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  • DACA was once a lifeline for undocumented youth. It’s leaving the next generation behind

    Alex immigrated to the U.S. as a toddler and has long felt haunted by his undocumented status.

    In 2017, when he turned 15, he was finally old enough to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only for it to slip from his grasp right before he started the paperwork, when it was rescinded by the Trump administration.

    Then, in 2020, Alex was set to graduate at the top of his class and had racked up a slew of college acceptances, including a full ride to Harvard University. He ultimately declined because of his status, worried about travel restrictions. Instead, he enrolled in a nearby University of California campus.

    “It was almost like the system was taunting me,” said Alex, who is now a Cal State University graduate student and chose to use his middle name for fear of being targeted by immigration authorities. “No matter how you excel, the system always comes back to haunt you, to remind you that you did all of that, and yet you really don’t have a choice.”

    A promise of work authorization and deportation protection pulled a generation of undocumented youth out of the shadows when DACA first went into effect in 2012. Yet, hundreds of thousands of today’s students like Alex are largely left out because of the ongoing legal battle that has largely frozen applications since 2017.

    These students’ lives are further upended by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy this year. DACA recipients and international students have been targeted, which has cast a cloud over higher education attainment for undocumented youth with even less protections.

    Gaby Pacheco, who was undocumented while in high school and helped spearhead organizing efforts that led to DACA in the 2000s, said the current undocumented youth are “experiencing the same kind of heartbreaks” and limitations that her generation did.

    “It is keeping people chained and, in a sense, locking up their potential and their dreams,” said Pacheco, who serves as president and chief executive of TheDream.US, a scholarship program. Among the most prominent barriers are being barred from federal aid, certain scholarships and work opportunities, she said.

    Many of these concerns aren’t new, but “they feel so much bigger and closer than they ever have before” because of the hostile immigration strategy and rhetoric, said Corinne Kentor, a senior manager of research and policy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

    Undocumented youth have long been at the center of the country’s immigration debate. What has resulted is a web of shaky piecemeal legislation determining their status, which is being challenged nationwide.

    DACA survived President Trump’s 2017 legal challenge when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that his administration didn’t take the proper steps to end the program.

    This year, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would uphold DACA nationwide but remove work authorization for recipients residing in Texas. Protections would stay the same in all other states, and applications could potentially reopen. The ruling is pending a decision by a judge in the lower courts on how its implementation will work.

    Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), reintroduced the Dream Act in early December, the most recent attempt of many over the last two decades to provide young immigrants a path to citizenship.

    The current Trump administration is attempting to further close the door by suing California in November, alleging that the state’s decades-long offering of in-state tuition to undocumented students is unlawful. The action follows similar legal steps taken by the federal government to end tuition equity laws in states across the country.

    “I feel like my family and I have been tossed into a video game,” Alex said. “Like the console gets turned on every morning, you know, and it’s a challenge and it’s a game and I’ve got to survive.”

    Who are today’s undocumented students?

    There hasn’t yet been a noticeable decline in the 80,000 undocumented students enrolled in the state.

    Undocumented students can apply for state financial aid through the California Dream Act, but applications have dropped by 15% this academic year, with just over 32,000 applications submitted. Applications have steadily declined since 2018.

    Advocates warn that this drop is a result of DACA’s legal challenges and young people being increasingly nervous about sharing their personal information with government-run programs.

    More than half a million undocumented people are enrolled in higher education, but less than 30% of them qualify for DACA, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Most current high school students were born after 2007 and are automatically aged out of the program.

    The average age of the more than 500,000 active DACA recipients is 31, with nearly 90% being older than 26. The population has also shrunk, down from its peak of more than 700,000 recipients, with some adjusting their status through marriage or children, said Javier Carbajal-Ramos, a coordinator for the Dream Resource Center at Los Angeles Valley College.

    “We call them the original undocumented students,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They’re people that really had an opportunity and they most likely took it. But then, the system changed.”

    Alex, who was brought to the country by his mother from El Salvador in the early 2000s, couldn’t qualify for DACA because he was five years shy of the minimum age to apply.

    “I grew up feeling silenced, and then there was this period of time where I felt like I could speak and I could take back my voice. … Now, I feel like I’ve been shut up,” Alex said. “My story is being determined by everybody else except myself. My past, my present and my future are all being negotiated by people who legitimately don’t see humanity in me.”

    Higher education is a gamble

    Attending college is a risk for undocumented students. Many opt to go straight into the workforce instead, a choice that Alex said “is pretty clear for most” of his peers.

    Those who do take that gamble are often committed to the importance of education, said Iliana Perez, a former DACA recipient and the executive director of Immigrants Rising. Many immigrant families, like Alex’s, are initially drawn to the U.S. with aspirations for education access and social mobility.

    “My mom’s biggest mistake has always been thinking that there were going to be people on this side of the border who believed in her child just as much as she does,” Alex said. “They’ve done all that they can to continue to believe for me and for themselves that something has to work.”

    School has always felt like a “veil of protection” for Alex. A fear of entering the workforce was one factor that motivated him to continue in academia.

    Often, an education can also afford students more leverage in legal battles and allow them to pursue work opportunities abroad or paths such as self-employment and entrepreneurship, Perez said.

    Many schools now offer support services and fellowships that can provide financial compensation in the form of stipends, largely due to the organizing efforts of previous generations of undocumented students, Carbajal-Ramos said.

    One undocumented college senior worked at a summer program for her Cal State University campus after her first year because it was paid through a stipend. A yearlong academic position was also available but paid an hourly wage, meaning she was not eligible.

    The department leaders, however, were committed to offering her the position and paid her through a scholarship instead, she said, which allowed her to generate income while in school.

    “It wasn’t something that I asked for. They did it themselves. For that, I’m really, really grateful,” said the senior, who requested The Times not use her name because she doesn’t have legal status. “It was surprising seeing a group of people that really wanted to help me out.”

    Colleges and universities across the country also have established dream resource centers, which provide services, grants and support to immigrant students. There are 161 centers at campuses across the state, including nearly all community colleges and every Cal State and UC campus; 14 private universities also have dream centers in California.

    Carbajal-Ramos, who is the regional representative for centers across the Los Angeles area, said it’s important to meet students where they are and not shy away from the precarious realities they live in. He serves at least 1,000 undocumented students in his role as a coordinator at Los Angeles Valley College.

    “When somebody really tells you that you can’t, you either give up or you fight, right? And we came here because of the fight,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They have the ganas. They have the drive. It’s my responsibility to keep it that way.”

    Alex, who is now only months away from finishing his master’s degree, is hoping to enroll in a PhD program next fall. The applications often require he plan out what the next five years of his academic journey could look like, a task that has proved exceptionally difficult.

