Voters decide four runoff contests for Superior Court seats on Nov. 3, choosing who will preside over criminal and civil cases across the region.
Seat 131
The candidates
Donna Tryfman, a deputy public defender, serves in the major cases unit, where she handles homicide and other high-profile defendants. She also has extensive experience in juvenile cases.
David Ross is an alternate in the Torrance branch of the public defender’s office and also works in Bellflower and Long Beach. He claims to have represented more than 10,000 clients at hearings and in trials.
Dive deeper
The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. rates both attorneys as “qualified” for office. Ross said his mix of legal and life experience and his time as a journalist, when he “listened to real people, gathered the facts and told objective stories,” provide a unique perspective. Tryfman has served as a Superior Court judge pro tem, handling traffic and small claims cases. She has proctored teen courts at Dorsey and Hamilton high schools.
Seat 64
The candidates
Maria Ghobadi is an L.A. County deputy district attorney. As a child, Ghobadi fled Iran with her family during the Islamic Revolution and settled in Southern California. She joined the L.A. County district attorney’s office in 2015 and has handled misdemeanors, felonies and domestic violence cases. She’s spent seven years in the gang homicide division.
Rhonda Haymon is an L.A. County deputy public defender. She grew up in Southern California and became an attorney in 2001. She started in the Orange County public defender’s office before moving to L.A. County, where she’s spent 23 years as a deputy public defender. She has been assigned to a restorative justice drug court and consulted on police misconduct cases.
Dive deeper
The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. ranked Ghobadi as “well qualified” and Haymon as “qualified.”
Seat 87
The candidates
David DeJute, who defended President Obama against the so-called birther claims, spent a decade as vice president of litigation at Sony Pictures Entertainment. He now works in litigation at a private firm. An adjunct professor at Pepperdine’s Caruso School of Law, he’s taught ethics, antitrust, copyright and patent law. After last year’s wildfires, he returned as director of the disaster relief clinic, where he instructed students who provided pro bono legal services to victims of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Anthony “A.J.” Bayne’s background includes nearly two decades serving in the Compton Courthouse, where he for a time served as deputy in charge. He’s now handling serious felony cases at the Torrance branch. Bayne is an inventor, with patent-pending applications for artificial intelligence tools that automate legal workflows. One helps with closing arguments; another uses court reporter transcripts to generate cross-examination questions.
Dive deeper
DeJute is rated “qualified” to serve by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. Bayne is rated a notch higher, “well qualified.”
Seat 65
The candidates
Justin Allen Clayton is in charge of the Inglewood branch of the public defender’s office and has defended three cases with life sentences. Clayton said a priority is improving court efficiency through pretrial preparation and “firm but fair enforcement of deadlines.” Clayton said running a public defender branch office gives him a “comprehensive understanding” of the courtroom.
Anna Slotky Reitano represented juvenile and adult clients, many of them accused of felonies, before joining the county counsel’s office. Reitano focused on mental health diversion and treatment, aiming to support rehabilitation when possible. A former child actor, she volunteers with local schools and, according to her website, mentors “future lawyers” through moot court competitions.
Dive deeper
The Los Angeles County Bar Assn. considers both qualified to serve.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV has become the first pope to vote in a U.S. general election, casting a mail-in ballot in a contest that will decide America’s future as the Trump era slowly comes to an end.
The Vatican confirmed Friday that the Chicago-born pontiff had submitted a mail-in ballot in Chicago ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, citing his long-standing belief in civic participation.
Leo, formerly Robert Prevost, “has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen” and has done so “whenever he was eligible to do so,” the Holy See press office said.
The statement said he had also voted while living in Peru whenever he was eligible. Leo lived in Peru as a missionary priest and bishop for over 20 years.
“The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” it added.
Leo holds U.S. and Peruvian citizenship, and is also the head of state of a foreign country, the Holy See. The city state is an absolute monarchy with no political elections.
This election, Illinois voters are deciding whether to elect Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to his third term, and they’re also filling an open U.S. Senate seat after longtime Catholic Democrat Dick Durbin’s retirement. President Donald Trump is not on the ballot but he has campaigned hard to try to preserve Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate for the final two years of his second term.
Leo’s vote was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, which quoted the chief of staff at the Will County clerk’s office as saying the pope, registered at a New Lenox address, requested a mail-in ballot on Oct. 3.
The request was made just 10 days before Leo underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his right lung. Leo has been slowly resuming his activities at the Vatican after being released from the hospital Oct. 17.
It is unclear how Leo returned the ballot. The pope’s older brother, John Prevost, was in Rome this week accompanying parishioners from St. Jude’s, an Augustinian-run parish in New Lenox, Illinois. The elder Prevost attends Mass there, and Leo gave a talk at the parish in 2024 while still a cardinal.
Prevost’s past votes have gone Democratic and Republican
Since 2000, Robert Prevost has voted in five primary elections, requesting Democratic ballots twice and Republican ballots three times, according to records held by the Illinois State Board of Elections.
The records do not show which candidates he supported. Illinois voters must declare a party preference to receive a primary ballot. No such declaration is required in general elections.
While registered in heavily Democratic Cook County, Prevost requested Democratic primary ballots in 2008 and 2010. After moving to the more conservative suburban Will County, he requested Republican primary ballots in 2012, 2014 and 2016.
The records also show that he submitted ballots in every general election since 2000 except those in 2020 and 2022.
Clashes with Trump
Since becoming pope, Leo has drawn criticism from President Donald Trump for repeatedly condemning the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and calling for dignified treatment of immigrants.
Earlier this year, Trump called Leo “weak” and captive to the “radical left.”
Responding to Trump’s public rebuke, Leo told reporters en route to Algeria in April: “I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the church works for.”
“I will continue to speak out strongly against war, seeking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems,” he said.
The public dispute has subsided in recent months.
A pope who follows U.S. politics closely
Leo has made clear on several occasions that he follows local and national U.S. politics closely, and is not afraid to intervene.
He has repeatedly called for reflection and humane treatment for immigrants in his native U.S. amid the Trump administration crackdown and mass deportation program.
Recently, Leo reiterated official church teaching declaring the death penalty “inadmissible.” He made the pronouncement in a social media post on the World Day Against the Death Penalty, which came as the U.S. announced plans to livestream an execution by firing squad. The plans were later scrapped.
In 2025, Leo intervened in a debate over abortion, after Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich announced plans to give a lifetime achievement award to Sen. Durbin. The plans drew objection from some conservative U.S. bishops given the powerful Democratic senator’s support for abortion rights. Leo called for respect for both sides, but he also pointed out the contradiction between people who call themselves “pro-life” but also support the death penalty.
Also in 2025, Leo said he was “very disappointed” that his home state of Illinois approved a law allowing medically assisted dying, which is condemned by the Catholic Church.
Winfield writes for the Associated Press. AP editor Holly Meyer contributed to this report from Nashville, Tenn.
There has been much debate about efforts in California to tax the rich. But almost all of it centers around Proposition 40, the heavily contested billionaire tax, and two countermeasures, Propositions 41 and 42.
But there is another ballot measure that also would tax California’s wealthiest citizens that is getting far less attention — and has even garnered support from some billionaires who oppose Proposition 40.
The basics
Proposition 3 would make an expiring state income tax on high earners permanent.
The impact
Tax rates for the top 2% of earners would remain as they are. Income brackets rise with inflation, but last year the top 2% of taxpayers earned at least $371,000 for single filers and $743,000 for joint filers. Money generated by Proposition 3, like the current tax, would flow to education, with 89% going to K-12 schools and 11% to community colleges.
Dig deeper
In 2012, California voters approved a temporary increase in the income tax rate for the top 2% of California earners. In 2016, voters approved another extension through 2030. Proposition 3 would make the additional levy permanent.
Backers say the measure is crucial to maintain education funding levels and predict there would be grave problems if the measure is not approved. The state could expect to lose $5 billion to $15 billion annually in tax revenue starting in 2031, according to estimates from the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Opponents say taxes are already too high and the state should focus on cutting waste.
The California Environmental Quality Act is one of the most consequential and controversial laws on the books.
CEQA, which dates to the 1970s, requires state and local agencies to consider the environmental effects of many proposed projects before approving them. If a project could cause significant environmental harm that can’t easily be avoided, it undergoes a more detailed environmental review to examine its potential effects and alternatives.
Backers say CEQA is a vital tool for environmental review and gives the community a voice in development. But critics say CEQA is too often used to slow down needed housing and has been exploited as a bureaucratic weapon.
Enter Proposition 45.
The basics
Proposition 45 would impose stricter deadlines on environmental reviews, permits and court challenges. Agencies would have to spell out application requirements up-front and could not make repeated requests for more information or project changes. The measure caps public comment periods, while current law only sets minimum lengths. It also limits what courts may consider in CEQA lawsuits.
The impact
The law clearly would change the CEQA process; whether that would be for better or worse is the subject of debate. Backers say it would make the process faster and easier. Critics say it would roll back important environmental protections.
Dig deeper
The fight over Proposition 45 comes as California struggles to build enough housing to meet demand, causing prices to skyrocket. Housing prices, polls show, are a major issue for California voters.
But the proposition also is touching on another hot-button issue: data centers. Supporters and foes are battling over whether the measure would make it easier to build more of those controversial facilities.
Democratic and independent voters could play the spoiler in a battle between two Republican incumbents vying for a solidly red congressional seat in Orange and Riverside counties.
Thanks to redistricting, Reps. Ken Calvert of Corona and Young Kim of Anaheim are pitted against one another in Congressional District 40, a newly redrawn territory that consolidates Republican voters in an area stretching from Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and Anaheim Hills in Orange County to Woodcrest, Menifee and Murrieta in Riverside County.
Democratic leaders remade the district map as part of an overall effort to boost their party’s numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives after President Trump cajoled Texas into carving out districts more favorable to Republicans.
While considered deep red, District 40 still claims many Democratic and independent voters who could help sway the outcome.
“The question is, who are the Democrats going to support?” said Jon Fleischman, former executive director of the California Republican Party. He expects about half of the Democrats to not vote at all.
Self-identifying conservatives make up 33% of the district compared with liberals’ 27%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. More independents lean Democratic (36%) than Republican (16%), according to the institute.
Democrats, so far, seem less than enthusiastic about their choices.
“I don’t care who wins in the 40th,” said Orange County Democratic Party Chair Florice Hoffman, who skipped voting in the race. “They’re both two bad choices, so I will not spend any time telling Democrats to go out to vote for either one of them.”
Kim may cast herself as a collaborative politician but if you look at her record, “she’s not any better than Ken Calvert. They both ran as 100% Trump — and really that’s how she votes,” said Hoffman, who lives in Orange.
Calvert topped the June primary, earning 35% to Kim’s 21%. Democrat Esther Kim-Varet came in third with 17%, followed by several Democrats and an independent.
Calvert, 73, retained about half of his constituents in the redrawn district. Kim, 64, kept about a third of hers.
