s unprecedented for regular business. Not for this race,” said Democratic media buyer Sheri Sadler, who is not currently affiliated with a candidate in the contest.

    It’s also not unprecedented for Cloobeck, a Beverly Hills philanthropist and businessman. He announced his gubernatorial run in November with a fusillade of ads and billboards the morning after the 2024 presidential election bearing his slogan, “California, Get a Cloo,” and the California bear.

    While the 63-year-old’s exact net worth is unclear, he made his fortune in real estate and hospitality. He founded Diamond Resorts International, a timeshare and vacation property company, which he sold in 2016. Earlier, he appeared on several episodes of the reality-television show “Undercover Boss,” which sends executives in disguise into low-level jobs at their businesses.

    While Cloobeck has not run for office before, he has long been a prodigious Democratic donor and fundraiser. He also played a critical role in renaming the airport in Las Vegas after the late Sen. Harry Reid, whom he describes as a father figure. The bookshelves at his sprawling Beverly Hills mansion are lined with pictures of himself with Democratic presidents and many other prominent members of the party.

    Cloobeck announced last week that he was contributing $10 million to his campaign, on top of the $3 million he initially seeded it with. His wealth was on vivid display at the California Democratic Party‘s spring convention, where canvassers who said they were paid $25 per hour wore royal blue shirts emblazoned with his name chanted his name. Cloobeck said at the time that his campaign had spent “probably a couple hundred thousand dollars” on the effort.

    Times staff Writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.

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    Seema Mehta

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  • Millions of Californians can claim cash from $27.5 million lawsuit settlement

    Millions of Californians can claim cash from $27.5 million lawsuit settlement

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    Millions of Californians can claim cash from $27.5 million lawsuit settlement

    After a class-action suit brought by 2 Bay Area activists, Thomson Reuters agreed to pay up and make changes to its Clear product


    By Stephen Council | SFGATE

    If you’ve lived in California at some point in the past seven years, you’ve got a shot at a very easy payday — and it’ll probably be enough cash to get a nice meal. Claims for another class-action privacy lawsuit are due Dec. 6.On Oct. 11, a San Francisco judge gave preliminary approval to a settlement that would see Thomson Reuters cough up $27.5 million, mostly to state residents. The deal caps off a legal battle that began in 2020: Two Alameda County activists sued the media giant over its Clear product, accusing the company of compiling millions of people’s personal data and putting it up for sale on the searchable database. “Thomson Reuters sells detailed dossiers on Californians across the state, people who have no idea their personal information is being appropriated, aggregated, and sold over the internet,” a complaint from 2022 said. The company markets its Clear product — not to be confused with the airport security tool — to companies, governments and law enforcement agencies. “Easily locate subjects,” one plan offers; another “displays a list of subjects’ relatives and associates.”In August, Thomson Reuters agreed to the plaintiffs’ settlement, which forced it to create the $27.5 million fund for Californians whose data it put up for sale. The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, also agreed to limit the data it keeps on state residents and to make that data easier to delete. So how do you get your cash? It took this reporter less than a minute to file a claim. The online portal simply requires your name, address and contact information — plus, you must swear you did indeed live in California during the claim period. It offers various payment methods and also has a page allowing Californians to opt out of the settlement’s terms. Californians have until Dec. 6 to file their claims, and a hearing to officially approve the settlement is scheduled for Feb. 13 — payouts won’t arrive before then. Only people whose information was put up for sale on Clear will receive money, per the settlement agreement, but plaintiff lawyer Andre Mura told SFGATE that everyone who meets the California residency requirement will fit that bill.Mura said the size of the payouts will depend on how many people make claims. His team estimates that between 400,000 and 1 million claims will be validated and that payouts will land approximately in the $19-$48 range. He noted that each claimant will receive the same amount.The math works that way because of the attorney’s fees; class counsel, on Friday, asked for $6.88 million plus almost $671,000 in reimbursements. The two lead plaintiffs, Cat Brooks and Rasheed Shabazz, are set to win $5,000 each, pending the judge’s approval.Thomson Reuters, which also owns and operates the Reuters news outlet, did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletterDo you have photos or video of an incident? If so, upload them to KCRA.com/upload. Be sure to include your name and additional details so we can give you proper credit online and on TV.

