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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide on shielding energy producers from dozens of lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for costs of global climate change.
In the past decade, dozens of cities, counties and states, including California, have joined state-based lawsuits that seek billions of dollars in damages, and they have won preliminary victories in state courts.
But the Trump administration and the energy producers urged the Supreme Court to throw out all of these suits on the grounds they conflict with federal law.
“Boulder Colorado cannot make energy policy for the entire country,” lawyers for Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil said in their appeal. They urged the court to rule that “state law cannot impose the costs of global climate change on a subset of the world’s energy producers chosen by a single municipality.”
The Biden administration had said the justices should stand aside while the lawsuits move forward in state courts, but the Trump administration filed a brief in September urging the court to intervene now.
They said the case has “vast nationwide significance,” and it should not be left to be decided state by state.
Lawyers for Boulder had urged the court against taking up the issue at an early stage of the litigation. “This is not the right time or the right case for deciding” whether municipalities can sue over the damage they have suffered.
But after weighing the issue for weeks, the court announced it will be hear the claims of the oil and gas industries.
SACRAMENTO — Every farmer knows there comes a time to thin the crop to allow the most promising plants to grow bigger and reach their potential.
The same is true in politics. And it‘s now time to cull some Democrats from the dense field of candidates for governor.
Put another way, it’s time for some lagging Democrats to step aside and provide more running room for swifter teammates in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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You’d think that Democratic candidates now plodding behind in the race — with little realistic hope of catching up — would want to avoid having that on their conscience. Party leaders, too.
Until recently, this nightmarish scenario for Democrats seemed inconceivable. After all, California hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office for 20 years. Roughly 45% of registered voters are Democrats. Only 25% are Republicans. About 23% are independents who lean left.
But do the math. There are nine Democrats running for governor with various degrees of seriousness. There are only two major Republican contenders, plus a third lagging practically out of sight.
Remember, California has a “top two” open primary. The top two vote-getters, regardless of their party, advance to the November election. And only the top two. Write-in candidates aren’t allowed.
It’s a matter of arithmetic.
In the primary, about 60% of voters will choose a Democrat, political data expert Paul Mitchell figures. That number of voters split among nine Democratic candidates could result in all sharing smaller pieces of the pie than what the top two Republicans receive. Mitchell estimates nearly 40% of voters will side with a Republican, with just two candidates splitting most of the smaller GOP pie.
Recent polls have shown three candidates — two Republicans and one Democrat — bunched closely near the top. They’re Republican former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton, Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell from the San Francisco Bay Area, and Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County.
Another Democrat, former Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County, has been running close to the top three, followed by Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund investor.
It’s not likely that two Republicans will survive the primary and block a Democrat from reaching the general election. But it’s a legitimate possibility — and not worth the risk for the Democratic Party.
“How unlikely does it have to be for Democrats not to be worried?” asks Mitchell, who works primarily for Democrats. “Even if the chances are very small, the consequences could be catastrophic.”
He is constantly running primary election simulations. And last week he calculated the chances of two Republicans gaining the top slots at 18%. Most of his calculations have come out at around 10% to 12%, he says.
“I’m not trying to yell fire in a crowded theater,” Mitchell says. “But I’m trying to install a thermostat.”
He adds: “If there was ever a perfect storm when this could happen, we’re experiencing it now.”
The absence of a gubernatorial candidate heading the Democratic ticket in November, Mitchell says, would result in party damage far beyond the governor’s office.
It would lower Democratic voter turnout and probably cost the party congressional and legislative seats, and also affect ballot measures, Mitchell says.
In fact, it could jeopardize the Democrats’ chances of ousting Republicans and capturing control of the U.S. House.
So which candidates should drop out, not only to avoid embarrassment on election night but to save the party from possible disaster?
Four clearly should stay.
Swalwell has some momentum and is the leading Democrat in most polls, although his numbers are only in the teens. He’s relatively young at 45 and many voters are looking for generational change.
Porter is the leading female — with a chance to become the first woman elected California governor — and has been holding up in the polls despite showing a bad temper in a damaging TV interview last year.
Steyer has loads of his own money to spend on TV ads. But he needs a more coherent, simple message in the spots.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan just entered the race, but shows some promise. He’s a moderate with strong Silicon Valley tech support. And he also has youth at 43.
Five others should consider bowing out.
Xavier Becerra has a great resume: Former U.S. health secretary, former California attorney general and longtime congressman. But he hasn’t shown much fire. And his message is muted.
Antonio Villaraigosa also has an impressive resume: Former Los Angeles mayor and state Assembly speaker. He’s running with a strong centrist message. But at 73, voters seem to feel his time is past.
Former state Controller Betty Yee knows every inch of state government, but lacks voter appeal.
State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hasn’t shined in his current job and has no traction in the governor’s race.
Former legislator Ian Calderon isn’t even a blip.
What causes some candidates to stay in a race against long, even impossible odds?
“Hope springs eternal,” says longtime Democratic strategist Darry Sragow. “History is replete with races that turned around on a dime.”
And many feel obligated to their donors and endorsers, he adds.
Also, consultants often “have a vested interest” financially in keeping their clients in the game, he acknowledges.
But currently, Sragow adds, “it’s time for the Democratic Party to get its act together and weed out the field.”
“Party leaders should start cracking the whip. There’s something to be said for decisions being made behind closed doors in a ‘smoke filled room.’ The difference today is that it’s in a smoke-free room.”
The filing deadline for officially becoming a candidate is March 6. After that, a name cannot be removed from the ballot. It’s stuck there — possibly drawing just enough votes to rob another Democrat of the chance to be elected governor in November.
DAKAR, Senegal — Being gay in Morocco is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. But it was the violence from her family that forced Farah, a 21-year-old gay woman, to flee the country.
After a long journey to the United States and a third-country deportation by the Trump administration, however, Farah said she is now back in Morocco and in hiding.
“It is hard to live and work with the fear of being tracked once again by my family,” she told the Associated Press, in rare testimony from a person deported via a third country despite having protection orders from a U.S. immigration judge. “But there is nothing I can do. I have to work.”
She asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of persecution. The AP saw her protection order and lawyers verified parts of her account.
Farah said that before she fled, she was beaten by her family and the family of her partner when they found out about their relationship. She was kicked out of the family home and fled with her partner to another city. She said her family found her and tried to kill her.
Through a friend, she and her partner heard about the opportunity to get visas for Brazil and fly there with the aim of reaching the United States, where they had friends. From Brazil, she trekked through six countries for weeks to reach the U.S. border, where they asked for asylum.
“You get put in situations that are truly horrible,” she recalled. “When we arrived [at the U.S. border], it felt like it was worth the trouble and that we got to our goal.”
They arrived in early 2025. But instead of finding the freedom she envisioned, Farah said she was detained for almost a year, first in Arizona, then in Louisiana.
“It was very cold,” she said of detention. “And we only had very thin blankets.” Medical care was inadequate, she said.
She was denied asylum, but in August she received a protection order from a U.S. immigration judge, who ruled she cannot be deported to Morocco because that would endanger her life. Her partner, denied asylum and a protection order, was deported.
Farah said she was three days from a hearing on her release when she was handcuffed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and put on a plane to an African country she had never visited, and one where homosexuality is illegal: Cameroon. She was put in a detention facility.
“They asked me if I wanted to stay in Cameroon, and I told them that I can’t stay in Cameroon and risk my life in a place where I would still be endangered,” she said. She was flown to Morocco.
Most deportees had protection orders
She is one of dozens of people confirmed to be deported from the U.S. by the Trump administration to third countries despite being granted legal protection by U.S. immigration judges. The actual number is unknown.
The administration has used third-country deportations to pressure migrants who are in the U.S. illegally to leave on their own, saying they could end up “in any number of third countries.”
The detention facility in Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde, where Farah was held, currently has 15 deportees from various African countries who arrived on two flights, and none is Cameroonian, according to lawyer Joseph Awah Fru, who represents them.
Eight of the deportees on the first flight in January, including Farah, had received a judge’s protection orders, said Alma David, an immigration lawyer with the U.S.-based Novo Legal Group who has helped deportees and verified Farah’s case. The AP spoke to a woman from Ghana and a woman from Congo, who both said they had protection orders, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Another flight Monday brought eight more people. Three freelance journalists reporting on the deportations to Cameroon for the AP were briefly detained there.
Deporting people to a third country where they could be sent home was effectively a legal “loophole,” said David.
“By deporting them to Cameroon, and giving them no opportunity to contest being sent to a country whose government hoped to quietly send them back to the very countries where they face grave danger, the U.S. not only violated their due process rights but our own immigration laws, our obligations under international treaties and even DHS’ own procedures,” David said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier confirmed there were deportations to Cameroon in January.
“We are applying the law as written. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period,” it said, and asserted that the third-country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution.”
Asked about the deportations to Cameroon, the U.S. State Department on Friday told the AP it had “no comment on the details of our diplomatic communications with other governments.” It did not reply to further questions.
Cameroon’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘Impossible choices’
Farah was one of two women from the first group of deportees to return to Morocco.
“They were given two impossible choices,” David said, asserting that claiming asylum was not clearly presented as one of them. “This was before the lawyer had access to them.”
She said International Organization for Migration staff in the facility did not give them any indication that there was a viable option other than going back to their home countries.
Fru said he has not been granted access to the deportees. He said the assistant to the country director for the IOM, a U.N.-affiliated organization, told him he must apply to speak to them. Fru plans to do that Monday.
The IOM told the AP it was “aware of the removal of migrants from the United States of America to some African countries” and added that it “works with people facing difficult decisions about whether to return to their country of origin.” It said its role is providing accurate information about options and ensuring that “anyone who chooses to return does so voluntarily.”
The IOM said the facility in Yaounde was managed by the authorities in Cameroon. It did not respond to further questions.
African nations are paid millions
Cameroon is one of at least seven African nations to receive deported third-country nationals in a deal with the U.S. Others include South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea.
Some have received millions of dollars in return, according to documents released by the State Department. Details of other agreements, including the one with Cameroon, have not been released.
The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report released last week by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
According to internal administration documents reviewed by the AP, 47 third-country agreements are in various stages of negotiation.
In Morocco, Farah said, it was hard to hear U.S. officials refer to people like her as a threat.
“The USA is built on immigration and by immigrant labor, so we’re clearly not all threats,” she said. “What was done to me was unfair. A normal deportation would have been fair, but to go through so much and lose so much, only to be deported in such a way, is cruel.”
SAN FRANCISCO — While united against a common political enemy in the White House, the California Democratic Party remains deeply divided over how to address the state’s affordability crisis and who is best suited to lead the state in this turbulent era of President Trump.
Those fractures revealed themselves during the party’s annual convention in California’s liberal epicenter, San Francisco, where a slate of Democrats running to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom pitched very different visions for the state.
Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and wealthy financier Tom Steyer were among the top candidates who swung left, with Porter vowing to enact free childcare and tuition-free college and Steyer backing a proposed new tax on billionaires. Both candidates also support universal healthcare.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, the newest major candidate to enter the race, hewed toward partisan middle ground, chastising leaders in Sacramento for allowing the state budget to balloon without tangible improvements to housing affordability, homelessness and public schools.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), a vociferous critic and constant target of the Trump administration, emerged from the convention with the greatest momentum after receiving the most votes for the California Democratic Party’s endorsement, with 24% of delegates backing him.
“The next governor has two jobs: one, to keep Donald Trump and ICE out of our streets and out of our lives, and two, to lower your costs on healthcare, on housing, on utilities,” Swalwell said. “Californians need a fighter and protector, and for the last 10 years, I’ve gone on offense against the worst president ever.”
Still, none of the top Democrats running for governor received the 60% vote needed to capture the endorsement, indicating just how uncertain the race remains just months away from the June primary.
Betty Yee, a former state controller and party vice chair, placed second in the endorsement vote with 17%; former U.S. Health and Human Services Sec. Xavier Becerra had 14%; and Steyer had 13%. The remaining candidates had single-digit levels of support from among the more than 2,300 delegates who cast endorsement votes.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) takes a selfie with supporters during the California Democratic Party’s annual convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Saturday.