Americans 4 Security PAC, which has spent more than $6 million backing Calvert, sent out fliers highlighting Trump and Kim’s ties, the Orange County Register reported. One mailer quoted Trump thanking Kim, while another announced: “Young Kim 100% pro-Trump.”
Political experts said these mail pieces are intended to dissuade Democrats from backing her.
With polls showing Democrats likely to take back the House, Los Angeles political consultant Jorge Flores said Kim’s reputation for working with others could help her among Democrats and independents deciding between two conservatives.
“Whether she convinces voters that she’s actually the right choice, I think it’s a steeper climb,” said Flores, who worked with the independent candidate in the primary.
The Democratic Party branches in Orange and Riverside counties make no mention of the race in their official endorsement guides.
Kim and Calvert are similar when it comes to backing Republican policies, Fleischman said, noting that both support Trump and have voted together about 95% of the time.
He described Young as someone who tries “to put together coalitions” while Calvert is “set in his ways.”
“Young probably has a better case to make to [Democrats], but it’s just too hard to tell,” said Fleischman.
A general election with two Republicans facing each other in a House seat is highly unusual. It’s a product of the state’s “jungle primary,” which advances the top two candidates, regardless of party, and Proposition 50, the voter-approved ballot measure that allowed the new congressional district lines.
Elected in 1992, Calvert is the longest-serving member of California’s Republican delegation in Congress.
Kim, known as a prolific fundraiser, was elected in 2020. She’s raised $10 million in direct donations, compared with Calvert’s $7 million.
Calvert sits on the House Appropriations Committee, where he chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The Americans 4 Security PAC attacking Kim counts two executives from Miami-based Palantir, whose software is used by the U.S. military, among its donors.
Before the primary, Kim stripped her campaign website of “America first” branding and references to Trump.
Chris Pack, a Kim spokesperson, said last month that she was “proud of her work with President Trump to deliver results for Southern California,” arguing the campaign’s messaging is focused on Calvert’s record.
In a social media post this week, Kim hammered Calvert as a career politician. She supports legislation banning members of Congress from trading stocks, wants to enact term limits and portrays herself as a pragmatist.
“What kind of Republican do you want representing you?” Kim said in a recent NBC4 interview.
Calvert’s campaign, meanwhile, labels Kim a RINO, or Republican in name only, a pejorative used to describe a disloyal conservative. She co-sponsored legislation to censure Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, although Democrats widely viewed the move as a slap on the wrist.
Calvert’s campaign has pointed to Kim’s 2021 vote with Democrats to repeal a Trump-era rule that rolled back methane-emissions regulations.
Calvert, who appeared this week at a rally in Murrieta alongside Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), labels himself a consistent conservative.
“People know exactly where I’m at,” he recently told Spectrum News. “I haven’t changed a bit in the 30 years, and so I’ll continue to give people the kind of common sense governance that they deserve.”
If you’ve watched anything from “Jesse Watters Primetime” to “The Daily Show” this week, you’re already up to date on the most important issue in America today: the decor of the Cheesecake Factory.
Earlier this week, former President Obama made a quip at a Cleveland rally that President Trump has renovated the White House to look like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
Trump lost it. If we’ve learned anything about the president in recent years, it’s that he loves gold as much as he hates Obama. Roll them together in one moment, and the leader of the free world can’t help but freak out. He freaked out so badly, in fact, that he sent Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — a guy worth at least $500 million — to eat a French dip cheeseburger at the chain just to prove how great it was.
But if you think this is all a silly back and forth with an unserious administration, think again. Obama is masterful at political strategy, and this wasn’t just a joke. It was rage-bait, crafted for engagement.
Why Saddam Hussein?
The deeper point of Obama’s remarks seemed entirely buried by media coverage that focused on the Cheesecake part. But why Saddam Hussein?
Trump didn’t seem to take issue with being likened to the brutal dictator responsible for killing and disappearing thousands to maintain power. In fact, in all of the rebuttals from Trump and his minions, the Hussein reference hasn’t been mentioned once.
But don’t think Obama choose that reference carelessly, or just for humor.
That ostentatious excess wasn’t just bad taste. It was a show of power. At the same time that Hussein was amassing his wealth and consolidating that cult of personality, his people were broke. Now, I’m in no way saying that Americans in 2026 are suffering the way Iraqis were under Hussein. But there’s a Marie Antoinette-style similarity between Hussein’s narcissist tendencies and Trump’s obsession with all that glitters — from the water in the reflecting pool to the walls of the Oval Office — even as the economy crashes.
Obama clearly understands that: Maybe you don’t want to cut food stamps to millions while you’re slapping up a new ballroom. Obama, after all, could have said the White House looked like Liberace had opened a Cheesecake Factory, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose to insert Hussein, a man whose ego-driven rule came at the expense of his own people.
Which brings me to the absolute brilliance of the joke. Sure, it was funny. Yes, it was quickly picked up as a viral clip.
But more than anything, it got to Trump in a way that was entirely predictable with his unbridled ego, and a way in which Obama almost certainly knew it would. In a way that links him to a dictator who cared more about gilt than people, but in a way so clever Trump himself grabbed the bait and ran with it.
Trump couldn’t stop himself
Hearing his taste criticized, all his beautiful, shiny gold mocked — by Obama of all people — was rage-bait that Trump could not ignore. Trump could not stop himself from responding, and even more, he couldn’t stop himself from demanding others defend him and his gaudy aesthetics.
And the ever-willing members of his cult of personality across government and right-wing media quickly complied — with an attack that Obama surely knew would be the only possible pushback: That he was elitist for making fun of the decor of a wildly popular average-family spot (Obama quickly hit back that the Factory was “his jam” and he, like many parents of teens, myself included, had eaten there numerous times.)
Dozens and dozens of Trump minions parroted the same line for days — how dare Obama mock such a beloved American eatery? How out of touch. How tan-suit, Martha’s Vineyard of him. Trump brought it up at multiple rallies. The official White House social media account posted about it. It was all over the right-wing ecosphere for days.
Never mind the economy, or the war in Iran, or inflation that makes a meal at the Cheesecake Factory increasingly feel like a caviar-and-Champagne night.
Or even this insane comment from Trump about inviting supporters to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida club that makes the Las Vegas Strip look classy, to spend the money he’s promised to them if Republicans win elections: “You’ll be my guest at Mar-a-Lago,” he promised at an Ohio rally. “The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert. … I’m not even sure you could buy that. No, don’t go there. That’s not a good place if you’re price conscious.”
And Obama’s elitist? That’s bonkers-level disconnection from the audience, but back to my point.
Suddenly, in the middle of a pivotal election, all Republicans are hearing about is the Cheesecake Factory, and how wonderful it is their president is plastering gold all over everything while they are wondering if they’ll be able to pay the gas bill this month.
Granted, the Republicans don’t have a lot of bright spots to focus on as they give their final message to voters. But I am guessing that even the reddest of ballot-clutchers doesn’t want to hear about the Cheesecake Factory, or how much marble Trump has installed at the entrance to the White House. That seems tone-deaf.
Obama’s purposeful provocation completely derailed Republican messaging for multiple, critical news cycles, all because Trump couldn’t stand to have his taste criticized by a guy who has become a bogeyman in his own brain.
Trump had to defend his excess, he couldn’t resist — and in failing to check his own ego, again, he put into the bright spotlight the truth that his followers are increasingly unable to ignore: The only thing that matters to Trump is Trump. Not the economy. Not the war, and certainly not the concerns of voters in the final days of the election.
Obama’s one-liner wasn’t just a zinger. It was political gold, an artful bit of rage-bait trolling that casually took control of the narrative with a well-aimed poke.
The Los Angeles Board of Public Works has been overseeing work on streets, sidewalks and sewers since 1905. But if voters approve Measure LA on Tuesday’s ballot, it might not be around much longer.
The charter amendment enacts a half-dozen changes, and the most divisive is a provision that would “allow for the elimination of or changes to the Board of Public Works.”
Proponents assert that passage would lead to better city services and quicker repairs of deteriorating infrastructure. They also say the five-member board wouldn’t just disappear, and disbanding it actually would require a two-thirds vote of the 15-member City Council.
Opponents say the board plays a crucial role in managing billions of dollars of infrastructure projects while maintaining public accessibility and handling matters that don’t merit council attention (such as tree removal votes). They fear that eliminating the five-member oversight panel, and putting a single person in charge, would open the door to graft, with some citing San Francisco’s former director of public works being sentenced in 2022 to seven years in federal prison for his role in a kickback and bribery scheme.
“If the Board of Public Works was eliminated and concentrated within the authority of one person, I think that gives way to more corruption than transparency,” Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said.
Storm drains and sidewalk repairs
The board generally convenes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in an ornate, high-ceilinged room on the fourth floor of City Hall.
One recent 2½-hour meeting kicked off with a lengthy celebration of Latino Heritage Month, and then the four members present moved through a series of agenda items tied to low-profile infrastructure projects, including:
A reveal of seven bids for a package of sidewalk repairs, with Acting Executive Officer TJ Knight reading aloud the name of each applicant, and the bid amount, sometimes down to the penny. They ranged from a high of $2.47 million to a low of $1.9 million
A Bureau of Engineering representative requested authority to boost the budget of a storm drain project in the Pacific Palisades in advance of El Niño storms.
A Bureau of Street Services staffer broke down a request to remove protected trees (with plans for replacement) on a project on Mulholland Drive.
Each discussion item drew questions from the commissioners. All items were unanimously approved.
Paid positions
The five board members are all full-time city employees who earn slightly less than $200,000 a year. The members, including the board president, are appointed by the mayor and together oversee more than 5,500 people who work for city bureaus and offices that handle sanitation, street lighting, engineering, graffiti removal and more. Each bureau also has its own head.
A Board of Public Works meeting at City Hall.
(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Times)
The board members aren’t commenting on Measure LA. Former members, however, say the five-member board is an effective way to manage and coordinate a wealth of projects.
Rodriguez, who served on the board from 2013-16, said that during her tenure she focused on overhauling the procurement process to allow small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses to better compete for city contracts. She also learned the inner workings of the panel that approves more than 85% of the city’s construction contracts.
Diffusing the workload, former members say, allows for regular interaction with elected officials and the private sector.
Valerie Lynne Shaw, who served on the board from 1996 to 2013, said the board plays an important role in serving as a “coordinating mechanism” for infrastructure projects, and that commissioners regularly assist in solving problems raised by the public. She echoed the benefits of a larger panel.
“Power in the hands of many better serves the city as opposed to power in the hands of one,” she stated.
One former board member, who asked not to be identified to preserve professional relationships, said the existing system yields frequent public interaction, whether it’s people speaking during meetings or via other channels.
“I regularly went to neighborhood council meetings, homeowners association meetings, town halls, county board of supervisors meetings, to the state legislature,” the former member said. “A director can do some of that, but not all of that.”
Who’s in charge?
Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky begs to differ. From her vantage point, the current system is fragmented with no clear authority.