    SAN FRANCISCO —

    If you’ve lived in California at some point in the past seven years, you’ve got a shot at a very easy payday — and it’ll probably be enough cash to get a nice meal. Claims for another class-action privacy lawsuit are due Dec. 6.

    On Oct. 11, a San Francisco judge gave preliminary approval to a settlement that would see Thomson Reuters cough up $27.5 million, mostly to state residents. The deal caps off a legal battle that began in 2020: Two Alameda County activists sued the media giant over its Clear product, accusing the company of compiling millions of people’s personal data and putting it up for sale on the searchable database.

    “Thomson Reuters sells detailed dossiers on Californians across the state, people who have no idea their personal information is being appropriated, aggregated, and sold over the internet,” a complaint from 2022 said. The company markets its Clear product — not to be confused with the airport security tool — to companies, governments and law enforcement agencies. “Easily locate subjects,” one plan offers; another “displays a list of subjects’ relatives and associates.”

    In August, Thomson Reuters agreed to the plaintiffs’ settlement, which forced it to create the $27.5 million fund for Californians whose data it put up for sale. The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, also agreed to limit the data it keeps on state residents and to make that data easier to delete.

    So how do you get your cash? It took this reporter less than a minute to file a claim. The online portal simply requires your name, address and contact information — plus, you must swear you did indeed live in California during the claim period. It offers various payment methods and also has a page allowing Californians to opt out of the settlement’s terms.

    Californians have until Dec. 6 to file their claims, and a hearing to officially approve the settlement is scheduled for Feb. 13 — payouts won’t arrive before then. Only people whose information was put up for sale on Clear will receive money, per the settlement agreement, but plaintiff lawyer Andre Mura told SFGATE that everyone who meets the California residency requirement will fit that bill.

    Mura said the size of the payouts will depend on how many people make claims. His team estimates that between 400,000 and 1 million claims will be validated and that payouts will land approximately in the $19-$48 range. He noted that each claimant will receive the same amount.

    The math works that way because of the attorney’s fees; class counsel, on Friday, asked for $6.88 million plus almost $671,000 in reimbursements. The two lead plaintiffs, Cat Brooks and Rasheed Shabazz, are set to win $5,000 each, pending the judge’s approval.

    Thomson Reuters, which also owns and operates the Reuters news outlet, did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter

    Do you have photos or video of an incident? If so, upload them to KCRA.com/upload. Be sure to include your name and additional details so we can give you proper credit online and on TV.

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  • Five takeaways from the testy U.S. Senate debate between Schiff and Garvey

    Five takeaways from the testy U.S. Senate debate between Schiff and Garvey

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    The only head-to-head debate in California’s high-stakes U.S. Senate race between Rep. Adam B. Schiff and former Dodger Steve Garvey was dominated Tuesday by contentious exchanges on a host of national political issues — from immigration to the economy, expanding conflict in the Middle East, reproductive healthcare and global warming.

    The sharpest exchanges, however, related to the two candidates’ vastly different stances on former President Trump.

    Schiff, a Burbank Democrat with more than 20 years of experience in the House and a commanding lead in the polls, cast Garvey as an inexperienced Trump backer who would push conservative rather than Californian values in Washington.

    Californians, Schiff quipped, are “not looking for some MAGA mini-me in a baseball uniform.”

    Garvey, a Palm Desert Republican with no political experience but high name recognition from his days as a Major League Baseball star, suggested Schiff was too caught up in party politics and his vendetta against Trump to focus on the issues most important to California voters.