    “I really can’t think about my life for the next five years,” he said. “I can’t even think about my life tonight. The drive home scares me. Coming to campus scares me. Walking from my car terrifies me. I live my life between breaths.”

    Itzel Luna

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  • Both sides say democracy is at stake with Prop. 50 — but for very different reasons

    If the ads are any indication, Proposition 50 offers Californians a stark choice: “Stick it to Trump” or “throw away the constitution” in a Democratic power grab.

    And like so many things in 2025, Trump appears to be the galvanizing issue.

    Even by the incendiary campaigns California is used to, Proposition 50 has been notable for its sharp attacks to cut through the dense, esoteric issue of congressional redistricting. It comes down to a basic fact: this is a Democratic-led measure to reconfigure California’s congressional districts to help their party win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 and stifle President Trump’s attempts to keep Republicans in power through similar means in other states.

    Thus far, the anti-Trump message preached by Proposition 50 advocates, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democrats, appears to be the most effective.

    Supporters of the proposal have vastly outraised their rivals and Proposition 50, one of the most expensive ballot measure campaigns in state history, leads in the polls.

    “Whenever you can take an issue and personalize it, you have the advantage. In this case, proponents of 50 can make it all about stopping Donald Trump,” said former legislative leader and state GOP Chair Jim Brulte.

    Adding to the drama is the role of two political and cultural icons who have emerged as leaders of each side: former President Obama in favor and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger against, both arguing the very essence of democracy is at stake.

    Schwarzenegger and the two main committees opposing Proposition 50 have focused on the ethical and moral imperative of preserving the independent redistricting commission. Californians in 2010 voted to create the panel to draw the state’s congressional district boundaries after every census in an effort to provide fair representation to all state residents.

    That’s not a political ideal easily explained in a 30-section television ad, or an Instagram post.

    Redistricting is a “complex issue,” Brulte said, but he noted that “the no side has the burden of trying to explain what the initiative really does and the yes side gets to use the crib notes [that] this is about stopping Trump — a much easier path.”

    Partisans on both sides of the aisle agree.

    “The yes side quickly leveraged anti-Trump messaging and has been closing with direct base appeals to lock in the lead,” said Jamie Fisfis, a political strategist who has worked on many GOP congressional campaigns in California. “The partisanship and high awareness behind the measure meant it was unlikely to sag under the weight of negative advertising like other initiatives often do. It’s been a turnout game.”

    Obama, in ads that aired during the World Series and NFL games, warned that “Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4” as he urged voters to support Proposition 50. Ads for the most well-funded committee opposing the proposition featured Schwarzenegger saying that opposing the ballot measure was critical to ensuring that citizens are not overrun by elected officials.

    “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people,’” Schwarzenegger told USC students in mid-September — a speech excerpted in an anti-Proposition 50 ad. “Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

    California’s Democratic-led Legislature voted in August to put the redistricting proposal that would likely boost their ranks in Congress on the November ballot. The measure, pushed by Newsom, was an effort to counter Trump’s efforts to increase the number of GOP members in the House from Texas and other GOP-led states.

    The GOP holds a narrow edge in the House, and next year’s election will determine which party controls the body during Trump’s final two years in office — and whether he can further his agenda or is the focus of investigations and possible impeachment.

    Noticeably absent for California’s Proposition 50 fight is the person who triggered it — Trump.

    The proposition’s opponents’ decision not to highlight Trump is unsurprising given the president’s deep unpopularity among Californians. More than two-thirds of the state’s likely voters did not approve of his handling of the presidency in late October, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.

    Trump did, however, urge California voter not to cast mail-in ballots or vote early, falsely arguing in a social media post that both voting methods were “dishonest.”

    Some California GOP leaders feared that Trump’s pronouncement would suppress the Republican vote.

    In recent days, the California Republican Party sent mailers to registered Republicans shaming them for not voting. “Your neighbors are watching,” the mailer says, featuring a picture of a woman peering through binoculars. “Don’t let your neighbors down. They’ll find out!”

    Tuesday’s election will cost state taxpayers nearly $300 million. And it’s unclear if the result will make a difference in control of the House because of multiple redistricting efforts in other states.

    But some Democrats are torn about the amount of money being spent on an effort that may not alter the partisan makeup of Congress.

    Johanna Moska, who worked in the Obama administration, described Proposition 50 as “frustrating.”

    “I just wish we were spending money to rectify the state’s problems, if we figured out a way the state could be affordable for people,” she said. “Gavin’s found what’s working for Gavin. And that’s resistance to Trump.”

    Newsom’s efforts opposing Trump are viewed as a foundational argument if he runs for president in 2028, which he has acknowledged pondering.

    Proposition 50 also became a platform for other politicians potentially eyeing a 2026 run for California governor, Sen. Alex Padilla and billionaires Rick Caruso and Tom Steyer.

    The field is in flux, with no clear front-runner.

    Padilla being thrown to the ground in Los Angeles as he tried to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the Trump administration’s immigration policies is prominently featured in television ads promoting Proposition 50. Steyer, a longtime Democratic donor who briefly ran for president in 2020, raised eyebrows by being the only speaker in his second television ad. Caruso, who unsuccessfully ran against Karen Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral race and is reportedly considering another political campaign, recently sent voters glossy mailers supporting Proposition 50.

    Steyer committed $12 million to support Proposition 50. His initial ad, which shows a Trump impersonator growing increasingly irate as news reports showing the ballot measure passing, first aired during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Steyer’s second ad fully focused on him, raising speculation about a potential gubernatorial run next year.

    Ads opposing the proposition aired less frequently before disappearing from television altogether in recent days.

    “The yes side had the advantage of casting the question for voters as a referendum on Trump,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who worked for Schwarzenegger but is not involved with any of the Proposition 50 campaigns. “Asking people to rally to the polls to save a government commission — it’s not a rallying call.”

    Seema Mehta

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  • As Californians decide fate of Prop. 50, GOP states push their own redistricting plans

    WASHINGTON — The hurried push to revise California’s congressional districts has drawn national attention, large sums of money, and renewed hope among Democrats that the effort may help counter a wave of Republican redistricting initiatives instigated by President Trump.

    But if Democrats succeed in California, the question remains: Will it be enough to shift the balance of power in Congress?

    To regain control of the House, Democrats need to flip three Republican seats in the midterm elections next year. That slim margin prompted the White House to push Republicans this summer to redraw maps in GOP states in an effort to keep Democrats in the minority.

    Texas was the first to signal it would follow Trump’s edict and set off a rare mid-decade redistricting arms race that quickly roped in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom devised Proposition 50 to tap into his state’s massive inventory of congressional seats.

    Californians appear poised to approve the measure Tuesday. If they do, Democrats potentially could gain five seats in the House — an outcome that mainly would offset the Republican effort in Texas that already passed.

