Politics Desk

California’s sky-high housing costs cast a dark shadow on its sunny disposition, sending some fleeing to more affordable climes.

Yet voters decisively rejected a state ballot measure that promised to make it easier and cheaper to build housing by changing the law often blamed for driving up costs: the California Environmental Quality Act. Proposition 45 even divided pro-housing groups.

So what gives? And where do we go from here?

Proposition 45 would have offered expedited environmental review and put a shot clock on legal challenges for projects defined as essential, including those involving housing, water, transportation and internet access. Supporters said it would cut costly delays, while opponents warned it would weaken environmental protections and public input.

Skeptics pointed out that state lawmakers already changed CEQA last year, exempting the lion’s share of urban infill housing from the law. They argued that means the proposition would have largely benefited low-density development on the outskirts of cities — sometimes labeled “sprawl.”

But supporters say the measure would also boost projects in cities left out of those exemptions. All types of housing, some say, are needed to dig the state out of its shortage.

For housing advocates, where they stood on the measure “ultimately depends on how you feel about exurban development” and whether the state should be making it easier to build it, said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, who didn’t take a public position on the measure.

Jordan Grimes, legislative director for the Greenbelt Alliance, an environmental nonprofit that opposed the measure, is among those that see it as the wrong type of development.

According to Grimes, it increases greenhouse gas emissions as residents are forced to drive more; gobbles up natural areas and farmland to build; and requires outsize investment from taxpayers in the urban core to pay for the needed infrastructure.

“It’s definitely not climate friendly for sure,” he said. “But sprawl is also a pretty huge economic drag.”

The significant legislative changes enacted last year under Assembly Bill 130 are paying off, he said. He estimated some 18,000 units have since been permitted statewide.

“If you want to build a new apartment building in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills or Palo Alto or San Francisco, you can do that now,” he said, describing it as a “watershed moment” in the state’s urban housing production.

But many who laud the changes believe there’s more that can be done. For instance, infill projects over 20 acres don’t qualify for the CEQA exemption.

“So there’s still these massive projects where you know developers want to be able to do redevelopments of shopping malls and parking structures, but they just can’t,” said Paul Shafer, public policy manager for the nonprofit California Council for Affordable Housing, which backed the measure.

He added that there are certain rural areas that didn’t benefit from last year’s changes because projects there don’t fit the definition of infill housing.

“There’s a lot of hesitation around what greenfill looks like,” he said. “But when we’re in a 2.5-million-unit housing shortage, it really requires more than just that infill development to fill that gap.”

Shifting public opinion

A July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 73% of likely voters would support Proposition 45. By October, voters were divided, with 50% opposed and 46% in favor, according to another survey by the nonpartisan think tank.

Experts pointed to a number of possibilities for voters’ decisions, including what some characterized as successful but potentially misleading messaging by the opposition and confusion over the complex measure. Others suggested voters rejected it based on its substance, deciding they didn’t want to fast-track some projects it covered.

Supporters raised several million dollars more than opponents, according to state campaign finance data. Yet Jason Elliott, a consultant who helped craft the measure, said proponents were outspent 2 to 1 on paid advertising, “making it hard to compete.”

What’s next

Some want to see state lawmakers take up parts of Proposition 45, including imposing timelines for review and litigation related to CEQA. The measure generally would have meant that environmental impact reports could take no more than 365 business days and lawsuits no more than 270 calendar days.

“Death by delay is a real strategy, particularly for affordable housing,” said Linda Mandolini, chief executive of Eden Housing, which develops and owns affordable housing.

For five years, she said, the nonprofit was embroiled in a series of lawsuits over a 130-unit project it’s developing in the eastern edge of the Bay Area. It’s starting construction this year, but she estimates the delays cost them $29 million.

Shafer, of California Council for Affordable Housing, said shot clocks would offer some certainty that the state’s current development process lacks. Some say it’s hard to secure financing and insurance when you don’t know how long it will take before you can break ground.

But Shafer is not optimistic that the Legislature will prioritize making such changes.

“I don’t think there’s going to be an appetite to see reforms in this area, certainly not as far-reaching as we saw in Prop. 45, for many years to come,” he said.

Not everyone sees the environmental law as the area to target.

UC Berkeley’s Elkind believes the first step to boost housing in already developed areas would be for state lawmakers to allow denser housing in communities where it’s restricted — such as permitting apartments in areas zoned for single-family homes.

“We’re really at that point where we’ve got to start kind of chainsawing through the thicket of local requirements that keep the infill housing we need from getting built,” he said. “And it’s not really about CEQA at this point.”

President Trump fancies himself a farsighted man of destiny and if his vision has often proved lacking — witness the Iranian quagmire — he was right about one thing: 2026 was going to be a rough year for Republicans.

That’s typically how midterm elections work for the party in the White House.

And so Trump, knowing the GOP’s House majority was hanging by the slenderest of threads, strong-armed Texas into redrawing its congressional map to boost Republican chances of keeping control by nabbing up to five extra seats.

The move was stunningly brazen — redistricting usually takes place once, early in a decade after the census — and it was a terrible thing to do.

Lest there’s any doubt how your friendly political columnist feels, let us repeat: It was a very, very, very, very, very bad thing. And provocative, at that.

In response, California — egged on by its White House-hankering governor — passed a ballot measure to gerrymander five of its House seats to give a big advantage to Democrats. With that, the battle was joined. More than half a dozen Republican-led states ultimately ended up redrawing their congressional districts in an effort to bypass voters and predetermine the outcome of the November election.

It didn’t work. (Yay, voters! Way to show who’s in charge!)

But that’s not nearly the end of it.

A mind-blowing election

Last week’s Republican wipeout was beyond anything that anyone, save the most hopium-addled Democrat, could have imagined. The party needed a gain of three seats to flip the House. Democrats are on track to pick up more than 40, despite all that Republican gerrymandering.

And what of those five rigged seats in California? Democrats captured them all.

“We fought fire with fire,” Gov. Gavin Newsom crowed on social media. “And won.”

At least, Newsom did. His headlining role as champion of Proposition 50, his Trump-trolling and online towel-snapping antics have turned the gallivanting governor into one of the party’s most talked-about 2028 presidential prospects.

But the body politic that he yields to incoming-Gov. Xavier Becerra didn’t fare nearly as well.

Registered Republicans make up 25% of California’s electorate and many more regularly support the GOP. In Garden Grove, supporters await GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s arrival at his election night event on Nov. 3, 2026.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The map drafted to bolster Democrats has resulted in the near-extinction of California Republicans on Capitol Hill. When the next session of Congress convenes in January, the state’s four remaining House members can caucus inside a Toyota Camry, with room to spare.

Consider: Registered Republicans make up 25% of California’s electorate and many more regularly support the GOP. The party’s share of the 52-member House delegation will be less than 8%.

If you’re a fiercely partisan Democrat, a give-no-quarter lefty or someone who’s animating political impulse is to drive your fist into the other guy’s face, this is all lip-smackingly delicious.

For everyone else, not so much.

Especially if you’re one who believes in the representative part of representative democracy and thinks that if our government and political system are to function properly, it’s important that citizens of all stripes and all political persuasions feel as though they’re invested and have a stake. In short, they need to feel as though their voice and their votes matter.

Millions of Californians now have good reason to doubt that.

Anger and agita

We’ve just witnessed an election that amounted to a primal scream. Much, if not most, of the distemper was aimed at the would-be authoritarian in the White House. But a goodly amount of anger was directed at politicians of both parties and a sense they’re focused more on power and their own interests — such as holding on to power — than the needs of those they’re supposed to represent.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that gerrymandering those five California House seats was unnecessary for Democrats to seize the majority. Given the magnitude of the blue wave, it’s quite possible they might have flipped a few of those seats even without partisan tinkering.

But that’s not just assessing the results with a 20-20 rearview.

On the day that voters approved Proposition 50 last November, Trump’s approval rating was already heading south. More than half a century of history shows a strong correlation between a president’s standing in polls and his party’s performance in the midterm election; on average, the opposition party gained more than two dozen seats. So even then it appeared highly likely that Democrats would take control of the House, even if the Texas gerrymander worked as planned.

(It didn’t. Democrats ended up winning four of the five seats the GOP intended to flip.)

Proposition 50, which undid the lines carefully drawn by the state’s nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission, was billed as a one-time, break-glass solution to a political emergency. However, the new map will stay in effect through 2030.

So much for a temporary fix.

Voters should hold Democrats to their word and see to it that the nonpartisan commission resumes its map-making role after the next census. (With California projected to lose anywhere from two to four House seats, Democrats will be sorely tempted to again hijack the process to protect their interests.)

With their new majority in Congress, Democrats should act to ban gerrymandering nationwide. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group, has put forth a proposal to begin that process, demonstrating that support exists on both sides of the aisle.

Gerrymandering is a dirty business, notwithstanding its practice dating to the Colonial era. It needs to stop.

Once and for all.

What else you should be reading

Get smart: In search of post-midterm message, Trump waffles on trusting election, immigration policy
The deep dive:Empowered congressional Democrats gear up for battles over immigration and ICE oversight
The L.A. Times Special:As Stephen Miller rises, California hopes it can blunt his force with Democratic gains
Until next time,
mzb
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The election of Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist, as the next mayor of Los Angeles promises to have a profound impact on the city’s police force — although perhaps not right away.

Among the most important and widely watched decisions facing the city’s next mayor is about what to do with LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell. Raman repeatedly said prior to her election that she would replace him as chief.

