California’s waning power in Washington

For a while there, California enjoyed unusual strength in the nation’s Capitol. The speaker’s gavel passed across party lines from a San Francisco Democrat to a Bakersfield Republican. The most senior Democrat in the Senate was California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

But Feinstein’s death in September, Kevin McCarthy’s subsequent ouster as speaker and a slew of retirements from the House have chipped away at California’s clout on Capitol Hill, writes Times political reporter Julia Wick.

Seven of the 52 members of California’s House delegation have announced plans this year to give up their seats — departures that come amid a broader exodus from a GOP-controlled chamber that has been riven by chaos. They include former Speaker McCarthy as well as Reps. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk), Tony Cardenas (D-Pacoima), Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and Katie Porter (D-Irvine).

Porter, Lee and Schiff are all running for Feinstein’s Senate seat. Whoever wins will become the state’s junior senator working alongside Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who has been in office less than three years.

Seniority matters in Washington. Veteran members of Congress have more influence, expertise and legislative savvy. They can land more federal assistance for their states and better leverage their power on issues that matter to their constituents.

So California’s loss of experience and control of the speaker’s gavel will reduce the state’s power in Washington, at least in the short term.

Wick lays it all out in this smart article: California is losing clout in the nation’s Capitol. I hope you’ll give it a read. I’m Laurel Rosenhall, The Times’ Sacramento bureau chief, here with your guide to the week’s biggest news in California politics.

The race to replace Kevin McCarthy

More than a dozen candidates have filed to run for Congress in California’s 20th Congressional District, which was thrown wide open after McCarthy announced that he will retire this year. The deep-red district includes parts of Kern, Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties.

The deadline to enter the race closed Wednesday at 5 p.m., but Kern County hasn’t released the official list of candidates yet, according to Times reporter Laura J. Nelson.

The unofficial list includes Bakersfield Assemblymember Vince Fong, a Republican who was McCarthy’s district director before being elected to the state Legislature. Fong filed paperwork to enter the congressional race, but is facing a potential complication: He had already filed to run for reelection to the Assembly, and California law prohibits candidates from appearing on the ballot twice for two different offices.

A spokesman for the California secretary of state said they are examining the issue. David Giglio, a Republican who entered the race before McCarthy said he would retire, has threatened to sue Kern County elections officials and the secretary of state if Fong is allowed to appear on the ballot.

Ryan Gardiner, a spokesman for Fong’s congressional campaign, said Fong was sworn in at the Kern County Elections Division on Monday as a candidate for Congress, and is “entirely eligible to run.”

Several more Republicans jumped into the race just before the filing deadline, including Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, known as a critic of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19 policies; Matt Stoll, a former fighter pilot who runs a garden store; and Kyle Kirkland, the owner of a Fresno casino. Democrats who have filed include Marisa Wood, a teacher who ran against McCarthy in 2022, and Andy Morales, who works in private security.

An OC beach town at the center of national culture wars

It’s been a wild year on the Huntington Beach City Council.

The Orange County beach town known as Surf City has taken on a range of issues far afield from day-to-day civic operations, landing it smack in the center of the nation’s culture wars.

Over the course of several months, Times reporter Hannah Fry writes, the council declared Huntington Beach to be a “no mask and no vaccine mandate city.” It sued the state over zoning requirements that called for creating more housing, arguing it would fundamentally change their beach city lifestyle. It created a panel to screen children’s books in the city library for sexual content, and drafted a ballot measure to require voter identification at the polls. It also banned rainbow flags from flying over City Hall.

“Our City Council majority was elected to shake things up, and we’re doing just that,” said Councilmember Tony Strickland, a former state lawmaker.

Read the full article here: Huntington Beach is sticking it to ‘woke’ California. Some residents ask at what cost

Keeping up with California politics

Column: Sacramento politicians need the guts to fix California’s money woes
Overspending is only part of the problem, writes columnist George Skelton. There’s another part that neither Republicans nor most Democrats want to talk about: a volatile tax system that overreacts to economic changes.

California holds the key to GOP power in the House. McCarthy’s retirement makes everything harder
With Kevin McCarthy heading for the exits, his Republican colleagues are bracing for a falloff in campaign support and loss of granular institutional knowledge that could leave them at a disadvantage heading into next fall’s elections. The fight for control of the closely divided House will likely be decided in California, the ex-speaker’s home state.

Vulnerable California Republicans vote for Biden impeachment inquiry
The vote could come back to haunt swing-district Republican candidates. A majority of voters in competitive districts view the impeachment investigation as baseless, according to an early December survey commissioned by Congressional Integrity Project, a Democratic-aligned nonprofit that launched an ad campaign targeting Republicans who backed formalizing the impeachment inquiry. In California, the group is going after GOP Reps. John Duarte of Modesto, Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita, Young Kim of Anaheim Hills, Michelle Steel of Seal Beach and David Valadao of Hanford.

Newsom administration advances delta tunnel project despite environmental opposition
In the face of heavy opposition from environmental groups, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration are pushing forward with a controversial plan to build a 45-mile water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — a project the governor says is vital to modernizing the state’s aging water system. State officials released their final environmental analysis of the proposed delta tunnel project on Friday.

Column: How I learned to stop worrying and love rooftop solar
The Times’ climate columnist Sammy Roth criticizes Newsom for his “reluctance to weigh in publicly” on controversial decisions his appointees have made regarding rooftop solar energy. “The more I’ve covered the rooftop solar debate, the more I’ve grown frustrated with Newsom,” Roth writes. “The governor has done lots of good work on clean energy… But on rooftop solar, Newsom has largely stayed quiet.”

Sexual misconduct scandals rocked this California university system. Top leaders escaped scrutiny
State lawmakers who spoke to The Times said they don’t trust the California State University board to make changes and are planning additional legislative oversight. Assemblymember Akilah Weber said that no trustee “has been holding the chancellor or the individual campuses accountable.” Assemblymember Mike Fong, who chairs the Higher Education Committee, said the trustees should be more proactive.