    While Democrats and Republicans in other states also have moved to redraw their maps, it is too soon to say which party will see a net gain, or predict voter sentiment a year from now, when a lopsided election in either direction could render the remapping irrelevant.

    GOP leaders in North Carolina and Missouri approved new maps that likely will yield one new GOP seat in each, Ohio Republicans could pick up two more seats in a newly redrawn map approved Friday, and GOP leaders in Indiana, Louisiana, Kansas and Florida are considering or taking steps to redraw their maps. In all, those moves could lead to at least 10 new Republican seats, according to experts tracking the redistricting efforts.

    To counter that, Democrats in Virginia passed a constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would give lawmakers the power and option to redraw a new map ahead of next year’s election. Illinois leaders are weighing their redistricting options and New York has filed a lawsuit that seeks to redraw a GOP-held district. But concerns over legal challenges already tanked the party’s efforts in Maryland and the potential dilution of the Black vote has slowed moves in Illinois.

    So far, the partisan maneuvers appear to favor Republicans.

    “Democrats cannot gerrymander their way out of their gerrymandering problem. The math simply doesn’t add up,” said David Daly, a senior fellow at the nonprofit FairVote. “They don’t have enough opportunities or enough targets.”

    Complex factors for Democrats

    Democrats have more than just political calculus to weigh. In many states they are hampered by a mix of constitutional restrictions, legal deadlines and the reality that many of their state maps no longer can be easily redrawn for partisan gain. In California, Prop. 50 marks a departure from the state’s commitment to independent redistricting.

    The hesitancy from Democrats in states such as Maryland and Illinois also underscores the tensions brewing within the party as it tries to maximize its partisan advantage and establish a House majority that could thwart Trump in his last two years in office.

    “Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high, the timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined,” Bill Ferguson, the Maryland Senate president, wrote in a letter to state lawmakers last week.

    In Illinois, Black Democrats are raising concerns over the plans and pledging to oppose maps that would reduce the share of Black voters in congressional districts where they have historically prevailed.

    “I can’t just think about this as a short-term fight. I have to think about the long-term consequences of doing such a thing,” said state Sen. Willie Preston, chair of the Illinois Senate Black Caucus.

    Adding to those concerns is the possibility that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority could weaken a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act and limit lawmakers’ ability to consider race when redrawing maps. The outcome — and its effect on the 2026 midterms — will depend heavily on the timing and scope of the court’s decision.

    The court has been asked to rule on the case by January, but a decision may come later. Timing is key as many states have filing deadlines for 2026 congressional races or hold their primary election during the spring and summer.

    If the court strikes down the provision, known as Section 2, advocacy groups estimate Republicans could pick up at least a dozen House seats across southern states.

    “I think all of these things are going to contribute to what legislatures decide to do,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice. The looming court ruling, he added, is “an extra layer of uncertainty in an already uncertain moment.”

    Republican-led states press ahead

    Support for Prop. 50 has brought in more than $114 million, the backing of some of the party’s biggest luminaries, including former President Obama, and momentum for national Democrats who want to regain control of Congress after the midterms.

    In an email to supporters Monday, Newsom said fundraising goals had been met and asked proponents of the effort to get involved in other states.

    “I will be asking for you to help others — states like Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and more are all trying to stop Republican mid-decade redistricting efforts. More on that soon,” Newsom wrote.

    Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called a special session set to begin Monday, to “protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair.”

    In Kansas, the GOP president of the state Senate said last week that there were enough signatures from Republicans in the chamber to call a special session to redraw the state’s maps. Republicans in the state House would need to match the effort to move forward.

    In Louisiana, Republicans in control of the Legislature voted last week to delay the state’s 2026 primary elections. The move is meant to give lawmakers more time to redraw maps in the case that the Supreme Court rules in the federal voting case.

    If the justices strike down the practice of drawing districts based on race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has indicated the state likely would jump into the mid-decade redistricting race.

    Shaniqua McClendon, head of Vote Save America, said the GOP’s broad redistricting push underscores why Democrats should follow California’s lead — even if they dislike the tactic.

    “Democrats have to be serious about what’s at stake. I know they don’t like the means, but we have to think about the end,” McClendon said. “We have to be able to take back the House — it’s the only way we’ll be able to hold Trump accountable.”

    In New York, a lawsuit filed last week charging that a congressional district disenfranchises Black and Latino voters would be a “Hail Mary” for Democrats hoping to improve their chances in the 2026 midterms there, said Daly, of FairVote.

    Utah also could give Democrats an outside opportunity to pick up a seat, said Dave Wasserman, a congressional forecaster for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. A court ruling this summer required Utah Republican leaders to redraw the state’s congressional map, resulting in two districts that Democrats potentially could flip.

    Wasserman described the various redistricting efforts as an “arms race … Democrats are using what Republicans have done in Texas as a justification for California, and Republicans are using California as justification for their actions in other states.”

    ‘Political tribalism’

    Some political observers said the outcome of California’s election could inspire still more political maneuvering in other states.

    “I think passage of Proposition 50 in California could show other states that voters might support mid-decade redistricting when necessary, when they are under attack,” said Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School where he directs the New York Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute. “I think it would certainly provide impetus in places like New York to move forward.”

    Similar to California, New York would need to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment, but that could not take place in time for the midterms.

    “It might also embolden Republican states that have been hesitant to redistrict to say, ‘Well if the voters in California support mid-decade redistricting, maybe they’ll support it here too,’” Wice said.

    To Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communications & Public Policy at Northwestern University, the idea that the mid-decade redistricting trend is gaining traction is part of a broader problem.

    “It is a symptom of this 20-year trend in increasing polarization and political tribalism,” he said. “And, unfortunately, our tribalism is now breaking out, not only between each other, but it’s breaking out between states.”

    He argued that both parties are sacrificing democratic norms and the ideas of procedural fairness as well as a representative democracy for political gain.

    “I am worried about what the end result of this will be,” he said.

    Ceballos reported from Washington, Mehta from Los Angeles.

    Ana Ceballos, Seema Mehta

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

    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.

    Kevin Rector

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  • Drought impacts Halloween pumpkins and Christmas trees in Alabama and leaf peeping in other states

    Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. The lack of rain is impacting many crops, which could affect our fall and winter holidays — including pumpkins and Christmas trees.And Alabama isn’t alone, as some states and regions from New England to the Rocky Mountains, which count on tourism dollars from leaf-peeping season, seeing, in some cases, leaves change colors earlier, muted colors, and fewer leaves to peep.According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 40% of the country was considered to be in a drought in early October, the Associated Press reports.That’s more than twice the average, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told the AP.Rippey, an author of the drought monitor — which is a partnership between the federal government and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — told the AP that drought has hit the Northeast and Western U.S. especially hard. Related video below: Colorful foliage started early this year because of drought conditionsAt The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, Alabama, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins come from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.”It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said. So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden, which is around 30 miles from Birmingham. And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford, Alabama, said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.“If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees. Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.“We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said. When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.They’ll have to re-evaluate that next fall. ___The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    HAYDEN, Ala. —

    Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. The lack of rain is impacting many crops, which could affect our fall and winter holidays — including pumpkins and Christmas trees.

