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Proposition 42 would prohibit new taxes on “retirement holdings, individually-owned assets, and other forms of personal savings” that take effect after Jan. 1, 2026. That includes financial assets, investment accounts, intellectual property, personal belongings and other assets used for retirement or financial planning.
It also would bar retroactive taxes on past earnings unless the state is using revenue from the tax to respond to emergencies such as a fire or a flood.
Proposition 42 could nullify Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax, because the two measures conflict with one another. If voters approve both, the one with the most “yes” votes generally would become law, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Proposition 42 could reduce state tax revenue but it’s unclear by how much, according to the office’s analysis. Currently, the state does tax certain personal property such as vehicles. It doesn’t tax people for owning financial assets like stocks and investment accounts but does tax income from them.
California Professional Firefighters, the California Federation of Teachers, the Nurse Alliance of SEIU California and the California School Employees Assn. all oppose the measure. They argue that it will make it harder to pass tax hikes to pay for police and fire departments, fix and repair local roads, staff local schools or backfill federal healthcare cuts.
They also argue that Proposition 43 skirts the California Supreme Court’s opinion on the threshold.
Gubnatorial candidate Xavier Becerra opposes Proposition 43. In a statement, he called corporations “special interests” that want the proposition to pass in order to block new taxes.
“Prop. 43 would hand special interests the power to block the resources our communities count on most: fire protection, safe roads, good schools,” Becerrra said.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the legislation that became Proposition 43 — ACA 22 — opposes the measure and has urged Californians to vote against it. She said the only reason she crafted the bill was because it was a necessary bargaining chip to torpedo another ballot measure backed by the Jarvis taxpayers group that would have devastated revenues for local governments and retroactively rescinded some local tax increases.
History was made this week on Capitol Hill when a female senator womansplained sports to a male senator, and surprisingly, the gender-shaming reversal did not cause the universe to collapse on itself.
During a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, MAGA’s manhood cloak was breached when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) revealed that Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) had mixed up the names of basketball teams in an unsuccessful attempt to perjure former Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Smith was testifying before the committee because he had led the investigations into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and retain classified documents. Several Republican lawmakers have said that Smith overstepped his duties and launched a “witch hunt” against Trump and his allies.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) speaks during a 2020 event in Las Vegas.
(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
Schmitt was trying to suggest Tuesday that Smith improperly colluded with Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis on their separate criminal cases against Trump by placing the former special counsel on Willis’ home turf of Atlanta in 2024.
But a watershed Watergate moment this was not. If Schmitt’s effort to ensnare Smith was set to a musical score, it would have been far more “Curb Your Enthusiasm” than “Mission Impossible.”
His gotcha moment became a schooling by Klobuchar on basketball, turning the tables on the age-old art of mansplaining. For those who need a quick definition, it’s when a man explains something to a woman in a patronizing way, with sports usually at the top of that talk-down-to-her list. He assumes she knows less than he does, even if she’s versed on the subject.
Klobuchar is an avowed sports fan and the daughter of respected Minneapolis sportswriter Jim Klobuchar and a former prosecutor known for her sharp questioning. The combination proved unfortunate for Schmitt during the hearing when he tried to catch Smith in a lie.
The Republican senator asked Smith, “Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 3, 2024?”
Smith, whose normally commanding presence has launched countless memes, appeared genuinely perplexed. “What city would that be in?” he asked.
“Atlanta,” replied Schmitt.
Smith denied he was there.
“So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024. Is that correct?” Schmitt said.
“I have no recollection of that,” a bewildered Smith said.
As evidence, Schmitt introduced text messages from Smith’s security detail about seating arrangements for a game, displayed on a poster board that was taken down so quickly that Smith and various senators said they didn’t have time to read it.
“I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” said Schmitt, a former Missouri attorney general who then used the rest of his time to condemn Smith for subpoenaing the communications of Republican lawmakers while investigating Trump.
“You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country,” Schmitt proclaimed. “You will go down as a total dirtbag.”
Klobuchar, who was up next to question Smith, asked if the poster board could be produced again.
“I’m a former prosecutor too, and I have never seen anyone just say, ‘What do you think of this?’ and put it down,” she said.
Schmitt’s evidentiary board was produced again, and this time for more than a few seconds. There was no mention of Atlanta in the text messages.
One could almost hear the sound of Schmitt’s perjury trap crumbling under Klobuchar’s heel.
“Could it then be that it was the University of Iowa, [which] is the ‘Hawkeyes,’ could that be it?” she asked Smith. “That might be the confusion over the names of the team.”
Then she addressed Schmitt: “Perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully. I think people should have their facts straight before they accuse people of being a ‘dirtbag,’ and not get the teams wrong.”
Leave it to a man to confuse the Atlanta Hawks, an NBA team, with the Iowa Hawkeyes of women’s college basketball. Perhaps his emotions got in the way.
Smith said he attended the game in Maryland to see the Hawkeyes’ supremely talented star, Caitlin Clark. Regardless of his whereabouts, Republicans contend that Smith was on a political witch hunt after then-Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland appointed him to oversee the twin investigations into Trump. Smith’s team scrutinized the retention of national defense information and classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, as well as the president and his allies’ efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and impede the peaceful transfer of power.
When Trump won the presidency a second time, Smith moved to dismiss both cases because Department of Justice policy prohibits the criminal prosecution of a sitting president.
Now, it’s game time for Judiciary Committee members who’d like to put Smith on the ropes. There’s just one new rule: Don’t talk sports around the ladies. They deliver a knockout punch.
The California Taxpayers Assn., the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, the CalAsian Chamber of Commerce and others back the proposition. They say it would result in the government spending taxpayer dollars more wisely while improving transparency.
The bulk of the contributions to support the proposition have come from Building a Better California, data from the California secretary of state’s website show. Top contributors to Building a Better California include Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder; John Doerr, chairman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins; and Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google.
Proposition 41 “requires more accountability, transparency and trackable progress of programs funded by our taxes, so that we stop funding failure and start funding successful outcomes,” a website for the proposition states.
WASHINGTON — More than three weeks have passed since the deadline for extending or revoking temporary protections against deportation for around 170,000 immigrants from El Salvador.
The Trump administration still hasn’t reached a decision, plunging the Salvadoran community into uncertainty and raising questions about what has prompted the delay.
The deportation reprieve is known as Temporary Protected Status. About 1.3 million people from 17 countries had TPS when President Trump returned to office last year, and Salvadorans make up the largest group of remaining beneficiaries.
When the TPS expiration deadlines approached for other groups, the administration reached a decision within days of a deadline. Haitians lost their TPS protections and were encouraged to leave the country. Some have been deported.
For now, Salvadoran immigrants are stuck. Many have been able to keep their jobs, though others were laid off in the absence of an official work permit extension.
Last month, administration officials said an announcement on TPS for Salvadorans would come “at the appropriate time” and that they would retain work authorization in the meantime. Asked for updated guidance Friday, a Homeland Security spokesperson provided the same statement.
The Department of Homeland Security had been prepared to end TPS protections for Salvadorans but was stopped from doing so by the White House, Politico reported.
So what’s causing the limbo?
One theory focuses on political considerations — that extending the deportation reprieve could have made the administration appear weak on immigration to its conservative base, just ahead of next month’s consequential midterm election.
Another theory holds that ending TPS would shock El Salvador’s economy, which is heavily reliant on remittances from Salvadorans in the U.S. President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally, advocated for more time, according to Politico.
In addition, the White House was warned that canceling TPS for Salvadorans would disrupt construction projects in Washington, D.C., the New Yorker reported and a source with knowledge of the warnings confirmed they had occurred.
A White House official, in a statement, said that “any assertion Washington D.C. construction projects had anything to do with a decision about El Salvador TPS are false.”
The Washington region has the second-largest Salvadoran population in the U.S., after Los Angeles, and the construction industry relies significantly on workers with TPS.