Raman frequently criticized McDonnell throughout her campaign, particularly over how he handled the LAPD’s response to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement blitz last year.

She has taken issue with the LAPD’s aggressive tactics under McDonnell toward demonstrators, which have included firing tear gas and less-lethal weapons into crowds, officers mounted on horseback swinging batons and accusations of journalists being targeted.

She has questioned whether the LAPD should continue to work closely with the Trump administration on non-immigration matters that require data-sharing, potentially affecting investigations into cargo theft and human trafficking, which involve local collaboration with federal law enforcement.

The events of the last year, she said, have shattered public trust.

In a since-deleted video with a progressive influencer that went viral, Raman said she would work to ensure the LAPD “is actually protecting people, instead of protecting ICE on our streets as we saw happen.”

“I think that starts with a culture shift at the top and new leadership in the department. I don’t believe that Chief McDonnell has met the moment,” she said in the video.

Asked about her plans for the LAPD chief at her inaugural news conference Thursday night, Raman said she had already spoken to McDonnell and believed that public safety was the “most important service” the city can provide. She did not directly say whether his days leading the department are numbered.

“I wanna make sure that whatever happens over this transition that we are prepared to deliver that service at the levels that Angelenos expect,” she told reporters. “And I know Chief McDonnell’s committed to that, I’m committed to that and we’ll continue those discussions.”

During one sit-down with CNN, she was asked to name a police chief whom she admires or respects. “I don’t know … I don’t know,” she stammered in reply.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell speaks at a news conference in August.

(Arwen Clemans / Los Angeles Times)

In a brief statement, McDonnell said he respected the outcome of the election and congratulated Raman on her victory. He added that while politicians change, the LAPD’s mission public safety “remains constant.”

“As Chief of Police, I remain committed to leading a department that delivers professional, constitutional, and compassionate policing to all Angelenos,” the statement read.

McDonnell has called Raman’s comments disappointing in news interviews, but has otherwise steered clear of directly criticizing Raman in public. The department has released a series of public service announcements featuring the chief on its official Instagram account in recent days to address what officials said was “misinformation” about the LAPD’s operations — saying that the department is barred by Special Order 40 and state and city laws from assisting federal immigration agencies.

If Raman were to replace the chief, when and how it would happen are unclear.

L.A.’s mayor cannot unilaterally fire the police chief. Only the City Council and the Board of Police Commissioners, whose five civilian members are handpicked by the mayor, have that authority. Under the city charter, the council can initiate removal proceedings, but only by a two-thirds vote. It’s unclear whether Raman could muster enough support to make a change right away, since none of the City Council members endorsed her candidacy.

New mayors typically replace current police commissioners with their own appointees — sometimes, leaving one or two in place for continuity — but the process can take weeks since each commissioner has to be confirmed by the council.

A spokesperson for Raman’s mayoral campaign did not respond to a request for an interview about her plans for the LAPD.

Outgoing Mayor Karen Bass has publicly backed the chief she hired two years ago, saying the LAPD could be thrown into disarray if McDonnell is removed before the 2028 Olympic Games.

The question of who might replace McDonnell has been the subject of feverish speculation. One of the most talked about candidates for the top job is Emada Tingirides, an assistant chief who was a finalist in the last chief search, which ended with Bass’ selection of McDonnell. Although questions were previously raised about her perceived lack of leadership experience, Tingirides has been in charge of the department’s Office of Operations, which oversees virtually all patrol personnel, for more than a year.

Other names have been bandied around — including top former LAPD official Bill Scott, the chief of the new Metro police force, and former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.

But department insiders have dismissed certain reports — namely any mentioning Gascón — as nothing more than rumors. Gascón told The Times that he has not communicated with the Raman campaign, and said he does not want to be chief. Scott did not respond to a message seeking comment.

LAPD insiders have also discussed Art Acevedo, who has served as police chief in Houston and Miami, and Robert Arcos, a former LAPD assistant chief who works for the county Probation Department, as potential candidates for the job. Both also interviewed for the job during the last chief search; Arcos was a finalist.

Arcos said he has had no conversations with Raman’s team. Asked whether he has been approached about working with Raman, Acevedo replied, “No, absolutely not.”

The guessing game about who will lead the department in the near future has been fueled at least in part by Raman’s seeming indecisiveness on the matter. In interviews and debates, she has struggled to offer a clear vision of where she wants to take the LAPD.

Members of Raman’s progressive base expect major changes from Day 1 — and without swift action, she risks angering them, some political experts say.

Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah, who endorsed Raman in the final days of the campaign, said in a text message with The Times that she is counting on the new mayor to follow through on her “commitment to remove Chief McDonnell.”

Beyond that, though, she said Raman needs to increase funding for violence prevention and intervention groups and to “block the mass surveillance of Angelenos” by companies such as Flock Safety and Axon.

Picking a new chief is considered one of the most important decisions any mayor will make, with legacy-defining implications. The conventional wisdom holds that a new mayor means a change of leadership at the LAPD, and potentially new policies.

But that hasn’t always been the case. At least not recently.

Bass oversaw the reappointment of McDonnell’s predecessor, Michel Moore, shortly after her election and stood by him for a year through numerous controversies before Moore’s abrupt resignation in early 2024. Bass’ predecessor, Eric Garcetti, stuck with Charlie Beck, the chief he inherited when he was elected in 2013; Beck was then reappointed to a second five-year term, also under Garcetti. In the early 2000s, then-Mayor James Hahn — with the support of the police union — infamously opposed Police Chief Bernard Parks’ bid for reappointment.

Beyond replacing the chief, a mayor can influence the LAPD’s operations and policies in other ways, including through executive directives. Raman’s election could, for instance, prompt the City Council to take a second look at Special Order 40, a 1979 policy that prohibits officers from stopping people for the sole purpose of determining their immigration status. Critics say the policy — aimed at reassuring the city’s immigrants that they could safely report a crime or serve as a witness without fear of deportation — doesn’t prevent the LAPD from working with federal immigration agencies.

As part of her agenda for her first 100 days, Raman has said she will seek an audit of the LAPD’s efforts to follow L.A.’s sanctuary city law, which requires that city agencies treat information that can be used to trace a person’s citizenship or immigration status as confidential.

Even McDonnell’s critics acknowledge the difficulty of replacing him. Doing so would probably involve a national search, outside consultants and pitched debates about whether to appoint an experienced outsider with top leadership experience — or promote an insider with a firm grasp of where the LAPD has come from historically and an understanding of the political and labor landscape.

McDonnell is popular with the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for rank-and-file officers, which remains a powerful force in city politics — although its influence has waned in recent elections, with mayoral candidates who have received the union’s endorsement failing to win in the last two election cycles. The union poured millions of dollars into attack ads against Raman.

As it became clear that Raman would win the race, longtime police union director Jamie McBride was quoted in a news story saying that her mayorship would spell “Armageddon” for the city.

Ruben Lopez, a former LAPD lieutenant, said he has read or heard similarly alarmist comments by plenty of other current and former LAPD officers. But the reality is, he said, he expects Raman and LAPD officials to eventually find common ground — and in the meantime most officers will keep working.

“The true professionals, they’ll keep doing their job just like we saw in New York when [Zohran] Mamdani got elected, said Lopez, who was in charge of SWAT before leaving the department.

Near record-low crime numbers could provide Raman with enough political cover to begin pushing through LAPD reforms while juggling the myriad other issues confronting the city, such as homelessness, housing affordability and crumbling infrastructure.

As mayor, Raman may also be called on to solve the problem of the LAPD’s dwindling ranks.

As of this week, the department had 8,504 sworn personnel — the lowest total since October 1995 — roughly a tenth of whom are not on full duty status, officials say. Even after efforts under Bass to streamline hiring and boost recruitment, some officials are concerned there won’t be enough new officers to replace those projected to leave or retire in the coming years.

Also on her to-do list will be overseeing the negotiations of the next police contract.

The mayor-elect has denounced the raises for rank-and-file officers negotiated by Bass in 2023, which Raman said has deepened the city’s financial problems. Sold as a way to boost recruitment, the pay increases are among the reasons the police union endorsed Bass’ reelection.

Some political experts say Raman enters office unburdened by an indebtedness to the police union. At the same time, she has said she doesn’t want to see the LAPD get any smaller and will need to work with the union to hammer out a new contract, after the current one expires in December.

In a statement released after her election victory, the Police Protective League’s board of directors said it shares a common goal with Raman of shoring up the department’s recruitment of new officers.

“Los Angeles police officers and others are filled with uncertainty and angst at the prospect of major cuts to the LAPD that will reverse the progress made in reducing crime,” the statement said. “Mayor-elect Raman has stated that she does not want staffing levels to decrease from current levels, we share that goal and are committed to ensuring enough officers remain to keep our residents, the Olympics, and our officers safe.”

Negotiations for the next contract are expected to ramp up in January.

Times staff writers David Zahniser and James Queally contributed to this report.

A week after polls closed, Jose Ugarte and Estuardo Mazariegos are still locked in a tight race to see who will succeed Curren Price for the Los Angeles City Council’s 9th District seat.

Ugarte was leading Mazariegos by just 156 votes, 19,200 to 19,044, according to the latest tally released by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Tuesday night.

Tuesday was the last day for mail-in ballots to be counted, said Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the office. Sanchez said he couldn’t estimate how many votes remained to be counted.