Yaroslavsky has been frustrated in getting information on a long-running intersection repair project on La Cienega Boulevard in her Fairfax area district.
“I can’t get any information from anybody, and I’m the councilperson,” she says.
Yaroslavsky contrasts the city setup with that of Los Angeles County, which she says has a well-known leader in Director of Public Works Mark Pestrella. She believes the city system of five board members serving as a collective general manager is a vestige of another era that never would be created today.
“When you have one person in charge, you know who you can hold accountable,” she says.
Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, another Measure LA supporter, agrees that accountability and efficiency could be bolstered under a revamped system. He believes that when certain projects require the participation of multiple bureaus, there can be a silo effect that slows progress.
“For years we’ve talked about, how do we better coordinate the bureaus? There have been advances, but it’s still fundamentally been a challenge,” he says.
In June, when the full council discussed changes to the board, during a marathon meeting about what would go on Tuesday’s ballot, panel President Marqueece Harris-Dawson also indicated that the current setup can cause confusion.
He said that, when discussing a project, “I have someone from Street Lighting saying to me, ‘Well, yeah, I can fix that light, but you also have to talk to Engineering.’ And Engineering says, ‘Well, that isn’t on our list to do.’ So it just feels like it’s bounced around, and there isn’t any one person that can say, ‘Here’s how the problem gets solved.’”
At the meeting, Rodriguez countered that having a single person in charge would not necessarily change that.
“A director isn’t going to be the omnipotent one that knows everything about what’s being coordinated between the different bureaus,” she said. Instead, she added, “If we want to talk about the real problems, we’ve got to talk about the resources and staffing support of each of these bureaus.”
Hiding the poison?
According to a City Ethics Commission database, no money has been spent by groups either supporting or opposing Measure LA. But for some political observers, the measure remains multifaceted and the debate heated.
Opponents of Measure LA question why something so significant and controversial as the potential eradication of a board that has been in existence for more than 150 years is on a ballot measure with more palatable proposals, such as adopting a two-year budget cycle and establishing a capital infrastructure plan.
Some have compared it with city Measure EE, the November charter amendment that includes good-governance elements such as boosting penalties for campaign finance violations and a more consequential proposal to allow the full council to meet at least once a week, rather than the current requirement of three times a week.
The former Board of Public Works member suggested that altering the five-member panel should have been its own item, saying, “The longer the paragraphs are, the fewer words the public will read.”
Rodriguez was even more direct, saying, “I think those are all tethered together to make you swallow the poison.”
Yaroslavsky described some of the board members as “very talented,” including its president, Steve Kang, and she acknowledges that separating aspects in the measure would have allowed a more focused conversation on public works. But she believes putting everything together is part of addressing “common-sense, obvious stuff” that will help the city function better.
Blumenfield also understands the objection but points out that the ballot already is overwhelming, and that everything in Measure LA addresses a change in governance and efficiency.
He also points out that voter approval would only set the stage for a later discussion. If a future council opts to change or eliminate the board, it would require 10 votes — or 12 if the mayor vetoed such a move.
“It’s a question that is worth asking, but nobody wants to take the time to go deep on how could we be better if we can’t even have the authority?” Blumenfield said.
With less than a week until Nov. 3, it seems like the Los Angeles mayor’s race is Karen Bass’ to lose.
After a bad debate against challenger Nithya Raman over the summer and the fiasco that was City Hall’s response to the Lineage fire, the incumbent had no other way forward but attack, attack, attack.
Councilmember Nithya Raman, right, speaks during an Oct. 13 debate with Mayor Karen Bass, left, moderated by Conan Nolan, Colleen Williams and Alejandra Ortiz.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Bass barely improved on her abysmal favorability ratings. But some Angelenos seem willing to shrug and cast a ballot for her, because they just don’t trust the more liberal alternative. Raman, a democratic socialist who has served on the City Council since 2020, saw her unfavorability rating jump to 50%, as more people got to know her and didn’t like what they saw.
This isn’t the first time voters have swung like this in a mayoral race involving an unpopular incumbent and an upstart representing a new L.A.
In 1969, the candidate with six years on the City Council was Tom Bradley. The mayor, who, like Bass, had served in the California state Assembly and Congress was Sam Yorty, four years removed from a disastrous response to the Watts riots.
Bradley placed first in the primary and seemed a shoo-in to become L.A.’s first Black mayor in an era when cities across the country were also electing Black mayors.
Councilman Tom Bradley, right, and Mayor Sam Yorty debate in Tarzana in May 1973.
(Los Angeles Times)
So Yorty — a former New Dealer turned conservative Democrat — chose the only path to victory. He claimed that “left-wing radicals” who supported the arriviste were salivating to “take over your city.” The nattering negativity worked: He easily beat Bradley.
History doesn’t repeat itself, the adage goes, but it always rhymes.
One factor boosting Bass’ fortunes: Backers of conservative reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who finished third in the June primary, are trending toward the mayor they loathe, apparently because they hate Raman even more.
Part of Raman’s fall is self-inflicted. She lost her momentum with an October of unforced errors, from awkward television interviews to inadvertently praising the late LAPD Chief Daryl Gates, whose name is still synonymous with Lucifer across swaths of the city.
You know you’re having a bad month when you think it’s wise to yell, “Only you can stop fascist liars!” in unison with a progressive influencer, only to walk it back after realizing the influencer had superimposed an image of your opponent on his video.
Councilmember Nithya Raman celebrates advancing to the general election with mayoral campaign volunteers and supporters at Lawless Brewing Co. on June 13.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
But don’t discount how Bass’ camp decided to frame the race. Facing voters who just don’t like their candidate, they long ago stopped focusing on how she would govern the city better in a second term and doubled down on attacking Raman anywhere and everywhere. That strategy owes as much to Yorty’s win as the Beats did to Walt Whitman.
Raman’s colleagues on the City Council have trashed her like bullies out of a boarding school novel.Videos and fliers of homeless encampments blooming across L.A. under a Raman regime are reminiscent of Yorty campaign ads featuring Bradley and the caption, “Will Your City Be Safe With This Man?”
Bass — whose usual sunny disposition I’ve always found a tonic in the toxic world of politics — lashed into Raman during their final debate, offering no real platform and little defense of her record, preferring instead to paint an L.A. collapsing without her in charge.
“Now is not the time,” she said at one point, “to turn the city over to Nithya Raman.”
Then when, Karen?
L.A. Mayor Sam Yorty in 1971.
(Los Angeles Times)
The comparison to 1969 isn’t apples to apples, of course. The city’s demographics are vastly different, its politics nowhere near as conservative. L.A.’s first female Black mayor would never throw racist slurs at Raman, although Bass and her team continue to point out that the India-born council member has lived in L.A. for only 13 years and thus doesn’t understand the place — a page from Yorty’s troll-tastic playbook.
I don’t like Bass’ tactics, but I get it. When you have nothing to run on but your failures, you have to go nasty against a rival who offers a different vision for the city — because fearmongering works when Angelenos know change is on the way but are skittish about what’s next. It happened in 1969, it happened in 2001 when James Hahn beat Antonio Villaraigosa, and it seems to be happening this time around.
We’ll see what election day brings, but Raman can take solace in history if she loses.
Bradley lost his first mayoral campaign but easily won his rematch against Yorty in 1973, after voters realized the status quo was going to remain the status quo. Villaraigosa, too, eventually became mayor.
“Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come,” goes another cliché of history.
Bass might very well cling to her position, but Angelenos still yearn for a visionary to pick them back up from four years of despair under her. They know she’s not it.
Let’s hope she doesn’t become like Yorty in his last term, complaining about haters being unfair and fending off the rebels she can only keep away for so long.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is escalating a criminal investigation over an Alaska Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony or documents, along with records preservation demands, were issued after the New York Times reported that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan Jr. as part an alleged effort to confuse voters in the highly competitive race.
More subpoenas were expected to be sent Thursday, according to a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe. Neither the recipients of the subpoenas nor the number of them were immediately clear.
The Justice Department for months has been looking into allegations that Dan J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race to siphon votes from the incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
The potential targets of the Justice Department’s investigation are unclear, but President Trump earlier this week called for the criminal prosecution of Peltola and her campaign.
The new subpoenas were confirmed by a person briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing probe.
Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche in a Fox News interview on Wednesday said he wouldn’t discuss any criminal investigations but accused Democrats of “cheating.”
“They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election, not by running on issues, but by putting up a person with the same name,” Blanche said.
The race is among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber. Trump had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race should Peltola defeat Sen. Sullivan.
Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola’s campaign. “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.
Separately, Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has ordered an investigation into Peltola, saying the newspaper’s reporting “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”
“Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections,” Dunleavy added, noting that the reporting “substantially supports” earlier findings by the state’s elections board into the matter.
Trump on Thursday cast doubt on whether Peltola would be seated in the Senate even if she won the election. “Well, you’re going to have to see what happens,” the president told reporters on his way to a rally in South Carolina. “It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run.”
Later, as he rallied for GOP Sen. Darline Graham, Trump said he felt Peltola “actually should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted.”
Peltola’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on Dunleavy’s order. But during a campaign stop in Soldotna, Peltola, a former congresswoman, suggested the Times’ report was a “distraction” from issues such as Sen. Sullivan’s support of the war in Iran.
“This is just another distraction. It’s another diversion,” she said in a video posted online. “This is all stuff to sell newspapers. This is all stuff to get subscriptions.”
And the situation in Alaska isn’t that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on ballots to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.
In Ohio’s Senate race, Republicans have been tied to an effort to boost a socialist on the ballot who would pull votes from the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Jon Husted.
On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance didn’t go as far as Trump did in calling for Peltola to be prosecuted but said he supported a probe into possible election fraud.
“I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters, on the ballot,” Vance told reporters ahead of a campaign trip to Texas. “She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful.”
Earlier this year, a top state elections official ruled Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg, ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed “with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”
The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run. Alaskan voters will see “Dan S. Sullivan” identified as a “registered Republican” and “incumbent” on their ballots, while “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” will not have a party affiliation.
The New York Times reported that interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit showed Peltola’s team aimed to coax candidates into the race, with the aim of splitting support for the GOP senator.
Asked about the reporting on Wednesday, Trump told journalists, “I think they should be prosecuted.” He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”
MONTREAL — Prime Minister Mark Carney called Canada “the most European of non-European countries” early in President Trump’s trade war. Now, he’s hosting European leaders to pursue an unprecedented alliance, but the proposed European Union “associate member” designation faces resistance even as the EU’s top official champions it.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa are in Montreal for a two-day summit aimed at deepening trade, defense and economic ties as Canada and Europe seek to reduce their dependence on Washington in a changing world order.
Speaking in Montreal on Thursday, Von der Leyen warned that economic relationships once considered sources of stability were increasingly being used as instruments of pressure. Without naming Trump, she described the consequences for ordinary families and warned that national sovereignty was under threat.