Trump is overseeing a sweeping aesthetic makeover of the nation’s capital, including his controversial 90,000-square-foot, $600-million ballroom complex at the White House. The president also ordered a facelift for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, renovations at Lafayette Square, a public park across from the White House and the application of 23.75 karat gold leaf to four bronze and granite statues.
Contracts at sensitive locations such as the White House typically include requirements that workers be U.S. citizens. A White House official said there is no one with TPS status working on the East Wing Modernization construction project.
Asked about those working on the president’s other projects around the district, a Department of Interior spokesperson said contractors are obligated to ensure everyone working on any project is legally permitted to work in the U.S.
“The Department has not had any conversations about TPS or how it relates to construction projects around the city,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.
People with TPS do work in other federal facilities.
Lauren Truslow is chief executive of 3D Enviro, a Virginia company that does hazardous materials abatement with a handful of workers affected by the TPS expiration for El Salvador. She said that after her employees’ federal badges expired last month, they were eventually reinstated until Oct. 9 — but not before missing several days of work.
TPS allows immigrants to obtain work permits and other documents. The uncertain status of TPS has led to sometime conflicting actions by government agencies or employers.
Advocates for TPS holders said some states have refused to renew their driver’s licenses, while others renewed licenses for different lengths of time. Truslow said some of her employees were only able to get federally noncompliant driver’s licenses, which they can’t use to get into federal facilities.
“At least they’re here in this community and they weren’t forced to leave,” she said. “I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I think there were ramifications with the decision and still there’s uncertainty.”
Truslow said the government agency her company works with is unrolling a new process. After next week, her workers on that project can seek an approval extension for their badges that would last until March.
For construction companies, getting rid of TPS “would be a disaster,” said Arnoldo Diaz, co-coordinator of the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group. “D.C. can’t function without TPS.”
Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, has had ongoing conversations with Homeland Security and White House leaders about TPS. What sets Salvadorans apart, she said, is the decades of experience many bring to the construction industry, which would be impossible to quickly replace.
“Many are managers and business owners themselves, running large projects,” she said. “It’s a level of skill set and longtime loyalty that cannot be replaced overnight. Because the president has been in this industry for five decades, he instinctively knows that.”
That economic consideration, coupled with polls showing that Latino voters think Trump has gone too far with immigration enforcement, “are the much larger considerations than the president’s own pet projects,” Shi said.
Roxy Mejia, political director of a local painters union in Washingon, said 67% of the 1,500 members are Latino and many of them Salvadoran TPS holders.
Mejia said she and her father immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1985, before TPS existed. He worked on the Pentagon renovation after 9/11.
Under this administration, some Salvadorans with TPS have been declining government contract jobs out of fear of being detained, she said.
“Even the contractors have lobbied with us to keep TPS extending, because they would lose a lot of manpower in this area,” she said.
As a candidate in 2022, Cohen said she’d conduct audits of homeless spending, the Department of Motor Vehicles and Employment Development Department if elected. However, her office didn’t do audits of homeless spending, a spokesperson said.
Cohen said her office sought funding from the governor and the state to conduct homeless audits but was denied. Her office clarified the request was for money for high-risk audit investments but didn’t specifically mention homelessness.
Cohen also acknowledged that she didn’t conduct reviews of the DMV and EDD, because, she said, other agencies were doing those audits and she didn’t want to duplicate their efforts.
After Cohen’s election, her office found itself in a public dispute over the state’s annual comprehensive financial report, a summary of California’s spending.
The report, published each year by the controller’s office, is used by credit agencies to monitor the state’s fiscal health and for years has been published months after it is due. Cohen blames other departments’ delays in turning over data as part of the reason for its chronic lateness.
The state auditor, a separate agency that reports to the state Legislature, launched its own audit about the timeliness of the report. In a 2025 letter, the auditor accused the controller’s office of spending more than a year “resisting an independent review” of the delayed report, which almost led to a legal showdown between the agencies.
Cohen, in an interview this year, said she succeeded in getting the report published closer to its due date. Her office also disputes the state auditor’s version of events.
Also this year, Cohen’s press officer secretly was recorded by a woman who pretended to be on a date with him. In the recording, the officer is heard saying that the office’s auditing team was cut by the state and that the office doesn’t have the resources to proactively perform audits. The recording was procured by conservative activist group O’Keefe Media.
Cohen called the recording illegal and declined to comment. The officer didn’t respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Hours before Nithya Raman took the stage at Jewish Federation L.A.’s mayoral forum this week, Mayor Karen Bass’ campaign blasted out a press release accusing the council member of skipping a City Council Jewish Heritage Month event to appear on Hasan Piker’s livestream.
The Raman camp’s response: “The Mayor is deliberately spreading misinformation that the public record directly contradicts,” said Liz Garcia, a campaign spokesperson.
Piker is a left-wing streamer on the platform Twitch and a fierce critic of Israel. Raman appeared on his stream on May 15, where he asked her if she thought Israel was committing genocide in Palestine. She said she did.
That same day, Raman missed a Jewish Heritage Month event at City Hall. Debbie Paperman, who is on the executive board of Democrats for Israel Los Angeles, said Raman told her that she had not been feeling well.
The Bass campaign, citing the fact that Raman appeared on Piker’s stream the same day, fired off an email to reporters claiming the councilmember had lied about her reasons for missing the Jewish heritage event.
The Raman campaign said that Raman was, in fact, ill.
Video from the May 15 council meeting shows Raman was present at the start of the meeting, but no longer at her seat during the heritage event, in which Councilmember Bob Blumenfield celebrated Jewish athletes. More than an hour later, Raman was back in council to make a speech and introduce other speakers for Hapa Day, celebrating people of mixed Asian and Pacific Island heritage, during which she said she wasn’t feeling well.
Raman’s team said she was still at City Hall during the Jewish Heritage Month event, but that she left council chambers due to her illness.
She felt better later that afternoon, the Raman camp said, allowing her to appear on Piker’s show.
Paperman said she wasn’t convinced. “It happened that you were sick for the multiple hours this was going on and you happened to get better to go on this psycho’s stream?” said Paperman. “I don’t believe that.”
Piker, meanwhile, shot back at the mayor for using his name to try to dissuade voters from supporting Raman.
“Karen Bass is deploying the same nasty tactic that Donald Trump used recently at a press conference, wondering out loud why any Jewish person would vote for Democrats, due to my presence in the big tent,” he told The Times in a text message.
Piker said he will vote for Raman, though he supported Bass against billionaire Rick Caruso in 2022.
“I was also a fan of [her] past work in Cuba,” he told The Times. “Karen Bass used to be quite the radical.”
Bass swings up in new poll
Bass will need to rely on undecided Republican and conservative voters to propel her to a mayoral victory, a new poll paid for by a group supporting her found.
The incumbent mayor is trailing Raman by 4 percentage points, 39% to 35%, with a quarter of the electorate still undecided, according to the initial results from an FM3 Research poll that was commissioned by the Central City Assn.’s PAC, an independent expenditure group supporting the mayor.
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When the pollsters gave likely voters additional, critical information about both candidates, Bass shot up by 5 points and took a narrow lead over Raman, 40% to 39%, with 21% undecided, according to FM3.
“The undecided voters — including many that say they will refuse to make a choice between Bass and Raman by Election Day — are disproportionately: Republicans, conservatives, 65+, homeowners, Democratic women over the age of 50 and those who do not hold a college degree,” wrote the research company in a polling memorandum.
The poll surveyed 809 likely L.A. voters from Sept. 21-28. It has a 3.5% margin of error.
“The mayoral race remains a statistical tie,” said Nella McOsker, the president of the Central City Assn. “Our poll demonstrates that some of the most reliable voting blocs swing to Bass once they fully learn both candidates’ records.”