    And Alabama isn’t alone, as some states and regions from New England to the Rocky Mountains, which count on tourism dollars from leaf-peeping season, seeing, in some cases, leaves change colors earlier, muted colors, and fewer leaves to peep.

    According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 40% of the country was considered to be in a drought in early October, the Associated Press reports.

    That’s more than twice the average, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told the AP.

    Rippey, an author of the drought monitor — which is a partnership between the federal government and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — told the AP that drought has hit the Northeast and Western U.S. especially hard.

    Related video below: Colorful foliage started early this year because of drought conditions

    At The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, Alabama, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins come from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.

    For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.

    Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”

    The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.

    “It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said.

    So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden, which is around 30 miles from Birmingham.

    And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford, Alabama, said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.

    “If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees.
    Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.

    A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.

    “We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said.

    When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.

    They’ll have to re-evaluate that next fall.

    ___

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Trump says Chicago mayor, Illinois governor should be jailed amid militarized campaign

    WASHINGTON — Chicago is emerging as the latest testing ground for President Trump’s domestic deployment of military force as hundreds of National Guard troops were expected to descend on the city.

    The president said Wednesday that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be jailed for failing to support federal agents, and continued to paint a dark and violent picture of both Chicago and Portland, Ore., where Trump is trying to send federal troops but has so far been stonewalled by the courts.

    “It’s so bad,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday. “It’s so crazy. It’s like the movies … where you have these bombed-out cities and these bombed-out people. It’s worse than that. I don’t think they can make a movie as bad.”

    Pritzker this week characterized Trump’s depiction of Chicago as “deranged” and untrue. Federal agents are making the community “less safe,” the governor said, noting that residents do not want “Donald Trump to occupy their communities” and that people of color are fearful of being profiled during immigration crackdowns.

    Trump has taken issue with Democrats in Illinois and Oregon who are fighting his efforts, and has twice said this week that he is willing to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 if local leaders and the courts try to stop him. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also contended this week that a court ruling blocking Trump’s deployments to Portland amounted to a “legal insurrection” as well as “an insurrection against the laws and Constitution of the United States.”

    In a televised interview Monday, Miller was asked about his remarks and asked whether the administration would abide by court rulings that stop the deployment of troops to Illinois and Portland. Miller responded by saying the president has “plenary authority” before going silent midsentence — a moment that the host said may have been a technical issue.

    “Plenary authority” is a legal term that indicates someone has limitless power.

    The legality of deployments to Portland and Chicago will face scrutiny in two federal courts Thursday.

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear an appeal by the Trump administration in the Portland matter. A Trump-appointed judge, Karin Immergut, found the White House had not only violated the law in activating the Oregon National Guard, but it also had further defied the law by attempting to circumvent her order, sending the California National Guard in its place.

    That three-judge appellate panel consists of two Trump appointees and one Clinton appointee.

    Meanwhile, in Illinois, U.S. District Judge April Perry declined Monday to block the deployment of National Guard members on an emergency basis, allowing a buildup of forces to proceed. She will hear arguments Thursday on the legality of the operation.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of Trump’s top political foes, has joined the fight against the president’s deployment efforts.

    The Trump administration sent 14 members of California’s National Guard to Illinois to train troops from other states, according to court records filed Tuesday. Federal officials have also told California they intend to extend Trump’s federalization of 300 members of the state’s Guard through next year.

    “Trump is going on a cross-country crusade to sow chaos and division,” Newsom said Wednesday. “His actions — and those of his Cabinet — are against our deeply held American values. He needs to stop this illegal charade now.”

    By Wednesday evening, there were few signs of National Guard troops on the streets of Chicago. But troops from other states, including Texas’ National Guard, were waiting on the sidelines at an Army Reserve Center in Illinois as early as Tuesday.

    In anticipation of the deployment, Pritzker warned that if the president’s efforts went unchecked, it would put the United States on a “the path to full-blown authoritarianism.”

    The Democratic governor also said the president’s calls to jail him were “unhinged” and said Trump was a “wannabe dictator.”

    “There is one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump: If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me,” Pritzker said in an interview with MSNBC.

    As tensions grew in Chicago, Trump hosted an event at the White House to address how he intends to crack down on antifa, a nebulous left-wing anti-facist movement that he recently designated as a domestic terrorist organization.

    At the event, the president said many of the people involved in the movement are active in Chicago and Portland — and he once again attacked the local and state leaders in both cities and states.

    “You can say of Portland and you can say certainly of Chicago, it is not lawful what they are doing,” Trump said about the left-wing protests. “They are going to have to be very careful.”

    Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, slammed Trump for saying he should be jailed for his actions.

    “This is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested,” Johnson posted on social media. “I’m not going anywhere.”

    Pritzker continued to attack Trump’s efforts into the evening, accusing the president of “breaching the Constitution and breaking the law.”

    “We need to stand up together and speak up,” the governor said on social media.

    Times staff writer Melody Gutierrez in Sacramento contributed to this report.

    Ana Ceballos, Michael Wilner

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  • Supreme Court sees a free-speech problem with laws that ban ‘conversion therapy’ for minors

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices on Tuesday heard a free-speech challenge to state laws against “conversion therapy” and sounded likely to rule the measures violate the 1st Amendment.

    California and more than 20 other states have adopted laws to forbid licensed counselors from urging or encouraging gay or transgender teens to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

    The laws were adopted in reaction to a history of dangerous and discredited practices, including treatments that induced nausea and vomiting or administered electric shocks.

    Lawmakers and medical experts said such efforts to “cure” LGBTQ+ teens were cruel and ineffective and caused lasting harm. But these “talk therapy” laws have been challenged by a number of Christian counselors who believe they can help young people who want to talk about their feelings and their sexual identity.

    The court on Tuesday heard an appeal from Kaley Chiles, a counselor from Colorado Springs, Colo. She says she is an evangelical Christian, but does not seek to “cure” young people of a same-sex attraction or change their gender identity.

    She sued, alleging the state law seeks to “censor” her conversations and threatens her with punishment.

    She lost before a federal judge and a U.S. appeals court, both of whom said the state has the authority to regulate the practice of medicine and to prevent substandard healthcare.

    But the Supreme Court voted to hear her appeal.

    “This law bans voluntary conversations, censoring widely held views on debated moral, religious and scientific questions,” her attorney James Campbell said in his opening.

    The justices, both conservative and liberal, appeared to agree the Colorado law violated the 1st Amendment guarantee of free speech.