“We’re going to win the House. There’s absolutely no question we will win the House,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) at a Young Dems event on Friday evening. “We’re going to protect the election, we’re going to win the election, and we’re going to tell people the difference that we will make.”
Thousands of delegates, party allies and guests attended the weekend California Democratic Party convention at Moscone Center in the South of Market neighborhood. The gathering included a tribute to Pelosi as she serves her final term.
Party leaders did coalesce behind one of the Democrats running to replace Pelosi, Scott Wiener, a liberal state senator who is vying be the first openly gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress.
The convention comes as party members and leaders continue to soul search after Trump’s second election. California remains a stronghold of opposition to the president, but its next governor will also have to face a growing cost-of-living crisis in a state where utility costs keep climbing and the median single-family home price is more than double what it is nationally.
Under growing pressure, the candidates for governor went on the offensive at the party gathering. Candidates sniped at each other — though rarely by name — for being too rich, too beholden to special interests or for voting in the past in support of ICE and border wall funding.
While largely panned by delegates who tend to lean further left than the typical California Democratic voter, Mahan has jolted the race by quickly raising millions from tech industry leaders and targeting moderate voters with a message of getting the state “back to basics.”
“We are at risk of losing the trust of the people of California if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for delivering better results on public education, home building, public safety,” Mahan said. “We’re not getting the outcomes we need for the dollars we’re spending.”
Mahan has raised more than $7.3 million since entering the contest in late January, according to campaign finance disclosures of large contributions. Many of the donors are tied to the tech industry, such as Y Combinator, Doordash, Amazon and Thumbtack. Billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso has also contributed the maximum allowed to Mahan’s campaign.
Technology businessman Dennis Bress, from Newport Beach, wears a pin supporting Planned Parenthood and a Yes on Proposition 50 shirt at the California Democratic Party convention at the Moscone Center on Friday in San Francisco.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Other candidates have raised concerns about the cash infusion, particularly Steyer, who has already dropped more than $37 million into his self-funded campaign and is pitching himself as a “billionaire who will take on the billionaires.”
“Here’s the thing about big donors: If you take their money, you have to take their calls,” Steyer said during his floor speech.
Delegates and party leaders said California’s next governor will have to continue leading the state’s aggressive opposition to Trump while dealing with the issues at home.
“I think people want a fighter,” said Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who represents Porter’s former congressional district and has endorsed her in the governor’s race. “They want someone who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump but also fight to help average people who feel like they’re getting a raw deal in today’s America.”
Several of the candidates made the case that they could do both.
During her speech, Porter held up a whiteboard — her signature prop when grilling CEOs and Trump administration officials while she served in Congress — with “F— Trump” written on it.
“I’ll stand up to Trump and his cronies just like I did in Congress,” she said. “But this election for governor is about far more than defeating Trump.”
Porter, a law professor at UC Irvine, called on Democrats to “send a message about democracy by rejecting billionaires and corporate-backed candidates.” She also rolled out a long list of “true affordability measures” including free child care, free tuition at public universities, and single-payer healthcare, though she did not specify how she would pay for them.
Fighting back against Trump is “the floor,” said 29-year-old Gregory Hutchins, an academic labor researcher from Riverside. “We need to go higher than the floor — what can you do for the people of California? We all recognize that this is a beautiful and wonderful state, but it is very difficult to afford living here.”
Even some delegates — often the most politically active members of a party — have yet to make up their minds in the governor’s race. Nearly 9% opted not to endorse a particular candidate at the convention.
“You want that perfect candidate. You want that like, yes, this is the person,” said Sean Frame, a school labor organizer from Sacramento who is running for state Senate. “And I don’t feel like there is one candidate for me that fits all that.”
For all the focus on affordability, there were undertones of growing frustration from even reliable Democratic allies over a lack of tangible results in a state where the median home price is more than $823,000. SEIU California president David Huerta said workers have “been deferring our power to elected leadership” for too long.
“I think we need to be the ones who set the agenda and hold them accountable to that agenda,” Huerta said. “And they need to be leading from the direction of working people.”
It’s a constant battle with Democrats at state and local levels to get fair pay, said Mary Grace Barrios, who left a career in insurance to take care of her disabled adult daughter.
Barrios makes $19 an hour as an in-home caregiver to other clients in Los Angeles County. When Newsom signed a law to raise wages for most healthcare workers to $25 an hour by 2030, in-home support staff like Barrios were not included.
“It’s so important that we be given the respect and pay we need to live because we can’t live on that amount,” she said, adding that it feels like a “constant attack by people in our own party that we supported, that forgot us.”
“As citizens, you get what you vote for, right? So we have to do it. We have to make the change.”
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas is set to invalidate about 1,700 driver’s licenses held by transgender residents and roughly as many birth certificates under a new law that goes beyond Republican-imposed restrictions in other states on listing gender identities in government documents.
The new law takes effect Thursday. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the measure, but the Legislature’s GOP supermajorities overrode it last week as Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. have pursued another round of measures to roll back transgender rights.
The bill prohibits documents from listing any sex other than the one assigned birth and invalidates any that reflect a conflicting gender identity. Florida, Tennessee and Texas also don’t allow driver’s licenses to reflect a trans person’s gender identity, and at least eight states besides Kansas have policies that bar trans residents from changing their birth certificates.
But only Kansas’ law requires reversing changes previously made for trans residents. Kansas officials expect to cancel about 1,700 driver’s licenses and issue new birth certificates for up to 1,800 people.
“It tells me that Kansas Republicans are interested in being on the vanguard of the culture war and in a race to the bottom,” said Democratic state Rep. Abi Boatman, a transgender Air Force veteran appointed in January to fill a vacant Wichita seat.
Kansas’ new law enjoyed nearly unanimous GOP support. It is the latest development in what has become an annual effort to further roll back transgender rights by Republicans in statehouses across the U.S., bolstered by policies and rhetoric from President Trump’s administration.
Trump and other Republicans attack research-backed conclusions that gender can change or be fluid, which they frame as radical “gender ideology.” GOP lawmakers in Kansas regularly describe transgender girls and women as male, and say that in doing so they are protecting women.
Like other Republicans, Kansas Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi said Trump’s reelection and other GOP victories in 2024 show that voters want “to return to common sense” on gender.
“When I go home, people believe there are just two sexes, male and female,” Blasi said. “It’s basic biology I learned in high school.”
Kelly supports transgender rights, but GOP lawmakers have overridden her vetoes three of the last four years. Kansas bans gender-affirming care for minors and bars transgender women and girls from female sports teams, kindergarten through college.
Transgender people can’t use public restrooms, locker rooms or other single-sex facilities associated with their gender identities, though there was no enforcement mechanism until this year’s law added tough new provisions.
Transgender people have said carrying IDs that misgender them opens them to intrusive questions, harassment and even violence when they show it to police, merchants and others.
In 2023, Republicans halted changes in Kansas birth certificates and driver’s licenses by enacting a measure ending the state’s legal recognition of trans residents’ gender identities. Though the law didn’t mention either document, it legally defined male and female by a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth.
However, a lawsuit led to state court decisions that permitted driver’s license changes to resume last year.
Legislators in at least seven other states are considering bills to prevent transgender people from changing one or both documents, according to a search using the bill-tracking software Plural.
But none would reverse past changes.
The extra step by Kansas legislators reinforces a message “that trans people aren’t welcome,” said Anthony Alvarez, a transgender University of Kansas student who works for an LGBTQ+ rights group.
Kansas is likely to notify transgender residents by mail that their driver’s licenses are no longer valid and they need to go to a local licensing office to get a new one, said Zachary Denney, spokesperson for the agency that issues them.
The Legislature hasn’t earmarked funds to cover the cost, so each person will be charged for it — $26 for a standard license.
Alvarez already has had four IDs in four years as he’s changed his name, changed his gender marker and turned 21.
He’s always planned to stay in his native Kansas after receiving his history degree this spring.
But, he said, “they’re just making it harder and harder for me to live in the state that I love.”
NEW YORK — The Transportation Security Administration said Sunday that its PreCheck program would remain operational despite an earlier announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that the airport security service was being suspended because of the partial government shutdown.
“As staffing constraints arise, TSA will evaluate on a case by case basis and adjust operations accordingly,” the agency said in a statement.
Airport lines seemed largely unaffected through midday Sunday, with security check line wait times listed as under 15 minutes for most international airports, according to TSA’s mobile app.
Amy Wainscott, 42, flew from the Destin-Fort Walton Beach airport in Florida to Dallas Love Field on Sunday and said she didn’t hear about the announced suspension until she had already gone through TSA’s PreCheck.
“When we got to the airport this morning everything was working like usual,” she said. “It didn’t seem like anything had changed.”
Jean Fay, 54, said she had no issues going through TSA PreCheck at the Baltimore airport for her 6 a.m. Sunday flight back home to Texas. She didn’t hear about the suspension announcment until she was changing planes in Austin on her way to Dallas Love Field.
“When I landed in Austin I started getting the alerts,” she said.
It was not immediately clear whether Global Entry, another airport service, would be affected. PreCheck and Global Entry are designed to help speed registered travelers through security lines, and suspensions would probably cause headaches and delays.
Since starting in 2013, more than 20 million Americans have signed up for TSA PreCheck, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and millions of those Americans also have overlapping Global Entry memberships. Global Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection program that allows preapproved, low-risk travelers to use expedited kiosks when entering the United States from abroad.
The turmoil is tied to a partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14 after Democrats and the White House were unable to reach a deal on legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats have been demanding changes to aggressive federal immigration operations, central to President Trump’s deportation campaign, which have been widely criticized since the shooting deaths of two people in Minneapolis last month.
The security disruptions come as a major winter storm hit the East Coast from Sunday into Monday. Nine out of 10 flights going out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Boston Logan Airport on Monday have been canceled.
Homeland Security previously said it was taking “emergency measures to preserve limited funds.” Among the steps listed were “ending Transportation Security Administration (TSA) PreCheck lanes and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Global Entry service, to refocus Department personnel on the majority of travelers.”
“We are glad that DHS has decided to keep PreCheck operational and avoid a crisis of its own making,” said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Assn.
Before announcing the PreCheck shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement Saturday night that “shutdowns have serious real world consequences.”
One group of fliers will definitely be affected, according to TSA.
“Courtesy escorts, such as those for Members of Congress, have been suspended to allow officers to focus on the mission of securing America’s skies,” the agency said.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing major carriers, said Saturday night that “it’s past time for Congress to get to the table and get a deal done.” It also criticized the announcement, saying it was “issued with extremely short notice to travelers, giving them little time to plan accordingly.”
“A4A is deeply concerned that TSA PreCheck and Global Entry programs are being suspended and that the traveling public will be, once again, used as a political football amid another government shutdown,” the organization said.
Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security criticized the Department of Homeland Security’s handling of airport security after the initial announcement Saturday night. They accused the administration of “kneecapping the programs that make travel smoother and secure.”
Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, said Noem’s actions are part of an administration strategy to distract from other issues and shift responsibility.
“This administration is trying to weaponize our government, trying to make things intentionally more difficult for the American people as a political leverage,” he said Sunday on CNN. “And the American people see that.”
An armed man drove into the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s resort in Florida, as another vehicle was exiting before being shot and killed early Sunday morning, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service.
The man, who was in his early 20s and from North Carolina, had a gas can and a shotgun, according to Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service spokesman. The man had been reported missing by his family a few days ago, and investigators believe he headed south and picked up the shotgun along the way.
Guglielmi said a box for the weapon was discovered in the man’s vehicle after the incident, which took place around 1:30 a.m.
The man killed was identified by investigators as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
Trump has faced threats to his life before, including two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign. Although the president often spends weekends at his resort, he and First Lady Melania Trump were at the White House when the breach at Mar-a-Lago occurred.