Because of the Veterans Day holiday Wednesday, the next vote tally will not be released until Friday, he said.
District 9 encompasses South L.A. neighborhoods, the Convention Center and USC.

The current councilmember, Price, must leave office because of term limits and is currently facing charges of embezzlement and conflict of interest and he has denied wrongdoing. Price has endorsed Ugarte, whose platform includes protecting city residents from federal immigration enforcement and the Trump administration. Mazariegos is backed by the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. He has worked as a community organizer for decades and said he’s running to improve quality of life in the city, including by making housing more affordable and spending money on basic services other than policing.

Mazariegos’ campaign made claims this week against the Ugarte campaign and shared images of unsealed and sealed ballots, alleging the ballots were collected during “an Ugarte canvassing operation.”

“Taking people’s ballots, filling them out, and not following legal voter assistance guidelines in a district that has faced so much disenfranchisement is disgusting,” Mazariegos said in a statement.

Among their claims, the campaign shared a photo of a USC student volunteering for Ugarte’s campaign delivering a stack of ballots to a drop box.

The registrar-recorder’s office forwarded the complaint to the district attorney’s office for review, Sanchez said. Sanchez said the photo of the student, which circulated online, didn’t raise alarms because California law allows voters to authorize another person to return their completed ballots.

The district attorney’s office said it was looking into the matter.

Ugarte said in a statement that the allegations made by Mazariegos’ campaign “are categorically false and defamatory.”

The 9th District seat is one of two council races determined in the Nov. 3 election. Barri Worth Girvan declared victory in the west San Fernando Valley’s 3rd District seat Friday night, after the latest vote tally showed her widening her lead over rival Tim Gaspar, with 51% of the vote to Gaspar’s 48%.

“I will bring competence, transparency, follow-through, and ethical leadership to City Hall, which Angelenos deserve and too often do not get,” Worth Girvan said in a statement.

Worth Girvan will replace Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who is leaving office because of term limits. The 3rd District seat includes Woodland Hills, Reseda and Canoga Park.

Before entering the race, Worth Girvan was L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years, handling constituent services on the Westside and in the Valley, and has spent nearly 20 years working in public service. Gaspar is a former insurance company owner who had been backed by business groups.

SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom left the state Tuesday to join international leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Antalya, Turkey.

Newsom framed his attendance as an opportunity to tell the world that California’s climate leadership is delivering results as he criticized President Trump as a “no-show” for declining to send a delegation on behalf of the United States.

“While Donald Trump sells out America’s economic security to his fossil fuel donors, California isn’t backing down from the climate fight,” Newsom said in a statement. “Trump is temporary. California’s partnerships around the world are not.”

Trump’s absence on the international stage has created an opening for California governors to contrast their climate policies with the federal government’s attempts to reverse the nation’s progress.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017 sharply condemned the president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. On a 10-day trip to the Vatican, Brussels, Oslo and a U.N. Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany, later that year, Brown was labeled America’s “anti-Trump” as he warned that humanity was on the chopping block unless world leaders took action to reduce global emissions. Brown also hosted his own international climate summit in San Francisco in 2018 to recommit countries to the ideals of the accord that Trump disavowed.

Since taking office, Newsom has appeared at several annual Climate Week events in New York and used his speaking opportunities to blast Trump in traditionally apolitical forums, often garnering international applause.

In 2019, he burst onto the climate scene when he told foreign leaders he was “absolutely humiliated” by Trump’s efforts to walk back the nation’s climate policies as the state and the federal government were locked in a battle over vehicle emission standards.

Newsom’s voyage to Turkey follows a trip to Brazil last year to attend the U.N. conference, where he similarly cast California as a proxy for the Trump administration.

As he considers a run for president in 2028, Newsom is framing his remarks in Antalya, a tourist city on the Mediterranean coast, around his work to reduce greenhouse gases, encourage the use of zero-emission and electric vehicles and increase his state’s reliance on clean energy.

Newsom is expected to meet with other world leaders and sign pacts to address climate change together.

The governor’s envoy in Turkey includes First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and his top climate confidants: Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, and Lauren Sanchez, chair of the California Air Resources Board, among others.

SACRAMENTO — Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) has successfully defended a challenge from fellow Democrat Mai Vang to continue representing California’s 7th Congressional District.

The Associated Press declared Matsui the winner Tuesday afternoon over Vang, a Sacramento City Council member who entered the race pushing for a new generation of Democratic leadership.

Matsui, 82, was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2005, succeeding her late husband, Robert Matsui, who had served in Congress since 1979. She ran on her congressional experience and record of delivering federal funding for projects in the district. She lent her campaign more than $5 million this cycle.

“The votes have been counted and voters have spoken,” Matsui said in a statement. “I believe their mandate was clear: They want someone who shows up to work every day, seeks common ground, and who listens to their concerns. The voters of this new district chose the steady solutions I’ve delivered throughout my service as their representative. I promise to keep delivering for them.”

Vang, 41, is the daughter of Hmong refugees and previously served on the Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education, where she helped establish the Sacramento Children’s Fund for young people affected by poverty, violence and trauma.

The solidly Democratic district encompasses Sacramento, Elk Grove, Galt, Lodi, Placerville and El Dorado.

Proposition 50’s redistricting added conservative voters in the Sierra foothills to the district. In an effort to win over those voters, Matsui attacked Vang for appearing on left-wing streamer Hasan Piker’s platform and fundraising with him.

Matsui previously served as one of eight members of former President Clinton’s transition board. She later served as deputy assistant to the president in the White House Office of Public Liaison.

Two of California’s congressional races remained too close to call Tuesday evening: In Northern California’s 4th District, Democratic challenger Eric Jones led incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) by about 5 percentage points. In the 23rd District, which was considered to be a safe Republican seat, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake) narrowly led Democratic challenger Tessa Lynn Hodge by less than 2 percentage points.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion Tuesday aimed at improving the county’s restraining order system in order to better support and protect victims of domestic violence and stalking.

The measure, which was co-authored by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis, also begins the process of officially making gender-based violence and intimate partner violence a “Board-directed priority” and calls on county agencies to identify millions of dollars of funding to help bolster the efforts.

The motion cited an investigation published by The Times in September that examined L.A. County’s restraining order system and the ways it often fails to support people who seek protection through the courts.

“These are signs that systems aren’t doing enough to help people,” Horvath said Tuesday. “A survivor should never have to fight the system while fighting to survive.”

The motion calls on the county’s chief executive officer to identify millions of dollars in new funding for self-help legal centers, courthouse domestic violence clinics, and the launch of a hotline to help connect the public with services.

The motion also calls on the county’s chief executive, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and other agencies to assess their current efforts, plans for improvement and opportunities for additional funding and present their findings to the board.

Sheriff Robert Luna told The Times in an interview last month that he thinks his department is “going to be able to figure out” how to improve how it handles serving restraining orders and responds to reported violations. The Times reported in September that in 2025, sheriff’s deputies failed to locate targets of restraining orders 49% of the time.

“This motion,” Luna said, “is causing my entire staff and different parts of the department to really look in the mirror and say, ‘What are we doing, and what could we do to improve?’”

Supervisor Janice Hahn said she supported the motion because it’s critical that “survivors are able to get the help they need without hitting any additional barriers.” Like Horvath and Solis, Hahn thanked The Times during the meeting for exposing problems with the restraining order system and for compiling and publishing data that quantified the difficulties people face when trying to obtain protection from abusers and stalkers.

The September investigation found that only 21% of restraining orders requested in L.A. County are granted. The Times also found that in 2025, the county’s courts dismissed 57% of the nearly 15,000 petitions for domestic violence restraining orders they received, nearly double the 29% statewide dismissal rate in the same types of cases.

The Times reported that at least 63 homicides in L.A. County in 2024 and 2025 involved a woman with a former partner or close relative who was arrested or charged in connection with their killing. At least 10 of the slain women had filed for restraining orders.

The reporting highlighted the experiences of Nora Villanueva Campanor, who was killed by her estranged husband in Lancaster in 2024 after she struggled for months to get L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies, prosecutors and other stakeholders to take her fears seriously.

Her sister, Jazmin Villanueva, addressed the board on Tuesday to advocate on behalf of the motion, which she said will address issues with the county’s system — implementing changes that could have benefited Nora and potentially helped keep her alive.

“We need funding for navigators inside the courts to help victims directly with paperwork and the process,” she said. “I have young daughters and I don’t want them standing here 30 years from now asking for the same changes. This needs to change now.”

The motion directs county officials to develop a plan for peer navigators to support domestic violence victims and recommend ways to help them navigate restraining order service and court delays. It also calls for an assessment of the resources needed to provide emergency housing to all people fleeing gender-based violence who seek it.

An earlier version of the motion came before the board on Oct. 6. Since then, the Board of Supervisors collected input about how to improve the measure.

One key change since October was the addition of language directing county officials to recommend ways “to better support survivors seeking civil protection restraining orders due to physical or attempted violence, stalking, a credible fear of violence, or a pattern of behavior that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses and causes substantial emotional distress,” broadening the scope beyond cases of domestic violence and stalking.

A key goal of the motion and the board’s efforts is to “acknowledge where failures exist and where we need to do better,” Horvath said Tuesday.

“Often we are asking our survivors to go to multiple different places to get the resources and support they should get through one unified response … Public safety means more than responding after violence occurs.”

Xavier Becerra speaks to his supporters during the election night party in Sacramento, CA on November 3, 2026.