    “What’s being regulated here is pure speech,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

    Moreover, he said, the state law enforces a double standard. It would punish a licensed counselor who agrees to talk to a teenage client who wants to “overcome same-sex attractions,” but not if she encourages the teen to accept or affirm those attractions.

    Justice Elena Kagan said she too saw a potential 1st Amendment violation. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there was less evidence that talk therapy alone has caused real harm.

    She also questioned whether the Colorado counselor had standing because she was not charged with violating the law. But none of the others endorsed that idea.

    In defense of the law, Colorado state solicitor Shannon Stevenson said the law applies only to licensed counselors. It does not extend to others, including religious ministers.

    The practice of medical care “is a heavily regulated area. A doctor doesn’t have a 1st Amendment right to give wrong advice to patients,” she said.

    But most of the justices said the 1st Amendment does not permit the state to punish counselors because their views do not align with the state’s.

    What about the era when “homosexuality was professionally considered to be a mental health disorder?” asked Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Could the state by law have punished a “regulated licensed professional for affirming homosexuality?”

    The state’s attorney agreed that may have been possible based on the standard of care at the time.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett and others suggested counselors could still face a medical malpractice lawsuit, even if the court rules the state law violates the 1st Amendment.

    The Trump administration joined the case on the side of the Colorado counselor and urged the court to rule for her on free-speech grounds.

    In 2012, California was the first state to adopt a ban on conversion therapy for minors. In signing the measure, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. referred to such therapy as “junk science” that led to depression and suicide.

    The measure was challenged on free-speech grounds, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it on the basis that it regulated medical treatment by professionals.

    But the 1st Amendment has been used repeatedly to challenge laws involving LGBTQ+ people.

    Twice in recent years, the Supreme Court has ruled for Colorado business owners who objected to providing service for a same-sex wedding.

    One designed custom wedding cakes, and the other designed websites for weddings. They sued seeking an exemption from the state civil rights law that required businesses to provide equal service to customers without regard to sexual orientation.

    They were represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group that also represents Chiles.

    In June, the court’s conservative majority ruled for Tennessee and upheld red-state laws that prohibit the use of puberty blockers and sex hormones for transgender teens.

    The court’s opinion said it was deferring to the states because there was sharp debate over the proper treatment for young people with gender dysphoria.

    The case heard Tuesday — Chiles vs. Salazar — was the first of two this term involving LGBTQ+ rights. In December, the justices will hear arguments on whether West Virginia may bar transgender school athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams.

    David G. Savage

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  • The White House says California uses a ‘loophole’ to give undocumented immigrants Medicaid. Experts disagree

    Of all the finger-pointing and recriminations that come with the current federal government shutdown, one of the most striking elements is that the Trump administration blames it on Democratic support for granting taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants. The White House has called out California specifically, saying the state exploits a legal “loophole” to pay for that coverage with federal dollars, and other states have followed suit.

    “California utilized an egregious loophole — since employed by several other states — to draw down federal matching funds used to provide Medicaid benefits for illegal immigrants,” the White House said in a policy memo released Wednesday as a budget stalemate forced a shutdown of the U.S. government.

    The administration said that the Working Families Tax Cut Act, which goes into effect in October 2026, closes the loophole by prohibiting the use of taxpayer money to provide healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants and other noncitizens.

    In the memo, the White House accused congressional Democrats of wanting to repeal those policy reforms as a condition to keep the government running.

    Izzy Gardon, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said there’s nothing to the administration’s underlying assertion that California and other states have found some sort of loophole that enables them to funnel Medicaid money to noncitizens.

    “This is false — CA does not do this,” Gardon said in a one-line email to the L.A. Times.

    Healthcare policy experts agree. California is not exploiting a “loophole,” said Adriana Ramos-Yamamoto, a senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that studies inequality.

    “The state is making lawful, transparent budget choices to invest in health coverage with its own dollars,” Ramos-Yamamoto said in a statement to The Times. “These investments improve health outcomes, strengthen communities, and lower health care costs in the long run.”

    At issue is Section 71117 of the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which imposes nearly $1 trillion in reductions to federal Medicaid healthcare spending for low-income Americans over the next 10 years. The provision allows states “to finance the non-federal share of Medicaid spending through multiple sources, including state general funds, healthcare related taxes (or ‘provider taxes’), and local government funds,” as long as taxes on healthcare providers are imposed uniformly so as not to unfairly burden providers of Medicaid services.

    The bottom line, analysts said, is the administration is citing a problem with the law that doesn’t seem to exist, at least not in California.

    “The so-called California loophole references a provision in the law that ends a waiver of the uniformity requirements for provider taxes — this provision has nothing to do with using federal funds to pay for care for undocumented immigrants,” said Jennifer Tolbert, a healthcare expert at the nonprofit healthcare research, polling and news organization KFF.

    “But the White House makes the claim that California uses the money they get from the provider tax to pay for care for undocumented immigrants,” Tolbert said.

    Fact-checking the administration’s claim is all the more difficult because there are no official data on how states spend money collected from provider taxes, Alice Burns, another KFF analyst, added. What’s more, California is among several states that offer some level of Medicaid coverage to all immigrants regardless of status. And because California cannot be federally reimbursed for healthcare spending on people who are not in the country legally, those expenses must be covered at the state level.

    The White House memo goes on to claim that if Democrats were to succeed at repealing the provisions in the Working Families Tax Act, the federal government would have to spend an additional $34.6 billion in taxpayer money “that would continue to primarily be abused by California to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants.”

    This assertion also misconstrues the facts, according to KFF.

    “What we do know is that the $35 billion in savings that is referenced in the White House Fact Sheet refers to the federal government’s estimated savings … resulting from states making changes to their provider tax systems,” KFF spokesperson Tammie Smith said. That is, the projected savings aren’t connected to healthcare for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

    Political squabbling aside, California’s approach to medical coverage for low-income, undocumented immigrants is set to undergo a major shift thanks to provisions in the 2025-26 state budget that the Democrat-led legislature and Newsom approved in June.

    Starting on Jan. 1, adults “who do not have Satisfactory Immigration Status (SIS)” will no longer be able to enroll in Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, according to the state’s Department of Health Care Services webpage. Those who already have this coverage can keep it and continue to renew their enrollment. And starting on July 1, Medi-Cal enrollees who are age 19-59, undocumented and not pregnant will have to pay a $30 monthly premium to keep their coverage.

    The changes, which Newsom called for in the spring to offset a ballooning Medi-Cal budget deficit, drew criticism from some immigrant rights groups, with the California Immigrant Policy Center describing the moves as “discriminatory.”