“When trade becomes a tool of economic pressure, it is families that pay the price, from the supermarket shelf to the cost of a new car,” Von der Leyen said. “We are seeing in real time our sovereignty being attacked.”
She warned that dependence on a single supplier for energy, semiconductors or critical minerals could be exploited and said countries faced a choice between acting alone or working with trusted partners to protect their economic security.
Trump has suggested Canada’s proposed EU arrangement could be a “hostile act” and threatened tariffs on Europe if he considered it unfriendly. Asked Wednesday about possible retaliation, a senior Canadian government official told reporters the closer relationship was not directed against the United States but reflected long-standing shared interests.
Von der Leyen stands by her plan for Canada’s new status
The structure and even the name of the proposed partnership remain unsettled, with some EU member states questioning the “ associate member ” designation proposed last month by Von der Leyen.
Despite resistance from EU member states, Von der Leyen showed no sign of abandoning the idea.
“Canada cannot become a full-fledged member of the EU because of geography, but we both want to bring our relationship to the highest level possible,” she said. “This is why we are discussing the idea of Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union.”
Von der Leyen described the proposed relationship as an “association without accession,” saying it could bring Canada closer to EU membership than any previous arrangement with a country outside the bloc. She said the arrangement would deepen cooperation on everything from artificial intelligence and energy to defense and trade.
Anand Sundar, a special adviser at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said France and Germany are among the countries unhappy with the designation and that it may not survive the summit.
“The fact that member states have rejected the associate membership framing is very embarrassing for Von der Leyen,” Sundar said.
More talks ahead, Carney said
Carney said Tuesday the summit would be followed by further negotiations over the next year.
“It doesn’t matter about specific names or nomenclature,” Carney said. “What matters is the difference that it will make to lives of Canadians.”
Carney said the partnership could create new opportunities for Canadian students, businesses and researchers while strengthening the country’s independence and sovereignty.
Carney has ruled out formally joining the EU, saying any enhanced partnership would require approval by Canada’s Parliament.
An alliance without membership
The summit is expected to launch an “Alliance for the Future,” a framework for closer cooperation on trade, defense, critical minerals, technology and research.
Von der Leyen said Canada and the EU would finalize an agreement Friday giving Canadian companies, startups and researchers access to Europe’s network of 12 advanced supercomputers, strengthening cooperation on artificial intelligence.
She also announced plans to strengthen strategic supply chains and encourage joint investment in industries critical to economic security.
The partnership could expand opportunities for Canadian students and researchers through the EU’s Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe programs and make it easier for professionals to work on both sides of the Atlantic.
European commissioners and Canadian Cabinet ministers will hold sector-specific meetings, beginning with a business forum Thursday before formal leaders’ talks Friday. Officials hope to develop the broader partnership for possible endorsement next year.
A changing world order reshapes economic and defense ties
Canada is the only non-European country participating in the EU’s $167-billion SAFE defense procurement program, allowing Canadian companies to take part in joint European military purchases.
But deeper defense cooperation faces obstacles. Sundar said France is pushing for strict “Made in Europe” rules that could limit Canadian companies’ access to future EU defense spending, while Germany favors broader participation. He said negotiations over the EU’s next seven-year budget could prove more consequential for Canada than anything announced in Montreal.
The two sides already have a sweeping free trade agreement, known as CETA, that eliminated most tariffs. Most provisions have been in force since 2017, although some EU member states have yet to ratify it.
The United States accounted for 71.7% of Canada’s merchandise exports last year. Carney wants to double exports to other countries over the next decade.
Canada and the EU are seeking closer cooperation on critical minerals as both sides work to diversify supply chains. Von der Leyen said the value of EU imports of Canadian critical raw materials rose 62% last year to 3.3 billion euros, including lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite.
Tobias Gehrke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the disagreement over terminology was unlikely to derail closer cooperation.
“There is no magic shortcut to rapidly reducing Europe’s and Canada’s reliance on the U.S. economy and military — not least since Washington might retaliate,” Gehrke said. “But the political window is now wide open to take a much bigger step than was previously conceivable.”
Soon after a federal judge in Los Angeles sharply rejected a Trump administration effort to block 20,000 California ballots from voters it alleged may be noncitizens, the U.S. Justice Department announced it will appeal — leaving attorneys on both sides preparing Thursday for yet another court battle.
That was despite the lower court judge calling the request an unlawful threat to eligible voters in Tuesday’s midterm election and to free and fair American elections moving forward, and the same appellate court having already rejected the same plan days prior.
“Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials. This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution,” wrote First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the lead prosecutor in L.A.
Early Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom swiped back at the Trump administration, writing, “A warning to Donald Trump: I’m deploying election lawyers to key battleground districts in California to protect every vote. And I just made it a FELONY to illegally seize ballots.”
With just days to go until polls close, the heated election war between California and the Trump administration is showing no signs of slowing down, despite multiple court orders rejecting the administration’s central effort to interfere in the midterms by accusing state and county officials of willfully turning a blind eye to voter fraud.
That’s in part because lawyers within the U.S. Justice Department have been unrelenting in their pursuit of such control, both through court orders and threats to state and county officials. It’s also because those same officials have refused to yield, denouncing the threats in recent letters back to the Justice Department as unconvincing and illegal.
“Be aware that we consider DOJ’s efforts to threaten California election officials with criminal sanctions for following federal and state law to be an effort to unlawfully intimidate both election officials and California voters, which can undermine voters’ faith in the election process,” Susan K. Blitch, counsel for Monterey County, wrote in one.
Several elections experts warned the administration is trying to sow confusion and suspicion around an election in which the Republican Party is poised to lose ground, in part so they can reject the outcome. But they also said the courts have consistently rebuffed the Trump administration, and will continue to do so through Nov. 3 and after — with the recent rulings in the case over the 20,000 flagged ballots a perfect example.
“The federal government lost in every way it could possibly lose. It lost on the law, and it lost on the facts, and it lost on the equities — [or] weighing the harms to the various parties,” said Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law.
Appeal, rebuke, appeal
Last week, Trump administration attorneys decided that U.S. District Judge David O. Carter was not ruling quickly enough on their emergency request for a temporary restraining order to block California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan from counting the 20,000 ballots it asserted were from “likely noncitizens” — so they appealed straight to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Monday, a three-judge panel there — including two appointees of President Trump and one of President Biden — denied the appeal for a lack of jurisdiction, because Carter hadn’t been given a chance to weigh in. However, two of the judges — Mark J. Bennett, one of the Trump appointees, and Gabriel P. Sanchez, the Biden appointee — also wrote separately to make clear that they would have denied the administration’s request on the merits, too, for being likely unconstitutional and in violation of federal law.
On Wednesday, Carter, an appointee of President Clinton, issued his own ruling, in which he wrote that the administration’s allegations about noncitizen voters were “not credible” and that the intervention it sought would violate a host of federal laws, sow chaos in the ongoing midterm election, likely lead to the disenfranchisement of legitimate voters and foster future political meddling in elections.
“This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections,” Carter wrote. “If [the Trump administration’s] last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process.”
Carter wrote that never in American history “has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” and that, in bringing its suit, the Trump administration was asking the court to “believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign.”
“But California and its people are sovereign, too,” Carter wrote.
The ruling — forceful, unequivocal and based on several of the same arguments made by Bennett and Sanchez — was cheered by state officials and voting rights groups. Elections experts said it squared directly with their understanding of the law, and was appropriate in the face of the Trump administration’s unprecedented, legally baseless effort to intervene in an ongoing state-run election.
Trump administration officials did not see it that way, and weren’t taking no for an answer. Justice Department lawyers promptly filed notice of appeal back to the 9th Circuit — where the case is likely, though not guaranteed, to land before the same three-judge panel that previously rejected the administration’s demands.
War of words
On Wednesday night, Newsom appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and predicted Trump will take sweeping steps to “literally suppress the vote, to set the conditions where he will then express doubt in the electoral outcome, and suggest that it was rigged.” But he also said California is fighting back and prepared.
“Right now, I am focused on getting over 1,000 poll workers, folks out there to monitor the DOJ monitors that Trump’s gonna send to try to steal this election,” Newsom said. “We have been running tabletop exercises. We have 1,000 volunteers. We have 134 election law attorneys that we’re sending out.”
On Thursday, Essayli replied to the latter deployment, writing, “You’re going to protect every legal or illegal vote? What about California citizens whose votes are being diluted by ineligible voters. Do their constitutional rights matter.”
Trump, meanwhile, asserted with no evidence that “there are hundreds of thousands of bad ballots, bad votes, in California. Millions, in my opinion.” He said California has “very corrupt elections,” and that if it had honest ones, he “would have won it by a lot.”
The remarks were just the latest in a swirling and highly public war of words between state and federal officials.
In Carter’s courtroom Tuesday, Essayli claimed the federal government has maintained a collaborative “tone” since it first demanded the state set aside ballots, and said he was surprised at how “adversarial” state elections officials had been. But Essayli and other Justice Department officials have been engaged for weeks in an aggressive back and forth with California officials online — which is highly unusual for prosecutors actively litigating related cases.
When Newsom’s office recently wrote that “Trump’s DOJ is so desperate to invent ‘widespread voter fraud,’ it sent California counties lists of people who NEVER voted — and voters from the WRONG COUNTY. Absolute clown show!,” Essayli shot back, “Hey Fraud King,” with a crown emoji. “We’re not waiting for them to vote.”
Also unusual have been the threats Justice Department attorneys have been sending to county elections officials in California, including in a series of Oct. 23 letters in which they asserted varying numbers of “likely aliens” per county, set a 48-hour deadline for the counties to cooperate with federal authorities to prove those voters are citizens.
In one letter to Kristin Connelly, head of the Contra Costa County registrar’s office, U.S. Atty. Craig Missakian flagged 407 potential noncitizens in the county, and said he was writing “to make unmistakably clear the legal implications” of processing any ballots from those voters.
On Wednesday, Thomas L. Geiger, Contra Costa County counsel, responded with his own letter, questioning the accuracy of the noncitizen claims and saying it would be “legally unsound” for Connelly to “disregard both California and federal law” in order to comply with Missakian’s demands.
Other county attorneys hit a sharper tone in their own responses. Tony Lopresti, an attorney for Santa Clara County, wrote that his county “reserves its rights to pursue all legal remedies against DOJ for its unlawful intimidation of election officials and California voters.”
How would the late Anthony Bourdain have responded to our political climate in the United States with less than a week before the midterm elections of Donald Trump’s second term?
This speculative thought bubble emerged for me as I watched the last of two Los Angeles episodes Bourdain did through 12 seasons of his CNN food and travel series “Parts Unknown.” It aired just over a year before his death by suicide in France on June 8, 2018.
Set in our Pacific immigrant metropolis, the program predicts Season 2 of Trumpism, if you will. In another way, Bourdain’s ode to L.A. suggests a framework on how to think about the state of our nation as we head to the polls on Tuesday.
The universal glee of getting tacos
Customers line up at Ave 26 Tacos stand in a parking lot next to the Little Tokyo Galleria in 2024.