After entering near the north gate of the property, the man was confronted by two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy, according to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.
“He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with them. At which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” Bradshaw said at a news conference. The two agents and the deputy “fired their weapons to neutralize the threat.”
The FBI asked residents who live near Mar-a-Lago to check any security cameras they may have for video that could help investigators.
Investigators are working to compile a psychological profile, and a motive is still under investigation. Asked whether the individual was known to law enforcement, Bradshaw said, “Not right now.”
The incident comes as the country has been rocked by spasms political violence.
Trump survived an assassination attempt during a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pa. The gunman fired eight shots, one grazing Trump’s ear, before being killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
A few months later, a man tried to assassinate Trump while he played golf at his West Palm Beach club, a few miles from Mar-a-Lago. A Secret Service agent spotted that man, Ryan Routh, aiming a rifle through the shrubbery before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire and caused Routh to drop his weapon.
Routh was found guilty last year and sentenced this month to life in prison.
The White House referred all questions to the Secret Service and FBI.
There have been other recent incidents of political violence as well.
In the last year, there was the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk; the assassination of the Democratic leader in the Minnesota state House and her husband and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife; and an arson attack at the official residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Five days ago, a Georgia man armed with a shotgun was arrested as he sprinted towards the west side of the U.S. Capitol.
And on Jan. 6, 2021, a violent pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol and tried to stop Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
RICHMOND, Calif. — New bumper stickers reading “Jesse Jackson/Dan Boatwright” appeared recently in this heavily black and economically struggling industrial city across the bay from San Francisco.
“Can you believe that?” state Senate candidate Sunne McPeak grumbled. “It makes it appear that Jesse Jackson has endorsed Dan Boatwright. He hasn’t. And Boatwright hasn’t endorsed Jackson. It’s misleading.”
McPeak, for 10 years a Contra Costa County supervisor, is challenging Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright, a white, 16-year veteran of the Legislature, in the hottest state Senate contest in the June 7 primary election.
On the same day the Jackson/Boatwright bumper stickers showed up, McPeak, who also is white, trumpeted the endorsement of her candidacy by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley as she walked black precincts in the 7th Senate District, which includes most of Contra Costa County.
Boatwright, widely regarded as a conservative Democrat who said he has not endorsed any candidate for President but will support the party’s nominee, denies that the bumper stickers are misleading. He asserts, while denying any contradiction, that they merely are intended “to get Jesse Jackson and me elected.”
In a tight election, the black vote–which Boatwright said makes up 15% of the Democratic registration–could be pivotal.
McPeak and Boatwright seem to share the same conservative political philosophy on many issues. Both fiercely oppose export of additional water from Northern to Southern California without ironclad guarantees that water supplies in their home base of Contra Costa County will not be degraded or diminished.
McPeak gained statewide attention in 1982 when she spearheaded a successful referendum that overturned a law that would have built the controversial Peripheral Canal, a project strongly supported by Southern California water interests and opposed by Northerners.
McPeak, 39, a former health care consultant, is the mother of two school-age children. An attorney, Boatwright, 58, is the father of three grown sons.
The Democratic winner in June will face Republican William Pollacek, a Martinez city councilman who is unopposed in the GOP primary. Although declining in numbers, Democrats still hold a big registration advantage in the district, 53.7% to 35.1% over Republicans. So the Democratic primary winner is a heavy favorite to emerge victorious in November.
The fast-growing region is a bedroom for San Francisco and includes some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the Bay Area, as well as some of the poorest. Ethnically diverse, Anglos account for roughly 71% of the district’s population, blacks 10%, Latinos 9%, Asians 5% and others 5%. But since blacks register heavily in the Democratic Party, they represent a much larger voter bloc in Democratic primaries than they do in general elections.
Boatwright’s casual manner masks an explosive temper and the tenacity of a pit bull. He delights in characterizing himself as “tough as a cob” and still speaks in a slight drawl that lingers from his boyhood in Arkansas
In legislative skirmishes, he has been known to invoke his experience as a combat infantryman in Korea and once told a reporter: “I’ve never seen anybody around that I couldn’t lick. And if I can’t do it with my fist, I’ll still do it.”
But the tough-talking Boatwright also writes poetry. In a sentimental poem printed in a campaign brochure, Boatwright talks of soaring “like a magic machine” with Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Boatwright unabashedly boasts of his fondness for dipping into the “pork barrel” of public projects and delivering them to his constituents, including the expansion of Mt. Diablo State Park and authorization for a new state university campus at Concord.
“See that ridge up there?” he said, pointing to an undeveloped saddle of land as he wheeled his sedan through a scenic valley en route to a meeting with constituents to discuss creating a new bay-side park. “We saved that for open space.”
Last year, Boatwright carried a major bill for his district that proposed massive rehabilitation of deteriorating levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But he got into a feud with fellow Democratic Sen. Ruben S. Ayala of Chino, chairman of the Senate Water Committee, and Ayala sent the bill back to his committee, never to re-emerge.
This left Boatwright open to political attack that he had failed his constituents. But pressure continued for a levee repair bill and in December, environmentalists, farmers, Southern California water interests, Deukmejian Adminstration water officials, Ayala and Boatwright agreed to a virtually identical measure.
Boatwright’s name was attached to the new bill as its author and it became law in March.
“Boatwright needed a substantial bill to run with in his district,” observed a Senate Democratic staff source.
McPeak, still active in water affairs, contends that the compromise would never have occurred without “pressure” from herself and others.
Now, Boatwright has proposed drought-spawned legislation that would require the installation of water meters in Sacramento, one of the few major population centers in California where water rates are not tied to water usage. Boatwright maintains that 25% of water used in Sacramento is wasted and if metering forced water conservation, his downstream district would benefit. Similar measures have failed in the past.
In her quest to unseat Boatwright, who concedes that this reelection race is his toughest, McPeak goes from door to door telling voters that “the incumbent has been in the Legislature for 16 years. I think it’s time for a change. Don’t you?”
For Boatwright, it is the first time since his election to the Senate in 1980 that he is spending his Saturdays walking precincts and knocking on doors in search of votes. His support includes Senate staff employees from Sacramento who “volunteer” to walk.
McPeak decided to take on Boatwright against the advice of the Democratic Establishment, including Senate leader David A. Roberti of Los Angeles, who last year perceived Boatwright as conspiring to topple him as president pro tem of the Senate.
As a result, Roberti fired Boatwright as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, one of the Senate’s most prestigious posts. Later, Roberti softened the punishment and appointed Boatwright as a member of the committee.
Lukewarm to Candidacy
Some Senate sources have suggested that Roberti is privately only lukewarm to Boatwright’s candidacy. But in keeping with Senate’s clubby tradition of standing by their own, Roberti has publicly pledged to provide “whatever is necessary” in campaign contributions to secure Boatwright’s renomination. Although he may be a rebel at times, Boatwright still is a member of the Senate Democratic fraternity.
Boatwright, who coasted to victory in previous reelection campaigns, estimated his primary election budget at $500,000, a substantial sum for an established incumbent. McPeak estimated her spending at $300,000, with most contributions coming from residents and organizations within the county, many of them developers.
McPeak, endorsed by some labor unions who had been urged by Roberti to remain neutral in the primary, portrays herself as an outsider, striking out against the “power brokers, the bosses, the political dictators” in Sacramento who counseled her not to run.
However, delegates to a recent convention of the California Democratic Party endorsed her over Boatwright, who became the only incumbent Democrat to not receive the endorsement of his party.
Although Boatwright did not seek the endorsement, giving it to McPeak rankled him. “I resent the state Democratic Party injecting itself into my race,” he said. “They don’t know how I vote in the Senate, and they shouldn’t be telling people in my district how they should vote.”
Stirs Controversy
Virtually from his first election to the Assembly in 1972, Boatwright has stirred controversy. He has been the subject of investigations by a local district attorney, state attorney general, Fair Political Practices Commission and the FBI. In each case, no charges were filed.
Additionally, he was sued by a citizen watchdog organization for allegedly failing to accurately disclose the value of two shares of stock he owned in a Walnut Creek shopping center. He purchased them for $24,000 in 1973 but the lawsuit charged their actual value exceeded $300,000. Boatwright won in court.
Later, the Internal Revenue Service claimed that Boatwright and his former wife owed $112,800 in back taxes and penalties on income from that stock allegedly not reported in 1976. Boatwright sued the IRS and the agency dropped the action, a Boatwright aide said.
McPeak said she does not intend to hit Boatwright about the investigations but will concentrate on his legislative record.
“We won’t get into that,” she said. “We are focusing on issues that affect the future. We are talking about his voting record. . . . We think that is sufficient.”
But Boatwright is skeptical. “She can’t get me on my record,” he asserted. “She is going to have to start attacking me personally. She is going to get down and dirty. She has to.”
At a recent meeting of California’s high school sports governing board, two seniors from Arroyo Grande High School spoke out against a transgender peer competing on their track and field team and allegedly “watching” them in the girls’ locker room.
One of the Central Coast students said she is “more comfortable” changing in her car now. The other cited a Bible verse about God creating men and women separately, and accused the California Interscholastic Federation of subjecting girls to “exploitative and intrusive behavior that is disguised through transgender ideology.”
“Our privacy is being compromised and our sports are being taken over,” she said.
During the same meeting, Trevor Norcross, the father of 17-year-old transgender junior Lily Norcross, offered a starkly different perspective.
“Bathrooms and locker rooms are the most dangerous place for trans students, and when they are at their most vulnerable,” he said. “Our daughter goes to extreme lengths to avoid them. Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t.”
Lily Norcross with her parents, Trevor and Hilary Norcross.
(Owen Main / For The Times)
Norcross said Lily’s teammates had for months been misrepresenting a single moment from the year prior, when Lily had to use the restroom after a full day of avoiding it, chose to use the one in the locker room because it is monitored by an adult and safer for her than others, and briefly stopped to chat with a friend on her way out.
“There’s always more to the story,” he said.
The conflicting testimony reflected an increasingly charged debate over transgender athletes participating in youth sports nationwide. Churches, anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, cisgender athletes and their conservative families are organizing to topple trans-inclusive policies, while liberal state officials, queer advocacy groups, transgender kids and their families are trying to preserve policies that allow transgender kids to compete.
The battle has been particularly pitched in California, which has some of the nation’s most progressive statewide athletic policies and liberal leaders willing to defend them — including from the Trump administration, which has attacked transgender rights and is suing the California Department of Education and the CIF, alleging their trans-inclusive sports policies violate the civil rights of cisgender athletes.
Along with a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on the legality of policies banning transgender athletes from competing in states such as Idaho and West Virginia, the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California could have sweeping implications for transgender athletes — with a state loss potentially contributing to their being sidelined not just in conservative states, but nationwide.
For the handful of transgender California teens caught in the middle of the fight, it has all been deeply unnerving — if strangely motivating.
“I have to keep doing it, because if I stop doing sports, they won,” Lily Norcross said. “They got what they wanted.”
A coordinated effort
The movement to overturn California’s trans-inclusive policies is being coordinated at the local, state and national levels, and has gained serious momentum since several of its leaders joined the Trump administration.
At the local level, cisgender athletes, their families and other conservative and religious allies have expressed anger over transgender athletes using girls’ facilities and resentment over their allegedly stealing victories and the spotlight from cisgender girls.
In 2024, two girls at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside filed a lawsuit challenging the participation of their transgender track and field teammate Abigail Jones, arguing her participation limited their own in violation of Title IX protections for female athletes. A judge found insufficient evidence of that, and recently dismissed the case.
Last year, Jurupa Valley High School track star AB Hernandez won several medals at the CIF State Track and Field Championships despite President Trump personally demanding she be barred from competing. Critics argued Hernandez’s wins were unfair, despite CIF having changed its rules so that her cisgender competitors received the medals they would have received had she not competed.
AB Hernandez competed for Jurupa Valley High School in the long jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships.