A poll conducted between Sept. 15 and Sept. 20 by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found Raman was ahead 39% to 28%.
Raman allies engage in trash talk
A woman walks out of her home carrying a full garbage bag, then starts venting about the high cost of trash pickup.
“Karen Bass has nearly bankrupted L.A., so the city doubled my trash fees. Isn’t L.A. expensive enough?” the woman says angrily, before slamming the lid on a black trash bin.
That message is at the heart of a campaign video created by Streets For All, a transportation advocacy group now spending about $1.2 million to promote Raman and tear down Bass.
That ad is missing a key piece of information: Raman voted to hike those trash fees several times last year, even as two of her council colleagues spoke out against them.
“I was one of two no votes,” said City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who is supporting Bass’ reelection, in an interview. “She never once pushed back.”
Rodriguez called the ad misleading, saying it implies that Raman was an opponent of the fee hikes.
Michael Schneider, who runs the Streets For All campaign committee, defended the 14-second spot, saying council members hiked the trash fees to make up for bad budget decisions made by the mayor — including her support for a $2.6-billion upgrade of the Convention Center.
The council boosted the trash fee to $55.95 per month last year for small apartment buildings, up from $24.33. For single-family homes, the monthly fee was also hiked to $55.95, up from $36.32.
The city’s budget advisors said the increases were needed in large part because the monthly fees had not been increased in 17 years. As a result, L.A.’s residential trash customers were not being charged the full cost of garbage pickup, leaving the city budget to cover the difference.
“Kick it in the Park” gets Olympic makeover
L.A.’s summer of 2026 will be remembered for stifling heat, innumerable Dodgers injuries and, especially, World Cup watch parties.
Teams, corporate sponsors and the city of Los Angeles welcomed in the world, producing large crowds and kumbaya moments — with fans of opposing teams partying side-by-side in (relative) peace and harmony.
Mayor Karen Bass’ “Kick it in the Park” events drew a total of 45,000 fans over the length of the quadrennial soccer tournament. A survey of about 2,000 of them registered overwhelming support for the free shindigs.
Paul Krekorian, executive director of the mayor’s Office of Major Events, declared victory in a meeting with City Council members this week. He also said that substantial planning is already underway to bring the city even more viewing parties and “activations” during the 2028 Olympics.
While the city hosted a maximum of three viewing parties a day during the World Cup, it plans to stage as many as 15 a day when the Olympics come to town. A list has been drawn up of possible locations for the festivities — spread around every corner of the city and distant from Olympic venues to avoid overcrowding.
Among the possible viewing party locations: MacArthur Park, the Greek Theatre, Pan Pacific Park, Leimert Park Plaza, Koreatown, Penmar Recreation Center, Echo Park Lake, Angels Gate Park and the Watts Towers.
Given the welter of Olympic events, it will be a challenge to schedule the parties, whose centerpieces are usually big screen projections of the live events, with food and live performances often thrown in.
State of play
— SPLIT ON GAZA: Bass and Raman split on Tuesday over whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza during the Israel Gaza war. The two candidates gave their opinions during a forum hosted by Jewish Federation Los Angeles. Raman said she agrees with the experts who use the term, while Bass said she would not use the term genocide to describe Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza.
— WILDFIRE FAILURES: A long-awaited independent investigation commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom offered the most in-depth review of the Jan. 7, 2025, Palisades and Eaton fires, describing the chaos and poor communication that made firefighting, rescues and evacuations even more difficult. The 724-page report also cited the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which reignited days later, and Los Angeles County’s failure to provide timely evacuation alerts in Altadena.
— ESTAMOS CON WHOM?: Recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that likely Latino voters favor Councilmember Raman over incumbent Bass by a wide margin — 45% to 21%, with 34% undecided. That’s an even bigger lead than Raman had over Bass with voters overall in the most recent Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll.
— VOTER GUIDES: The Times released its much-anticipated voter guides for the November election this week, including a mayoral guide and a guide to the Council District 9 race, among many others.
— OLYMPIC OBSCURA: The nonprofit organizer of the 2028 Summer Olympics, LA28, has provided less information in its annual reports than it agreed to in a 2021 contract with the city. The group has stopped reporting the contracts it signs over $1 million, leaving taxpayers with less information about the work going into the Games. LA28 says it has provided all necessary info.
The city also asked LA28 to take out a $650-million insurance policy, and agree to cover any potential losses above that amount, should the Games be canceled by a calamity.
— LAPD BLUES: Secret recordings documenting LAPD officers making racist comments have renewed questions about whether the force, which is now less than 50% white, has made forward progress on stamping out prejudice in its ranks.
— STORM’S BREWING: L.A.’s sanitation agency is bracing for the coming ‘Super’ El Niño, which could wreak havoc with the city’s Hyperion sewage treatment plant.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program went to East Hollywood in Hugo Soto-Martínez’s district on Tuesday, where they moved 61 people indoors near Beverly Boulevard and Madison Avenue. On Thursday, Inside Safe moved 27 people indoors near Louvre Street and Ralston Avenue in Pacoima in Rodriguez’s district.
On the docket next week: On Wednesday, the City Council’s transportation committee will be discussing an independent evaluation of the city’s Vision Zero Program.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Organizations publicly opposing Proposition 44 include the California Medical Assn., the California Hospital Assn., which represents hospitals and health systems, the Assn. of California Healthcare Districts, which represents the state’s 76 public healthcare districts, the California Teachers Assn., the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliate, the state Democratic Party, the state Chamber of Commerce and Reform California, a conservative advocacy group.
Opponents say the proposition’s vague wording could result in vital services being excluded from the list of program expenses permitted in the 90% of revenues, prompting clinics to cut programs to avoid financial penalties. A study commissioned by the California Primary Care Assn. found that clinics could face up to $1.7 billion in collective penalties in the first year of the measure’s implementation alone, an additional expense that could leave up to 88% of clinics operating in the red.
Opponents also say the measure adds an expensive layer of bureaucracy to the state’s budget and grants elected officials — in this case, the attorney general — authority to determine which services clinics can offer.
McOsker, who represents the Harbor Area and parts of South L.A., said he’d like to spend less time on the 110 Freeway getting downtown and more time serving his community directly. He called the frequent council meetings the “most nonproductive part of my week.”
Many cities, including Long Beach, San Diego and Sacramento, have councils that meet just once a week, McOsker noted, adding that the council still could meet more frequently if needed.
Fewer meetings also would make it more likely for the council to settle issues at one meeting, he said — a benefit to constituents who show up at meetings only to see a vote on their issue deferred to another day.
Fewer meetings also may encourage people to instead attend council committee hearings, McOsker said, which often discuss measures in more detail and allow for robust public comment.
Rob Quan, an organizer with the watchdog group Unrig LA, opposes the amendment but said he would support fewer meetings if the council made other changes to improve public access to city government, including releasing meeting agendas further in advance and scheduling committee meetings in the evenings when more people can attend.
But Quan expressed skepticism the council would make those changes.
Rodriguez noted that Measure EE also includes a measure to raise fines for city ethics violations, which she described as a cynical attempt to shift the focus away from the reduced requirement for meetings.
“My big problem with EE is that it’s a ruse of reform,” she said.
Referendum signatures increase
Amendment EE also would make it harder for voters to overturn City Council actions through the use of ballot referendums.
To qualify a referendum for the ballot, petitioners must collect a number of signatures equal to 10% of the votes cast in the last mayoral election. Amendment EE would increase this threshold to 15% of ballots cast.
For example, 929,000 votes were cast in the 2022 mayoral general election — meaning referendums need about 93,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. With a 15% threshold, nearly 140,000 signatures would be needed.
McOsker said the change makes the number of signatures needed for referendums and voter initiatives consistent in the city charter. Both methods should have enough support from the public to make it to the ballot, he said.
“Measure EE seeks to make the ballot box powers equal to either overturn or to adopt legislation,” he said.