    “In light of the militarized mass immigration raids and arrests causing fear and chaos across California, we are disappointed that the governor and the leadership in the Legislature chose to adopt a state budget that makes our communities even more vulnerable,” Masih Fouladi, the center’s executive director said at the time.

    Everyone in California who qualifies for Medi-Cal will still be eligible to receive emergency medical and dental care, no matter their immigration status.

    Tyrone Beason

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  • Trump uses repeated funding cuts to pressure California, complicating state’s legal fight

    The federal Office for Victims of Crime announced in the summer that millions of dollars approved for domestic violence survivors and other crime victims would be withheld from states that don’t comply with the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

    California, 19 other states and the District of Columbia sued, alleging that such preconditions are illegal and would undermine public safety.

    The administration then took a different tack, announcing that community organizations that receive such funding from the states — and use it to help people escape violence, access shelter and file for restraining orders against their abusers — generally may not use it to provide services to undocumented immigrants.

    California and other states sued again, arguing that the requirements — which the administration says the states must enforce — are similarly illegal and dangerous. Advocates agreed, saying screening immigrant women out of such programs would be cruel.

    The repeated lawsuits reflect an increasingly familiar pattern in the growing mountain of litigation between the Trump administration, California and other blue states.

    Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has tried to force the states into submission on a host of policy fronts by cutting off federal funding, part of a drive to bypass Congress and vastly expand executive power. Repeatedly when those cuts have been challenged in court, the administration has shifted its approach to go after the same or similar funding from a slightly different angle — prompting more litigation.

    The repeated lawsuits have added complexity and volume to an already monumental legal war between the administration and states such as California, one that began almost immediately after Trump took office and is ongoing, as the administration once again threatens major cuts amid the government shutdown.

    The White House has previously dismissed California’s lawsuits as baseless and defended Trump’s right to enact his policy agenda, including by withholding funds. Asked about its shifting strategies in some of those cases, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration “has won numerous cases regarding spending cuts at the Supreme Court and will continue to cut wasteful spending across the government in a lawful manner.”

    Other administration officials have also defended its legal tactics. During a fight over frozen federal funding earlier this year, for instance, Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media that judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” — sparking concerns about a constitutional crisis.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the pattern is a result of Trump overstating his power to control federal funding and use it as a weapon against his political opponents, but also of his dangerous disregard for the rule of law and the authority of both Congress and federal judges. His office has sued the administration more than 40 times since January, many times over funding.

    “It is not something that you should have to see, that a federal government, a president of the United States, is so contemptuous of the rule of law and is willing to break it and break it again, get told by a court that they’re violating the law, and then have to be told by a court again,” Bonta said.

    And yet, such examples abound, he said. For example, the Justice Department’s repeated attempts to strip California of crime victim funding echoed the Department of Homeland Security’s repeated attempts recently to deny the state disaster relief and anti-terrorism funding, Bonta said.

    Homeland Security officials first told states that such funding would be conditioned on their complying with immigration enforcement efforts. California and other states sued, and a federal judge rejected such preconditions as unconstitutional.

    The administration then notified the states that refused to comply, including California, that they would simply receive less money — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — while states that cooperate with immigration enforcement would receive more.

    California and other Democratic-led states sued again, arguing this week that the shifting of funds was nothing more than the administration circumventing the court’s earlier ruling against the conditioning of funds outright.

    Bonta’s office cited a similar pattern in announcing Thursday that the Trump administration had backed off major cuts to AmeriCorps funding. The win came only after successive rounds of litigation by the state and others, Bonta’s office noted, including an amended complaint accusing the administration of continuing to withhold the funding despite an earlier court order barring it from doing so.

    Bonta said such shifting strategies were the work of a “consistently and brazenly lawless and lawbreaking federal administration,” and that his office was “duty-bound” to fight back and will — as many times as it takes.

    “It can’t be that you take an action, are held accountable, a court finds that you’ve acted unlawfully, and then you just take another unlawful action to try to restrict or withhold that same funding,” he said.

    Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law, said he agreed with Bonta that there is “a pattern of ignoring court orders or trying to circumvent them” on the part of the Trump administration.

    And he provided another example: a case in which he represents University of California faculty and researchers challenging Trump administration cuts to National Science Foundation funding.

    Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought talks to reporters outside the White House on Monday, accompanied by House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President JD Vance.

    (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

    After a judge blocked the administration from terminating that funding, the Trump administration responded by declaring that the funds were “suspended” instead, Chemerinsky said.

    The judge then ruled the administration was violating her order against termination, he said, as “calling them suspensions rather than terminations changed nothing.”

    Mitchel Sollenberger, a political science professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of several books on executive powers, said Trump aggressively flexing those powers was expected. Conservative leaders have been trying to restore executive authority ever since Congress reined in the presidency after Watergate, and Trump took an aggressive approach in his first term, too, Sollenberger said.

    However, what Trump has done this term has nonetheless been stunning, Sollenberger said — the result of a sophisticated and well-planned strategy that has been given a clear runway by a Supreme Court that clearly shares a belief in an empowered executive branch.

    “It’s like watching water run down, and it tries to find cracks,” Sollenberger said. “That’s what the Trump administration is doing. It’s trying to find those cracks where it can widen the gap and exercise more and more executive power.”

    Bonta noted that the administration’s targeting of blue state funding began almost immediately after Trump took office, when the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo asserting that vast sums of federal funding for all sorts of programs were being frozen as the administration assessed whether the spending aligned with Trump’s policy goals.

    California and other states sued to block that move and won, but the administration wasn’t swayed from the strategy, Bonta said — as evidenced by more recent events.

    On Wednesday, as the government shutdown over Congress’ inability to pass a funding measure set in, Russell Vought — head of the Office of Management and Budget and architect of the Trump administration’s purse-string policies — announced on X that $8 billion in funding “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda” was being canceled. He then listed 16 blue states where projects will be cut.

    Vought had broadly outlined his ideas for slashing government in Project 2025, the right-wing playbook for Trump’s second term, which Trump vigorously denied any connection to during his campaign but has since broadly implemented.

    On Thursday, Trump seemed to relish the opportunity, amid the shutdown, to implement more of the plan.

    “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump posted online. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

    Bonta said Wednesday that his office had no plans to get involved in the shutdown, which he said was caused by Trump and “for Trump to figure out.” But he said he was watching the battle closely.

    Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) chalked Vought’s latest cuts up to more illegal targeting of blue states such as California that oppose Trump politically, writing, “Our democracy is badly broken when a president can illegally suspend projects for Blue states in order to punish his political enemies.”

    Cities and towns have also been pushing back against Trump’s use of federal funding as political leverage. On Wednesday, Los Angeles and other cities announced a lawsuit challenging the cuts to disaster funding.

    L.A. City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto said the cuts were part of an “unprecedented weaponization” of federal funding by the Trump administration, and that she was proud to be fighting to “preserve constitutional limits on executive overreach.”