(Andri Tambunan / For The Times)

SACRAMENTO — Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra named the team that will oversee his transition and help build out his administration as he prepares to take office in early January. His transition team includes several of his former advisers, and others who worked for Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“This transition has one job: to ensure my administration is ready to deliver on day one,” Becerra said in a statement. “Together, we aim to make California a place people can afford, with results they can see and feel in their everyday lives. Our work starts now, to build a California we can afford and protect the California we can’t afford to lose.”

Longtime Becerra aide Liz Saldivar will lead the transition. Salvidar advised Becerra’s campaign and worked for him during his time in Congress and as state attorney general.

Serving as senior advisers to the transition will be Lindsey Cobia, a veteran of the Newsom administration who now runs his Campaign for Democracy PAC, and Kyle Layman, a Democratic operative who joined Becerra’s campaign early on.

Another former Becerra aide, Arsenio Mataka, will direct policy for the transition. Mataka advised Becerra on environmental policy at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services and the California Department of Justice. Also an alumna of Jerry Brown’s administration, Mataka most recently was a deputy at the Bay Area Air District.

After advising his campaign on policy, Nicole Elliott will serve as agency review director. Elliott advised Newsom on cannabis policy before he appointed her to lead the state Department of Cannabis Control in 2021. She first began working for Newsom in 2009, when he was mayor of San Francisco. Her husband Jason Elliott is a close adviser to Newsom who worked for him both as mayor and governor.

Leading external affairs for the transition are Courtni Pugh, a Democratic strategist close to Newsom, and Kenneth Maxey II, president of the Urban League of San Francisco Bay Area.

Becerra defeated Republican opponent Steve Hilton in the Nov. 3 election and will be sworn in on Jan. 4, 2027.

President Trump, who for years disputed his loss in the 2020 election and publicly decried the the outcome of the vote that he said was stolen from him by Democratic forces, privately lauded incoming President Biden as someone he believed “will be true to yourself and the American people.”

That sentiment, along with others, was part of the letter Trump left for Biden upon leaving office in January 2021. Biden showed the note to some members of his staff after his inauguration in 2021 but didn’t let anyone read it, describing it later that day as “very generous” but otherwise saying he considered it to be private.

Inclusion of the letter in Biden’s “Promise Me, America,” his White House memoir slated for release Nov. 17, was first reported Tuesday by the New York Times. The Associated Press has reviewed a photocopy of the two-page letter, handwritten in Trump’s trademark black Sharpie on White House stationery and addressed “To ‘46,’” denoting Biden’s place as the 46th U.S. president.

“Many presidents have come and gone who simply governed as Republicans or Democrats,” Trump wrote. “Largely, they did not change history, they were just swept along in its relentless tide. This will not happen to you because I know how much you love the American people.”

At the time of transition, Biden was said to have been surprised by how gracious he thought the letter was, given the animosity between the political rivals. Trump had opted out of other presidential traditions, such as attending Biden’s inauguration or hosting the incoming president and first lady for tea at the White House.

Trump has said he thought it was up to Biden to share the letter, calling it “a nice note” during a September 2023 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding, “I took a lot of time in thinking about it.”

Elsewhere in the memoir, the first excerpt of which was published Monday by the Atlantic, Biden wrote of the deep damage Trump has inflicted, with an administration determined to “tear down institutions and inflame hatreds.”

Lamenting Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and his aggressive reversal of many of Biden’s policies, the former president wrote of Trump’s “dismissive and destructive nature,” describing his predecessor and successor as someone “who seemed unable to tolerate the idea that someone else’s accomplishments might be worth building on rather than tearing down.”

But Biden’s harshest characterization so far was focused on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, as Congress met to certify the 2020 election, which Biden had won. Writing that Trump “led an insurrection,” Biden said Trump’s ”goal was to remain in power after the American people had voted him out of office.”

“What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten,” Biden wrote. “It should follow him to his grave.”

Asked for comment on both the letter and Biden’s memoir, White House communications director Steven Cheung called the former president “a disgrace” who “should have heeded the President’s wise words, but instead he tried to destroy this country and weaponize the justice system against his political enemies.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

The Los Angeles City Council moved Tuesday to drastically increase the cost of appealing development and other land-use decisions, despite opposition from homeowner groups who said it will make it much harder for residents to challenge city actions.

The proposal raises the fee for appeals on city development decisions from a flat rate of $229 to $1,145 for residents living in the project’s vicinity.

For those who don’t live near the project, the fee nearly doubles to $2,289, an almost 900% increase from the previous rate. The system also tacks on a various surcharges that would take the non-neighbor rate for appeal applications to over $2,800, advocates said.

The City Council voted 13-0 without discussion to instruct the City Attorney to draft an ordinance for the fee hike, which will require council approval.

“To take away essentially the right of the community to have an opportunity to raise their voice about their concerns…is really an indication of how this is just a punitive measure on the part of the City Council to shut the people up,” Doug Haines, a representative for the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, said to The Times before the vote.

City Council members didn’t defend the planned fee hike at Tuesday’s meeting, but supporters have said previously that the higher fee would put Los Angeles on par with what other cities are charging and would discourage frivolous challenges that raise the cost of developing housing.

The Housing Action Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for building more housing in California, called the proposed increase is a small and meaningful step toward deterring unnecessary delays.

“We need to pull housing out of this doom loop,” said Victoria Gomez, the coalition’s political organizer for Southern California. “As long as appeals stay this cheap and heavily subsidized, they’ll keep being used to slow down homes Los Angeles can’t afford to wait for.”

The council did agree, on the motion of Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, to consider keeping the fee at $229 in the cases of tenants who would be displaced by a development. That proposal was referred to committee for study.

The L.A. City Planning Department manages the city’s land use and makes key decisions on development projects and zoning regulations. Residents who disagree with projects that are green lit by the department can go through an appeals process.

Residents can appeal a variety of city planning decisions, ranging from zoning exemptions granted by the department to fire safety violations and roadway or parking concerns regarding new project builds.

Residents were for years able to file appeals against these decisions for a minimal fee that represented 1% of what the city estimated it cost to process the appeal, while the rest is subsidized through the city’s general fund. That amounted to $229 since February, which has only increased slightly every year to adjust for inflation. The proposed change would bump the price to 5% of the expected cost for neighbors and 10% for anyone else choosing to file an appeal.

Appeal applications have steadily decreased from 217 in 2020 to 91 in 2025. The city department has received 90 applications this year so far, the department told The Times.

The Planning and Land Use Committee instructed the city Planning Department in October 2025 to explore alternative price points for appeals that would decrease the amount of money the city’s general fund would have to subsidize.

Neighboring residents would include people who live within the noticing radius of a development project, which can vary but is typically around a 500-feet radius. Only about 30% of appeals submitted in the past came from residents living within that radius, according to the city planning department.

The appeals process is only chance for city residents to challenge development decisions that impact their neighborhoods, and it’s a required step for an issue to reach the courtroom.

The proposed change was hidden in a procedural City Council item to deceive residents and lacked transparency, said Mark Kenyon, who lives in Mount Washington, in written opposition to fee hike.

“I see it as a way of blocking public participation,” Kenyon told The Times. “If they can’t come up with the money, the appeals aren’t going to happen.”

The proposed change could save the city about $254,086 in subsidies, according to the city planning department’s report, what Kenyon said amounts to pocket change for the city.

“People will simply not be able to appeal,” Kenyon said. “The process is already technically complicated.”

The city planning department estimated that processing an appeal application costs about $22,894.

“The Department brought on an independent consultant to evaluate the cost of all department processes,” a spokesperson for the department said. “It is important to note that determining the cost is separate from determining the fee. A number of planning functions have costs that are subsidized by the city, including appeals.”

Angelenos for Historic Preservation, an independent advocacy group, petitioned the California Department of Justice and the state’s deputy attorney general to defer Tuesday’s vote. The department didn’t immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

The fee change will bring L.A. in line with other cities across California, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said during a Planning and Land Use Commission meeting in August.

Appeals to Los Angeles County cost over $1,000. Santa Monica charges around $750 and San Diego charges $1,000, while appeal fees in Berkeley can cost up to $3,000, according to the city planning department’s report.

“I don’t think there’s a magic number, but our appeal fees, I think, are clearly far below our peer cities,” Blumenfield said. “They need to go up because…there’s no free money. All the money that we have does come at the expense of other critical programs.”

The city’s convoluted building and development process is unique to the city of L.A. and can’t be compared to other cities in the state, said Haines of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. An affordable appeals process is necessary for residents to fight against dangerous builds in their neighborhoods, he said.

“It’s basically a corrupt process from beginning to end,” Haines said.

A Los Angeles County judge who has been accused of sexual harassment, making racist remarks and mistreating fellow members of the bench was officially removed from office Tuesday, officials said.

The state Commission on Judicial Performance upheld 17 findings of misconduct against Judge Robert Draper, 84, according to a disciplinary document made public Tuesday.

“Judge Draper persistently violated the standards governing judicial behavior and engaged in extensive and severe misconduct,” the commission said in a statement. “Judge Draper’s misconduct reflected either a concerning lack of familiarity with ethical precepts, or an unwillingness to conform to those precepts.”

Earlier this year, Draper compared the commission to the “Russian Mafia” in an interview with The Times where he denied all wrongdoing and claimed the charges were political payback for his opposition to another judge’s bid to become L.A. County’s presiding justice.

In an e-mail to The Times, Draper said the commission’s ruling was “wrong” and that he plans to seek review from the California Supreme Court, which he said “will look at the actual facts and not simply the characterization of those facts by the Examiners.”