(Silvia Razgova)
Picture the moment when a taquero hands you a warm paper plate heaping with warm tortillas and meats on a street in Los Angeles. Do you also get that giddy, kid-like feeling for half a second? There’s nothing like it, right?
Halfway through the Season 9 opener of “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain experiences just that. In a moment you might miss without looking closely, that familiar look flashes on his face, an unbridled glee, as a taquero in downtown L.A. hands him tacos. In that moment he’s not some mythical man known to his best friends as “Tony.” He’s just a guy getting tacos. It’s super cute.
I came upon this episode recently, and it struck me as potently relevant for today, just before the midterm elections. Bourdain’s taco happiness reminded me that even when some sectors of U.S. society are calling for an effective de-browning of this country, everyone everywhere still really loves Mexican food.
Daniel Hernandez digs into the stickiest questions around food and culture in Los Angeles and the California borderlands.
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It’s worth pointing out that I’m not a Bourdain superfan. I’ve not seen every episode of TV he made. I didn’t read “Kitchen Confidential” until this year. But lately I’ve been studying him. In the past month I finally watched the biopic “Tony” about his coming of age, and I’ve started reading the entertaining memoir “Care and Feeding” by Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s former long-term assistant and co-author.
I’m catching up on Bourdain because I’ve noticed that as we pass eight years since his death, the author’s cultural influence upon chefs, cooks and food lovers in general does not seem to be waning. It might even be growing.
“He taught me that being a rebel lets you enjoy life,” said Evil Cooks chef and co-owner Alex Garcia, who has an image of Anthony Bourdain tattooed on his leg.
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
A multitude of chefs or cooks in L.A. have a depiction of Bourdain hanging somewhere in their restaurants, kitchens or homes. Some even on their skin. At least six portraits of Bourdain are on display along the black-clad walls of restaurant Evil Cooks in El Sereno, for example. Chef Alex Garcia has a Bourdain tattoo on his lower leg.
“I love Anthony Bourdain for his rebellious way of being, but also for his love for Mexicanos because he worked for many years with people from Puebla,” Garcia told me after I had dinner there Tuesday night. “He taught me that being a rebel lets you enjoy life, because the end of the day, being yourself, being happy, is the purpose of this journey that we call life.”
This enduring passion for Bourdain also springs from what so much of his television and writing do: Demonstrate an unflagging empathy for almost anyone he met anywhere in the world. Well, almost anyone — he said pretty clearly he’d never share a meal with Donald Trump.
His 2017 episode “Los Angeles” (currently streaming on HBO Max) proves it more than most. It was filmed in 2016, just before the election that took Trump to the White House. It is worth a rewatch before you cast your ballot anywhere.
The program delves into cultural identity, racism, police abuse and corruption and gentrification. Its whole thesis points to the fallacy of being anti-immigrant or anti-Mexican in 21st century America. “Los Angeles, like much of California, used to be part of Mexico,” Bourdain says in the intro. “Now, Mexico, or a whole lot of Mexicans, are a vital part of … us.”
“This show will air long after the election,” Bourdain tells Hinojosa-Ojeda at Gish Bac. “There is actually a national conversation now, unthinkable in my lifetime, where the notion of rounding up however many millions of undocumented workers in this country all at once … and then kicking them out. I mean, it seems unthinkable. But, you know, they said that in Europe in the ‘30s.”
In his characteristic tone, grumpy yet hopeful, Bourdain showed he believed in a shared human dignity that superceded all ethnic, national, religious or ideological boundaries.
Listening to him, the prospect of total MAGA Republican rule in all branches of government becomes something like a nightmare that we’ve seen play out in real life. It is a long list of gross constitutional violations targeting immigrants and brown-skinned people, and their supporters like slain U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti of Minneapolis, on a daily basis in this country.
People gather at a memorial for Alex Pretti and Renée Good, both shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
Loving immigrants
On Tuesday, voters nationwide are expected to be thinking first of their pocketbooks and of corruption in Washington when they vote. On another level, this election along with the 2016 and 2024 results are also about litigating by the ballot box what it means to “be” an American.
Sandra Zweig, one of the executive producers on the show, told me Bourdain set out to highlight Latino Los Angeles from the very beginning in 2016. In March of that year, she recalled in an interview, he sent producers the initial list of the cities he was thinking of for Season 9, to start the production conversation.
From that first brainstorming session, Zweig found these notes about a second episode in L.A.: “All-Mexico edition.”
“This time we pretend nobody lives in L.A. who isn’t Latino,” the notes continued. “We live, play in that world without leaving it, we will explore Mexican and Central American immigration, how vital this population is to the SoCal economy.”
Those notes show Bourdain wanted to avoid a recycling of the pastoral mainstream modern narrative on L.A., which isn’t inaccurate but can sometimes feel stale: hyping its multicultural, polycentric, polyethnic etcetera identity. No. This time would be all brown.
“He worked in kitchens and restaurants for so long, he knew as well as anyone that a huge portion of that work staff were immigrants from Mexico and Central America,” Zweig told me. “He also knew that being an immigrant wasn’t a bad thing, to use the word pejoratively was just anathema to him.”
Pop figures like Bourdain and Trejo, despite his recent stumble (he was cast in a film by alt-right extremist Ben Shapiro’s film company), have arguably done a lot more to shape Americans’ perceptions of immigrants and Mexicans than any political leader.
“He would always say, ‘Travel allows you to see people, where they live, and understand where they’re coming from, and reducing that fear for the other.’ For the audience, you’re opening up a world that they may not be able to travel to yourself,” Zweig said. “In 2016, there were things being said about immigrants and immigration that he felt strongly about, and this was one way to discuss that.”
Zweig added: “I can’t predict exactly what he’d say, but it’s clear to me that’d be appalled by the whole sort of immigration enforcement and ICE tactics that’s happening now. That’s not a leap to assume that.”
When I look at the audacity and cruelty of the MAGA right’s stance on immigration, the killings of citizens and immigrants at the hands of ICE agents, I always turn back and remind myself how out-of-step with the nation it is to be anti-immigrant.
Alfonso Lira, 61, a dishwasher and busser from Michoacan, Mexico, sweeps the entrance at Chapter One restaurant in downtown Santa Ana during a double shift in 2024.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Gallup polling is a reliable benchmark on weighing Americans’ views on immigration. At its highest point just last year, the trend line showed 79% of Americans believe immigration is a good thing overall to the country by far. Currently that figure is 73%. Only 21% of Americans believe immigration is a bad thing, its second lowest point since 2002.
Polls and sentiments vary widely from there on how to reform and manage the immigration system — although certainly most people in the U.S. are against current ICE raids, roughly by 2-to-1 — but the basic truth is sitting there before us: The country loves and appreciates immigrants. For most of us, it’s always been about welcoming the stranger, honoring hard work, and contributing to the pursuit of social harmony.
Most of us believe anyone can join the party. There just has to be a better process for it. Political leaders therefore must offer a clear plan not for “mass deportations” but for normalizing people who are here and contributing to society, the economy and the tax base. And more than anything, offer as many people as possible a pathway to citizenship.
If anyone ever tells you they are opposed to any version of this notion, remind them that they are in the minority. Americans favor immigrants by 7-out-of-10, Gallup says. And remind them that as his last love letter to L.A. shows, Anthony Bourdain would have tried to snap them out of it if he’d ever gotten the chance.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday set a September 2027 trial date for a man charged with attempting to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner in April.
Cole Tomas Allen’s trial is scheduled to start with jury selection on Sept. 7 in Washington, D.C., and is expected to last approximately three to four weeks. Prosecutors had recommended starting the trial in May, but U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden set the later date after one of Allen’s attorneys asked for more time to prepare.
Allen, of Torrance, is accused of storming the WHCA dinner while armed with guns and knives and firing a shotgun at a Secret Service officer who tried to stop the attack at the Washington Hilton hotel. The officer, who was struck once in a bullet-resistant vest, fired five shots but didn’t hit anybody, authorities said. Allen was injured but not from gunfire.
The attack led to an early end to one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital. Trump returned to speak at the rescheduled dinner three months later.
In writings that he sent to relatives before the attack, Allen railed against Trump administration policies and referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” authorities said.
Allen faces an attempted assassination charge that carries a maximum possible sentence of life in prison. He also is charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and two additional firearms counts.
Democrats, election officials and voting rights groups have long wondered whether President Trump, upon his return to the Oval Office, would again attempt to overturn an election when his party is trailing.
It’s no longer hypothetical.
Late last week, the president directed his Department of Justice to preemptively contest a potential Republican loss in the U.S. Senate race in Alaska. The department is demanding a court hold up certification of a possible Democratic win until it’s determined whether voters were confused by having two candidates with the same name on the ballot.
Trump followed that by calling for the prosecution of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman, based on a New York Times report that her campaign helped recruit someone named Dan Sullivan to siphon away votes from the Republican incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan. The governor has ordered an investigation.
Academics believe the lawsuit is the first time since the Civil Rights era that the federal government has sued to halt certification of an election, a duty the Constitution places in the hands of states.
Trump, for years, has claimed elections are rigged when he or his party loses, and this time is no exception. He has used his midterm rallies to say Democrats cheat, criticize election officials by name and call the ranked choice voting system in Alaska, which might hold the key to Senate control, a scam.
But the certification lawsuit elevates Trump’s crusade beyond mere rhetoric, indicating that he is preparing to use the power of the presidency to try to reverse a possible loss as his party struggles to hold its control of Congress in Tuesday’s elections.
Earlier this week, the president also announced a $1 million bounty for anyone who provides proof of prior or current voter fraud in the country. It wasn’t clear whether or how he planned to follow through.
“For at least the last year and a half, they’ve been laying that groundwork,” said Theresa Lee, a senior attorney with the ACLU. “We’ve been preparing for just as long, if not longer.”
Trump says he’ll accept results if the election is ‘honest’
Trump told reporters this week that he would accept the election results, but with his typical caveat: “If they’re honest elections,” he said.
That follows a pattern. Trump has preemptively claimed that upcoming elections will be rigged and labeled elections he’s lost as stolen. It started with the 2016 Republican Iowa caucuses, when he came in second to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa,” Trump said at the time. “He stole it.”
Democrats and other groups that oppose Trump have been concerned that his words would turn into directives to have his administration interfere in the midterms. They have been running exercises for months and have lawsuits pre-written. They also plan to have tens of thousands of people monitoring the polls on Election Day.
So far, early voting has been quiet, with about 35 million people already casting ballots without any notable disruption.
In that respect, this year’s election so far resembles 2025’s off-year elections in New Jersey, Virginia and a handful of other states. Democrats braced for possible Trump action then, but the election proceeded with no major issues. But the Justice Department’s more aggressive actions this month already make 2026 different from any election in recent memory.
It has sued California to block it from counting ballots after it alleged the state had 20,000 noncitizens on its rolls and made a similar demand of Washington related to about 400 voters in that state. Both states said the demands came too close to the election to fulfill, and a federal judge Wednesday rejected the federal government’s California demands.