(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)
The challenges to Abigail, AB and Lily competing have all been driven in part by a network of conservative organizations working across California and beyond to oust transgender girls from sports, including by coordinating with evangelical churches, pushing social media campaigns, lining up speakers for school board meetings and working with cisgender athletes to hone their messages of opposition.
Shannon Kessler, a former PTA president and church leader who is now running for state Assembly, has worked within the wider network. In March 2025, Kessler founded the group Save Girls’ Sports Central Coast, and the next month distributed fliers at Harvest Church in Arroyo Grande that called on parishioners to challenge Lily’s participation on the track and field team.
Kessler said the two seniors on Lily’s team, who did not respond to a request for comment, had initially asked if she would “speak on their behalf,” so she did, but she has since let the girls “take the lead.”
“They took the initiative to speak and wrote their own speeches,” Kessler said, of their remarks at the recent CIF meeting.
Norcross said the effort to sideline his daughter has clearly been coordinated by outsiders from the start. He blames Kessler, Harvest Church and the state’s wider network of conservative activists for stirring up baseless fears about transgender athletes, exposing his family to danger and leaving them no choice but to defend themselves publicly.
“It’s not a fair position to be in,” he said.
Tied up in court
Within months of Trump issuing his February 2025 executive order calling for transgender athletes to be barred from competition nationwide, two leaders within the California conservative network turned Trump administration officials — Harmeet Dhillon, who is now assistant attorney general for civil rights, and former state Assemblyman Bill Essayli, who is now in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles — quickly moved to bring the state to heel.
They launched an investigation into California’s trans-inclusive sports policies, ordered its school districts to comply with Trump’s order in defiance of state law, and then sued the Department of Education and the CIF when they refused — alleging the state’s policies illegally discriminate against cisgender girls under Title IX by ignoring “undeniable biological differences between boys and girls, in favor of an amorphous ‘gender identity.’”
Neither Dhillon nor the Justice Department responded to a request for comment. Essayli’s office declined to comment.
Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon arrives for a news conference at the Justice Department in September.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
The Department of Education and the CIF have called for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that Title IX regulations “do not require the exclusion of transgender girls” and that the Justice Department had provided no evidence that the state’s policies left cisgender girls unable to compete.
The CIF said in a statement that it “provides students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete in education-based experiences in compliance with California law,” but it and the Department of Education said they do not comment on pending litigation. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office has slammed the Trump administration’s efforts, and filed its own lawsuit to block them.
Separate from the California litigation, there is a major case on transgender youth athletes before the U.S. Supreme Court.
After athletes successfully challenged West Virginia and Idaho bans on transgender competition in lower federal courts, the states appealed. During arguments last month, the high court’s conservative majority sounded ready to uphold the state bans — but not necessarily in a way that would topple liberal state laws allowing such athletes to compete.
Pressure and resolve
Lily, AB and Abigail — all of whom are referenced anonymously in the federal lawsuit against California — agreed, with their parents, to be identified by The Times in order to share how it has felt to be targeted.
Abigail, 17, graduated early and is preparing to start college but hasn’t stopped being an advocate for transgender high school athletes, continuing to show up to CIF and school board meetings to support their right to compete.
“This is a part of my life now, whether I like it or not,” she said.
Speaking can be intimidating, Abigail said, but it has also become familiar — as has the cast of anti-transgender activists who routinely show up to speak as well. “It’s always the same people,” she said.
Abigail Jones participates in a protest against President Trump and his attacks on transgender people in April in Riverside.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
AB, also 17, said last year — when everyone, including Trump, seemed to be talking about her — was “just so much — too much.”
She felt she had to constantly “maintain an image,” including among her peers, that she was “not bothered by anything and just confident,” which was exhausting, she said. “There were a lot of times I just didn’t go to school, because I felt like I couldn’t keep up that image and I didn’t want them to see me down.”
It still can be overwhelming if she looks at all the vitriol aimed her way online, she said, but “off the internet, it’s a completely different story.”
AB was nervous headed into last year’s championships, but a couple of other competitors reached out with their support and the meet ended up being “a blast,” she said. At track practice this year, she’s surrounded by friends — one of her favorite things about being on the team.
For Lily, the last year has been “different and interesting, in not really a good way.”
She has had slurs lobbed at her and been physically threatened. She sometimes waits all day to use the toilet, nearly bursting by the time she gets home. When she has to use a school restroom, she times herself to be in and out in under three minutes. She took P.E. courses over the summer in part because she felt there would be fewer students around, but faced harassment anyway. Like AB, she feels as though she’s under a constant spotlight.
And yet, Lily said she is also “a lot happier with who I am” than she ever was before transitioning a couple of years ago. She said she’s enjoying her classes and her school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, where LGBTQ+ kids gather at lunch to swap stories, and is optimistic about the future — even if things aren’t great right now.
Her dad said watching her come out and transition has been gratifying, because “the smile came back, the light in her eyes came back.” Watching her navigate the current campaign against her, he said, has been “really hard,” because “she has been forced to grow up too quickly — she has been forced to defend herself in a way that most kids don’t.”
Mostly, though, he’s just proud of his kid.
“We had our fears as parents, as any parent would, that, OK, this is a different path than we thought our kid was going to be on, and we are worried about her safety and her future in this world,” he said. “But she is amazingly strong — amazingly courageous.”
SAN FRANCISCO — It was speed dating: Eight suitors with less than four minutes each, pitching the woo to thousands of Democratic Party faithful.
The race for California governor has been a low-boil, late-developing affair, noteworthy mostly for its lack of a whole lot that has been noteworthy.
That changed a bit on a sunny Saturday in San Francisco, the contest assuming a smidgen of campaign heat — chanting crowds, sign-waving supporters, call-and-response from the audience — as the state party held its annual convention in this bluest of cities.
No candidate came remotely close to winning the required 60% support.
That left the contestants, sans Mahan, to offer their best distillation of the whys and wherefore of their campaigns, before one of the most important and influential audiences they will face between now and the June 2 primary.
Former state Controller Betty Yee told how she shared a bedroom with four siblings. Katie Porter, the single mom of three kids, said she knows what it’s like to push a grocery cart and fuel her minivan and watch helplessly as prices “go up and up” while dollars don’t stretch far enough.
Michele Reed of Los Angeles cheers at the state Democratic Party convention.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
When it came to lambasting Trump, the competition was equally fierce.
“His attacks on our schools, our healthcare and his politics of fear and bullying has to stop now,” Villaraigosa said.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) called him “the worst president ever” and boasted of the anti-Trump battles he’s fought in Congress and the courts. Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general, spoke of his success suing the Trump administration.
Porter may have outdone them all, at least in the use of profanity and props, by holding up one of her famous whiteboards and urging the crowd to join her in a chant of its inscription: “F—- Trump.”
Porter was also the most extravagant in her promises, pledging to deliver universal healthcare to California — a years-old Democratic ambition — free childcare, zero tuition at the state’s public universities and elimination of the state income tax for those earning less than $100,000.
Unstated was how, precisely, the cash-strapped state would pay for such a bounty.
Former Assemblyman Ian Calderon offered a more modest promise to provide free child care to families earning less than $100,000 annually and to break up PG&E, California’s largest utility, “and literally take California’s power back.” (Another improbability.)
Becerra, in short order, said he was “not running on inflated promises” but rather his record as a congressman, former attorney general and health secretary in President Biden’s cabinet.
Rachel Pickering, right, vice chair of the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party, stands with others wearing pins supporting Democratic causes at the party’s state convention.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
It was one of several jabs that could be heard if one listened closely enough. (No candidate called out any other by name.) “You’re not going to vote for a Democrat who voted for the border wall, are you?” Thurmond demanded, a jab at Porter who supported a major funding bill that included money for Trump’s pet project.
“You’re not going to vote for a Democrat who praises ICE, are you?” Thurmond asked, a poke at Swalwell, who thanked the department for its work last year in a case of domestic terrorism.
“You’re not going to vote for a Democrat who made money off ICE detention centers,” Thurmond went on, targeting Tom Steyer and his former investment firm, which had holdings in the private prison industry.
Yee seemed to take aim at Mahan and his rich Silicon Valley backers, suggesting grassroots Democrats “will not be pushed aside by the billionaire boys club that wants to rule California.”
“Here’s the thing about big donors,” Steyer said. “If you take their money, you have to take their calls. And I don’t owe them a thing. In a world where politicians serve special interests, I can’t be bought.”
There were no breakout moments Saturday. Nothing was said or done in the roughly 35 minutes the candidates devoted to themselves that seemed likely to change the dynamic or trajectory of a race that remains stubbornly ill-defined and, to an unprecedented degree in modern times, wide open.
And there was certainly no sign any of the gubernatorial candidates plan to give up, bowing to concerns their large number could divide the Democratic vote and allow a pair of Republicans to slip through and emerge from California’s top-two primary.
But for at least a little while, within the confines of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, there was a glimmer of a life in a contest that has seemed largely inert. That seemed a portent of more to come as the June primary inches ever closer.
SOCORRO, Texas — In a Texas town at the edge of the Rio Grande and a tall metal border wall, rumors swirled that federal immigration officials wanted to purchase three hulking warehouses to transform into a detention center.
As local officials scrambled to find out what was happening, a deed was filed showing the Department of Homeland Security had already inked a $122.8-million deal for the 826,000-square-foot warehouses in Socorro, a bedroom community of 40,000 people outside El Paso.
“Nobody from the federal government bothered to pick up the phone or even send us any type of correspondence letting us know what’s about to take place,” said Rudy Cruz Jr., the mayor of the predominantly Latino town of low-slung ranch homes and trailer parks, where orchards and irrigation ditches share the landscape with strip malls, truck stops, recycling plants and distribution warehouses.
Socorro is among at least 20 communities across the U.S. whose large warehouses have become stealth targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s $45-billion expansion of detention centers.
As public support for the agency and President Trump’s immigration crackdown sags, communities both red and blue are objecting to mass detentions and raising concerns that the facilities could strain water supplies and other services while reducing local tax revenue.
In many cases, mayors, county commissioners, governors and members of Congress learned about ICE’s ambitions only after the agency bought or leased space for detainees, leading to shock and frustration even in areas that have backed Trump.
“I just feel,” said Cruz, whose wife was born in Mexico, “that they do these things in silence so that they don’t get opposition.”
Communities scramble for information
ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has purchased at least seven warehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, signed deeds show. Other deals have been announced but not finalized, though buyers scuttled sales in eight locations.
Homeland Security objected to calling the sites warehouses, emphasizing in a statement that they would be “very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”
The process has been chaotic at times. ICE last week acknowledged that it made a “mistake” when it announced warehouse purchases in Chester, N.Y., and Roxbury, N.J. Roxbury then announced Friday that the sale there had closed.
Homeland Security has confirmed that it is looking for more detention space but hasn’t disclosed individual sites ahead of acquisitions. Some cities learned only through reporters that ICE was scouting warehouses. Others were tipped off by a spreadsheet circulating online among activists whose source is unclear.
It wasn’t until Feb. 13 that the scope of the warehouse project was confirmed, when the governor’s office in New Hampshire, where there is backlash to a planned 500-bed processing center, released an ICE document showing the agency plans to spend $38.3 billion to boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds.
Since Trump took office, the number of people detained by ICE has increased to 75,000 from 40,000, spread across more than 225 sites.
ICE could use the warehouses to consolidate and to increase capacity. The document describes a project that includes eight large-scale detention centers, capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees each, and 16 smaller regional processing centers. The document also refers to the acquisition of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities.
The project is funded through Trump’s massive tax and spending cuts law enacted last year that nearly doubled the Homeland Security budget. To build the detention centers, the Trump administration is using military contracts.
Those contracts allow for a high degree of secrecy and enable Homeland Security to move quickly without following the usual processes and safeguards, said Charles Tiefer, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School.
Socorro facility could be among the largest
In Socorro, the ICE-owned warehouses are so large that 4½ Walmart Supercenters could fit inside, in contrast to the remnants of the austere Spanish colonial and mission architecture that define the town.