“Kind of like what every citizen is entitled to – a presumption of innocence, a fair opportunity to be heard by an unbiased panel, decision makers who are willing to actually look at the real facts in a complete way and apply the legally required standard of proof rather than simply reciting it, and then ignoring it,” he wrote. “It just amazes me that I have had to go this far in order to have these standards for the first time applied.”

The Commission has only ordered the removal of 14 judges across the state since 2002, according to its website.

The removal order was the final step in a years-long fall from grace for Draper. A well-respected veteran member of the bench, colleagues began expressing concern about his decline in 2022. In 2023, according to a letter sent to the state commission, he was barred from hearing cases and re-assigned to a Santa Monica Courthouse department that colleagues likened to a “closet.” When a Times reporter visited the building earlier this year, staff on site said Draper almost never came in.

In letters sent to the commission in 2022 and 2023, two of the L.A. County Superior Court’s top judges accused Draper of sending abusive e-mails to colleagues replete with racist and abusive language. In one letter, then-Presiding Justice Samantha Jessner said Draper was “unable to carry out the duties and responsibilities of a judge” due to deteriorating mental and physical health.

“He has demonstrated a flagging handle on reality,” L.A. County Superior Court Judge Eric Taylor wrote.

Draper was accused of sexual harassment, making racist remarks and callous behavior all over the course of one hearing in 2022.

According to court records and testimony given at Draper’s six-day removal hearing earlier this year, the judge allegedly stroked a female lawyer’s hair after going on a tangent to a Black attorney about “Black history, Black football players, the Civil Rights Act, and the Black Lives Matter movement,” even though the case had nothing to do with those issues.

The commission described Draper’s misconduct as “extensive” and argued his alleged racist behavior continued while testifying in his May removal hearing. While testifying he referred two specific Black people as “very black in terms of pigmentation” and “way Black,” according to the commission.

He was also accused of making crude remarks to a group of female attorneys while in chambers. Reflecting on his time as a civil attorney, he recalled how male lawyers would deride female secretaries, insisting they learn to “f— better than they could type,” according to testimony given by attorney Janice Brown at Draper’s hearing earlier this year.

Draper lost his bid for re-election in June to former L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Tal K. Valbuena by nearly 13 points, after the L.A. County Bar Assn. rated Draper as “unqualified” for service.

The race highlighted the lengths the insular judicial community would go to protect their own from election challenges. Despite well-known concerns about Draper’s fitness, a political action committee run by fellow judges gave $72,500 to his campaign, state election finance records show. The PAC did not respond to prior inquiries from The Times.

A fellow judge, speaking on condition of anonymity because judges are not allowed to speak to the press, described the end of Draper’s career as a “super sad situation.”

“Perhaps it should spur California to consider enacting what most states have — a mandatory retirement age,” the judge said.

Randall Winston has declared victory in his campaign for Seat 6 on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees, in what was the closest of three races in last week’s election for the seven-member board.

Second-place finisher Gabriel Buelna has conceded.

According to the count released Monday, Winston had 38.7% of the vote and Buelna had 31.7%, followed by community college professor Roberto David LaCarra in third place and realtor Tonia Arey in fourth.

To win a seat on the seven-member board, candidates need only a plurality of votes, not a majority.

Winston declared victory in an email to supporters over the weekend.

“You voted and told your friends and family why this race mattered,” Winston told supporters on Saturday. “Because of you, the Los Angeles Community College District will have a trustee who believes our colleges are where this city builds opportunity.”

In a brief interview Monday, Buelna said he called Winston to concede and wished him the best in his new role.

Seat 6 turned out to be the most contentious of the races for the Board of Trustees, which oversees the largest community college district in the country with some 200,000 students, most of whom are low-income.

During the campaign, Buelna and Arey accused Winston of misleading the public by describing himself as an architect and an educator, when his full-time job is deputy mayor of infrastructure and climate resilience under Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Winston responded by saying his first professional degree is in architecture, he is licensed in the field and he will be teaching a leadership class at West L.A. College this fall.

Helping boost him to victory was a key endorsement from the community college district’s faculty union, which put significant financial resources behind his candidacy.

Between Sept. 20 and Oct. 17, the union contributed $800,000 to a committee supporting Winston and the two other winning candidates, helping produce slate mailers that hit the doors of voters, according to campaign filings.

James McKeever, president of the faculty union, AFT Local 1521, declined to discuss many details of the union’s decision, but told The Times that the executive board wanted to go “in a different direction” and saw Winston as the best candidate.

In the race for Seat 2, incumbent Steve Veres held a 40.91% to 33.48% lead over educator Adriana Cabrera, who was in second.

Cabrera did not return emails seeking comment, and Veres said she had not called to concede. As of Monday afternoon, Veres had nearly 97,000 more votes than Cabrera with an estimated 44,000 more ballots to be counted county-wide, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

In Seat 4, Darryn Harris, a government and community affairs officer for St. John’s Community Health, has the biggest lead of all.

According to the latest numbers, Harris had 57.3% of the vote in a seven-person race. Healthcare workforce specialist Elaine Alaniz was in second place with 14.4%.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio won the race Tuesday to serve as House Republican leader as the GOP prepares for its new role in the minority.

Jordan, who serves as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, defeated Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana in a secret ballot election of Republicans who will serve in the next Congress. The vote was 106-73.

Jordan, 62, is a co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and served as its first chairman. His candidacy appealed to those looking for new leadership in the wake of last week’s election debacle and to those who like his hard-hitting political style.

Jordan as minority leader will inherit a historically small House Republican conference that is only beginning to grapple with its loss of power as President Donald Trump serves out his final two years in office. Leading the party back to the House majority in 2028 is sure to be a stiff climb, given the scope of Democratic victories in the midterms.

Jordan warned of the coming Democratic efforts on oversight, with numerous investigations of the Trump administration expected.

“Our job cannot be merely to spotlight how radical this new Democratic Party is — offense, not defense, wins elections,” Jordan said, a nod to his pugnacious reputation in committee hearings.

Trump said he was staying out of the race.

Scalise and Jordan were a familiar match-up

Scalise and Jordan had faced off before, both running to serve as House speaker after Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the job a little more than three years ago. Neither was able to rally the support necessary to secure the position, which eventually went to Mike Johnson, who is stepping aside from the leadership in the new Congress.

Scalise, 61, has held key GOP leadership positions going back to 2014, serving as party whip and then as majority leader. In 2017, he was critically wounded when a gunman opened fire at a baseball practice where several Republican lawmakers and staffers were preparing for an annual charity baseball game against Democrats. In 2023, he was stricken with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that was successfully treated.

“Overcoming adversity is nothing new to me,” Scalise said in his pitch to colleagues.

He also emphasized his fundraising prowess, noting he raised $67.9 million for this year’s midterms, with about a third of that going directly to individual House campaigns and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But the majority of Republicans opted for Jordan, who emphasized his experience battling with Democrats in committee rooms.

“I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook,” Jordan said.

Other positions are also up for grabs

In addition to the race for minority leader, Reps. Tom Emmer of Minnesota and August Pfluger of Texas are vying to serve as Republican whip, the No. 2 position in the leadership hierarchy. Three candidates are seeking to serve as conference chair: Reps. Lisa McClain of Michigan, Erin Houchin of Indiana and Greg Steube of Florida.

The Republicans who will serve in the next Congress will hear from the candidates in the morning, followed in the afternoon by voting through secret ballot.

Democrats will hold their leadership elections next week.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York is expected to become the next House speaker, the first African-American to hold the job, and Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts is expected to become the next majority leader. She would be the first woman to hold that position.

Freking writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The midterm elections already upended national politics. Due to the number of state governments that have flipped to Democratic control, they also could change the way the U.S. elects a president.

The sudden blue tint to so many more statehouses opens the door to enough states joining 18 other Democratic-run states in a deal that would effectively neuter the Electoral College. It would remake the battle for the presidency into one for the most votes nationwide, rather than candidates concentrating on a half dozen or so swing states.

The states that have joined what is known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact account for 222 Electoral College votes. Once the number of states involved hits the 270 needed to win the presidency, the arrangement would effectively require a candidate to win the national popular vote to get an Electoral College majority.

It’s not clear that the strategy has support from all the newly elected lawmakers and governors in the key states, and it’s almost certain to draw legal challenges from conservative groups. If it does go forward, it could land before the conservative-majority Supreme Court.

Yet the sweep of the Democratic wins for governor and in state legislatures has the plan’s supporters optimistic. In Tuesday’s elections, Democrats won full control in six states representing 71 Electoral College votes: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Minnesota, with its 10 electoral votes, had joined the compact when it was previously under full Democratic control in 2023.

Some governors express support while others are noncommittal

“We can do away with it,” Wisconsin’s new Democratic Gov. David Crowley said of the Electoral College, now that he has a legislature in his party’s hands for the first time in 16 years. “I am interested in having those conversations with the state Legislature.”

Over the weekend, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a likely 2028 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he would like his newly Democratic legislature to take steps toward making the Electoral College obsolete.

“I think that the national popular vote makes sense. My views on that have not changed,” Shapiro said on a liberal podcast. “I’ll work with lawmakers to figure out what the right mechanism is for moving forward on that.”

If Pennsylvania and Wisconsin supported the compact, reaching the 270 threshold would require Michigan and either Arizona or Nevada to join. Michigan’s new Democratic governor, Jocelyn Benson did not respond to a request for comment.