Quan took issue with that, noting that with ballot initiatives, organizers have four months to collect the required signatures. With a referendum, they have just 30 days.
“It is going to be functionally useless. There is going to be nobody that has the money to pull this off in 30 days,” he said.
The city’s most recent referendum effort came last year, when business groups sought to repeal the $30 minimum wage for tourism workers. The effort fell about 9,000 signatures short despite backing from Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, the American Hotel and Lodging Assn. and others.
More power to police and fire watchdogs
The L.A. Police Department inspector general and Fire Department independent assessor provide civilian oversight over their respective departments. Amendment EE would remove the ability for the police and fire commissions to stop an audit by their independent inspectors.
“As an independent entity, it is important for them to be able to proceed with the work that they deem appropriate,” McOsker said.
Quan said the reform is potentially helpful but said he knows of no instances in which commissions blocked an audit. Quan speculated that this was included — at the very top of the ballot measure — as a sweetener to help sell the less palatable provision to reduce the number of required council meetings. “It’s a really marginal reform,” he said.
Ethics commission changes
Amendment EE would increase civil fines — those imposed by a judge through the court system — to the same level as administrative fines levied by the ethics commission.
McOsker said the higher penalty should lead to fewer violations.
Quan said this was another marginal change, noting that under Charter Amendment ER, approved by voters in 2024, the ethics commission can impose fines of up to $15,000. Under EE, private citizens or others filing ethics suits in civil courts could seek fines of the same amount.
In addition, Amendment EE would ban ethics commissioners or the executive director from running for City Council or the LAUSD Board of Education for five years after they leave office.
McOsker acknowledged that there hasn’t been a precedent, but said “we need to anticipate the potential that someone could get on the commission and take a look at the seat they want and use their position to improve their chance of getting that office.”
A final change proposed by the amendment would clarify the definition of a “stakeholder” in the charter as it relates to who can sit on a neighborhood council, which makes recommendations to the City Council but lacks formal legislative power.
Stakeholders currently are defined as anyone who lives, works or owns real property within the neighborhood boundaries, or community organizations like chambers of commerce or nonprofits.
Kay Hartman, president of the Palms Neighborhood Council and chair of the L.A. Neighborhood Council Coalition’s subcommission on charter reform, said there was “no substantive change” to neighborhood councils in the amendment.
Whitesides was the first chief executive of Virgin Galactic, which employed hundreds of people in Antelope Valley. Previously, he worked on President Obama’s 2008 transition team and was chief of staff for NASA in the Obama administration. Whitesides co-founded nonprofit organization Megafire Action to advocate for policy solutions to prevent massive wildfires and served as a member of the Antelope Valley Economic Development and Growth Enterprise board of directors.
He was elected to Congress in 2024 and is running for reelection to continue creating jobs and expanding opportunity in California’s 27th District.
Gibbs was elected to Santa Clarita City Council in 2020 and chosen by his fellow council members to serve as mayor in 2023. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly and, according to his campaign website, worked on the the Delta II, Delta IV and Atlas V rocket launch systems in the local aerospace industry. Gibbs has served on the board of the Boys and Girls Club, the Valley Industry Assn. and the Salvation Army, according to his website.
He is running for Congress because he feels Washington is broken and believes in “common sense, accountability, and putting our community ahead of politics,” he says on his website.
Menopause has been having a moment lately, and Washington is taking notice. On Sept. 16, the Senate held its first hearing on the dismal state of federally funded menopause research and vast gaps in treatment and care. Within 24 hours, the Department of Health and Human Services also convened pharmaceutical manufacturers and physicians to troubleshoot the alarming lack of availability of estradiol patches, an essential menopause hormone treatment, and the Food and Drug Administration held a full day of expert panels on female-dosed testosterone, which is currently only FDA-approved for men.
One week later, Health and Human Services joined the American Urological Assn. for a discussion about a silent killer of postmenopausal women: urosepsis from recurrent urinary tract infections. There is a simple solution — localized vaginal estrogen — and yet because of outdated guidelines and lack of clinician training, the medication is too often ignored or denied. Nor is the prescription routinely covered by Medicare, despite its well-established health and longevity benefits for women over age 65.
These are among the attempts to now, finally, address decades of policy failures — a refreshing change, quite frankly, given neither political party has ever prioritized menopause. That 2026 marks the year when menopause has entered the policy arena comes as little surprise to me. I’ve been beating this drum for years. Every aspect of daily life that menopause touches — the soaring cost of medical care, inadequate access to health insurance, extreme underinvestment in scientific research focused on women’s health, even the myriad ways midlife women are stretched to the limit caring for kids and aging parents — is smack in the middle of the political zeitgeist. These are the kitchen table issues on the minds of voters this election.
Menopause moment, meet the midterms.
Another issue rightly revealed by menopause is the chasm of public trust in government. As one of the four expert witnesses who testified at the Senate, I was heartened that it was a true bipartisan endeavor. But that’s a rarity these days in Congress, an institution rife with dysfunction. Our federal health agencies have become so shamelessly politicized they are on a collision course with science — from HHS’ overt moves to undermine childhood vaccines, to the decimation of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is struggling to respond to the crisis of measles outbreaks across the country.
My goal as a policy advocate is to help turn the tide on this country’s long record of neglect when it comes to menopause. Like many other women’s and reproductive health advocates, after the 2024 election l turned my attention to state legislatures — not just as a consolation prize but as a way to test what range of reforms were feasible and to get as many good laws as possible passed. It was the right move. Over the last two years, more than 60 bills have been introduced in 28 states — to do things like require private insurance and Medicaid to cover menopause care and treatment, improve clinician training and public education, and bolster antidiscrimination protection in the workplace. Ten of those states now have 21 laws on the books.
California is one and can claim real leadership. Among the bills passed by the Legislature, Assembly Bill 2270 from 2023-24 incentivizes continuing medical education on menopause for clinicians, the majority of whom receive little to zero training while in medical school and residency. The California Department of Corrections is now collaborating with medical experts to help bring menopause resources to incarcerated women in state prisons.
Newsom also just vetoed AB 1940, which would have codified menopause as a protected category in the state’s workplace antidiscrimination laws.
The Legislature has been especially deft at easing access to FDA-approved hormonal treatments, including testosterone, often used off-label by menopausal women: AB 82 ends the requirement to report prescriptions to the state’s tracking database; AB 1778 proactively declassifies testosterone as a controlled substance under state law, should there be action in Washington to do the same under federal law.
Although Newsom twice vetoed bills to mandate insurance coverage for menopause treatment — and deserved all the flak he received — the 2026-27 state budget includes a minor course correct: a $3.4-million “trailer bill” to invest in public education and make menopause treatments more affordable; Medi-Cal patients are not fully covered by the addendum, though, making it a toothless reform for those who need support the most.
Why should California’s menopause agenda, or that of the other 27 states that have introduced reforms, matter to the rest of the country? They offer useful models of what to do — or in the case of Medicaid exclusion, what not to do — in crafting meaningful policies. Perhaps more important, they offer a rationale that can help persuade the public; those who might balk at a congressional bill or federal policy, in part because of skepticism of the federal government or the current administration, can listen to and learn from other stakeholders, including governors and state lawmakers and activists.
Take for example the FDA decision in November 2025 to remove the long-critiqued “black box” warning on estrogen products for menopause. This was the culmination of a decade-long campaign by physicians, researchers and scientists — who had been waging the fight for accurate labeling well before the acronym MAHA ever existed and regardless of which party held power. Yet the very image of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. using his moment at the podium to credit the Trump administration’s deep commitment to women’s health posed a serious credibility challenge. Aligned and contemporaneous state reforms offered much-needed reassurance and clarity to many.
Trust in government is understandably at a low point, but this happens to be when menopause finally has caught the attention of policymakers at all levels of power. Some are taking long-overdue steps for women’s health, however implausibly. Let’s take the wins.