    “How can you think about one man every day and focus on that when you’ve got millions of people in California to take care of?” Garvey said. “I think it’s unconscionable.”

    The debate was testy from the start. When Schiff in his first remarks accused Garvey of turning a blind eye to the worst impulses of Trump — who Schiff said wants to “be a dictator on Day One” — Garvey replied, borrowing a famous Ronald Reagan line used in a 1980 presidential debate, “There you go again.”

    During a separate exchange on immigration, in which Schiff accused Garvey of supporting Trump’s plan for mass deportations, Garvey said, “One of the two of us is honest and straightforward.”

    “I would agree with that,” Schiff shot back.

    The debate offered a final chance for the two candidates to square off in public before voters decide between them in the November election. Californians will be asked to vote twice in the Senate race: First, to choose Schiff or Garvey to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s final term, which ends in early January, and, separately, who should serve a subsequent six-year Senate term.

    Tuesday’s debate was the first since Garvey and Schiff won the two highest totals of votes in a more crowded primary field, in which Schiff bested Democratic rivals Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland. Polls show Schiff with a substantial lead over Garvey.

    Trump loomed over immigration debate

    Moderators of the fast-paced, hour-long debate — hosted by KABC-TV in partnership with Univision and the League of Women Voters — asked Schiff and Garvey multiple questions about immigration and border security.

    Schiff said the country needs to “get control of the border” with more personnel and technology to interdict people and drugs. But it also needs a “comprehensive immigration policy” that treats people humanely and provides relief for farmworkers and undocumented people who arrived in the U.S. as children.

    And he blasted Garvey for backing Trump, saying Trump’s plan is for mass deportations that will devastate the country and immigrant communities.

    “You’re voting for mass deportations when you say you’re for Donald Trump,” Schiff said.

    Garvey said his campaign has focused heavily on Latino communities. He also said border security needs to be greatly enhanced. He said Schiff, alongside President Biden, had created an “existential crisis” by backing an “open border.”

    “What we have to do is secure the border. We have to finish off the wall. We have to reinstate ‘remain in Mexico,’” Garvey said. “We have to reinforce our border patrol. We have to get back to building facilities at the border that will detain these illegal immigrants, then a judicial system that will will try them.”

    A record number of people have been stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden-Harris administration, and Republicans across the country — including Garvey — are pushing to make border security a campaign liability for Democrats.

    “A lot of Americans are concerned about immigration,” said Mindy Romero, the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC. “The reason why Republicans are talking about it so much is because it works.”

    While Garvey’s chances of winning the Senate race are low given how deeply blue California voters are overall, Romero said, he is still the highest-ranking Republican on the ballot after Trump — and what Garvey says about immigration could still matter for Republicans.

    “In California, we’re not a monolith and we’re not all in sync on this issue,” Romero said. “What Garvey says and does could help motivate and mobilize Republicans.”

    Garvey struggled to state a clear position on abortion

    The moderators sought, without success, to bring clarity to Garvey’s position on abortion rights.

    He has said that he personally opposes abortion and would not support a federal ban on abortion.

    “I am a Catholic,” Garvey said Tuesday night. “I believe in life at conception. I believe that God breathes a soul into these fetuses. So I am steadfast in terms of my policies on abortion, and also pledge to support all the people of California.”

    But Garvey also pledged to “support the voice of Californians.” He said he supported the amendment enshrining a right to abortion in the state Constitution that two-thirds of Golden State voters supported in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

    If Garvey is “listening to the voices of Californians like he claims, he would hear their voices loud and clear,” Schiff said. “Californians want a national right to reproductive freedom and they don’t want the government in the business of making that decision for women.”

    Schiff has been a longtime vocal advocate for access to abortion services, and said Tuesday that he supports establishing a national right to abortion access.

    A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in early August, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, found that more than half of likely California voters surveyed — 52% — said electing someone who “would be a strong voice in defending abortion rights in the Senate” was very important to them.