Not every Democratic governor is embracing the push yet. In a television interview on Monday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs declined to say whether she favored her state joining the compact. She said she’s focused on other things, like the cost of living.

Nevada’s previous experience with the issue also is a cautionary tale for supporters.

In 2019, then-Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak vetoed a measure that would have committed Nevada to joining the compact after it was passed by Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature. Sisolak said at the time that the popular vote idea would diminish the influence of smaller-population states like Nevada in national elections.

Democrats passed another measure to join the compact in 2023, but couldn’t figure out a way around the state’s then-Republican governor. The incoming administration of its new Democratic governor, Aaron Ford, did not respond to requests for comment.

Republicans will use their diminished power to push back.

“Our Constitution gives states a voice in choosing the president for a reason,” Tyler August, the Republican leader in the Wisconsin Assembly, said in a statement Tuesday. “This would undermine that balance and disenfranchise Wisconsin voters by letting results in other states override their choice.”

Two presidents 16 years apart lost the popular vote

The idea of shifting to a national popular vote gained traction among Democrats after Republican George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election by inching ahead of Democrat Al Gore in the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote. It became turbocharged after Republicans again won the White House that way in 2016 with Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Under the National Popular Vote plan, the candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide would receive the Electoral College votes from the states that have joined the compact.

There’s nothing inherently partisan about the idea, said Patrick Rosenstiel, a Republican strategist in Minnesota who is a senior consultant to the popular vote movement. Occasionally GOP-majority legislative chambers, including the Oklahoma Senate, have passed proposals to join the compact, but the bills haven’t gone further.

He said his own presidential vote is essentially meaningless because Minnesota has reliably voted Democratic in presidential elections for decades, leaving him with no say in the outcome and steering the vast majority of the candidates’ attention elsewhere.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever been relevant in the outcome of a presidential election,” he said. “National popular vote forces campaigns to focus on every persuadable voter in every precinct across the nation.”

Rosenstiel said the national popular vote campaign has been revving up to push the issue when the newly Democratic state legislatures convene at the start of the year. He said the organization has already lined up legislative sponsors.

The compact could create constitutional concerns

Republicans no longer have the power to stop the change in the Democratic-controlled states, but some conservative groups are prepared for a fight. The change “disenfranchises voters in member states if enacted, violates the United States Constitution, and undermines America’s Founders’ intent,” wrote analysts for the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, in September.

There also is no guarantee the proposals will pass. Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor who is skeptical of the idea, said some might have second thoughts now that it’s gone from a symbolic protest vote to a real possibility. He said there will be constitutional concerns, as well, that will likely lead to legal challenges.

The Constitution lets states run elections, and the Supreme Court in a case stemming from electors who sought to find a substitute for Trump in 2016 has ruled that states can require electors to vote for the presidential candidate they’re pledged to.

Muller flagged potential legal hurdles to the popular vote plan. States have the power to run their elections but not set rules that will determine the outcome in other states’ contests. Additionally, each state ballot is different, and some would potentially have third-party candidates who wouldn’t appear elsewhere, leading to the dilution of a vote for a Democrat or Republican in one state compared to another.

That could violate the 14th Amendment’s requirement that everyone have “equal protection of the laws.” The U.S. Supreme Court also might decide that states can’t join a compact to change one of their core constitutional duties, unless they get congressional approval.

“I think the Supreme Court will be interested,” Muller said.

Riccardi and Bauer write for the Associated Press. Bauer reported from Madison, Wis. AP writers Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing, Mich., Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Mikella Schuettler in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Last week’s midterm elections made history across the country, and Los Angeles was no exception: Asian Americans will now hold all three citywide elective offices — mayor, city attorney and controller — for the first time.

Mayor-elect Nithya Raman came to the U.S. from India as a child. City Atty.-elect Marissa Roy’s mother also emigrated from India. And City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who is Filipino, won reelection to a second four-year term in June.

“This is a historic moment for the nation and certainly for our city and state, and for [Asian American and Pacific Islander] communities,” said Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, which advocates for resources and funding for the coalition of community organizations it represents. “We feel that the work that we’ve done across many decades has come to fruition in seeing progressive Asian American representation in our city.”

Kulkarni noted that Asian American voters have trended more progressive over the decades, after years of being pigeonholed as largely conservative. Raman and Roy were both endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and Mejia was recommended by the leftist group.

Across the country, voters made history at the ballot box: California voted in its first Latino governor, Texas elected its first Latina governor and Georgia will have its first Black female governor. Michigan elected Abdul El-Sayed, who will become the first Muslim in the U.S. Senate.

The two largest U.S. cities will now be headed by South Asian Americans: New York City’s Zohran Mamdani, born to Indian parents, and Raman, who arrived from India to the U.S. at the age of 6. Raman became the first Asian American woman and the first South Asian elected to the City Council when she won her seat in 2020.

In her first address as mayor-elect last week, Raman acknowledged the significance of voters putting their faith in her at a time when the Trump administration has terrified immigrant communities with mass deportations.

“This city has opened its arms to people to come and build their dreams here, and the idea that Angelenos voted for an immigrant to be their next mayor at this moment in American history is so deeply moving to me,” she said.

Roy frequently invoked her mother’s immigrant story and her Indian heritage on the campaign trail. As a founding board member of the Asian Democrats of Los Angeles County, she had key Asian American backers, including California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and San Francisco City Atty. David Chiu.

Roy, whose campaign was infused with Bollywood needle drops on Instagram, is also the co-creator of a “Raman Rager” Bollywood dance mix for a South Asian-themed fundraiser that has since taken on a life of its own.

Roy said in an interview that her win in last week’s election represents a moment for the city’s broader immigrant community. When she won, she received Whatsapp messages from family members in India who were watching closely and was featured in an India Weekly article.

“I think this is really a significant moment, not just for the Asian American community, but for the immigrant community to have an immigrant mayor, to have a city attorney who is the daughter of an immigrant,” Roy said. “This is Los Angeles sending a message about who it is.”

Asians are the fastest growing population in the U.S., outpacing Black, Latino and white populations, according to the Pew Research Center. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders represent about 12% of the city’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And they constitute more than 1 million eligible voters in L.A. County, according to an analysis of census data by Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California.

“Our communities have helped build Los Angeles, and it’s time our political leadership reflects the enormous role we play in shaping its future,” Dahni Tsuboi, chief executive of the organization, said in a statement.

On election night last week, Zahra Hajee, president of Asian Democrats of L.A. County, hopped from Roy’s election night party — which featured a henna station and a victorious Roy who flashed glittering bangles — to Raman’s, where Mejia gave an impassioned speech as a Raman win looked likely. After Raman took the lead by early Wednesday morning, Hajee, who is Pakistani American and Muslim, became emotional.

“To be able to see two South Asian women leaders — I didn’t think I’d see this in my lifetime,” Hajee said. “Being able to have those shared experiences with our next city attorney and next mayor is just such a surreal feeling and a connection I thought I’d never have.”

The group, which has about a thousand members, was among the first to endorse Roy’s campaign and supported Raman early on. The organization also has a working relationship with Mejia, who is a member of the Green Party. It also helped introduce Raman to key constituencies; she set up an event with small business owners in L.A.’s Little Bangladesh neighborhood near Koreatown, for example.

Nina Long, policy manager for AAPI Force, a progressive statewide coalition, said the candidates’ outreach reflected the nuances of the community, reaching groups including Chinese, Korean and Filipino voters.

“They did not treat AAPIs as a voter bloc to be taken for granted,” she said. “Each of the candidates was really savvy about the diversity of AAPI communities in Los Angeles.”

The dominance of Asian Americans in this election is also a display of the growing political influence of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.

“For a very long time, the AAPI community was considered a quote unquote margin of victory in Democratic politics,” Hajee said. “We have shown our community is not just a margin of victory but a true base of voters.”

Mejia acknowledged the moment as a “huge feat” for progressive values being championed by Asian Americans.

“Representation is great, but it’s also showing that we have people running on great values centered on people, not special interests,” he said in an interview. “The fact that we are all AAPI is amazing, but the credit is what we stand for and what we believe in.”

He said his views were shaped by having parents who worked hard but were exposed to more conservative values and were expected to keep their heads down and not ask questions. But as life has become harder, more Asian Americans, especially young people, want better, he said.

“I believe what you’re seeing right now, this movement in politics, is that so many people are paying attention, especially those from immigrant communities,” he said.

There are currently three Asian Americans on the L.A. City Council, including Raman, who represents District 4. The other two are Ysabel Jurado of District 14 and John Lee of District 12.

Jurado became the first Filipina elected to the City Council when she won in 2024. In a statement, she said, seeing three Asian American leaders elected to citywide office felt deeply personal.

“It reflects generations of organizing by communities who fought to be heard and opened doors for those who would follow,” she said, adding that she looked forward to pushing for policies that would make living in L.A. more affordable. “We have an opportunity to show what greater representation can mean in people’s everyday lives.”

Times staff writers Noah Haggerty and Sonja Sharp contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans met Tuesday to discuss their future and were expected to reconvene in the afternoon as they decide whether to keep South Dakota Sen. John Thune as their leader. The meetings come just a week after steep losses in the midterm elections that cost them their majority.

Thune is expected to be reelected, given that he remains popular with his GOP colleagues and is so far running unopposed. But senators left the meeting after two hours of discussions with no resolution on a way forward.