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is the author of “When in Menopause: A User’s Manual & Citizen’s Guide.” She is executive director of NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center.
DURANT, Okla. — David Coleman doesn’t know much about the Republican candidates who are running in November. But he knows President Trump, and he trusts that the president won’t steer him wrong.
The 54-year-old Oklahoman made his way to Trump’s midterm rally in Durant, Okla., on Thursday planning to support whomever Trump brought onstage with him.
“I am going to ask ChatGPT what their name is and vote for them,” Coleman said as he and thousands of others waited for the president to appear.
Voters like Coleman — who are fiercely loyal to Trump but only loosely attached to the rest of the Republican ticket — are part of those whom the president is trying to target in the final stretch before the Nov. 3 election.
Rather than prioritizing visits to battleground districts, which will decide which party controls Congress, Trump is rallying in Republican strongholds such as Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, betting that his presence will be enough to energize a base that may be thinking about sitting out the election because his name isn’t on the ballot.
In Oklahoma, Trump told the crowd to imagine he is on the ballot because the future of his “America First” agenda depends on Republicans getting out to vote. He then urged them to vote for GOP candidates like Senate candidates Ken Paxton of Texas and Kevin Hern of Oklahoma.
“You have to get out and vote,” Trump said. “You can’t assume they are going to win.”
Supporters gesture after President Trump spoke during a campaign rally Thursday in Durant, Okla.
(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)
The red-state itinerary is a departure from what Trump initially promised to do in the 30 days leading up to the midterms. At a Rose Garden dinner with Republican lawmakers last month, he pledged to campaign in the country’s 35 most competitive districts. But in many of those races, the president is proving to be a political liability as his his approval dwindles, even among Republicans.
In Texas, Paxton, who is locked in a tight race against Democrat James Talarico, has lamented that Trump’s GOP convention in Dallas hurt him, according to a recording obtained by the New York Times. Since the report, Trump has told supporters to vote for Paxton “whether you love him or not” even while he said that “he can be a pain in the ass.”
“We need Ken so badly, that’s why I am here,” Trump told a crowd in Texas on Thursday, while noting that it would be a “horror” if Republicans lost the Senate seat to Talarico.
Democrats, meanwhile, are making heavy investments in winning back voters they lost to Trump in 2024, including Latino voters in south Texas. Some of those voters have said they feel betrayed by Trump’s policies on immigration and the economy.
Trump has dismissed the poll findings that he is losing the Latino vote. Asked what his message was to Latino voters who are dismayed by his policies, he said: “We have to do what we have to do.” The president has also brushed off comments that his unpopularity among Americans may be hurting Republican candidates, saying that “everybody that has me wins.”
But in recent days, Trump has publicly said Republicans are “worried” about several races, including those in Michigan, Texas and “a few other states.” These concerns come as even the most ardent Trump supporters grow concerned about the economy, particularly the cost of gas.
Ronnie Smith, 77, has voted for Trump every time he has been on the ballot, and his support for the president has not wavered. But, he said, “the only thing that I think is hurting him is the cost of diesel.”
Gas prices in the U.S. have soared during the seven-month Iran war, with the national average for a gallon of diesel reaching $6.37 on Friday, according to AAA. The cost of diesel hit a record $6.52 on Sept. 22.
Smith says he regularly hears complaints about the cost of fuel from trucker friends who have long commutes for work. But he said he is sure Trump can “take care of it.”
On Friday, Trump announced that the world’s wealthiest industrial nations had agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and fuel products from their strategic stockpiles in the coming weeks, a move that he is expected to tout in his upcoming midterm rallies.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republican lawmakers answer questions from reporters at the Capitol on Sept. 29.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
In these rallies, Trump has repeatedly said that he believes his administration has been doing a “tremendous” job with the economy, the problem is that “we’re doing an extremely poor job at promotion.”
A Republican source close to the White House said the president visited Durant because of its proximity to the Texas border, with the hope of helping candidates in both states. The strategy is similar to his Friday visit to Mobile, Ala., which is near Florida’s Panhandle.
Trump’s swing through GOP strongholds is seen as a way to get the word out to his base.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters this week that Republicans “need the president to turn out voters that are his voters.”
“In a non-presidential year, in a midterm election, that challenge is always voter turnout,” he said. “In this case you have a lot of voters out there who may not be inclined to go out there and vote.”
Sylvia Sigler, 66, a school cafeteria worker who attended Trump’s Oklahoma rally Thursday, said she normally votes in local elections but has not voted in a federal election since 2016.
When asked what would motivate her to get out and vote this November, she contemplated what to say.
“I haven’t thought about it, but maybe the economy,” she said. “I don’t even know who is running because I don’t keep up with it.”
But she was curious to attend Trump’s rally and see what the buzz was all about. Asked whether she thought his message would make a difference for her, she once again paused.
“It could,” she said. “But I am not making any promises.”
Tran, 45, is an attorney and U.S. Army veteran who served in the U.S. Operations Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom. He runs a pharmacy with his wife, Michelle. He is the son of refugees who fled communist Vietnam and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, graduating from Rosemead High School.
Tran is endorsed by the unions for Orange and Los Angeles counties’ deputy sheriffs, the International Assn. of Fire Fighters, the California Federation of Labor Unions and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Vo, who fled Vietnam as a child, served as the mayor of Cerritos while a member of the city council from 2020 to 2025. Vo, 50, recently retired after working as an officer for the Torrance Police Department since 1999.
On the city council, Vo touted some of Cerritos’ success, including the creation of the city’s annual Moon Festival, the extension of a Kia automotive dealership extension until 2045 and the redesign of the city’s website.
He differentiates himself from Tran by saying he is “not a career politician promising to fix D.C. from the inside.”
“I’ve spent my life doing the work on the ground and serving our community,” he said.
Vo is endorsed by the California Republican Party, Los Angeles County Lincoln Clubs, Orange County Supervisors Janet Nguyen and Don Wagner and a slew of city mayors from Fountain Valley to Garden Grove and Norwalk.
Kounalakis is well known in state politics. She is serving her final term as lieutenant governor, a largely ceremonial role that includes seats on various higher-education boards including the University of California Board of Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees.
A major Democratic donor, Kounalakis in 2023 launched a campaign to become California’s next governor before dropping out of the race and announcing in August 2025 she would run for state treasurer.
Kounalakis holds a master’s in business administration from UC Berkeley and is the daughter of Sacramento real estate magnate Angelo Tsakopolous. She spent 18 years working for AKT Development, the business her father founded, eventually becoming its president. In 2009, she was appointed to the U.S. ambassador post in Hungary by President Obama.
“I have been using my international experience serving the state as our representative for international trade and investment, which has a very heavy economic development piece to it,” she said this year.
Hawks is a retired businesswoman and a Republican activist. She has served as president of Palo Alto Republican Women Federated, been involved with the California Federation of Republican Women and has gathered signatures for the GOP-led voter ID measure, Proposition 39.
Hawks spent two decades working as an executive assistant at the Sacred Hearts School, a private Catholic school in the tony Silicon Valley town of Atherton, before her retirement in 2021. Before that, she worked in various human resources and office manager roles.
“I am a people person,” Hawks said on Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s (R-San Diego) Reform California podcast. “I’ll get to know [the] rank-and-file in there, and I will garner their trust.”
Experience: Buelna serves on the board. He also is an attorney and teaches history and political science at Cal State Northridge. He previously led Plaza Community Services, a nonprofit that provides education, health and other services to children and families.
“I bring an unusual combination of personal, professional and governing experience,” he said. “I understand higher education from several perspectives — as an educator, a policymaker and someone who has spent much of his career working with families facing economic and social barriers.”