    Differences on government’s role on the economy

    The differences in how Schiff and Garvey see the role of government was fully on display when they were pressed on how to address the rising cost of goods and housing.

    “We’re much worse off than we were four years ago,” Garvey said. He said he supported more free-market policies, and knocked Schiff for what he described as “Schiff-flation.”

    Housing is a local issue and more federal regulation could lead to the government being “overinvolved,” Garvey said.

    Asked how he would help renters, he said he’d do so by getting the U.S. economy “roaring again.”

    Schiff said he would support more direct federal spending on housing, and as well as an expansion of Section 8 vouchers, a government subsidy that enables eligible tenants to find housing with private landlords. He also proposed a “renter’s tax credit,” akin to the tax deduction that allows homeowners to write off their mortgage interest payments.

    Garvey said he would support tariffs on imported goods shipped by “a company that threatens the success of an American company.” But, he said, he would prefer to see lower domestic taxes to foster more small businesses and reduce the need to import foreign goods.

    Schiff said he doesn’t support Trump’s “across-the-board tariffs,” which he said would lead to higher prices for consumers. He said he would support “targeted tariffs” when China dumps cheap goods into the country “to try to drive American businesses out of business.”

    Feinstein’s legacy stirs debate

    Throughout the debate, the political specter of the woman whose seat Schiff and Garvey are vying for loomed large.

    Right out of the gate, KABC anchor and moderator Marc Brown brought up Feinstein having authored an assault weapons ban in 1994, and asked Garvey whether he would take any action on guns were he elected.

    “I believe in the Constitution, I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe it will never be overturned, nor should we attempt to overturn that,” Garvey said. “I do have sympathy for all of those who may have been victims of shootings, but I think that the most important thing is a stringent background check that goes much deeper than it is today, in order to to preserve the integrity of the Second Amendment and to be able to provide for people to defend themselves.”

    Schiff said Californians need leaders like Feinstein who are willing to “stand up to” the National Rifle Assn.

    “I would support an assault weapons ban. I would support extended and universal background checks. I would support a ban on extended ammunition clips and my own bill, which would strip away the NRA’s immunity from liability,” Schiff said. “Mr. Garvey was asked just a couple weeks ago if he would support any gun control measure, and his answer was unequivocal, no, that is not what Californians are looking for. Californians want a leader like Dianne Feinstein, who will stand up to the NRA.”

    Later in the debate, Feinstein came up again, on the issue of environmental regulations — and whether Schiff would ease water restrictions on farmers.

    Schiff said he would not “support eviscerating” regulations, but would do what Sen. Feinstein did, which is “look for those opportunities where we can have a win, both for our farms, our cities and our environment.”

    Garvey said environmentalists in the state need to work with farmers, and that he is a “consensus builder” who can help make that happen. He called water the “platinum issue in California,” and one Schiff doesn’t know how to fix.

    Schiff would later evoke Feinstein’s name on the economy, saying he realizes many in California are struggling financially and that he will work with “community leaders and stakeholders in every part of this Golden State” in “Feinstein’s model.”

    “Mr. Schiff, you’re no Dianne Feinstein,” Garvey said. “I remember when this state was the heartbeat of America, and now it’s just a murmur.”

    Schiff, in response, said Feinstein was a friend of his, and would never “pretend to be the equal” of hers, because she was a “giant.” But he suggested he is far more similar to Feinstein than Garvey.

    “While Mr. Garvey was signing baseballs for the last 37 years, I was seeing presidents of both parties and governors of both parties sign my bills into law,” Schiff said.

    Back to Trump

    After the debate, in small gaggles with reporters, both Schiff and Garvey came back to another politician not in the room: Trump.

    Schiff said it was clear from the debate that Garvey is “for Trump” and his agenda.