Earlier, the Justice Department seized ballots and election records related to the 2020 presidential election in Georgia’s Fulton County, and the administration launched a sweeping investigation of that vote, though it has yet to turn up evidence supporting Trump’s false claims of fraud.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department does not want to intervene in elections, but had no choice in Alaska.
“We are not doing anything improper,” Blanche said Sunday on CNN. “But I do think it’s important for the American people to understand that we are not — (and) President Trump is not — trying to take over a state election in any way, shape or form.”
After the lawsuit was filed, Trump told reporters he was the one who pushed for it: “I’m the one that said do it,” the president said.
Lawsuits seem more ‘impulsive’ than strategic
Though the Trump administration claimed to be acting on behalf of Alaska’s voters in its lawsuit to hold up certification, the president’s Republican allies in the state didn’t appear happy.
Sen. Sullivan would not say whether he supported the lawsuit. Alaska’s Republican-controlled state government filed court papers to try to have it dismissed. The state’s other Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, said the administration “should never have filed” it.
While controversial, the situation in Alaska is not that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on the ballot to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.
Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, wrote that the Alaska lawsuit’s legal argument was “one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen.” He said that should reassure the public that Trump won’t be able to change election outcomes.
“The notion that there’s going to be something systemic that’s going to thwart the will of the voters seems much more speculative,” he said. “A lot of the conduct seems impulsive rather than strategic and planned.”
The courts have repeatedly rebuffed the administration, in many cases because the Constitution gives the president no direct power over how elections are run. Courts put on hold two Trump executive orders seeking to change voting procedures. The administration also has lost more than two dozen cases trying to get detailed voter information from the states.
That resembles 2020, when Trump and his allies tried to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and in the process lost dozens of lawsuits.
Can the institutions hold?
Pat McCrory, a former Republican governor of North Carolina, is part of Right Count, a group of conservatives pushing back against election conspiracy theories and intervention in local elections. He said he’s confident the system will hold.
“The only thing that protects us from anarchy is this thin piece of paper called the Constitution,” McCrory said. “That thin piece of paper is, to me, a cement wall.”
It’s one that many analysts expect will continue to stymie Trump in the courts.
“The courts are likely to throw most, if not all, of these charges out,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “But this is a way of intensifying the signal to Trump’s supporters that the elections are rigged.”
The Justice Department in 2020 refused to join Trump’s allies in litigation. In his second term, Trump has pushed out career staff and stocked his administration with people who helped him challenge the 2020 election. That’s led to mounting concern he could deploy immigration agents, the FBI or even the military to the polls or seize ballots or voting machines, although multiple administration officialshave denied they have such plans.
All of that could happen before courts even have a chance to weigh in, said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist.
“The threat is that he’ll take actions that can’t be undone,” Nyhan said.
Riccardi and Swenson write for the Associated Press.
With less than a week until Election Day, Democrats remain divided over their nominee in Michigan’s pivotal Senate race. The question now is whether those divisions will outweigh voter frustration with President Trump and the Republican Party.
Criticism of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has persisted for months, both privately and publicly, since a contentious primary divided voters and party leaders. Rather than focusing solely on uniting the party’s traditional coalition in the aftermath of the primary, El-Sayed has sought to bring new voters — particularly college students and rural residents — into the fold.
But the lingering Democratic tensions spilled into public view again Wednesday, when Jason Turkish, the fiance of El-Sayed’s former primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, told The Detroit News that he would vote for Republican Mike Rogers.
Hours later, Stevens appeared on CNN to reaffirm that she would be voting for El-Sayed, but urged his campaign to “shut out the hate and call it out.”
“Make people who are in my coalition, right, make them feel comfortable about coming to the polls,” said Stevens, who drew significant support from Jewish and Black voters during the primary.
El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel, past remarks and associations with controversial streamer Hasan Piker have long drawn concern from some in Michigan’s large Jewish community. Turkish and others in the Jewish community have said El-Sayed hasn’t done enough to address concerns ahead of the general election.
The latest controversy centered on an ad by Rebellion PAC, an independent left-wing group, that linked U.S. support for Israel to high grocery prices.
“That has nothing to do with our campaign,” El-Sayed said of the ad. “It’s certainly not what I want to be talking about right now.”
Stevens and other Democrats urged him to go further to denounce the content of the advertisement rather than merely distancing himself from it.
Republicans face political challenges of their own, particularly voter dissatisfaction with Trump, the Iran war and high costs. Rogers has remained closely aligned with the president on most issues, appearing alongside him at a Michigan rally Sunday where he credited Trump with bringing manufacturing jobs back to the state.
El-Sayed has sought to capitalize on that dissatisfaction, holding campaign events in heavily Republican areas, including Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. His campaign even released an ad featuring clips of prominent conservative figures praising him, including Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host has also been accused of antisemitism, which he has denied.
But that outreach has created another source of friction with some Jewish voters.
Rabbi Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield criticized both the Rebellion PAC ad and El-Sayed’s campaign ad during a call with reporters.
“We are one week away from the election, and it feels like the temperature has turned way up,” Starr said. “Instead of things getting better over the last seven weeks, they’ve actually gotten worse.”
CEBU, Philippines — The United States and Japan have agreed to establish a Japanese facility for the joint production of advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, the Japanese defense chief said.
It is the latest move by the allies, which have repeatedly expressed alarm over China’s growing assertiveness in Asia.
Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi made the announcement in a news conference Wednesday night in the central Philippine province of Cebu, where he met U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of an annual meeting of Southeast Asian defense chiefs and their major Asian and Western counterparts.
Koizumi renews concern over China’s naval activity
Koizumi raised concern Thursday about China’s increasing naval activity in southwestern Japan. He said that three Chinese destroyers and a coast guard ship together crossed the Osumi Strait south of the southern main island of Kyushu and headed east to the Pacific Ocean this week. It was the first such fleet configuration his ministry has spotted, he said.
Koizumi said he cited the incident as “an example illustrating the challenging security environment in the region” in his remark at a session Thursday. His ministry will keep watching the Chinese activity with high level of interest, he said. Japan has been accelerating military buildup in southwestern Japan to deter China.
The annual meetings aim to avert a major regional conflict and strengthen defense cooperation. On the sidelines of the meetings, however, the U.S. and China and their allies have often traded criticisms.
Japan, US to bolster joint missile production capacity
The missiles that will be produced as part of a joint effort called “Operation Supercharge” are essential for the F-35 fighter jets, Koizumi said. The two sides agreed to build a final assembly and inspection plant for the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM, in Japan, he said. The U.S.-made F-35s are one of the world’s most advanced aircraft and are also used by the Japanese military.
During his brief meeting with Hegseth in Cebu, Koizumi said he “shared a sense of crisis … regarding the increasingly severe regional situation and we agreed to strengthen the deterrence and response capabilities of the Japan-U.S. alliance with greater speed and intensity than ever before.”
“We reaffirmed the importance of a free and open international order based on the rule of law, which rejects any attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo through the use of force, coercion or other means,” Koizumi said.
Hegseth reassures U.S. engagement in the region
Hegseth renewed the Trump administration’s repeated assurances of commitment to help deter aggression in the region in a separate meeting on Wednesday with ASEAN defense ministers, who were led by the host, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. Like Koizumi, Hegseth did not mention China by name in expressing his security concerns in the region.
“The approach we’re taking, we describe as strong, quiet and clear,” Hegseth told the ASEAN defense chiefs. “Strong enough to deter coercion and aggression, quiet enough to avoid needless escalation or public theatrics to let our actions speak for themselves.”
His message is “clear enough that our friends, our partners and potential adversaries understand precisely where the United States stands and that we will defend our interests and the interests of our allies and partners,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth has assured the Philippines, the oldest treaty ally of Washington in Asia, that the Trump administration will build a robust deterrence against China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Beijing claims the busy waterway, a key global trade route, virtually in its entirety.
Australia shows commitment to defend the rule of law in the Pacific
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said his country’s forces, along with allies like the U.S., will press on with efforts to defend the rule of law despite China’s increasing assertiveness, including in the South China Sea. Australia protested last year after a Chinese J-16 fighter aircraft released flares and passed within 100 feet of an Australian P-8 Poseidon surveillance jet over the disputed waters.
“That doesn’t deter us from doing what we need to do and that’s essentially asserting the rules-based order here in the end of the Pacific,” Marles told The Associated Press in Cebu on Wednesday. “Freedom of navigation on the high seas is profoundly important for Australia.”
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, all ASEAN member states, along with Taiwan, also have overlapping claims in the South China Sea. Confrontations have particularly escalated between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy vessels in disputed shoals and outlying waters.
Washington has warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
Beijing and Tokyo have a separate dispute over tiny Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, with both sides often accusing the other of infringing on their maritime territory.
Gomez and Calupitan write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Aaron Favila in Cebu, Philippines, and Haruka Nuga in Bangkok and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
It’s finally election day and you’re ready to head to the polls to cast your ballot in California’s 2026 midterm, but you don’t know where the nearest polling location is. Or perhaps you misplaced your ballot.
Here are some common last-minute election-day hiccups and how to navigate them so you can earn your “I voted” sticker on Tuesday.
I forgot to register to vote
You can still register as a conditional voter on election day through the “same day” voter registration process.
Eligible citizens who need to register or re-register to vote within 14 days of an election can complete this process at county elections offices, polling places or vote centers.
If you’ve become a U.S. citizen fewer than 15 days before the election, you may register to vote by visiting your county elections office anytime before the polls close on election day. You must bring proof that you are a U.S. citizen and sign a form saying you are eligible to vote in California.
For all those registering, the application requires a state driver’s license or California identification card number, or you can use the last four digits of your Social Security card.
If you don’t have any of those, you can still register. You’ll be assigned a unique identifier to validate your registration.
With same-day registration, you are “conditionally” registered to vote, and your ballot is provisional. Once officials have confirmed you are registered to vote in that county, your ballot is then processed and counted.
I don’t know where my polling place is
You can look for the nearest polling place by entering your address in the “Find your polling place” tool on the California secretary of state’s website.
The Los Angeles County office of the registrar-recorder/county clerk has a vote center locator that includes the wait time to cast your ballot.
I’m here at the polling place but forgot my ballot at home
You can request a provisional ballot at any polling place in the county in which you are registered to vote.
A provisional ballot is a regular ballot that is placed in a special envelope prior to being put in the ballot box.
It’s counted once election officials verify that you are a registered voter in that county and haven’t already voted in the election.
I can’t submit my mail-in ballot myself
You can have someone else submit your ballot.
Anyone can drop off your mailed ballot as long as you authorize them to do so and they do not get paid on a per-ballot basis, according to the secretary of state.
You and the person you’ve authorized to submit your mailed ballot must fill out and sign the outside of the ballot envelope.
I forgot my check-in code for in-person voting
Los Angeles County election officials say you can check in at a vote center by scanning your “quick check-in code” — a number that verifies your voter registration.