District challenges: “Our biggest challenge is not simply getting students through the door. It is making sure they can afford to remain enrolled, complete their education and translate that education into economic opportunity.” Among the barriers Buelna cited were the high cost of housing, food insecurity and child care.
Buelna said the board also must conduct strong fiscal oversight of the billions in voter-approved bond funds. “The board has a responsibility to ensure those resources are spent transparently, responsibly and in ways that produce measurable benefits for students,” he said.
Priorities: Buelna said his priorities include addressing student affordability, better connecting education to economic opportunity and “removing barriers to access and completion.”
He said the district needs to “move aggressively to implement” its commitment of up to $500 million for affordable student and staff housing and “strengthening food assistance, mental-health services and other basic-needs programs.” Buelna said the district also needs to expand career technical education and paid internships, while “strengthening transfer pathways for students seeking four-year degrees.”
In addition, he wants to expand multilingual education and support for working adults and students with families while “protecting immigrant and undocumented students.”
Budget: Buelna would continue to advocate for state and federal funds as well as community partnerships that bring additional resources to the colleges. He said the district also must scrutinize its own spending, including ensuring “major construction and capital projects are completed responsibly.”
“LACCD must be both an advocate for greater investment in community colleges and a responsible steward of the resources taxpayers have already provided,” he said.
Student enrollment and success: “We need to design our colleges around the students we actually serve rather than expecting students to adapt to unnecessary institutional barriers,” he said.
“LACCD students include recent high school graduates, working adults, immigrants, parents, first-generation college students and people returning to school for new skills. Their barriers are different, so our solutions must be flexible.”
Tonia Arey is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.
Experience: In June, Arey ran unsuccessfully to represent District 3 on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, a campaign that allowed her to travel throughout the district to hear the concerns of constituents. “My experience in real estate, public advocacy and community engagement has taught me how to listen, solve problems, manage complex transactions, and hold people accountable,” she said. As a realtor, she said she handles contracts, budgets, negotiations, legal requirements and competing interests — helpful skills in a trustee role.
District challenges: “The biggest challenges facing the Los Angeles Community College District are campus safety, student success and career readiness, and accountability to students, employees, and taxpayers,” she said.
Arey would work to implement campus safety plans, support additional academic advising and career education and more “closely examine spending, contracts, program outcomes and administrative costs to ensure resources reach classrooms and directly support students.”
“Although LACCD is a four-year term, there are no term limits and current trustees can no longer be trusted,” she said.
Priorities: She cited campus safety, student success and career readiness, accountability and respect for employees.
Budget: Arey would review the district’s budget to “identify waste, duplication and spending that does not directly improve student outcomes” and said “cost reductions should begin with unnecessary administrative expenses, not classroom instruction, campus safety, counseling or essential student services.”
She‘d work to strengthen the competitive bidding process for contracts and work to ensure the district’s construction bond program is effectively managed. On the revenue side, she’d work to pursue government grants, raise money from donors and “explore responsible uses of underutilized district property.” She‘d also look at ways to boost enrollment, since state funding is tied to the number of students served.
Student enrollment and success: Arey would work to make “enrollment simpler, faster, and easier to navigate” and do more to help students who enter the classroom.
That includes flexible class offerings, basic needs assistance, robust counseling and the use of data to understand where students are falling through the cracks.
Randall Winston is running for Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 6.
Experience: Winston, a licensed architect and attorney, serves as Los Angeles’ deputy mayor of infrastructure and climate resilience under Mayor Karen Bass. This fall he is teaching a class in public sector leadership skills at West Los Angeles College and said he’s also lectured at UCLA and mentored graduate students.
Under former Gov. Jerry Brown, Winston ran the California Strategic Growth Council, which helps fund sustainable development.
District challenges: Winston listed enrollment and the inability of students to afford basic needs as major challenges. Citing the district’s $5.3-billion bond-funded construction program he said: “Every dollar lost to delays, litigation or fraud is a dollar not reaching students and the faculty and staff who serve them.”
Priorities: Winston’s priorities for the district include ensuring colleges are a pathway to opportunity and good jobs, students can afford basic needs and people historically shut out of higher education are let in.
All colleges should partner with labor and employers to offer apprenticeships and “family-sustaining union careers,” he said, and the district should expand dual enrollment to allow more high school students to earn college credit. He also cited a need to provide more support to groups like veterans and first-generation students.
Budget: Winston said boosting enrollment to increase state funding is the “most direct” way to increase revenue. He‘d also pursue other government funding as well as employer and philanthropic partnerships. There also needs to be “rigorous” oversight of the district’s construction program, he said.
“What I won’t do is balance budgets on instruction or on the people who deliver it,” he said. “Classrooms, faculty and staff come first.”
Student enrollment and success: Winston said most barriers to enrollment and student success are “logistical, not academic.” He‘d push to “invest in simplified onboarding, proactive advising and better counselor ratios.”
“Students who connect with a counselor early are far more likely to finish, and our counselors are stretched too thin to reach everyone who needs them,” he said.
Name: Roberto David LaCarra
Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college professor
Occupation that appears on the ballot: environmentalist/anthropologist/educator
Experience: Pearlman says she served on the board of trustees from 2001 to 2017 and taught part-time at all nine colleges before and after her time on the board.
“I know the needs of part-time faculty, I know what staff wants, and I know what students want and need because I have been involved with the LACCD since I attended City College in 1968,” she said.
District challenges: Pearlman said low enrollment is the biggest challenge, followed by ensuring students are given the necessary support and resources to succeed. She also cited the need make sure faculty receive equal pay and that the district’s construction program remains environmentally sustainable and within budget.
Priorities: Her priorities would be addressing the challenges the district faces and “keeping the chancellor and presidents accountable and working for the community college district mission,” which she described as the main responsibility of the board.
Budget: “Excess spending must be stopped with analysis of how much administration makes versus faculty and staff,” she said. Pearlman supports campus efforts to create foundations for scholarships and lobbying Sacramento and Washington to keep funding, including student aid, at necessary levels.
Student success: Faculty members need to communicate with their students to determine what the student needs to pass their classes, whether it is additional tutoring, “advising them how to be a better student” or giving them textbooks, “which I did from my own pocket when they couldn’t afford them,” she said.
Darryn Harris is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.
Occupation that appears on the ballot: community college educator.
Experience: Harris works as a government and community affairs officer for St. John’s Community Health and recently started teaching a class on student skills at Santa Monica College, which is not an LACCD campus. He also worked at UCLA and in the halls of Congress as an aide to U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, when she served in the House of Representatives.
“I’ve spent most of my career in public service,” Harris said. “I know how government works, how budgets and policy decisions get made, and how to bring people together when they don’t always agree.”
He wants to hear from students, faculty and staff before big decisions get made — not after. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is to listen to the people closest to the work,” he said.
District challenges: The high cost of living in L.A. County makes it hard for students to stay in school and more needs to be done to “help more students finish and make sure their education leads somewhere,” he said.
Priorities: Harris wants to tackle the affordability crisis blocking student achievement by building more low-cost housing on district land and making it “easier for students to get help with food, transportation, child care, and other basic needs.” Harris also wants to boost student success through better counseling, transfer support and career training, including partnerships with employers and labor.
Budget: The district needs to “be aggressive” in securing additional partnerships and government funds that “can bring more resources into our colleges,” he said. Prior to cutting classes and student services, he would want to look for savings in “administrative costs, consultants, outside contracts, open positions, and construction spending.”
“We have to look at both sides,” he said. “I want to know what we are spending, why we are spending it, and whether students are actually benefiting from it.”
Student success: Harris would push to make the enrollment process easier and do more to help students finish, including through better counseling and basic needs support. “Then we need to pay attention when someone starts struggling … Reach out early with counseling, tutoring, mentoring, or whatever support they need,” he said.
Adam Bruno is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.