    “He’s for states being able to ban abortion. He’s against any form of gun safety legislation. He’s for opening up the oil spigots. These are views right out of Project 2025 and Trump, but they are not in sync in California,” Schiff said.

    Garvey said he felt he had been unfairly tied to Trump.

    “People know that we’re two entirely different people,” he said.

    He said Schiff’s attempt to “paint me far-right” wouldn’t stand up, because “people know I’m conservatively moderate.”

    Garvey declined to say whether he would vote for Trump in November, but confirmed that he voted for Trump for a third time in this year’s primary.

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    Kevin Rector, Laura J. Nelson

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  • Undocumented immigrants should soon be able to get state cell service subsidy

    Undocumented immigrants should soon be able to get state cell service subsidy

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    Even Californians without Social Security numbers should soon have access to a state subsidy that will make cellphone service more affordable.

    The California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposed decision last week that the California Universal LifeLine Telephone Service Program, known as California Lifeline, be offered to Californians without a Social Security number.

    The commission needs to formally vote on the matter, with its first opportunity at its Aug. 22 meeting.

    The move comes 10 years after the CPUC decided to stop requesting Social Security information from applicants — but then never did. The issue was first reported by CalMatters.

    The commission is in charge of California Lifeline. The service offers qualifying participants discounts of up to $19 monthly on cellphone service, up to $39 off a service connection and eliminates a range of local, state and federal fees.

    There is also a federal Lifeline program, but its discounts are less, including up to $9.25 off monthly service. Both are concurrently available to customers, according to the commission, but the federal program continues to require a Social Security number.

    Chinese national Zhang Hao uses his phone at Iris Avenue Station in San Diego, where he and other asylum seekers were dropped off by Border Patrol agents.

    (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

    The service consists of unlimited talk and texts, and varying amounts of data.

    Users in certain government programs may be eligible for the discounts. Anyone already enrolled in a public assistance program, such as Medicaid and Medi-Cal, Section 8 housing, CalFresh or the Women, Infants and Children Program, also known as WIC, qualifies under program-based assistance.

    Applicants can also qualify based on income. For instance, a family of four would qualify with a total annual gross income of $48,400 or less.

    It’s unknown how many people the commission’s latest move will affect. About 1.4 million Californians use the service, according to the commission, with program enrollment up 31.1% since June 2023.

    Pew Research estimated there were 1.8 million unauthorized immigrants in California in 2021.

    Participants are enrolled with a private phone provider. This is generally done by third-party vendors, often “street teams,” who solicit in front of public buildings — such as social service benefits offices — or near supermarkets.

    The service is funded by surcharges applied to California cellphone users.

    The Public Utility Commission’s ruling isn’t new, however.

    The group decided to drop Social Security numbers on applications in 2014, arguing that such an ask was a barrier to usage for some. At the time, the move was opposed by Cox Communications and other telecommunications companies that were concerned with fraud.

    In place of Social Security numbers, the commission asked for government-issued identification.

    The Public Utility Commission’s decision came two years after the Federal Communications Commission revised the federal Lifeline program to require applicants to provide the last four digits of a Social Security number on applications.

    The state Public Utility Commission previously told CalMatters in February that it had already “implemented its 2014 decision.” Yet, California Lifeline applications still asked for Social Security information.

    The nonprofit Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles put this issue back in front of the commission with a letter on Aug. 30, 2023, requesting immediate implementation of the 2014 ruling, according to commission documentation.

    Once the decision is formally approved, Social Security number requests are expected to be removed from the LifeLine application within three months, according to the commission.

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    Andrew J. Campa

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  • Opinion: Despite noble intentions, California’s environmental law is hurting Latinos

    Opinion: Despite noble intentions, California’s environmental law is hurting Latinos

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    Latinos in California face significant disparities in income, homeownership and education compared with their counterparts in other states with substantial Latino populations such as Texas and Florida.