    Kevin Rector

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  • Justice Department sues California, other states that have declined to share voter rolls

    The U.S. Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Thursday for failing to hand over the state’s voter rolls, alleging she is unlawfully preventing federal authorities from ensuring state compliance with federal voting regulations and safeguarding federal elections against fraud.

    The Justice Department also sued Weber’s counterparts in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, who have similarly declined its requests for their states’ voter rolls.

    “Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement on the litigation. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”

    In its lawsuit against Weber, who is the state’s top elections official, the Justice Department argues that it is charged — including under the National Voter Registration Act — with ensuring that states have proper protocols for registering voters and maintaining accurate and up-to-date rolls, and therefore is due access to state voter rolls in order to ensure they are so maintained.

    “The United States has now been forced to bring the instant action to seek legal remedy for Defendants’ refusal to comply with lawful requests pursuant to federal law,” the lawsuit states.

    Weber, in a statement, called the lawsuit “a fishing expedition and pretext for partisan policy objectives,” a “blatant overreach” and “an unprecedented intrusion unsupported by law or any previous practice or policy of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

    “The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to utilize the federal court system to erode the rights of the State of California and its citizens by trying to intimidate California officials into giving up the private and personal information of 23 million California voters,” Weber said.

    She said California law requires that state officials “protect our voters’ sensitive private information,” and that the Justice Department not only “failed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands,” but ignored invitations from the state for federal officials to come to Sacramento and view the data in person — a process Weber said was “contemplated by federal statutes” and would “protect California citizens’ private and personal data from misuse.”

    The Justice Department has demanded a “current electronic copy of California’s computerized statewide voter registration list”; lists of “all duplicate registration records in Imperial, Los Angeles, Napa, Nevada, San Bernardino, Siskiyou, and Stanislaus counties”; a “list of all duplicate registrants who were removed from the statewide voter registration list” and the dates of their removals.

    It has also demanded a list of all registrations that have been canceled because voters in the state died; an explanation for a recent decline in the recorded number of “inactive” voters in the state; and a list of “all registrations, including date of birth, driver’s license number, and last four digits of Social Security Number, that were cancelled due to non-citizenship of the registrant.”

    The litigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to push its demands around voting policies onto individual states, which are broadly tasked under the constitution with managing their own elections.

    The lawsuit follows an executive order by Trump in March that purported to radically reshape voting rules nationwide, including by requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship and requiring states to disregard mail ballots that are not received by election day.

    The order built on years of unsubstantiated claims by Trump — and refuted by experts — that the U.S. voting system currently allows for rampant fraud and abuse, and that those failures compromised the results of elections, including his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

    Various voting rights groups and 19 states, including California, have sued to block the order.

    Advocacy groups say the order, and especially it’s requirements for proving citizenship, would disenfranchise legal U.S. citizen voters who lack ready access to identifying documents such as passports and REAL IDs. They have said barring the acceptance of mail ballots received after election day would also create barriers for voters, especially in large state such as California that need time to process large volumes of ballots.

    California currently accepts ballots if they are postmarked by election day and received within a certain number of days after.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has called Trump’s executive order an “illegal power grab” that California and other states will “fight like hell” to stop. His office referred questions about the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Weber to Weber’s office.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, defended the need for the lawsuit, saying in a statement that clean voter rolls “protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law.”

    Weber, who in April called Trump’s executive order “an illegal attempt to trample on the states and Congress’s constitutional authority over elections,” said Thursday that she would not be bowed by the lawsuit.

    “The sensitive data of California citizens should not be used as a political tool to undermine the public trust and integrity of elections,” she said. “I will always stand with Californians to protect states’ rights against federal overreach and our voters’ sensitive personal information. Californians deserve better. America deserves better.”

    Kevin Rector

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  • Opinion: Why are so many California hospitals closing their labor and delivery units?

    Opinion: Why are so many California hospitals closing their labor and delivery units?

    Last week, Keck Medicine of USC announced the closure of USC Verdugo Hills Hospital obstetric services on Nov. 20. They cited a 40% decline in deliveries over the past decade within “our community” and the resulting financial effect on the hospital as reasons for the decision. While this justification appears reasonable at first glance, it conceals an unsettling trend with significant implications for maternal health.

    The closing of hospital labor and delivery units is a nationwide trend, resulting in “maternity care deserts.” The closures primarily affect patients with Medicaid insurance, which pays for more than 40% of deliveries in the United States, and through Medi-Cal, more than 50% of deliveries in California. Unequal access to obstetric care contributes to America’s shamefully high maternal mortality rate which, at 22 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, was double or triple the rate of peer nations.

    Obstetric care is different from many other types of healthcare in its unpredictability. Babies do not arrive on anyone’s schedule, and the busyness of labor and delivery units can wax and wane accordingly. For doctors to care for laboring mothers and their babies safely, hospitals must be staffed for the possibility of a sudden abundance of patients requiring emergency care.

    The modern fee-for-service healthcare model, which pushes hospitals to maximize efficiency and reduce staffing, treats the resiliency necessary for delivering babies as a drag on their bottom line. In this model, hospitals must fund round-the-clock capacity but are only reimbursed when their facilities and staff are in action. So if not enough deliveries are happening, expenses outweigh reimbursement. This drives hospitals to get out of the baby delivery business altogether.

    California has experienced a higher rate of obstetric unit closures than other states, and it continues to accelerate. More than 46 labor and delivery departments closed in the state between 2012 and 2023, with 60% occurring within the last three years. These closures are not limited to sparsely populated rural areas: 17 were within Los Angeles County, resulting in a local rate of closures that far outpaces the declining birth rate. This year, five more California hospitals have stopped providing obstetric care, and USC Verdugo Hills Hospital will be the fifth in L.A. County to close labor and delivery within a two-year period.

    Healthcare and medical benefit administrators talk of scaling and consolidation, of concentrating obstetric care at fewer hospitals so that there will be enough deliveries to cover the expense of remaining open. This will only work if we assume that market forces will sort out the balance between supply and demand so enough labor and delivery departments remain open to meet demand. But such forces only work if prices are dynamic and responsive to changes in supply. Insurance providers, especially Medicaid and Medi-Cal, have not shown this type of flexibility.

    Medi-Cal, the Medicaid program in California, has reimbursement rates for obstetric care that are fifth lowest in the nation. In our state, even busy labor and delivery departments that care primarily for Medicaid patients do not break even. South L.A.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital is struggling to stay open despite increasing its volume of obstetric patients as other Los Angeles labor and delivery units have closed. This shows that the amount paid by Medi-Cal is below the market cost of providing obstetric care. This deficit is at the core of the California closures.

    There are at least two paths forward.