“We want to be thoughtful and do the right thing,” said West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice as the meeting broke up. He said no obvious alternative had emerged, but “there is a legitimate argument that if we lost as badly as we lost, why would we continue on with the same leadership?”

At the same time, the current GOP leadership “didn’t cause this problem to happen,” Justice said.

Some Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday for the first time since the election wipeout that cost them at least seven seats had said beforehand that it’s too soon to endorse the status quo.

“We need to have some real soul-searching,” said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who circulated a letter to the conference asking for a delay in the closed-door, secret-ballot leadership elections. “We can’t just continue on business as usual — that kind of defeat demands change.”

Still, Johnson conceded that there’s no one else on the ballot.

“That’s part of our problem, who would want the job?” he said, turning to a reporter and joking, “Do you want it?”

The angst comes as the party is just beginning to reckon with what the election results mean for GOP lawmakers and how soon they can try to rebuild their ranks. Two additional races remain uncalled in Alaska and Mississippi that could further deplete their numbers.

The Republican leadership declined to move the elections, which include contests for other party leaders as well and are held in the small Old Senate Chamber just down the hall from the large one used Tuesday. But senators could still seek a vote to delay them.

Thune said on Monday they will have a “very fulsome, robust conversation about where we go from here and then we’ll see what the consensus of the conference is.”

“Ultimately that’s a decision made by Republican senators,” Thune said.

Despite some critics, Thune has respect from colleagues

Thune, who replaced Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as leader in early 2025, has spent much of the last two years navigating President Trump, who has often been at odds with the Senate.

While backing up Trump on most policy, Thune has refused to change Senate rules and scrap the filibuster to pass voting legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters — a position that frustrated Trump and enraged some in the president’s political base.

But Trump hosted Thune and his family at the White House in October. He said Monday that the GOP leader is “a very fine man.” The election is “up to the Senate,” Trump said.

Thune has made it a point to hear out different viewpoints before he makes major decisions and has maintained close relationships with the rank and file — a different approach from his predecessor, McConnell.

Thune “has widespread support” among Republican senators, said Oklahoma Sen. Jim Lankford, who said he supports having the elections on Tuesday when many of the new GOP senators are already in town for freshman orientation.

“It’s a pretty complicated role to be able to manage,” Lankford said. “No one wants that job.”

Walking into the meeting, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said most senators are ready to move forward. It is time to have “leadership in place,” he said.

Republicans push to delay leadership elections

Still, Johnson and others in his conference say Tuesday’s leadership election is too soon.

The midterm election was “an incredible repudiation of the focus of this Congress for the last two years,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, citing reductions to Medicaid and rural hospital funding in the sweeping tax cuts bill that Republicans pushed through last year. Hawley voted for the legislation after criticizing it.

Hawley said he hasn’t “heard any acknowledgement of that yet from leadership, which I think is extremely alarming,” and he also hasn’t heard from Thune personally.

“I want to hear that we are going to have a different direction,” including ways to lower costs for Americans, Hawley said.

Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick in a statement over the weekend said Republicans shouldn’t choose a leader until the lessons of the election have been “digested and debated.” Indiana Sen. Jim Banks said Republicans need to “sit down and have a frank conversation about where we fell short.”

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, one of a few senators who signed Johnson’s letter asking for a delay, said any leadership contest should come after the two outstanding Senate elections in Alaska and Mississippi are decided.

Neither of those races has yet been called, so it’s unclear if Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi will be returning to the Senate next year.

Thune looks to the next Congress

The soul-searching comes as lawmakers are trying to wrap up the year’s work — funding the government and seeing if there are some issues where they can work together, including an energy permitting bill that moved forward on a bipartisan vote Monday evening.

Republicans will try to confirm as many of Trump’s nominees as they can before the new Congress begins in January, and Democrats will strategize on how to best keep up their momentum into next year.

Thune is expected to emphasize his collaborative approach to his colleagues and point out what they did get done in the last year — including the tax and spending cuts legislation and an attempt at reining in the chaotic annual spending process.

In his first remarks on the Senate floor since the election, which he called a “tough night,” Thune previewed his pitch to his colleagues who are looking for answers on how they will navigate the minority.

Republicans will be willing to work with Democrats, Thune said Monday, but “the American people are not looking for socialist government and leftist fantasies.”

Despite gains, Democrats are having similar conversations

Across the aisle, Democrats who could hold as many as 56 seats next year are having private discussions about whether New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is still the right person to lead them.

Schumer has found critics on the left and the right of his caucus as candidates from both sides declined to say in the campaign whether they would support him as leader. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin have both considered challenging Schumer, but neither has announced a run.

Many in the party have said it’s time for generational change after Schumer’s 12 years as leader. Still, Schumer appears to have widespread support from his members after carrying his party to massive wins in Tuesday’s elections.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Schumer’s New York colleague and the head of the Democratic Senate campaign arm, predicted that he will win enough support. Schumer not only won the Senate back but he “cares deeply, and he understands politics well,” she said.

Jalonick and Sloan write for the Associated Press.

A Northern California judge on Monday permanently barred Shasta County from implementing a voter-approved initiative that sought to dramatically reshape voting in the conservative stronghold.

Measure B, which was passed by 56% of voters in the June primary, sought to require hand-counted ballots, eliminate most mail-in voting and require residents to present government-issued photo identification to cast a ballot on election day.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County days after the primary, arguing that Measure B violates state election laws. Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Hanna temporarily blocked the measure in August.

In his final ruling Monday, Hanna wrote that the provisions of Measure B “are wholly contrary to existing state law.”

“The regulation and administration of the electoral process is a matter of statewide concern, and Shasta County’s status as a charter county does not entitle it to enact invalid legislation simply because some in this community do not agree with the existing law,” the ruling continued.

Attorney Alexander Haberbush, who represented a group of Measure B supporters, did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment. But Haberbush told local television station KRCR that they are “reviewing every option, including an appeal.”

“Today’s ruling tells the voters of every charter county in California that they have no say over how their own elections are run. This ruling goes far further than any state law requires,” he told the station.

The battle over election integrity took hold in the mostly rural Shasta County in 2023. At the time, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, fueled by President Trump’s unsubstantiated election fraud claims, stopped using Dominion voting machines and opted to hand-count ballots for the county’s more than 110,000 registered voters. The move quickly prompted a new state law that banned them from doing so.

The fight has continued amid Trump’s calls for the government to “nationalize” state-run elections and restrict voting by mail.

Weber in a statement Monday described Measure B as a “colossal waste of time and taxpayer funds” and an attempt to disenfranchise voters.

“Today’s decision affirms what was a forgone conclusion from the beginning,” she said. “As long as there are those willing to enact reckless, illegal, and poorly drafted laws, on behalf of Californians, we will see them in court.”

Did California help Texas turn blue?

One of the biggest stories of this month’s Democratic sweep in the midterms is that a very red Texas elected a Democratic U.S. Senator and governor.

Pundits cite many theories for the surprising results: Anger over the Iran war, high gas prices, Trump fatigue and data centers.

But did California’s high home prices and the state’s historic exodus play a role?

Experts doubt it. In fact, some Californians who moved to Texas are actually concerned about the blue wave.

Many presume that those arriving from California must be much more liberal than the average Texan, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

But “a significant share of the Californians transplanting to Texas tend to be moderate to conservative in their views,” he said.

For years, Californians fled to Texas in droves. About 100,000 people made the move in 2022 alone, and many were looking not just for a lower cost of living but also a state that reflected their conservative political outlook.

Nearly half of those Californians who moved to Arizona or Texas during the California exodus in recent years identified as conservative or very conservative, according to a Stanford University study.

The Public Policy Institute of California found that those who leave the state often go to states that share their political beliefs: “Californians leaving for Republican states are much more likely to be Republican than Democratic, compared to Californians as a whole, while those leaving for Democratic states are more likely to be Democratic than Republican,” the PPIC wrote.

In all, hundreds of thousands of conservative Californians have relocated to Texas since the 2020 pandemic emergency, studies suggest.

Marie Bailey, 44, moved from El Segundo to a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb in 2017. She and her husband built a home for $750,000, while a “tiny fixer upper” in El Segundo would’ve cost upward of $1 million.

The couple quickly figured out that they could capitalize on the niche in the real estate market for California migrants to Texas.

For years, Bailey has administered the Facebook group where 45,000 users swap recommendations on how to make the move. She runs a real estate firm that places Californians all over the state.

“Ninety-nine percent of our clientele are people moving from California,” Bailey told The Times in 2023. As for why people make the move, “No. 1 is cost of living and No. 2 is politics.”

Banners for politicians are shown Oct. 27, 2026, in Edinberg, Texas.

(Gabriel V. Cardenas / For The Times)

Texas’ red politics were a big reason she made the move.

Bailey’s husband, who was previously employed by the UCLA medical system, “wouldn’t even talk about his politics because he was afraid of losing his job,” she said.

“Nowhere is perfect,” Bailey said in 2023, “but we fit in a lot better here.”

Now, just three years later, Bailey is confronting a seismic shift in her state.

“I’m actually thinking of moving to Oklahoma because of this,” she said in an interview Thursday. “Or Florida.”

In the Facebook group ‘Move to Texas from California,’ most posts since Tuesday concerned the new state of affairs in the Lone Star State.

“If I have to tolerate blue I might as well have good weather so maybe back to CA? Or give FL a try?” one commenter wrote.

“I am literally closing on a house in Texas next week! I am so pissed,” wrote another.