    Our state’s housing crisis is a big part of the explanation, and one cause of the crisis is the perversion of a well-intentioned 1970 law, the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. It has evolved into the most potent legal tactic to stifle housing development, contributing to high costs and limited affordability. Even when a proposed development can overcome the legal barriers, the homes finally approved are unaffordable to working families because a complex web of regulatory environmental mandates and fees add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each new home or apartment.

    This is an obstacle to upward mobility for all Californians, especially young people — which in this state means especially Latinos, who are 40% of the population and make up more than half of residents under 18. CEQA needs to be reformed to put the American dream back within reach for young Californians.

    The value of homeownership is profound, providing both housing and the long-term stability of being part of a neighborhood and school community, not to mention generational wealth and a nest egg. However, California is a hard place to achieve that dream. In 2022, only 46% of Latino households here owned their homes, compared with 51% nationwide. Rates were 59% in Texas, 55% in Florida and more than 70% in New Mexico.

    With median California home prices soaring past $900,000 in April, California’s housing policy choices have made homeownership a distant dream for most younger residents and for most hard-working Latino families, many of whom do not inherit wealth from their parents’ home equity and who are not on a path to pass along appreciated home equity to their children.

    CEQA, intended as a progressive environmental policy, now clearly undermines the economic potential of California’s Latino population. This process began in the 1970s, when a largely white, upper-class environmentalist movement emerged as a dominant political force. CEQA was enacted to minimize environmental harm from public works projects such infrastructure, but a 1972 court ruling expanded it to cover home building. After thousands of subsequent CEQA lawsuits, it now even applies to home remodeling.

    This law has strayed far from its intended purpose and needs to be reined in. Virtually anyone — even those with no direct interest in the project or the environment — can sue to block housing for any reason. Cases can be filed anonymously. Sometimes one real estate company even sues to block another’s project for competitive reasons.

    The state government’s Little Hoover Commission has urged the Legislature to exempt all infill housing from CEQA, which would allow more homes to be built on underutilized lots in areas that already have many homes. The commission also called for an end to anonymous CEQA lawsuits, a ban on lawsuits filed for non-environmental reasons, and the clarification and expedition of the CEQA process.

    Although California’s Legislature has enacted almost 200 laws since 2017 intended to boost housing supplies and reduce bureaucratic costs and delays, lawmakers have not reined in CEQA abuse. They also never authorized most of CEQA’s judicial mission creep. In its current interpretation, the law has come to be biased against changes to private views, against temporary construction noise during daytime hours and against common urban species such as seagulls and robins. Housing policies designed to overcome these CEQA obstacles, such as prioritizing infill high-density housing near transit, are economically infeasible in almost all of California while more affordable homes, in areas where Latino homeownership is actually increasing, continue to be pummeled by anti-development advocates.

    The upside-down mindset of current environmental policy ends up being anti-people and anti-environment. The California Air Resources Board, whose policies are enforced via CEQA, counts jobs and people who move out of a city or county as “greenhouse gas emission reductions” — even when these jobs and people relocate to states and even countries with far more lax environmental standards. California’s lost jobs and population would most likely increase global greenhouse gas emissions. So much for California’s climate change “leadership.”

    Agencies and advocates promoting this “de-growth” agenda through CEQA share the “no growth” dogma of the environmentalists of the 1970s, which then and now really means “no growth of ‘those people.’” The intention is racist, and the effect is racist. The housing crisis hits Black and Latino Californians hardest, as even CARB and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office now expressly acknowledge.

    California cannot address its housing and homelessness crisis without building millions of new homes that are actually affordable to California’s working families — and doing so much faster, without the counterproductive legal barriers that add delays and costs.

    CEQA reform is key to this. A good start would be an immediate moratorium on CEQA lawsuits based on any theory not expressly authorized by a statute or regulation. The governor simply needs to direct agencies, and urge the courts, to follow the law and reject those claims.

    Today’s far more diverse Legislature ought to be able to do more as well, serving all Californians better than the sea of white male leaders and judges who have for so long been captured by NIMBY environmentalists.