Your unique code can be found on your mailed sample ballot and vote center postcard. Take either of those hard copies to the vote center.
If you forgot the hard copies, you can find the code online. You retrieve it by verifying your voter registration here. You’ll need to input your last name, birth date, the house number of your residential address and your ZIP Code. For assistance call, (800) 815-2666, Option 2.
I’ve heard about touch-screen voting machines not working
It’s a common issue: You touch your voting machine screen, and it doesn’t show your intended selection.
Flag a poll worker if you’re having difficulty. If you’ve already printed a ballot that doesn’t reflect your intended selections, don’t cast it; notify a poll worker who will follow procedures for replacing the ballot.
How late is too late to put my ballot in a ballot box?
There are three ways you can submit your mailed ballot on election day:
You can put it in a ballot drop box. The cutoff time to do so is the same time that polls close, 8 p.m.
Drop it off at a polling place, vote center or county elections office by 8 p.m.
Drop it off at a United States post office. To ensure your ballot is postmarked by election day, mail it at least by Thursday — five days before Tuesday’s election. If mailing on election day, get a hand-stamped postmark from a postal employee at a U.S. post office.
Where is my nearest ballot box?
The Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office has an online tool here to help you find a ballot box near you.
I think I forgot to sign my mailed ballot envelope
If you turned in your vote-by-mail ballot and forgot to sign it, your vote will still count.
Your county elections official will notify you by mail, phone or email. You can also be notified by way of the “Where’s My Ballot?” tracking tool, which offers automatic notifications that will ping you if there are issues with your ballot.
To remedy the issue, your county elections office will provide you with a form to fill out and return completed.
The form will be given to you two days prior to the day your county certifies the election, so be sure to fill it out and return it to your county elections office right away.
How late is too late to vote at the polls on election night?
In California, any voter who is in line at 8 p.m. when the polls are scheduled to close is allowed to vote, according to the secretary of state.
If there is a line when the polls close, a poll worker stands at the back of the line to let people who arrive after 8 p.m. know that the polls have closed.
Any voter who arrives after the polls have closed may not be allowed to vote, even if voters who were in line to vote before the polls closed are in the process of voting.
As California decides whether to slap billionaires with a special tax, the Golden State’s swarm of social media stars is chiming in — and increasingly getting paid to influence voters.
Unlikely influencers, from foodies to mothers to retirees, are weighing in on Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the assets of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires and on other ballot measures created to cancel it.
Campaigns try to team up with and sometimes compensate key content creators, as their endorsements often hit harder than traditional political ads.
Between cheery Instagram videos about budget-friendly trips to a playground, a Halloween house and zoo with her kids, Bartley Chavez posted a video opposing Proposition 40 to her more than 47,500 followers.
“Look, I’m all for trying new things. A new recipe? Sure. A crazy haircut? Go for it. A quirky movie with the kids. Why not? But when we’re talking about California jobs, our family’s financial future, and the state’s economy, that’s not something I want to experiment with,” she says in the October video.
The video’s caption states the campaign opposing Proposition 40 paid her to post.
Getting political online does come with risks. In the video’s comments, one Instagram user said they unfollowed Chavez’s account, and another called her a “sell out.” Others backed her position. Chavez didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Los Angeles author and political influencer Leigh McGowan has built an audience of more than 3.5 million followers on different platforms with her no-nonsense takes on politics and other issues. She was already a supporter of the wealth tax when the Proposition 40 campaign started to pay for some of her posts.
“No one is punishing the rich. They are doing just fine,” she said in a sponsored video on Instagram. “We are simply asking them to pay an outstanding one-time tax that’ll help the rest of us.”
Campaigns have been paying attention to influencers as younger people turn to them for news, said McGowan, who’s known for pontificating from her kitchen. Many people distrust traditional media and want regular people to break down complex topics.
“We don’t know who to believe anymore, and there are just so many lies out there,” McGowan said in an interview. “The people who take the time to say authentically this is what they believe in, that’s who people believe.
In California, political ad spending in the 2026 election cycle is projected to approach $1 billion, more than any other state, according to political advertising intelligence firm AdImpact. Roughly $114 million is expected to go to digital platforms such as Facebook, Google, Snapchat and X.
The campaign opposing Proposition 40 has plenty of money to spend on political messaging in what’s become one of the most expensive ballot fights in California’s history. Billionaires such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin have donated millions to Building a Better California, a group funding ads against the wealth tax proposal. More than $350 million has been contributed to fight the billionaire tax and support two propositions — 41 and 42 — that could block it.
Campaign finance forms show how much groups spend on digital media, but they don’t say how much of that goes to influencers. While the data are limited, campaign leaders and other experts say social media stars are playing a bigger role in how brands and political movements advertise.
“Any modern campaign that wants to win needs to be active in spaces where voters get information — and that’s exactly what the No on 40 coalition is doing,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the coalition opposing Proposition 40.
Some political influencers broadcast their views independently or talk to campaigns without compensation. Others are paid a few hundred dollars or even up to $30,000 per post, according to an October report from the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Communication Technology Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh.
Influencers will post content for political campaigns to make money, but “genuine belief in political issues or candidates can — and often does — coexist with compensation,” the report said.
One Los Angeles influencer, The Speech Prof, who has more than 1.7 million combined followers on Instagram and TikTok, said he refused money to stop the billionaire tax.
The creator, also known as Professor Chesko, talks about everything from parenting and misogyny to politics. In September, he posted a viral video in which he says he rejected a large amount of money to oppose the billionaire tax.
This month, he posted a new video backing the billionaire tax, noting that the Proposition 40 campaign paid him to make the content. “It’s not nearly as much, but they’re a healthcare union and not corporate oligarchs. Plus I already said where I stand for free,” he said in the October video.
Professor Chesko didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The storm of new voices chiming in on the political debate, delivered through people’s personalized social media feeds, could be causing confusion, said Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA.
“If I’m seeing a completely different reality than you, whether it’s through influencers, AI or social media microtargeting,” he said. “Then it’s impossible to have a common basis for making decisions or choices.”
While the anti-billionaire tax war chest is much bigger, groups behind the tax say they’re still winning on social media.
“Despite being heavily outspent, the Prop. 40 campaign has been beating the billionaires on social media content and impact,” said Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for the SEIU-UHW, the healthcare union backing the billionaire tax.
She said influencers support the tax even when they’re not paid because they understand that “California needs functioning hospitals and emergency rooms, not more tax breaks for billionaires.”
Some sponsored influencers are avoiding direct criticism of the billionaire tax and instead signaling support for a ballot measure that could nullify Proposition 40 even if voters approve it.
Proposition 42 prohibits new taxes on “retirement holdings, individually-owned assets, and other forms of personal savings,” but it conflicts with the billionaire tax proposal. If voters approve both, the one with the most “yes” votes generally would become law.
Karen Clay-Fenderson, a Los Angeles mom and retired teacher with more than 120,000 Instagram followers, has posted videos about Proposition 42.
“I did my research on 42, and I did see something about the billionaire tax. But I want to keep my retirement and my life savings. I don’t want that taxed,” she said in an interview.
She disclosed that the Proposition 42 campaign paid her for the videos, but didn’t go so far as to tell people how to vote.
“They understand that we have influence, and people listen to what we have to say,” she said. “That’s why I’m very cautious. This is what I’m doing, but you need to make your choice.”
In California, influencers must disclose that they are being paid by a political campaign. In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that would penalize influencers who failed to disclose that they were paid to post political content. Influencers could face fines of up to $5,000 per post.
Social media platforms also have their own rules. Instagram allows paid political ads, but TikTok doesn’t — though enforcement has been an issue.
Nathan Click, a spokesperson for Proposition 42, said their partners disclose they are paid and follow all campaign laws.
“Creators play an important role in the political conversation,” he said. “And campaigns across the country partner with them to ensure their audiences understand what’s at stake in the election.”
California voters are souring on a Nov. 3 ballot measure to impose a one-time tax on billionaires to help fund healthcare programs, a proposal that has triggered one of the most expensive political battles in state history.
Half of likely voters plan to vote against Proposition 40, the proposed wealth tax on billionaires’ assets, while 42% support it, according to a new poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. The findings mark a significant decline in support of the measure, which was crafted by an influential California healthcare union to compensate for an estimated $100 billion in federal healthcare cuts approved by President Trump and congressional Republicans.
The survey also found that a solid majority of likely voters opposed Proposition 39, which would require Californians to provide identification when voting and election officials to verify registered voters are U.S. citizens. The findings come as the Trump administration continues to attack California as a haven for voter fraud, including unfounded allegations of rampant illegal voting by undocumented immigrants.
Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director, said previous surveys showed support for Proposition 40 has been fragile, and the most recent shows its prospects have dimmed as election day approaches.
The increase in opposition to Proposition 40 is “broad-based and spans virtually all major segments of the electorate,” DiCamillio said. The ballot measure was leading in a Berkeley poll conducted just six weeks ago, albeit by a slim margin, so its reversal of fortune is significant, he said.
The declining support comes after an onslaught of money spent opposing Proposition 40, including a torrent of television and social media ads airing everywhere from NFL games to “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns. Nearly $368 million has been contributed to efforts opposing the billionaire tax, while $36 million has been donated to support the proposed levy.
Proposition 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires who resided in California as of Jan. 1, with some exceptions. Democrats and their allies are splintered over the proposal. Some, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, argue it will prompt the wealthy to flee California, further harming its volatile budget, which is dependent on the state’s richest residents. The California Democratic Party and leading progressives support the measure, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling it a modest tax necessary to help Californians struggling because of cuts imposed by Republicans to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.
While Republican voters overwhelmingly oppose Proposition 40, nearly two-thirds of Democrats support it and more than a quarter opposing it. There is also a generational divide, with 6 out of 10 voters 65 years old or older opposing the measure, while more than two-thirds of those under 30 supporting it, according to the poll.
The findings are similar to a Public Policy Institute of California poll released Tuesday, which found 52% of likely voters would vote against Proposition 40, while 46% supported it.
The campaign against the wealth tax, funded by some of California’s richest tech moguls, is centered on three intertwined ballot initiatives: Proposition 40 and Propositions 41 and 42, both of which would undercut Proposition 40 through a series of changes to state tax laws and spending restrictions.
Proposition 41 would cut wasteful government spending by requiring audits of new state special taxes and would bar new state taxes that are exempt from a state spending limit. Proposition 42 would prohibit new taxes on retirement holdings, individually owned assets and other personal savings. Both Propositions 41 and 42 would nullify the billionaire tax if it passes, provided either measure receives more votes.
A plurality of voters oppose Propositions 41 and 42, a reversal from just six week ago, according to the poll.
In mid-September, voters were closely divided about Proposition 41 — 37% in favor and 33% opposed — with a large number of undecided. In the current poll, 38% of likely voters favor the measure and 47% oppose it. Proposition 42 led by 9 percentage points in the Berkeley/L.A. Times poll in September — 43% in favor and 34% opposed. Now, 43% of likely voters support it and 45% oppose it.