At a recent City Council meeting, public comments stretched for hours. “I think a lot of innocent people are getting caught up in their dragnet,” said Jorge Mendoza, an El Paso County retiree whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico.
Many speakers invoked concerns about three recent deaths at an ICE detention facility at the nearby Ft. Bliss Army base.
Communities fear a financial hit
Even communities that backed Trump in 2024 have been caught off-guard by ICE’s plans and have raised concerns.
In rural Pennsylvania’s Berks County, commissioner Christian Leinbach called the district attorney, the sheriff, the jail warden and the county’s head of emergency services when he first heard ICE might buy a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, three miles from his home.
No one knew anything.
A few days later, a local official in charge of land records informed him that ICE had bought the building — promoted by developers as a “state-of-the art logistics center” — for $87.4 million.
“There was absolutely no warning,” Leinbach said during a meeting in which he raised concerns that turning the warehouse into a federal facility would mean a loss of more than $800,000 in local tax money.
ICE has touted the income taxes its workers would pay, though the facilities themselves will be exempt from property taxes.
A Georgia center
In Social Circle, Ga., which also strongly supported Trump in 2024, officials were stunned by ICE’s plans for a facility that could hold 7,500 to 10,000 people after first learning about it through a reporter.
The city, which has a population of 5,000 and worries about the infrastructure needs for such a detention center, heard from the Homeland Security Department only after the $128.6-million sale of a 1-million-square-foot warehouse was completed. Like Socorro and Berks County, Social Circle questioned whether the water and sewage system could keep up.
ICE has said it did due diligence to ensure the sites don’t overwhelm city utilities. But Social Circle said the agency’s analysis relied on a yet-to-be built sewer treatment plant.
“To be clear, the City has repeatedly communicated that it does not have the capacity or resources to accommodate this demand, and no proposal presented to date has demonstrated otherwise,” the city said in a statement.
And in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, officials sent a scathing letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after ICE without warning bought a massive warehouse in a residential area about a mile from a high school. Arizona Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes, a Democrat, raised the prospect of going to court to have the site declared a public nuisance.
Crowds wait to speak in Socorro
Back in Socorro, people waiting to speak against the ICE facility spilled out of the City Council chambers, some standing beside murals paying tribute to the World War II-era bracero program that allowed Mexican farmworkers to be guest workers in the U.S. The program stoked Socorro’s economy and population before the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s began mass deportations aimed at people who had crossed the border illegally.
Eduardo Castillo, formerly an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, told city officials that it is intimidating but “not impossible” to challenge the federal government.
“If you don’t at least try,” he said, “you will end up with another inhumane detention facility built in your jurisdiction and under your watch.”
Hollingsworth and Lee write for the Associated Press and reported from Kansas City, Mo., and Socorro, respectively. AP writers Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.
When Tom Steyer was running a hedge fund in 2000, he wrote a letter telling some wealthy investors their money would soon flow through an offshore company that would shield their gains from U.S. taxes.
It was routine in finance, but could prove toxic in politics.
Now that the San Francisco billionaire has joined the crowd of Democrats running for president, much of what he did to build his personal fortune, including a stint at Goldman Sachs in the 1980s, could turn off voters. His fund’s investments in coal mining and private prisons are two of the biggest hazards.
Part of Steyer’s challenge is timing. Wall Street’s reputation is in tatters in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Many Democrats are upset about growing income inequality. And billionaires — President Trump first among them — are routinely demonized by the party’s left wing.
Steyer is the founder of Farallon Capital Management, one of America’s largest hedge funds, the high-risk investment pools for big investors. He left Farallon in 2012 after running the San Francisco firm for 26 years.
He did not mention his experience there when asked by The Times what qualified him to serve as president. He focused instead on his work fighting climate change and big corporations over the last decade.
Attacks by Steyer’s opponents have been mild so far, but that will change if he starts gaining support.
“He will have to answer for his involvement in anti-climate-control activities, his relationship to the coal industry, and his relationship to Wall Street, which young people particularly find abhorrent,” said Democratic ad maker Hank Sheinkopf, who is unaligned in the presidential race.
“In a political campaign, there is no past tense and there is no future tense. Everything in your life you’ve ever done, thought of and said is in present tense.”
In written responses to questions sent by email, Steyer expressed remorse over some of Farallon’s investments.
A key liability is Farallon’s 2005 investment of $34 million in Corrections Corp. of America, which runs migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many of the roughly two dozen Democrats in the presidential race have denounced profits from incarceration as immoral.
“I deeply regret that Farallon made that investment, and I personally ordered the investment in CCA to be sold because it did not accord with my values then or now,” Steyer said.
More troublesome for Steyer’s public image is the fund’s history of investing in fossil fuel projects, including a giant coal mine in Australia that generates vast quantities of carbon emissions.
The owners overcame protests by environmentalists and won permission to clear 3,700 acres of forest that served as a koala habitat and mine 12 million tons of coal per year. Steyer’s critics have long seen his past personal stake in coal mining as hypocritical.
The hedge fund led by Tom Steyer invested in an Australian coal mine that drew protesters in Sydney.
(Saleed Khan / AFP/Getty Images)
“If you’re running as a liberal, idealistic candidate, as Tom Steyer is, it’s a serious problem when the story you’re trying to tell uses words like private prisons and coal,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor. “It just goes directly against the rainbows and sunshine and clean air and better tomorrow narrative he’s trying to paint.”
Steyer said he left Farallon in part because of its holdings in fossil fuels. “I wish I’d made the move away from fossil fuels sooner,” he said.
Steyer, 62, muscled his way onto the public stage by becoming one of the Democratic Party’s top donors over the last decade. He put $74 million into the 2018 midterm election. He has carefully crafted his political profile around his spending to promote liberal causes, most visibly the fight against global warming and the drive to impeach President Trump.
Some of Steyer’s record has yielded bad publicity over the years as he weighed runs for elected office in California. But his entry into the presidential race on Tuesday and his vow to spend $100 million of his own money on his campaign will draw fresh scrutiny to the means he used to amass what Forbes estimates to be his net worth of $1.6 billion.
Steyer, who grew up on Manhattan’s East Side, started his career on Wall Street in the late 1970s at Morgan Stanley and worked later on mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs. In 1986, he opened Farallon, which grew from $9 million to $36 billion on his watch, according to Steyer.
Some Democrats say Steyer has atoned for his sins. RL Miller, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party’s environmental caucus, was perplexed by his candidacy and said his money would be better spent advancing other Democrats.
“I do feel he has demonstrated substantial good faith in that yes, he made a lot of money from bad places, but he’s been very, very open about the fact that he’s turned over a new leaf and is no longer taking money from those bad places and is instead spending to do good,” Miller said.
The business records of wealthy candidates are often weaponized by rivals. Former President Obama cast GOP challenger Mitt Romney in 2012 as a ruthless plutocrat who made millions of dollars on corporate takeovers that put thousands of Americans out of work. Romney co-founded Bain Capital, a private equity firm.
Mitt Romney’s career running a private equity firm was criticized by President Obama in the 2012 presidential campaign.
(Erik S. Lesser / EPA-Shutterstock)
Gray Davis won California’s Democratic primary for governor in 1998 after portraying rival Al Checchi as a tycoon who pillaged Northwest Airlines, firing thousands and forcing thousands more to take pay cuts.
“When these wealthy, self-financing first-time candidates want to throw their hat in the ring, whether they’re Democrat or Republican, they have to be prepared for a complete drill-down on how it is they made those millions of dollars,” said Garry South, who was Davis’ chief strategist.
As for Steyer, South said, “It’s pretty hard for me to see a billionaire on the Democratic side credibly take on the whole issue of wealth inequality.”
Within hours of Steyer’s announcement, two of his opponents took shots at him.
“I’m a bit tired of seeing billionaires trying to buy political power,” Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont told MSNBC.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is competing with Sanders for progressive voters, tweeted, “The Democratic primary should not be decided by billionaires, whether they’re funding super PACs or funding themselves.”
In an email seeking donations on Thursday, she said, “We need our candidates to compete to have the best ideas — not just to write themselves the biggest checks.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren says the Democratic presidential primary should not be decided by billionaires.
(Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)
Both Sanders and Warren, who frequently rail at what they see as unfair advantages for the super-rich, have declined to take money from Wall Street donors.
Steyer’s wealth will enable him to run more television ads than most of his opponents can afford. He is already spending $1.4 million on advertising over the next two weeks on national cable news networks and in the first four states to hold a primary or caucus.
“Maybe he feels he can overwhelm these questions by spending a lot of money telling his story the way he wants to tell it,” said David Axelrod, the architect of Obama’s campaigns. “The problem is in the presidential race, the coverage is so intense and social media such a big piece of that, these kinds of vulnerabilities get shared virally very readily, and I’m not sure you can overwhelm that, even with hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Steyer could also face questions about spending that much money on himself. “Does all that spending help in the end of the day or does it become an emblem of excess and self-aggrandizement?” Axelrod said.
Asked about his letter to Farallon investors on the British Virgin Islands company that was going to help them avoid federal taxes, Steyer did not address his past actions, but called for new taxes on the rich to reduce inequality.
“I use no offshore tax havens and pay all U.S. taxes in full,” he said. “I believe we should have a much simpler and fairer tax code and get rid of all loopholes.”
NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase acknowledged for the first time that it closed the bank accounts of Donald Trump and several of his businesses in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, the latest development in a legal saga between the president and the nation’s biggest bank over the issue known as “debanking.”
The acknowledgment came in a court filing submitted this week in Trump’s lawsuit against the bank and its leader, Jamie Dimon. The president sued for $5 billion, alleging that his accounts were closed for political reasons, disrupting his business operations.
“In February 2021, JPMorgan informed Plaintiffs that certain accounts maintained with JPMorgan’s CB and PB would be closed,” JPMorgan’s former chief administrative officer Dan Wilkening wrote in the court filing. The “PB” and “CB” stands for JPMorgan’s private bank and commercial bank.
Until now, JPMorgan has never admitted it closed the president’s accounts in writing after Jan. 6. The bank would only speak hypothetically about when the bank closes accounts and its reasons for closing accounts, citing bank privacy laws.
A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment beyond what the bank said in its legal filings.
Trump originally sued JPMorgan in Florida state court, where the president’s primary residence is now located. The filings this week are part of an effort by JPMorgan Chase to have the case moved from state to federal court and to have the jurisdiction of the case moved to New York, which is where the bank accounts were located and where Trump kept much of his business operations until recently.
Trump originally accused the bank of trade libel and violating state and federal unfair and deceptive trade practices.
In the original lawsuit, Trump said he tried to raise the issue personally with Dimon after the bank sent him notices that JPMorgan would close his accounts, and that Dimon assured Trump he would figure out what was happening. The lawsuit alleges Dimon failed to follow up with Trump.
Further, Trump’s lawyers allege that JPMorgan placed the president and his companies on a reputational “blacklist” that both JPMorgan and other banks use to keep clients from opening accounts with them in the future. The blacklist has yet to be defined by the president’s lawyers.
“If and when Plaintiffs explain what they mean by this ‘blacklist,’ JPMorgan will respond accordingly,” the bank’s lawyers said in a filing.
JPMorgan has previously said that although it regrets that Trump felt the need to sue the bank, the lawsuit has no merit.
The issue of debanking is at the center of the case. Debanking occurs when a bank closes the accounts of a customer or refuses to do business with a customer in the form of loans or other services. Once a relatively obscure issue in finance, debanking has become a politically charged issue in recent years, with conservative politicians arguing that banks have discriminated against them and their affiliated interests.
“In a devastating concession that proves President Trump’s entire claim, JPMorgan Chase admitted to unlawfully and intentionally de-banking President Trump, his family, and his businesses, causing overwhelming financial harm,” the president’s lawyers said in a statement. “President Trump is standing up for all those wrongly debanked by JPMorgan Chase and its cohorts, and will see this case to a just and proper conclusion.”