    It’s time we admit the failures of CEQA’s expansion and start making the policy changes needed to restore the American dream of homeownership for a younger, more diverse California.

    Soledad Ursúa is an elected board member of the Venice Neighborhood Council. Jennifer Hernandez is a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight. Ursúa is the lead author of, and Hernandez is a contributor to, the recent report “El Futuro es Latino.”

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    Jennifer Hernandez and Soledad Ursúa

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  • Californians won’t pay more than one month’s rent for security deposits under new law

    Californians won’t pay more than one month’s rent for security deposits under new law

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    The days of needing to save two to three months’ worth of rent for a security deposit are largely over in California.

    Legislation took effect Monday that limits a security deposit on a rental property to no more than one month’s rent for all but the smallest landlords. The law, passed as Assembly Bill 12, was authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco).

    “Massive security deposits can create insurmountable barriers to housing affordability and accessibility for millions of Californians,” said Haney, who chairs the California Legislature’s Renters Caucus, in a statement.

    Previously, owners could charge two months of rent for unfurnished property and three months for furnished.

    The median rent in Los Angeles is $2,795, according to Zillow, an online real estate marketplace.

    An exception in the bill was carved out for landlords who own two or fewer properties that collectively have no more than four rental units.

    The bill was written in December 2022, passed by the Assembly and Senate last fall and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October.

    Along the way, it earned support from the Los Angeles County Board of Trustees.

    Supervisor Lindsey Horvath noted in May 2023 that she was unable to move into a rental a couple of years earlier because she was asked to pay “nearly a half a year’s rent upfront.”

    “As someone with a well-paying job, making more than the median income of the county, it was difficult for me to rent a new apartment because of the substantial deposits that were required,” she said.

    But the legislation raises concerns among some in the real estate industry.

    Sharon Oh-Kubisch, a partner at Irvine-based Kahana Feld, which practices real estate law, noted two potential drawbacks to the legislation.

    While she supports the bill’s aim of alleviating high costs of renting, financial burdens are being flipped to landlords, she said.

    She noted that security deposits are intended to cover damages when a tenant moves out. Lower deposits mean landlords are more likely to have to sue clients who cause considerable damage.

    “A landlord can demand damages at the back end, but then they’re more than likely going to have to sue and hire counsel to get that money,” Oh-Kubisch said.

    Additionally, she said that reducing security deposits may work against tenants who have less than perfect credit or lack a strong history of renting.

    Higher security deposits allowed landlords to be more flexible, Oh-Kubisch said. With those “safeguards” gone, she expects landlords to be “more precise and heighten scrutiny for tenants.”

    Still, others say the legislation will benefit those who have the most trouble finding housing.

    Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said in a statement that the law will help vulnerable communities.

    “In California’s high-cost rental market, expensive security deposits are often imposed on immigrants and people of color, effectively limiting access to safe and affordable housing,” he said. “By capping high security deposits, AB-12 advances a measure of equity.”

    Catherine A. Rodman, director and supervising attorney of San Diego-based Affordable Housing Advocates, a tenants rights legal group, said the news received mixed reviews among her mainly working-class clients.

    “I know that it’s been a big relief to many throughout the state, but at least here in the San Diego area, it’s not a big issue,” Rodman said.

    Zillow lists the median rent in San Diego at $3,095.

    She said “soaring rents” have already led most area landlords to require no more than one month’s rent as a security deposit.

    “I’ve been here for 40 years, and I’ve only encountered security deposit gouging on a few occasions,” Rodman said. “Our issue is rent.”

    Rodman said she didn’t want to “pooh-pooh” the legislation but hoped it was part of a broader vision to make housing affordable for larger swaths of the state.

    “I’m sure it helps, but we need to address the cost to rent, because that’s really the big roadblock,” she said.

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    Andrew J. Campa

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