Blank sees some upsides to the Texas blue wave for those who moved from California.

“They get the benefit of having left what they see as a too-liberal state, and they get a place that is conservative but is unlikely to get much more conservative any time soon,” he said.

Blank thinks many California transplants were primarily motivated by housing costs, with politics being secondary.

“They don’t have to move back,” he said of Californians who moved to the Lone Star state. “And if they do, I’m gonna tell them they’re silly. It’s not a good way to make decisions.”

Nov. 10, 2026 5:33 AM PT

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dug in for a fight Tuesday against his potential impeachment in Congress, telling reporters that a rogue lawmaker is targeting him over “policy disagreements” and not the high crimes or offenses the nation’s founders intended.

The embattled Pentagon chief spoke at his first press briefing from the five-sided building in six months, launching a counteroffensive against outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie’s effort to impeach him over his handling of the unpopular war against Iran and other actions.

“In the 250 years of our American republic, no Secretary of War or Secretary of Defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations,” Hegseth told reporters.

The briefing was Hegseth’s first since May even as the U.S. military has kept up intermittent operations against Iran as well as fatal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent, filed the impeachment resolution in the House on Monday. It sets the stage for a dramatic vote on whether to remove a prominent Trump administration figure following sweeping losses for Republicans in last week’s midterm elections that many at least partly blamed on the Iran conflict and its economic impact.

The resolution largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in military actions in Yemen against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Venezuela. Massie said Hegseth’s actions amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors” and his leadership at the Pentagon “warrants impeachment.”

A vote in the House could come by midweek, putting pressure on Republicans — many of whom blamed their election wipeout on the Iran war — but next steps are highly uncertain.

Trump has backed Hegseth, pointing to the raid to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January as well as military operations against Iran that he asserts have “obliterated” its navy and air force.

Iran, however, has been able to keep striking U.S. military bases in the Middle East and has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the course of the more than 8-month-old conflict, driving up global oil prices. Trump told reporters Monday that the Iran war “militarily is effectively over” and repeated his often-made claim that Iran “would love to make a deal.”

Hegseth also has been defending his stewardship of the U.S. military.

“There’s a lot of politically motivated people who may have substantial policy disagreements, but their disagreements are with success,” he told reporters Monday after a speech at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. He added that “if we want to litigate” the military actions that the Trump administration has taken, “I’m happy to do it all day long.”

He also released a video on social media last week that argued impeachment would be “all about the politics of personal destruction” and that “won’t work with me. You can rest assured of that.”

Afterward, scores of Pentagon political appointees posted images of Hegseth emblazoned with the words, “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic.”

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, released a statement saying that “despite threats of sham witch hunts from Democrats,” Hegseth is “100% committed to leading the Department until the end of President Trump’s term in office.”

Toropin and Finley write for the Associated Press.

When Angelenos chose Nithya Raman as their next mayor, Karen Bass wasn’t the only establishment pillar that was resoundingly rebuked.

Here in the country’s Latino capital, the metropolis that delivered California its first Latino U.S. senator and pioneered the type of winning political machine that Latinos across the country replicated for decades, almost all the city’s Latino power brokers — politicians, nonprofit leaders, union activists, celebrities — bet big on longtime ally Bass, only to now find themselves on the outside looking in.

All that might and hype delivered worse than nada for Bass, who finished first in the June primary thanks in part to Latino support, winning 35 Latino-majority neighborhoods compared with just seven for Raman. The reverse happened in last week’s general election, with Raman winning many of the city’s key Latino neighborhoods — South L.A. to the Eastside, Pico-Union to Wilmington — according to a Times analysis of precinct data.

It was a fitting dénouement to Mayor Bass’ one term in office, and the capstone of a terrible four-year run for L.A.’s Latino political establishment, beginning with the leak of a profane, racist conversation that disgraced four top politicos.

Bass should have run as far away as possible from our caudillos y caudillas. But she just couldn’t quit them. Take an Oct. 24 lunchtime rally at Plaza Del Valle in Panorama City, the nexus for the fabled San Fernando Valley Latino political machine.

Volunteers handed out “Latinos Con Bass” signs to customers and store owners. An all-star roster of elected officials — City Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Imelda Padilla, Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez (no relation to Monica) and Rep. Luz Rivas — gathered in a community room to make the case that Bass was the best choice.

“You have tías and cousins and primos that call you, ‘Who should I vote for? What do I do? How do I fill out the ballot?’” Rivas told a crowd of about 60, most of whom were not Latino. “You need to remind them Mayor Karen Bass is the right leader.”

“This is where we win elections,” Rodriguez asserted, describing the mayor — whom she bitterly opposed until fellow Councilmember Raman entered the race — as a “Valley girl” and the election as “our moment.”

The enthusiasm level struggled to exceed that of a line at the DMV. Half an hour later and a few miles east in Sylmar, a very different scene was unfolding.

DJ Danny Guerrero blasted quinceañera classics like “Vivir mi Vida” and “Come On Let’s Go” by Pacoima native Ritchie Valens as Raman’s team hosted a canvasada — free tacos for everyone to fuel an afternoon of canvassing. L.A. Unified school board member Kelly Gonez was the only elected official at the Carpenters Local 818 training center. The others were union members, Latino hipsters or kids too young to vote.

“Her passion to protect our community — that compassion resonated with me,” said Guerrero, a 21-year-old Cal State Northridge political science major who helps undocumented college students at his school’s Dream Center. “I advocate for that in my life, and I see Nithya doing that. She meets us where we’re at.”

Guerrero cheered as Raman kicked off her remarks with an “¡Hola, Sylmar!,” pronouncing the “y” like an “i” the way a Spanish speaker would. The candidate shouted out Latino Valley icons like Lenchita’s, Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and even Plaza Del Valle. But she received the biggest cheers when she said, “La communidad latina merece más.”

Latinos deserve more.

In the end, Raman captured most of the precincts in Padilla’s and Rodriguez’s districts even after the two council members whacked away at her through the election like brats hogging the piñata stick at a birthday party.

Without institutional support, Raman focused on a new generation of Latino leaders who are not part of the traditional political machines.

“Maybe they [Latino establishment leaders] felt obligated to back her,” Rocío Rivas said of Bass. The L.A. Unified school board member and democratic socialist endorsed Raman and attended her election night party at the Greek Theatre, where a crowd of hundreds chanted, “Sí se puede.”

“Or maybe they’re not as connected to the community as they once were,” Rivas added.

The trouble for the establishment started in 2022 when three City Council members and a powerful union leader became pariahs after starring in the audio leak scandal. That same year, democratic socialist upstarts Hugo Soto-Martínez and Eunisses Hernandez won City Council seats, despite a lack of support from Chicanosauruses who mocked their chances.

In January 2024, former City Councilmember Jose Huizar — once a rising star with aspirations for higher office — was sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to corruption charges. In the fall of that year, Eastside Assembly and City Council seats held by Latinos for decades went to Filipina Americans Jessica Caloza and Ysabel Jurado. Meanwhile, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign for governor sputtered out with just 1% of the vote.

In the race to succeed Nury Martinez, who resigned from the City Council after the audio leak, Padilla won with backing from the Valley Latino political machine.

Marco Santana lost to Padilla in the primary. despite an endorsement from Raman, and supported Raman’s mayoral campaign.

“The mayor ran on a very institutional playbook of getting a bunch of Latino politicians together so they could tell Latinos how to vote,” said Santana, 36. “That doesn’t work anymore. Latinos want deeds.”

Instead, outdated ideas were all Bass had.

It started with her choice of chief campaign strategist: Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who was campaign manager for President Biden’s disastrous 2024 reelection bid and then Kamala Harris’ failed attempt to pick up the pieces. I quickly tuned out the one time Chavez Rodriguez described her vision for Latino outreach, which would have been revolutionary in L.A. two generations ago.

While Bass’ campaign mounted a vigorous media outreach effort in English and Spanish, her own attempts to court Latino voters kept backfiring. The crowd at the annual City Hall Mexican Independence Day celebration booed when Padilla, in a green outfit that matched Bass’, hailed the mayor as “good.”

At Homegirl Cafe in Chinatown the morning before the election, customers largely ignored Bass while swarming gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra. She stood next to Becerra at the restaurant, only to have him later clarify to reporters that he wasn’t endorsing anyone in the mayor’s race.

Michael Trujillo is a longtime political consultant who served as an unpaid advisor to a pro-Bass independent expenditure committee and has participated in the rise and struggles of the Eastside and San Fernando Valley machines.

“It’s going to take a long time” for L.A.’s Latino political establishment “to be reconstructed, and that’s ironic when you have Latinos in charge in Sacramento now,” he said. But he predicted that Raman would bear her former opponents no ill will, because “they’re going to give her a fair shot” — because what else can they do?

The Raman era will undoubtedly boost a new generation of Latino leaders. But establishments don’t fade away so easily — and insurgents don’t automatically shun them.

On Saturday, Raman attended a news conference to condemn the arrests of two people by federal immigration agents during an anti-ICE protest outside Adventist Health White Memorial Center. The mayor-elect shook the hands of state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, SEIU California President David Huerta and Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, all of whom endorsed Bass and recorded social media videos in support of the incumbent.

When it was Raman’s turn to speak, she led the crowd in chants of “ICE out of Boyle Heights” and praised Huerta, Durazo and Salas. Raman concluded by promising Angelenos in Spanish that she would “defend” immigrants.

And then L.A.’s Latino political establishment did the only thing they could: They applauded.