Debanking first became a national issue when conservatives accused the Obama administration of pressuring banks to stop extending services to gun stores and payday lenders under “Operation Choke Point.”
Trump and other conservative figures have alleged that banks cut them off from their accounts under the umbrella term of “reputational risk” after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump was impeached on a charge of inciting insurrection on Jan. 6, though not convicted in the Senate; and he was criminally indicted for his role in the riot and his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat, but that case was dismissed after he won the 2024 election.
Since Trump came back into office, the president’s banking regulators have moved to stop any banks from using “reputational risk” as a reason for denying service to customers.
This is not the first lawsuit Trump has filed against a big bank alleging that he was debanked. The Trump Organization sued credit card giant Capital One in March 2025 for similar reasons and allegations. The case is ongoing.
In a typical election year, the interest in the down-ballot race for California insurance commissioner musters modest interest at best.
That all changed on Jan. 7, 2025, when wildfires swept through L.A. County, damaging or destroying more than 18,000 homes and killing at least 31 people.
The resulting anger directed at the insurance industry over how it has handled claims has helped draw four Democrats into the race, who will be vying this weekend for a critical endorsement at the party’s annual convention in San Francisco ahead of the June 2 primary election.
“We haven’t seen this level of competition and, frankly, choice on the Democratic side since it first became an elected office in 1990,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Los Angeles insurance advocacy group. “They represent wide-ranging views and a broad diversity of candidates.”
Up for endorsement are state Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), whose district includes the Palisades fire zone; former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim; former state Sen. Steven Bradford; and San Francisco businessman Patrick Wolff, who has not held elective office.
Three Republicans have declared their candidacies, but that party’s convention isn’t until April. The filing deadline to file for the race is March 6.
The GOP field includes businessman Robert Howell, who lost by 20 points in the 2022 general election to current Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. Also running are insurance agent Stacy Korsgaden from Grover Beach, and attorney Merritt Farren, whose Pacific Palisades home burned down.
Peace and Freedom Party candidate Eduardo Vargas, a Los Angeles school teacher, is on the ballot too.
The race also follows Lara’s two troubled terms in office, during which he has been accused of cozying up to and receiving money from the insurance industry for his first campaign and conferences abroad.
Lara has denied any wrongdoing, and all the Democratic candidates have vowed not to accept insurance industry donations.
“For me and maybe for many survivors, it’s not a position that we ever thought much about, but now with many of our lives devastated by our dealings with insurers I think many survivors will be watching much more closely this time around,” said Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, a community group that has accused Lara of being soft on insurers and has called for his resignation.
Allen was perceived by some as the leading candidate for the party’s nomination when he announced his candidacy in September. He has held his seat for more than a decade and is the only sitting legislator in the race. He said he would not be running if not for the wildfire that struck his district.
“The fire certainly was a searing experience, helping hundreds of people get their claims paid right, but it kind of begs the question of why should you have to call your state senator to get treated right,” he said.
Allen’s platform includes a number of ideas to ensure policyholders are treated better, including requiring insurers to clearly explain claim denials. But also key to his campaign is stabilizing an insurance market that over the last several years has seen insurers drop policyholders by the hundreds of thousands, especially in fire-prone neighborhoods.
That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort. It’s rolls grew even more since the January fires and the insurer has been sued by fire victims over its claims practices. Allen wants to build insurer confidence in the market by having insurer requests for rate hikes reviewed in months, rather than the year or more they can drag out now.
He also points to his legislative record, especially his authorship of Proposition 4, which was approved by voters in 2024 and set aside $10 billion in general obligation bonds to fund climate resiliency and environmental protection projects — an important part, he said, of lowering insurance risks.
Allen has drawn a key endorsement from California Sen. Adam Schiff and as of Dec. 31 had about $1 million in the bank, more than any other candidate. But the race was shook up last month when progressive politician Kim declared her candidacy. She boasted an endorsement from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for whom she worked as his California political director during the 2020 presidential campaign.
She also has drawn attention for a plan to create a state-run disaster insurance policy for Californians.
Residents would continue to buy regular home insurance from the commercial market but would buy coverage for wildfires and other disasters from the state, similar to plans in some other countries.
The idea has come under sharp criticism from Court, who said it will shift the risk of costly disasters to taxpayers while allowing insurers to make profits from more predictable perils such as water and roof damage.
“We have to explore some different models, because the current system is not working. It’s too expensive and a market failure,” said Kim, adding that the plan could evolve.
Bradford, who represented communities in south L.A County and the South Bay in the Legislature, has been endorsed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He said he’s running as a pragmatist and unifier.
“What we’ve been doing for far too long has been a whole lot of finger pointing and doing the blame game,” he said.
Bradford wants insurers to open their pricing books and give homeowners “real, guaranteed” premium discounts for upgrading their property.
He also is proposing a public–private partnership that shares the risk for insurers who write policies in fire-prone neighborhoods.
Wolff, a political newcomer, is a Chartered Financial Analyst, real estate investor and former hedge manager who cites his experience building a home and auto insurance brokerage for financial services firm Capital One.
“I spent the first half of 2025 really deeply studying the commissioner’s role and the history, and the race — the politics of everything. And after really doing that deep dive, I decided to step forward,” said Wolff, who wrote his campaign a $500,000 check and loaned it another $100,000.
He also thinks rate hikes sought by insurers need to be reviewed more quickly but wants the insurance department to publish annual reports on how specific companies handled claims.
“The insurance industry has basically lobbied to keep that data anonymous at the company level, and I think it’s really important to make that information public,” Wolff said.
Under California’s open primary system, the top two candidates will move on to the Nov. 3 general election, which means two Democrats could run up against each other if a Republican isn’t able to consolidate the GOP vote.
Steve Maviglio, a longtime political consultant currently working for State Treasure Fiona Ma, who is seeking the office of lieutenant governor, said that the race is wide open.
“This is a statewide election with millions of people with candidates they’ve never heard of,” he said.
With multiple candidates seeking the endorsement, it may be hard for any single one to reach the 60% threshold of delegate votes needed.
“If no one is endorsed, somebody is going to have to be the breakout candidate, and the way you do that is with money or organization,” Maviglio said. “Until I see that happen, it’s totally up in the air.”
WASHINGTON — For a few hours on Friday, congressional Republicans seemed to get some relief from one of the largest points of friction they have had with the Trump administration. It didn’t last.
The Supreme Court struck down a significant portion of President Trump’s global tariff regime, ruling that the power to impose taxes lies with Congress. Many Republicans greeted the Friday morning decision with measured statements, some even praising it, and GOP leaders said they would work with Trump on tariffs going forward.
But by the afternoon, the president made clear he had no intention of working with Congress and would continue to go it alone by imposing a new global import tax. He set the new tax at 10% in an executive order, announcing Saturday he planned to hike it to 15%.
Trump is enacting the new tariff under a law that restricts the import taxes to 150 days and has never been invoked this way before. Though that decision is likely to have major implications for the global economy, it might also ensure that Republicans will have to keep answering for Trump’s tariffs for months to come, especially as the midterm elections near. Opinion polls have shown most Americans oppose Trump’s tariff policy.
“I have the right to do tariffs, and I’ve always had the right to do tariffs,” Trump said at a news conference Friday, contending that he doesn’t need Congress’ approval.
Tariffs have been one of the only areas where the Republican-controlled Congress has broken with Trump. Both the House and Senate at various points had passed resolutions intended to rein in the tariffs imposed on key trade partners such as Canada. It’s also one of the few issues about which Republican lawmakers, who came of age in a party that largely championed free trade, have voiced criticism of Trump’s economic policies.
“The empty merits of sweeping trade wars with America’s friends were evident long before today’s decision,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the former longtime Senate Republican leader, said in a statement Friday, noting that tariffs raise the prices of homes and disrupt other industries important to his home state.
Democrats’ approach
Democrats, looking to win back control of Congress, intend to make McConnell’s point their own. At a news conference Friday, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s new tariffs “will still raise people’s costs and they will hurt the American people as much as his old tariffs did.”
Schumer challenged Republicans to stop Trump from imposing the new global tariff. Democrats on Friday also called for refunds to be sent to U.S. consumers for the tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court.
“The American people paid for these tariffs and the American people should get their money back,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media.
The remarks underscored one of the Democrats’ central messages for the midterm campaign: that Trump has failed to make the cost of living more affordable and has inflamed prices with tariffs.
Small and midsize U.S. businesses have had to absorb the import taxes by passing them along to customers in the form of higher prices, employing fewer workers or accepting lower profits, according to an analysis by the JPMorganChase Institute.
Will Congress act?
The Supreme Court decision Friday made it clear that a majority of justices believe that Congress alone is granted authority under the Constitution to levy tariffs. Yet Trump quickly signed an executive order citing the Trade Act of 1974, which grants the president the power to impose temporary import taxes when there are “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits” or other international payment problems.
The law limits the tax to 150 days without congressional approval to extend it. The authority has never been used and therefore never tested in court.
Republicans at times have warned Trump about the potential economic fallout of his tariff plans. Yet before his “Liberation Day” of global tariffs last April, GOP congressional leaders declined to directly defy the president.
Some GOP lawmakers cheered on the new tariff policy, highlighting a generational divide among Republicans, with a mostly younger group fiercely backing Trump’s strategy. Rather than heed traditional free trade doctrine, they argue for “America First” protectionism, which they argue will revive U.S. manufacturing.
Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio freshman, slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday and called for GOP lawmakers to “codify the tariffs that had made our country the hottest country on Earth!”
A few Republican opponents of the tariffs, meanwhile, openly cheered the Supreme Court’s decision. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a critic of the administration who is not seeking reelection, said on social media that “Congress must stand on its own two feet, take tough votes and defend its authorities.”
Bacon predicted there would be more Republican resistance coming. He and a few other GOP members were instrumental this month in forcing a House vote on Trump’s tariffs on Canada. As that measure passed, Trump vowed political retribution for any Republican who voted to oppose his tariff plans.
Groves writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Matt Brown, Joey Cappelletti and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
SAN FRANCISCO — Leaders of the California Democratic Party, along with liberal activists and loyal power brokers, are openly expressing fear that their crowded field of candidates running for governor may splinter the vote and open the door to a surprise Republican victory in November.
Because of those concerns, the Democrats lagging at the bottom of the pack are being urged to drop out of the race to ensure the party’s political dominance in statewide elections survives the 2026 election.
“California Democrats are prepared to do what’s required,” state party chairman Rusty Hicks told reporters at the California Democratic Party’s annual convention on Friday. “We are ready and willing and able to do what’s required … to ensure we have a strong candidate coming out of the primary to do what’s required in November.”
Nine prominent Democrats are running to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, compared to two top GOP candidates, and could divide the Democratic electorate enough that the two Republicans could receive the most votes in the June primary and advance to the November election. Under California’s “jungle primary” system, the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.
Hicks was deferential to the Democratic candidates who have long-served in public office, and have compelling personal tales and the experience to take the helm of the state. But he said there is the harsh political reality that a viable candidate needs to raise an enormous amount of money to have a winning campaign in a state of 23.1 million registered voters and some of the most expensive media markets in the nation.
The party, its allies and the candidates themselves have a “collective commitment to ensuring we do not see a Republican elected [for governor],” Hicks said.
While Hicks and other party leaders did not publicly name the candidates who ought to leave the race, among the candidates lagging in the polls are state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former state Controller Betty Yee, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.
Democratic voters vastly outnumber the number of registered Republicans in the state, and no Republican has been elected to statewide office since 2006.
But given the sprawling field of gubernatorial candidates, the lack of a clear front-runner and the state’s unique primary system, the race appears up for grabs. According to an average of the most recent opinion polls, conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — both Republicans — are tied for first place, according to Real Clear Politics. Each received the support of 15.5% of voters. The top Democrat, Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin, Calif., was backed by 12.5%.