(Adam Bruno)
Name: Adam Bruno
Age: 42
Occupation that appears on the ballot: No listing
Experience: Bruno said he attended community college and as a therapist has counseled children, adults and families. This experience gives him “valuable insight” to understand student needs.
“I know what it’s like to feel neglected by an overburdened system, and I know how difficult transitioning to adult life and seeking higher education can be,” he said. Often high school graduates with learning needs can “feel too intimidated and overwhelmed to apply for college” and others, including adults, “may be unaware that community college is even an option.”
District challenges: The primary challenge is overcoming low enrollment, which Bruno said stems from financial challenges facing students. “It is very hard to focus on school when you’re just trying to survive from one day to the next,” he said.
Priorities: “My top three priorities: increase enrollment, increase accessibility to education for students and help educators feel appropriately supported and compensated.” Bruno said he’d explore student stipends as a way to enable more people to attend community college successfully.
Budget: Bruno would look for additional funding sources through donations and other measures and attempt to use the extra revenue to address financial needs of students.
Student enrollment and success: Both can be improved through additional outreach, counseling and efforts to make college more affordable, he said, so that students can “focus on education rather than being overwhelmed with day-to-day survival.”
Elaine Alaniz is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.
Occupation that appears on the ballot: healthcare workforce specialist
Experience: Alaniz has worked in a number of fields, including healthcare, workforce development, disaster recovery, public administration and film production. She said she received associates’ degrees in film production and fire technology from Los Angeles City College and Los Angeles Valley College and currently serves as a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience.
“Rather than following one narrow professional track, transferable skills have allowed me to adapt across industries and remain employable as circumstances and opportunities changed,” Alaniz said. “That is what I want our students to have.” She recalled that her college professors “who taught me technical and academic skills helped make my own career possible.”
District challenges: Alaniz cited the need to ensure classroom instruction “keeps pace with a rapidly changing workforce” in the age of artificial intelligence and other technologies. She said the district needs to teach those technologies and also give students “the technical, occupational, communication and human skills employers will continue to need.”
“I would expand programs that combine academics with industry-recognized credentials, apprenticeships and hands-on training in healthcare, skilled trades, technology, public safety, logistics, advanced manufacturing, media and other growing sectors … LACCD has an opportunity to become an even stronger bridge between education and employment.”
Priorities: Alaniz wants the district to do more to ensure students are ready for the workforce. Other priorities would be more flexible class schedules and online courses for working adults and parents, and “expanding digital access to required course materials and coursework at little or no additional cost to students wherever feasible.”
“Students who prefer physical textbooks should absolutely retain the option to purchase them, but students who cannot afford a printed book should have another way to access the materials they need to succeed,” she said.
Budget: Alaniz would examine district spending, including on administration and programs with weak enrollment, to identify what works and what does not. “Before asking students or taxpayers for more money, the district should demonstrate that existing resources are producing measurable results,” she said. At the same time, Alaniz said, “LACCD should aggressively pursue appropriate state and federal grants.”
Student enrollment and success: To help students, Alaniz said it’s important to recognize that LACCD serves a diversity of students, including recent high school grads, parents and people changing careers. “I do not believe students should always have to reorganize their entire lives around the institution,” she said. “Sometimes the institution needs to become more responsive to the student.”
The enrollment process needs to be examined, she said, to ensure students are not “being lost between application, financial aid, counseling, registration and their first day of class.”
Name: Isidro J. Armenta Occupation that appears on the ballot: Fire Department employee
Did not reply. .
Priscilla Umana is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.
(Priscilla Umana)
Name: Priscilla Umana
Age: 43
Occupation that appears on the ballot: American Sign Language educational interpreter
Experience: Umana said her work as an “ASL interpreter in diverse educational environments has given me a firsthand understanding of how different circumstances affect students, faculty, and staff. Through this work, I have developed a deep passion for quality education and for the future of our students.”
District challenges: “One of the biggest challenges facing our community college district is the high percentage of students experiencing housing insecurity, homelessness, and food insecurity. These challenges not only affect students’ quality of life, but also their ability to succeed academically and complete their programs.”
Priorities: Umana said her top three priorities would be affordability, accessibility and community. She would work with the district to expand affordable housing, work-study opportunities and food aid and seek to remove language and disability barriers to make college more accessible. “Education cannot be separated from the basic needs that allow students to participate in it,” she said. “To help students enroll, persist, and graduate, we must provide the stability and support they need.”
She also wants to “build stronger connections between students, faculty and staff” and learn from them how to better foster community. “My goal is to help create community colleges where every student feels supported, included, and empowered to succeed,” she said.
Budget: Umana would review the district’s budget to identify “opportunities to reduce waste while improving services.” This would include examining courses with low enrollment and deciding whether participation can be increased or if money should be redirected to where it’s more needed. She’d also work to raise additional revenue by “partnering with local businesses, nonprofits and entertainment organizations to host campus events, build community partnerships and share proceeds.”
Student enrollment and success: She would work to prioritize “basic needs, accessibility, and clear educational pathways.” She’d do so in part by advocating for expanded financial aid and proactive check-ins with students. “Our goal should be simple: make success easier to navigate and support every step of the way,” she said.
Darryn Harris is running for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees Seat 4.
Occupation that appears on the ballot: Business owner/journalist
Experience: Aula said he has worked as a political campaign consultant and has “nearly 10 years experience as a businessman in technology and small share ownerships” in tech firms that use mobile apps for deliveries and transportation, experience that “has given me an understanding of the world today that few have.” Aula also said he has worked with LACCD labor unions “through business” but did not elaborate.
District challenges: Aula alleged one of the biggest issues facing the district is “financial fraud,” and in his answers referenced cases in which fraudsters posed as community college students to steal financial aid. He proposed a moratorium on noncitizens attending LACCD.
Priorities: Aula wanted to address the basic needs of students “in the interests of U.S.A citizens.” He would “increase the diversity of curriculum” to “authentically represent the United States of America citizens and interests.” He would include “protecting athletics funding, football in particular, making new partnerships with Navy to serve the district’s needs, and growing the partnership with law enforcement.”
He also said he wants to “confront pandemic learning loss.”
Budget: Aula said he would make financial deals only “that are in the interests or benefits of U.S.A. citizens.”
Editor’s note: The Times declined to publish much of Aula’s written questionnaire responses, which contained comments, proposals and unsubstantiated accusations dealing with suspected terrorists, the Chinese Communist Party, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and cannibalism.
The ballot initiative was spearheaded by the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, the union representing rank-and-file firefighters, which has long argued that the department is underfunded.
The president of the union has said that the tax would be the most important thing for the LAFD “really ever.”
“The most important thing for the citizens of L.A. is our response times; this ballot measure would help us get more firefighters, more paramedics, more fire stations and more apparatus, which would let us respond faster to citizens of L.A.,” said Doug Coates, the president of UFLAC.
“In the Palisades, this measure would have let us respond quicker, knock it down faster, protect more homes … We would have saved more homes if we had had more firefighters, period,” he said.
The sales tax would represent the biggest investment in the city’s fire department since 2000, when voters approved Proposition F, a ballot measure that authorized the issuance of a $532-million bond — more than half of which was allocated to build 19 neighborhood fire stations and a helicopter maintenance facility.
The initiative also has received support from Mayor Karen Bass as well as Councilmember Traci Park, who represents Pacific Palisades.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is in the fight of her political life, facing a vigorous challenge from City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a savvy campaigner who was until recently a close ally.
Raman publicly endorsed Bass at the start of the year, then launched her own mayoral bid weeks later, saying the city “can’t seem to manage the basics.” She came in second behind Bass in the June 2 primary election, edging out the flashier and more attention-grabbing Spencer Pratt, a onetime reality television star.
Now, Raman and Bass — both Democrats — are heading toward a generational showdown.