    The first is to increase Medi-Cal’s reimbursement of each delivered patient. The second would require directly regulating and subsidizing the maintenance of labor and delivery units the way the state does for emergency rooms. Either approach will be costly, because providing safe, modern, evidence-based obstetric care is expensive.

    Reproductive freedom is much in the news this campaign season. It should include reasonable, safe and dependable access to labor and delivery services.

    Anna Reinert is an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

    Anna Reinert

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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

    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.”

    Jennifer Hernandez and Soledad Ursúa

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  • California’s population increased last year for first time since 2020

    California’s population increased last year for first time since 2020

    California’s population rose last year for the first time since 2020, according to new state data.

    The state’s population increased by 0.17% — or more than 67,000 people — between Jan. 1, 2023, and Jan. 1, 2024, when California was home to 39,128,162 people, according to new population estimates released Tuesday by the California Department of Finance.

    “The brief period of California’s population decline is over,” H.D. Palmer, a department spokesman, said in a phone interview. “We’re back, and we’re returning to a rate of steady, stable growth.”

    That resumption of growth, Palmer said, was driven by a number of factors: Deaths, which rose during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, have fallen nearly to pre-pandemic levels. Restrictive foreign immigration policies imposed during the Trump administration have been loosened under President Biden. Domestic migration patterns between states also have changed, boosting the state’s population.

    In 2021, as the pandemic raged, more than 319,000 people died in California and fewer than 420,000 were born, the data show. Last year, about 281,000 died in the state, while nearly 399,000 were born.

    And while California saw a net loss of nearly 3,900 people to international immigration in 2020 — when many countries’ borders were closed due to the pandemic — the state saw a net gain of more than 114,000 international immigrants last year, according to state data. That’s close to pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, California notched a net increase of about 119,000 international immigrants.

    Shifting domestic migration trends — which were the subject of the much-ballyhooed “California exodus” during the pandemic, when remote workers moved to other states where they could live for a fraction of the cost of cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco — also played a key role.

    In 2021, about 692,000 people left California for other states, while fewer than 337,000 moved into the Golden State from other states.

    Last year, about 414,000 people moved here from other states, while more than 505,000 left for other states. That means California saw a net loss of about 264,500 fewer people to other states last year than in 2021, according to the new state data.

    Los Angeles and Orange counties grew last year, though not by much; the former saw a population rise of just 0.05% — or nearly 4,800 people — while the latter notched up 0.31% — or nearly 9,800 people.

    For both jurisdictions, that’s a reversal from 2022, when L.A. County saw a net loss of nearly 42,200 residents and Orange County lost about 17,000 residents. The city of Los Angeles saw its population rise 0.3% last year, the data show.

    California also saw a net increase of about 116,000 housing units — including single-family homes, multi-family dwellings and accessory dwelling units, or ADUs — in 2023. Palmer described that growth as an “encouraging” sign amid the state’s housing crisis.

    That rise, which is a relative drop in the bucket compared with the state’s more than 14.8 million housing units, was led by the city of Los Angeles, which saw a gain of more than 21,000 housing units, followed by an increase of about 5,700 units in San Diego, according to the state data.

    While California’s resumption of population growth is a boon for boosters who reject the storyline of the state’s decline, there is no indication that the Golden State will be returning to the massive boom in residents it underwent generations ago.

    “For the foreseeable future, we’re looking at steady, more predictable growth that’s slower than those go-go years of the 1970s and 1980s,” Palmer said. “Obviously, there are things that we can’t forecast that could have an impact on our population. For instance, another pandemic.”

    Connor Sheets

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  • Newsom calls out Republican abortion policies in new ad running in Alabama

    Newsom calls out Republican abortion policies in new ad running in Alabama

    In Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new political advertisement, two anxious young women in an SUV drive toward the Alabama state line.

    The passenger says she thinks they’re going to make it, before a siren blares and the flashing lights of a police car appear in the rearview mirror.

    “Miss,” a police officer who approaches the window says to the panicked driver, “I’m gonna need you to step out of the vehicle and take a pregnancy test.”

    The fictional video is the latest in a series of visceral advertisements the California governor has aired in other states to call out a conservative campaign to walk back reproductive rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to abortion two years ago.

    Newsom’s “Campaign for Democracy” will air the ad on broadcast networks and digital channels in Montgomery, Ala., for two weeks beginning on Monday, according to Lindsey Cobia, a senior advisor to Newsom. The governor is seeking to draw attention to attempts by Republican leaders to make it more difficult for residents of states with abortion bans to travel to other states for reproductive care.

    Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Newsom, said the governor also is working with state lawmakers on a bill that would temporarily allow Arizona providers to provide abortion care to Arizona patients in California.

    Newsom’s office is coordinating the legislation with Arizona’s Gov. Katie Hobbs and Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes, Democrats who denounced a recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling that upheld an 1864 abortion ban. The ban, which has yet to take effect, allows only abortions that are medically necessary to save the life of a pregnant patient.

    “Arizona Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes identified a need to expedite the ability for Arizona abortion providers to continue to provide care to Arizonans as a way to support patients in their state seeking abortion care in California,” Richards said in a statement. “We are responding to this call and will have more details to share in the coming days.”

    California voters approved an amendment to the state constitution in 2022 that protects access to abortion up until the point that a doctor believes the fetus can survive on its own. Doctors are allowed to perform abortions at any stage if a pregnancy poses a risk to the health of the pregnant person.

    Since Roe vs. Wade was overturned, Newsom and state lawmakers have increased funding for people from out of state who seek abortions, and have cast the state as a safe haven for abortion services. The proposed legislation to make it easier for Arizona doctors to see patients in California is in response to an anticipated influx of patients from that state in light of the abortion ban.

    Democrats are seizing on the issue of abortion, which could offer a political advantage in a crucial election year.

    President Biden is campaigning for reelection in part on restoring the protections in Roe vs. Wade, and is blaming his presumptive GOP rival, former President Trump, for a wave of antiabortion policies.

    Trump recently said that abortion rights should be up to the states and that he would not sign a national ban, while at the same time taking credit for nominating conservative justices who helped overturn abortion rights in 2022.

    “He’s a liar. He’s not telling you the truth,” Newsom said in an interview with Jen Psaki on MSNBC. “He’s not level-setting. He’ll say whatever he needs to say on any day of the week.”

    Democrats nationally used Alabama as a lightning rod for the dangers of a Trump presidency earlier this spring after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in a lawsuit that embryos may be considered children — a move that temporarily halted in vitro fertilization services in the state. Republican leaders quickly reversed course and passed a bill to protect IVF, a process that usually involves the destruction of some embryos.

    Alabama bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with no exception for pregnancies arising from rape. State Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall said last year that he could criminally prosecute people in Alabama who help women obtain abortions elsewhere — a claim the U.S. Justice Department has refuted.

    Taryn Luna

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