In 2012, Republicans finished in first and second place in the race for a San Bernardino County congressional district — despite Democrats having a solid edge in voter registration. The four Democrats running for the seat split the vote, opening the door for a victory by GOP Rep. Gary Miller. Pete Aguilar, one of the Democrats who lost in the primary, went on to win that seat in 2014 and has served in Congress ever since.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) on Friday pushed back at the fears that two Republicans will win the top two gubernatorial spots in June.
“That’s not going to happen,” she said in an interview after speaking at a young Democrats’ reception. “And everything that you should know about the Democrats this year is we are unified. As I say, our diversity is our strength, our unity is our power. And everybody knows that there’s too much at stake.”
However, the scenario has prompted a cross section of the typically fractious party to unite behind the belief the field must shrink, whether by candidates’ choice or through pressure.
Jodi Hicks, the leader of Planned Parenthood’s California operations, said that the organization is laser-focused on congressional races, but having two Republican gubernatorial candidates “would be nothing short of devastating.”
“We have not weighed in on the governor’s race but we are paying close attention to whether this comes to play, and whether or not we do decide to weigh in and make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said.
Newsom and legislative Democrats have tried to buffer the massive federal funding cuts to reproductive care. A November election with two Republicans on the gubernatorial ballot would eliminate a key partner in Sacramento, and could impact turnout in down-ballot congressional and legislative races.
“A top-two Republican [race] would certainly have dire consequences for the midterm battle and to the governor’s office,” Jodi Hicks said.
Lorena Gonzalez, the leader of California Federation of Labor Unions, noted that her organization’s endorsement process begins on Tuesday.
“I think we are going to have some pretty honest discussions with candidates about their individual paths and where they are,” she said. “They’re all great candidates, so many of them are really good folks. But it’s starting to get to be that time.”
She expects the field to begin to thin in the coming days and weeks.
The conversation went beyond party leaders, taking place among delegates such as Gregory Hutchins, an academic labor researcher from Riverside.
“My goal at the convention, it’s not necessarily that the party coalesces around one particular candidate, but more, this is a test to see what candidates have a level of support that they can mount a successful campaign,” said the 29-year-old, who said he hopes to see some candidates drop out after the weekend.
“Am I concerned long term that [a top-two Republican runoff] could be a thing? Yes and no,” he said “I’m not concerned that we’re not going to solve this problem before the primary, but I do think we need to start getting serious about, ‘We need to solve this problem soon.’”
Not everyone agreed.
Tim Paulson, a San Francisco Democrat who supports Yee, called efforts to push people out of the race “preemptive disqualification.”
“This is nothing but scare tactics to get people out of the race,” he said. “This is still a vibrant primary. Nobody knows who the front-runner is yet.”
Bob Galemmo, 71, countered that many people did not believe Donald Trump would be elected president in 2016 and fears two Republicans could advance to the general election.
“You should never say never,” he said. “If we could get down to like four or five [candidates], that would be helpful.”
The efforts had already began.
RL Miller, the chair of the state Democratic Party’s environmental caucus, said Yee ought to drop out.
Yee, “who is at the bottom of the polls, needs to be taking a good long look at whether she is serving the party or being selfish by staying in the race,” Miller said.
Yee, a former state party vice chair, pushed back forcefully, saying pressure to drop out of the race “would just be undemocratic.”
“First of all, I’ve served this party for a long time. I don’t do it out of selfishness, by any means,” she said at a Saturday gathering where she provided breakfast burritos to delegates. “But I’ll just say this — the race is wide open.”
Yee‘s campaign manager noted that 40% of voters are undecided, and the candidate said no one has asked her directly to exit the race, but that someone started a rumor a month or two ago that she was going to drop out and run for insurance commissioner instead.
“I’m not dropping out, and I don’t think any candidate should go out,” Yee said.
Calderon said Swalwell had urged him to get out of the race.
Calderon noted the largest group of voters is still undecided and defended staying in the race to try to reach those voters after speaking at a gubernatorial forum at the Commonwealth Club on Friday
“I stay very consistent in that 1 to 3% range,” he joked. “But my challenge is access to resources and visibility, which is something that could change within a day with the right backing and support.”
Swalwell and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
NEW ORLEANS — A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms to take effect.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12 to 6 to lift a block that a lower court first placed on the law in 2024. In the opinion released Friday, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law.
That’s partly because it’s not yet clear how prominently schools may display the religious text, whether teachers will refer to the Ten Commandments during classes or if other texts like the Mayflower Compact or the Declaration of Independence will also be displayed, the majority opinion said.
Without those sorts of details, the panel decided that it did not have enough information to weigh any 1st Amendment issues that might arise from the law. In other words, there aren’t enough facts available to “permit judicial judgment rather than speculation,” the majority wrote in the opinion.
In a concurring opinion, Circuit Judge James Ho, an appointee of President Trump, wrote that the law “is not just constitutional — it affirms our nation’s highest and most noble traditions.”
The six judges who voted against the decision wrote a series of dissents, with some arguing that the law exposes children to government-endorsed religion in a place they are required to be, presenting a clear constitutional burden.
Circuit Judge James L. Dennis, an appointee of President Clinton, wrote that the law “is precisely the kind of establishment the Framers anticipated and sought to prevent.”
The ruling is the result of the court’s choice to rehear the case with all judges present after three of them ruled in June that the Louisiana law was unconstitutional. The reversal comes from one of the nation’s most conservative appeals courts, and one that’s known for propelling Republican policies to a similarly conservative U.S. Supreme Court.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry celebrated the ruling Friday, declaring, “Common sense is making a comeback!”
The ACLU of Louisiana, one of several groups representing plaintiffs, pledged to explore all legal pathways to continue fighting the law.
Arkansas has a similar law that has been challenged in federal court. And a Texas law took effect on Sept. 1, marking the widest reaching attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools.
Some Texas school districts were barred from posting them after federal judges issued injunctions in two cases challenging the law, but they have already gone up in many classrooms across the state as districts paid to have the posters printed themselves or accepted donations.
The laws are among pushes by Republicans, including Trump, to incorporate religion into public school classrooms. Critics say doing so violates the separation of church and state, while backers say the Ten Commandments are historical and part of the foundation of U.S. law.
Joseph Davis, an attorney representing Louisiana in the case, applauded the court for upholding the nation’s “time-honored tradition of recognizing faith in the public square.”
Families from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, have challenged the laws, as have clergy members and nonreligious families.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, another group involved in the challenge, called the ruling “extremely disappointing” and said the law will force families “into a game of constitutional whack-a-mole” where they will have to separately challenge each school district’s displays.
Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill said after the ruling that she had sent schools several correct examples of the required poster.
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The court found that the law had no secular purpose but served a plainly religious purpose.
And in 2005, the Supreme Court held that such displays in a pair of Kentucky courthouses violated the Constitution. At the same time, the court upheld a Ten Commandments marker on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol in Austin.
Schoenbaum and Boone write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Saturday that he was raising the global tariff he wants to impose to 15%, up from 10% he had announced a day earlier after the Supreme Court declared most of his tariffs to be illegal.
Trump said in a social media post that he was making the decision “Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday.”
After the court ruled he didn’t have the emergency power to impose many sweeping tariffs, Trump signed an executive order Friday night that would allow him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on imports from around the world. The catch is that those tariffs would be limited to 150 days unless Congress agrees to extend them.
Trump’s post, significantly ratcheting up a global tax on imports to the U.S. yet again, was the latest sign that despite the court’s check, the Republican president was intent on continuing to wield in an unpredictable manner his favorite tool for the economy and to apply global pressure. Trump’s shifting announcements over the last year that he was raising and sometimes lowering import taxes with little notice jolted markets and rattled nations.
Saturday’s announcement seemed to be a sign that Trump intends to use the temporary global tariffs to continue that pattern.
“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” Trump wrote in his post.
Under the order Trump signed Friday night, the 10% tariff was scheduled to take effect starting Feb. 24. The White House did not immediately respond to a message inquiring when the president would sign an updated order.
In addition to the temporary tariffs that Trump wants to set at 15%, the president said Friday that he was also pursuing tariffs through other sections of federal law that require investigation by the Commerce Department.
Trump leveled pointed personal attacks on the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him in a 6-3 vote, two of whom he appointed during his first term, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump, at a news conference Friday, said of the court majority: “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families.”
He was still seething Friday night, complaining on social media about Gorsuch, Barrett and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who wrote the majority opinion.
On Saturday morning, Trump issued another post declaring that his “new hero” was Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, whom he also appointed and who wrote a 63-page dissent. He also praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who joined Kavanaugh in the minority.
The president said of the three dissenting justices: “There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from David Zahniser and Sandra McDonald, giving you the latest on city and county government.
There was a brief discussion on the L.A. City Council floor, with hardly any disagreement, before a motion brought by Councilmember Monica Rodriguez passed on Tuesday.
Rodriguez wants to allow city officials to enter hillside properties in “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones,” even without an owner’s permission, to clear hazardous materials and homeless encampments. The goal is to stop encampment fires that could grow into wildfires.
Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martínez and Ysabel Jurado voted against the proposed change to the city’s municipal code, citing details they wanted addressed, but said they agreed with its spirit.
A third councilmember, Eunisses Hernandez, also voted against the measure, though she did not speak during the meeting.
The political implications of the seemingly routine vote could play out more bitterly over the next several months as Soto-Martínez and Hernandez, both members of the council’s four-person “progressive bloc,” run for reelection in their districts, which include fire-prone hillsides.
The proposal could become another wedge issue on homelessness for the two members, just as the city’s controversial anti-encampment law, Municipal Code section 41.18, was in the 2022 election.
That year, it was Soto-Martínez and Hernandez who were running against incumbents and took a progressive stance against 41.18, which allows council members to designate areas near schools, libraries, senior centers and other sensitive areas as no-camping zones. The two said they believed the law was ineffective at solving homelessness, merely shuffling people around without addressing the root issues.
Now, as the two council members defend their seats, Rodriguez’s proposal has already spurred similar attacks from would-be incumbent-busters.
MariaLou Calanche, a nonprofit leader seeking to unseat Hernandez in District 1, lives in a “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone” at the bottom of a hill by Debs Park. The area is full of dry brush, and Calanche said in an interview that parts of the park catch fire every summer.
“The council district has a lot of hillside property and open space. Debs Park has encampments in it that have not been cleared and that’s public property,” said Calanche, who formerly served on the city Police Commission. “I’m concerned that the current council member puts ideology over the safety of the citizens and residents.”
Calanche said she would consider highlighting Hernandez’s “no” vote on campaign mailers.
“This is such a simple way to make a difference,” Calanche said. “It just seems incredible they would not be supportive.”
Hernandez said she is open to supporting Rodriguez’s proposal but that it fails to define the type of hazard that would allow city officials to enter private property without permission.
“When you expand government authority without tight definitions and guardrails, you end up with inconsistent enforcement and expensive lawsuits,” she said in a statement.
She said she hopes to work with the city attorney’s office, Fire Department and others to make sure the policy is “precise, intentional, legally sound and actually focused on reducing fire risk.”
In District 13, Dylan Kendall, a nonprofit founder and entrepreneur who is running against Soto-Martínez, said she supports the “common-sense” proposal and that her opponent’s vote was “irresponsible.”
The district, which stretches from Hollywood to Atwater Village, includes high fire-risk areas like Elysian Heights and parts of Silver Lake.
“We know what [firefighters are] seeing on the ground: encampments on or adjacent to private property with exposed wiring, pressurized fuel canisters and dense vegetation, and a maze of legal questions about who controls the site when they respond to a call,” she said in a statement. “If a private owner cannot or will not remove combustible materials and encampments that clearly increase wildfire risk, the city should be able to step in, clear the danger.”
Before Tuesday’s vote, Soto-Martínez said he would have supported the proposal had it included a definition of what exactly a fire hazard is, making the same point that Hernandez later did.
Soto-Martínez had supported Rodriguez’s initial proposal at the council’s Public Safety Committee, which was to ask for a report on what municipal code changes would be needed.
