The panic started to set in for California Democrats in the last week of July. First, there was a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll on July 27, which showed that likely voters were just about evenly split on whether or not Gov. Gavin Newsom deserves to keep his job. A few days later […]
Ben Christopher, CALmatters
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California Loses Congressional Seat for First Time
For the first time in its 171-year history, California’s political voice is about to get a little quieter. After months of delay, the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday released new population estimates for each state. The bad news for California: It loses a seat in Congress, down from 53 House districts to 52. The worse […]
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COVID and Churches: U.S. Supreme Court Lifts State Ban on Indoor Services, Other Lawsuits Continue
Among the beach-goers denied, the indignant gun shop owners and frustrated parents who want schools reopened, one set of plaintiffs against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic shutdown restrictions have scored a big win: churches. A 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued late Friday sided with house-bound pastors and their congregants in their claim Newsom’s bans on […]
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Two Polls Give Gov. Newsom Bad News … and Worse News
Two fresh polls indicate that California voters may be falling out of love with a governor who just three years ago was elected by a record-breaking margin, and who early in the pandemic ranked as one of the country’s most popular state leaders. How worrisome is this for the governor facing a burgeoning recall effort? […]
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Next Secretary of State Aims to Teach Californians ‘How Fragile the Democracy is’
Seventy years ago, sharecroppers David and Mildred Nash refused to back down in a dispute with a white farmer, and fled from a lynch mob in Hope, Arkansas. With their 2-year-old daughter in tow, they found a new home out west in a place so different her grandfather, who would die without ever being able […]
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Newsom’s Pick? Who Might Fill VP-Elect Harris’ Senate Seat?
The victory of Joe Biden and California’s junior senator, Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential race brings to a close one of the most protracted post-Election Day waiting games in modern political history. It also opens up a relatively rare thing in the Golden State: the prospect of an open Senate seat. For career-minded Democrats, […]
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Worried it’s Too Late to Send in Your Ballot? Don’t Panic
Less than a week before Election Day and anxiety over the postal service’s ability to ferry voters’ ballots to county election administrators on time has ratcheted up yet again. Back in May, the United States Postal Service’s top lawyer advised voters across the country to put their ballots in the mail no later than 7 […]
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Why do we keep voting on this? Exploring Prop. 13’s ‘Tax Revolt Family Tree’
The tax revolt started in California in 1978, but it never really ended. Four decades ago mad-as-hell voters banded together to pass Proposition 13, capping property taxes, slapping a constitutional muzzle on state government and wringing local budgets like a washcloth. The electorate’s anti-tax fever may have broken in the years since, but the legacy […]
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Virtually No Chance for a Ruckus at Dem Convention
Jeanna Harris was in Philadelphia when the Democratic Party convened there in the summer of 2016, and she had plenty of ways to “make some good trouble.” Harris was part of the bloc within the California delegation supporting the failed presidential bid of Bernie Sanders. She and her fellow progressives cheered and jeered, ensuring their […]
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Could Trump ‘Sabotage’ California’s All-Mail Election?
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE For months President Donald Trump has been reluctant to extend a lifeline to the financially infirm Postal Service, a reluctance his critics have said is motivated by his loathing of vote-by-mail. On Thursday, Trump made that subtext … text. Speaking about the ongoing COVID relief negotiations on […]
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What California Knows About Kamala Harris
More than any other vice presidential contender in a generation, Kamala Harris’ biography is singularly Californian. Born and bussed to school in Berkeley, tested by San Francisco’s cut-throat municipal politics and propelled onto the national stage as the state’s top law enforcement officer and then its first female senator of color, Harris’ approach to politics […]
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Court Bans “Abusive” Spiking, but Sticks with Pension Protections
For 65 years, the California Supreme Court has taken a rigid line on pensions for public employees: Any retirement benefits promised to a worker at the outset of a job can only be reduced if they are replaced with something of equal value. That iron-clad precedent has been dubbed “the California Rule.” Today the state’s […]