DiCamillo said backers of a ballot measure also should be concerned any time support registers below 50%, since voters who are undecided or unsure tend to vote no.
“It’s below 50%, and it’s trending down. Both of those are ominous signs,” DiCamillo said. Proposition 42 is “still very close. I’m not saying it’s definitely going down, but it’s moving in the wrong direction late in the campaign, and usually movement in a late poll is even more significant than the actual numbers themselves,”
He added that while many voters were unaware the two proposed ballot measures were designed as poison pills to kill the billionaire tax, among those who knew, the opposition was significantly greater.
If all three measures fail, that still would be a victory for the billionaires who spent aggressively to tank the wealth tax.
Another notable finding was voters’ support of Proposition 3, which would make permanent a higher income tax rate on the wealthy that funds education. A majority of voters — 54% — support continuing the levy, while 37% oppose it, according to the poll. DiCamillo says the disparity in support of the proposed billionaire tax and the extension of the existing wealth tax has been consistent in IGS’s polls, and is likely because of the differing foundations of the levies.
“Proposition 3 is already in place, and if you read the fiscal impact, if this were to pass, it maintains $5 billion to $15 billion of annual funding,” he said, “It’s a big revenue generator, and I think that is something that’s already in place.”
“Voters kind of understand the progressive nature of California’s tax system, and they kind of support that, but they don’t support nearly as much the idea of some new kind of tax, the wealth tax, which is taxing assets rather than income,” he said. “So that’s the distinction.”
These ballot measures are among 14 that voters will decide on Nov. 3, as well as statewide, congressional, local and judicial elections.
Among the other controversial measures is Proposition 39, a measure pushed by Republicans that would require all voters in future elections to show government-issued identification every time they vote in person or provide a special PIN or the last four digits of their Social Security number when submitting mail-in ballots.
The measure also would require the California secretary of state and county election officials to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens by “using government data,” which according to supporters could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, jury summons information and other government records.
Nearly 6 in 10 likely voters oppose the effort, while more than a third support it, split largely along party lines. More than half of voters who are registered as “no party preference” or with a smaller political party oppose the proposal, which DiCamillo said was an indication of trouble for the proposition given the state’s Democratic majority electorate and the proximity of the election.
“It’s hard for Republicans to push something over the finish line by themselves,” he said.
Other prominent ballot measures:
Proposition 43, which would prohibit local governments from imposing certain new special taxes unless two-thirds of voters approve the proposal. Such proposals need a simple majority vote to be approved. While 46% of likely voters oppose the proposal, 36% support it, challenging numbers this close to election day, DiCamillo said. “It needs to get to 50,” he said. “We’ll see how you do that this late in the campaign.”
Proposition 4, which would repeal a prohibition of public financing of campaigns, allowing state and local governments to support candidates if they abide by several rules. Likely voters are evenly split about the proposal, with 41% supporting it and opposing it, and 18% undecided. “It’s close, but it’s still below 50%. Most voters tend to vote no in the late going if they’re not convinced,” DiCamillo said, adding that he viewed the lack of support among voters who do not affiliate with a political party as a signal of potential failure.
The poll of 2,787 registered California voters was conducted online in English and Spanish Oct. 19-25 and has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points in either direction.
WASHINGTON — In the final days before an election that will decide control of Congress, President Trump’s closing argument — buoyant, digressive and characteristically off-script — is at times running headlong into the economic anxieties of the voters Republicans most need.
With a war in Iran driving up gas prices for Americans, Trump is boasting to supporters that the conflict is making the country rich. At a rally in Georgia, he said his aides had urged him not to brag about the billions of dollars the United States was earning on oil from the war, since Americans are “paying a little higher” in costs because of it. But he did it anyway.
“I said, I don’t give a damn,” Trump said. “We are making a freaking fortune. Our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time. And those pump prices are going to come down.”
The moment underscores the gamble at the core of Trump’s final pitch to voters. With polls showing an overwhelming majority of Americans unhappy with the economy, the president is offering a portrait of national prosperity that many voters do not recognize, and pairing it with jokes and digressions that can seem to make light of their struggles.
Tuesday’s results will be the clearest test yet of whether that message still moves his base, or whether the president has become a liability for a party at risk of losing Congress in part because of his sinking popularity.
Signs of GOP anxiety are reflected in where Trump is spending his final days campaigning. Rather than courting swing voters in battleground states, he is leading rallies in Mississippi, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina and Kansas — states that have long been Republican strongholds but where the party now worries its voters may stay home.
Still, the president is insisting to voters that the country is succeeding, and he is making the election a referendum on his agenda.
“The world is falling apart, and we are doing better than we’ve ever done,” he told a crowd in Mississippi on Monday. The next day, during a stop in Texas, he joked that the $5,000 he has promised Americans if Republicans win would not be enough for his supporters to eat a meal at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla.
“You will be my guest at Mar-a-Lago. The problem is that for $5,000 the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert,” Trump said, laughing. “I’m not even sure you could buy that.”
Democrats have criticized the president’s remarks, calling them dismissive of voters’ concerns. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Trump boasting that the country was making money out of the Iran war was a “fitting” slogan for Trump’s White House.
Trump’s personal oil and gas holdings are now estimated to be worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million, up from $12.6 million to $46 million at the end of last year, according to a report released this week by congressional Democrats.
Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, rejected the idea that the president has dismissed voters’ financial pain.
“The president, I think, shows empathy about what we’re going through, and he is fighting like hell,” Gruters said in an interview.
Asked to sum up Trump’s closing message, Gruters framed it as a choice between “common sense vs. crazy.” When pressed on the economy, Gruters pointed to Trump’s push to limit federal taxes on tips and overtime pay, to create investment accounts for children and to bring back manufacturing jobs.
“He has transformed the Republican Party into the workingman’s party,” Gruters said. “He is all about trying to bring back jobs that will bring up real wages across the board.”
But that message can be overshadowed with the off-script riffs that have long defined Trump’s rallies. During a rally in Ohio, while praising Sen. Jon Husted, Trump detoured into remarks about the Republican senator’s backside as well as rapper Nicki Minaj’s.
“I looked at his ass and I’ve never done that with a man before. It’s true. Off the record: Women, yes, men, no, OK?” Trump said. “By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nicki Minaj.”
At a separate rally, Trump turned his attention to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, saying that if elected, El-Sayed should be forced to pass through a metal detector before entering the U.S. Senate chamber.
“Anyone with that record of support for jihadists would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane,” Trump said of El-Sayed. “They certainly should not give him a seat in the United States Senate.”
In those moments, the message is aimed squarely at his base, which over the last decade has celebrated his unfiltered style. And it is that base, more than swing voters, that Trump has spent his precious time courting in the final stretch of the campaign.
On Monday, Trump rallied supporters in Mississippi, a state he carried by 23 points two years ago. On Tuesday, he went to Texas for the fourth time this month to make the case for Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee trying to stave off what could be the first statewide Democratic victory there in three decades. Then on Wednesday, Trump was in Ohio for the third time this month, playing defense in a state he has won every time he’s been on the ballot. And on Saturday, Trump is heading to Kansas, a state that has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.
Gruters said the red state swing reflects the need to get Republicans to the polls.
“You can’t take anything for granted. You have to fight hard in every single state, and remind people why they need to go vote,” he said. “This is a turnout, turnout, turnout race. And we’re doing everything we can as a party.”
Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas, said it is still surprising to see the party deploy the president in Republican strongholds so close to the election.
“It really reflects, not just the tilt toward Democrats, but also the lack of enthusiasm among Republican voters for this election,” Haider-Markel said.
Republicans outnumber Democrats in Kansas, but there is a possibility that Democrats can win if Republicans stay home, he said. One of the biggest assets the party has to mobilize the MAGA base is having Trump talk to them in person, he argued. But so far, it is unclear whether his closing message will resonate.
“I don’t think that he’s really speaking to the issues that voters care about, but I don’t think he’s coming to change people’s minds,” Haider-Markel said. “He’s looking for lines that get him applause and praise.”
In rally after rally, Trump has turned the event into a show about himself. In Iowa, congressional candidate Joe Mitchell presented Trump with a “man of the century” certificate. In Texas, Trump bemoaned that he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. And in several events, he has shown the crowd a video of a CNN analyst saying that among GOP voters, Trump is more popular than Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln.
But in the end, he also tried to appeal to his base with nostalgia.
“We’ve been doing this together for 11 years, and there’s never been anything like it and there probably never will be anything like it again politically or otherwise,” he said. “So let’s go out and do what we do best and that is win on Nov. 3. We gotta win!”
Following a series of scandals that shook public trust in local government, Los Angeles City Council launched a massive charter reform to boost accountability across city departments. Charter PRT emerged from that reform.
McOsker, who co-sponsored the amendment, said it would offer greater public access and participation into government processes. He believes it is important that those overseeing LAX and Van Nuys understand how neighboring communities are affected by airport decisions.
“The folks that live and work and drive around and experience the impacts of the airport operations should have some say in the future of airport operations,” McOsker said. “They know the best of what the impacts are on the tens of thousands of folks that live around each of those facilities.”
McOsker stressed that the port is on public land and another space that residents should have greater insight into by offering transparency into how leaseholder agreements affect the local economy.
The two sides disagree sharply over what the changes to the law would mean in practice.
Dan Dunmoyer, president and chief executive of the California Building Industry Assn., a trade group supporting the measure, said the state is the slowest in the nation when it comes to reaching a conclusion about whether projects can be built. Per Dunmoyer, it’s one of the top two reasons housing here is so pricey.
Supporters point to accumulating interest on loans, shelling out for litigation and rising costs for materials.
Dunmoyer believes the measure would make the review process faster and easier. He estimated it will reduce the cost of building single family homes by $75,000 a pop.
“We think … it will allow us to provide more housing of all types, not just for sale, but for rent and legally defined affordable housing, even homeless shelters, more quickly than under the current environmental review process,” he said, “and we think that’s beneficial to Californians who very much want a place to call home.”
Proponents of the measure characterize the effort as procedural: It will firm up timelines, but projects still will be reviewed. But those fighting it, as well as some legal experts, say the 41-page proposal essentially guts CEQA for projects that qualify.
Aruna Prabhala, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group opposing the measure, said it would eliminate the need to analyze a project’s specific impacts, such as how it affects people living nearby. Instead, the process would become a “checklist” to see if the project complies with existing environmental laws.
The measure also states it “should be interpreted and implemented to afford the fullest possible weight to the interest of, and the approval and realization of, essential projects.” Prabhala and others believe it flips the purpose of CEQA to approve projects, rather than protect the environment.
“So much of what’s in the initiative mirrors what we’re seeing from the federal level and the Trump administration from rolling back environmental review, from really limiting public participation,” she said. “For not only failing to enforce protections for our air and water quality, but making it that much harder for agencies to do that.”