Bass, 72, is a veteran lawmaker who served in Sacramento and Washington D.C., before coming to City Hall. She’s drawn support from more traditional corners of the city’s political establishment, including Los Angeles County’s Democratic Party and its Federation of Labor, which represents hundreds of thousands of workers.
Raman, 45, arrived in L.A. in 2013 and launched a City Council bid six years later. She’s been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and other groups that are newer to city politics, including Streets For All, which seeks to expand the city’s bus and bike lane network.
Bass has been dogged by high unfavorable ratings since the Palisades fire, which broke out in January 2025 while she was out of the country, destroying thousands of homes and leaving 12 dead. She has faced criticism over her handling of the wildfire response and recovery work.
Since the primary, the mayor’s political challenges have intensified.
The Lineage cold-storage warehouse fire broke out in June, causing communities on L.A.’s Eastside to cope with the stench of rotting meat for two months. The latest homeless count showed an increase in the number of people living on the street, dealing a setback to a mayor who staked her reputation on the issue.
Raman contends that Bass is simply a bad manager, pointing to those crises and other problems facing the city.
“I respect very much her long career of public service,” Raman said. “But the election has to be about results.”
The mayor isn’t backing down.
She says Raman has little to show for her three years running the council’s powerful housing and homeless committee. She contends that Raman is on the wrong side of the issues — particularly public safety — and does not work well with others.
“It says something that you do not have strong working relationships with any of your colleagues. Not one,” Bass said. “Each council member had a story to tell about how difficult she was to work with.”
The Times submitted surveys to the candidates. Unedited excerpts from the surveys, in which candidates lay out detailed goals and policy analysis, can be found at the links below.
Shaw, 44, is the president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education, overseeing a relatively large school system of 26,000 students in San Bernardino County.
Barrera, 59, is the president of the San Diego Unified Board of Education, which governs the state’s second-largest school system with about 113,000 students. Barrera also serves as a senior adviser to state Supt. Thurmond, whom Shaw has sharply criticized.
Both are parents. Barrera’s children are grown; Shaw’s still are in school.
Shaw broadly characterizes the public education system as failing because of liberal Democratic policies, although she praises the quality of the public school system over which she presides. On the culture-war front, she supports flag bans at schools — which were conceived to target gay pride flags — and book restrictions that target content deemed as sexually obscene.
She became politically activated by the pandemic’s prolonged school closures, COVID vaccine mandates and mask mandates — all of which she opposed.
Despite a consistent policy alignment with the Trump administration, Shaw, a longtime religious conservative and a small business owner, objects to any implication that she is falling into line behind Trump or that she is subservient to his policies.
“I don’t put loyalty behind a person,” Shaw said. “I put my my effort and my love and my everyday sacrifice behind protecting kids, whether it’s this president, the next president or whatever. If they’re on the right side of protecting kids, then, of course, when it comes to the issues, I’m all in. I really honestly hate the division. In my heart, if we just speak on our issues, it’ll bring people together. We could see more eye to eye. We can actually have decent conversations, right?”
At times, Shaw presents a sharp rhetorical style, as when she characterized a September court ruling that placed limits on when school officials would have to notify parents about their child’s gender issues. Shaw believes such notifications should be mandatory. Her first emphatic comment, in an interview and a social media post after the hearing, which she attended, was: “Kangaroo courts. Dishonorable judges.”
Shaw sidesteps discussions about Trump’s immigration enforcement. “Districts should follow the law, communicate clearly with families and keep their attention on the classroom … That’s where our energy belongs,” she said.
Barrera, in contrast, calls Trump’s immigration raids harmful.
“This assault on our immigrant families by the Trump administration absolutely is a real issue that affects students and affects educators,” he said. “And I’m going to stand up to those assaults, and Californians will continue to stand up to those assaults.”
Barrera defends the quality of public schools and advocates for increased funding and expanding what works from successful campuses to those with poorer academic results.
Barrera sees the superintendent as a convener and organizer to advance initiatives that benefit students — with or without state funding or direction from the governor and Legislature.
As an example, he cited the education department’s effort to promote affordable workforce housing projects on school district property. He also cited efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism, for which the department gathered a working group that has produced guidance for schools.
Barrera has a long career in community and labor organizing and worked as a senior official in two unions. That background, combined with his 18 years on the San Diego school board, where he has been a union ally, made him an ideological fit with CTA. Neither Barrera nor CTA had to compromise values or shift positions to join forces for this campaign.
“I have absolute respect and … a long demonstrated partnership with the unions that represent our educators,” Barrera said, “and believe strongly that unions are democratically elected, governed institutions where the educator voice comes out most powerfully, and so for me, the unions are a partner and will always be a core voice in influencing the way that I make decisions.”
Von Wilpert, 43, has served as a member of the San Diego City Council since 2020, representing District 5.
Before her foray into politics, she was an attorney who founded a legal health clinic in Mississippi to combat discrimination in housing, employment and medical care against HIV/AIDS patients. She later served as counsel on the House Education and Labor Committee and focused on labor rights during the second Obama administration.
As a council member, Von Wilpert authored bills to ban untraceable guns and launched housing grant initiatives for educators. She focused much of her tenure working to update labor laws to allow federal workers to organize, bargain with employers and establish monetary penalties for labor violations.
Desmond, 70, has served as a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors since 2019.
Desmond is a Navy veteran and former Delta Air Lines pilot and served as the mayor of San Marcos from 2006 to 2018. As mayor, he worked to reform the pension system in order to balance the city’s budget, growing $40 million in fiscal reserves.
He has been a staunch, fiscally conservative voice on the county board of supervisors, representing county District 5, with a focus on regional infrastructure and supporting additional behavioral health facilities after San Diego County had a series of closures.
WASHINGTON — A federal court in Texas on Friday issued a ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration from building a border wall and other infrastructure across the state’s Big Bend region.
The news marks a major win for landowners, businesses and environmentalists in the region who have united to oppose the planned infrastructure projects, which are part of a $46-billion effort by the Trump administration to line the southern border with a mix of 30-foot steel walls, vehicle barriers, roads and surveillance technology.
Judge Kathleen Cardone said in her ruling that the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits of at least one of the claims in suit, that there is a likelihood that they will suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest weigh in their favor.”
Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Opponents of the border wall project have argued that the Big Bend region is so remote and the landscape so rugged that it serves as its own deterrent to illegal immigration, and that the administration violated the law when it issued a swath of waivers allowing it to bypass numerous regulations in order to speed up border wall infrastructure projects.
Laiken Jordahl, with the Center of Biological Diversity that brought the suit, called Cardone’s ruling a “total victory.”
“The bulldozers are going to be sent packing until she rules on the merits,” Jordahl said. “This is such a historic day for Big Bend and for Texas and the Constitution.”
The court’s decision comes just weeks after the administration erected the first border wall panels in the Big Bend sector in the middle of September.
The cornerstone of Kim’s platform is her call for the state-run property disaster insurance program, which largely would be funded by policyholders. Coverage would be universal, with policyholders automatically enrolled. With no need to generate shareholder profits, fund marketing or pay high executive salaries, she contends the plan could better invest in fire prevention and make buildings and property more fire resilient. Such a drastic change in the insurance system would require legislation and support from the governor.
“Voters I’ve talked to don’t want to see the same old tinkering with the system, because most voters agree that it’s actually magical thinking that doing the same tinkering of the existing system is going to lead to a different result,” she said.
Allen is sharply critical of Kim’s plan, which he says is woefully short on details. Instead, he is focusing on the mechanics of improving the current system — for both homeowners and insurers. He wants to speed reviews of insurer rate applications, create a business office to attract more carriers to the state and work with elected officers at all levels to design programs that reduce fire risk of individual properties and at the neighborhood and community scale.
“I’m focused on what’s actually doable. The people who suffer from these terrible fires don’t need a 10-year experiment. Voters of all stripes, not just Republicans, are not interested in making the state a guinea pig,” he said.