But on Tuesday, Rodriguez amended her motion to go straight to the city attorney’s office to change the municipal code. She said she wanted to accelerate the change because of the importance of preventing encampment fires.
Soto-Martínez also expressed an underlying concern that echoed his earlier statements about 41.18, which he fiercely opposed.
“What I don’t want to see is this being used as a tool to push homeless folks from one side of the street to the other side of the street,” he said.
Notably, Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is running for mayor against incumbent Karen Bass, voted in favor of Rodriguez’s motion.
“The problem that this motion is identifying — gaining permission to access private property in Very High Fire Severity Zones — is one that needs to be resolved to ensure that we are mitigating the risk for a serious fire to our fullest capacity,” Raman, who opposed 41.18 and is a member of the council’s progressive bloc along with Jurado, said in a statement.
Former Councilmember Mike Bonin, who runs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA, said the hillside encampment issue is less clear-cut than 41.18 but could still prove to be divisive.
“This is the kind of thing political consultants salivate over,” he said. “It’s an example of taking an issue that even from the council debate seemed to appreciate the shades of gray and making it black and white.”
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State of play
— KARATE KAREN: Bass said at a rally in Leimert Park on Sunday that she is ready to fight off a challenge from Raman, invoking her training in karate to remind Angelenos that she is not too nice to battle. “I was trained to fight physically,” she said, stooping into a bow. “But if you know the martial arts, you know to bow before you kill somebody. You know to smile to throw them off.”
The mayor said she was joking, adding, “But seriously, we know how to fight and we know how to organize.”
— SCHOOL LAYOFFS: The Los Angeles Unified School District board — confronted with deficit spending and a forecast of insolvency in three years — narrowly voted to send out 3,200 notices of possible layoffs. The move, which is ultimately expected to result in 657 job cuts, is strongly opposed by labor unions as unnecessary and harmful to students.
— UCLA AX: UCLA fired its chief financial officer, Stephen Agostini, saying he inaccurately described the school’s budget deficit. The termination comes after Agostini told the school newspaper, the Daily Bruin, that “financial management flaws and failures” predating his arrival led to a $425-million deficit. The school claimed his comments were inaccurate.
— PRESSURE ON WASSERMAN:Casey Wasserman faced more calls to step down as chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics over racy emails with convicted sex Ghislaine Maxwell from decades ago. Bass, along with some gubernatorial candidates, was among those joining the chorus.
“My opinion is that he should step down,” Bass said in a CNN interview.
— STRICTLY BUSINESS: A coalition of business and hotel industry leaders submitted more than 79,000 signatures in support of a measure to repeal the gross receipts tax on L.A. businesses. The measure, proposed for the November ballot, would punch an $800-million hole in the city budget if approved by voters.
— WRITE IT RIGHT: Angelenos hoping to write arguments for or against three city ballot measures — dealing with cannabis and hotel taxes — can apply by Friday with the office of Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson. The arguments will be published in the Voter Information Pamphlet mailed out before the June 2 election.
— PUSHING FOR PARK: The union that represents rank-and-file police officers is putting $278,000 into efforts to reelect Councilmember Traci Park, according to a filing submitted to the city’s Ethics Commission. The money from the Los Angeles Police Protective League will go toward polling and canvassers in Park’s coastal district.
— SLAP ON THE WRIST: City Council candidate Jose Ugarte, who is running to replace his boss Curren Price in District 9, has agreed to pay $25,000 for committing a city ethics violation. Ugarte admitted that on his financial interest forms, he failed to disclose a consulting firm he owns and income he made. He has called it a “clerical reporting error.”
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program was in Skid Row in Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s district providing assistance to homeless people during the heavy rains this week.
On the docket next week: The Charter Reform Commission will meet Thursday to address City Council expansion, ranked choice voting, mayoral powers and more.
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.
WASHINGTON — Even while the Warren Commission was preparing its report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there were disagreements over whether the same bullet had struck Kennedy and John B. Connally. Among the dissenters: President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Besides, Johnson asked Warren Commission member Sen. Richard Russell (D-Ga.), “what difference does it make which bullet got Connally?”
Arguments over the same-bullet theory continue more than 30 years after the attack in which Kennedy was killed and Connally, then the governor of Texas, was wounded.
Johnson’s conversation with Russell was included among tapes released Friday by the National Archives and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Tex.
The tapes reviewed in Austin disclosed that Connally called Johnson on March 2, 1967, to discuss claims that Cuba was involved in the assassination. In other phone conversations, Johnson told aides to keep up with New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison’s investigation into the slaying.
Garrison’s theories and writings about the assassination formed the basis for Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie, “JFK.”
Johnson, however, said he did not believe the CIA-Cuba theory. In a Feb. 18, 1967, conversation with then-acting Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark, Johnson said the Cuban theory was as preposterous as if he were told that his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, “was taking dope.”
Johnson’s conversation with Russell, about the bullet that hit Connally, occurred on Sept. 18, 1964. They discussed progress in preparing the report on Kennedy’s slaying.
The senator noted some members of the commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren believed that “the same bullet that hit Kennedy first is the one that hit Connally.”
Responding to Johnson’s musing, Russell said, “Well, it don’t make much difference.” He added: “Well, I don’t believe it. . . .”
“I don’t either,” Johnson responded.
Russell said the differences among the commission members were to be noted in the report.
Connally, riding in the front seat of the presidential limousine, was wounded when Kennedy, in the back seat, was slain in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Investigators agree that three shots were fired, but through the years conspiracy arguments have turned on whether the same bullet could have passed through Kennedy’s upper back and hit Connally.
The two were struck almost at the same instant. If the same bullet could not have wounded both men, there had to have been a second bullet–and therefore a second gunman, according to those who believe in a conspiracy.
When Connally died last summer, researchers asked to recover bullet fragments from his body to help resolve the issue, but the request was turned down.
At a luncheon this week for L.A. County politicos, Supervisor Kathryn Barger pitched what she framed as a commonsense reform.
Legislators in Sacramento, she argued, need to change a 2019 law that extended the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits, opening the floodgates for decades-old claims that have cost the county nearly $5 billion and counting in payouts.
“I want them in Sacramento to fix it,” she said. “I have to believe that we are the tip of the iceberg.”
The controversial law, Assembly Bill 218, has led to thousands of claims over abuse that took place in schools, juvenile halls and foster homes. Supporters say it continues to give survivors a chance at justice, while Barger and other officials warn the cost of the litigation is driving local governments to the brink of bankruptcy.
Rolling back AB 218, critics argue, is the single most obvious thing state lawmakers can do this legislative session.
The push has gained momentum amid concerns of fraud in the first of two payouts approved last year by L.A. County officials. At $4 billion, it was the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history, with the money set aside for more than 11,000 victims.
The Times reported last fall on allegations of fabricated claims filed by plaintiffs within the settlement, which prompted L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman to open an investigation. Hochman told the supervisors this week that his office is reviewing “thousands of claims” for fraudulent submissions and predicted savings in the “hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.”
Speaking at the event Wednesday, Barger suggested capping attorneys fees — acknowledging that some high-powered attorneys in the room were involved in the county’s litigation.
Out of the $4-billion payout, she said, “about $1.5 billion will go to attorney fees — present company included.”
Barger referenced a former state Assembly speaker known for bare-knuckle tactics, which she said were needed now in the Capitol.
“If Willie Brown were up there, I’m sure he’d lock everyone in a room and slap some sense into them at this point,” she said.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has asked California legislators to consider changes to AB 218. Critics say sexual abuse lawsuits are driving local governments to the brink of bankruptcy, while supporters say it is one of the few ways for victims of abuse to get justice. Rivas spoke in Ventura County on Nov. 18, 2025.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
This session, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has assigned a group of legislators to look at what changes might be made to the law.
A spokesman for Rivas, Nick Miller, said the goal is to provide “meaningful access to justice for all survivors” without forcing service cuts in schools and governments.
“There is a group of members discussing possible solutions that strike the right balance on this critical issue,” Miller said.
It’s a tightrope walk that no legislator has mastered.
Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), who tried last year to increase the burden of proof for these cases, was branded a protector of predators.
Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) got further with a pared-down bill only to watch it blow up last session over concerns he was trampling on victims’ rights.
“I worked hard to strike the middle ground,” Laird said. “It just was too hard.”
Organized labor, a powerful voice in Sacramento, could sway the equation. County unions said they were told repeatedly at the bargaining table last year that they couldn’t get raises because of the massive sex abuse settlements, potentially setting them on a collision course with victim advocates.
Lorena Gonzalez, who wrote AB 218 in 2019 before leaving the Legislature to head up the California Federation of Labor Unions, said lobbying firms had been urging unions recently to take the lead on convincing the Assembly to change the law. The union leaders have yet to take a stance, she said.
“Although there’s some desire to especially fix what happened in L.A., there wasn’t an overwhelming desire to roll it back,” she said.
While serving in the state Legislature, Lorena Gonzalez authored AB 218, a state law that extended the statute of limitations for lawsuits over sexual abuse in government facilities. Gonzalez, now with the California Labor Federation, spoke at Balletto Vineyards in Santa Rosa, Calif., on April 26, 2024.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
A Times investigation last fall found nine clients of Downtown L.A. Law Group, a law firm that represents thousands of plaintiffs in the county’s largest settlement, who claimed that recruiters had paid them to sue. Some clients said they were told to make up stories of abuse that became the crux of their lawsuit.
The firm, also known as DTLA, has denied paying any client to sue. Andrew Morrow, the main attorney on the cases for DTLA, argued in a Feb. 13 court filing that the recent subpoena by the State Bar seeking their court records as part of an investigation into the firm amounted to an “ill-advised fishing expedition.” The firm argued that allowing the State Bar to review its filings violates clients’ privacy.
“No one disputes that these allegations are troubling and, if true, serious,” Morrow wrote. “However, untested allegations printed in a local newspaper — no matter how compelling — do not override the privacy rights” of victims.
Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay), a longtime advocate for sex abuse survivors who vehemently opposed the last attempt at changing AB 218, said that “there’s all kinds of discussions about potential solutions” for fraud underway in the Legislature.
But limiting victims’ ability to sue, as some have called on lawmakers to do, is a clear no-go, she said.
“Silencing victims is not the way to get out fraud,” she said.
Like many legislators, she pinned some of the blame for the alleged fraud on poor vetting by lawyers for L.A. County. The county has said the cost of taking depositions for more than 11,000 cases would be “astronomical,” and that no records exist for many of the older cases, leaving them defenseless.
In a statement to The Times, a spokesperson for the L.A. County counsel’s office said the Legislature created AB 218 “without a single safeguard against fraud.”
“That is their failure to own,” the statement said. “This is the system the Legislature built, and they need to fix it.”
The county maintains it is not trying to squash victims’ rights, but rather keep vital services — pools, parks, health clinics — open.
“I am tired of whenever a government official stands up and says, ‘Hey, there needs to be some reform here,’ that we’re accused of victim blaming, pedophile protecting,” says Joseph Nicchitta, the county’s acting chief executive.
After agreeing to the $4-billion payout in April, county officials opted into a second $828-million settlement in October covering an additional 400 cases. Since then, more than 5,000 cases have been filed that are not part of either settlement and still need to be resolved.
“Let me tell you what will not work for L.A. County,” Nicchitta said. “The nibbles around the edges — ‘Make the procedure a little tighter, we’ll require a couple more documents.’”
He said he believes the Legislature needs to weigh the need to pay survivors against the obligation to keep the social safety net intact. One solution, Nicchitta said, could involve a victims compensation fund that would eliminate the need for someone to hire an attorney in order to submit a claim and receive money.
“Acknowledge the harm, provide real competition, [and] do it fast,” he said. “You don’t need a lawyer.”
John Manly, a lawyer who has represented sex abuse survivors for more than 20 years, sits at his law office in Irvine on Dec. 29, 2023.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
After getting flooded with sex abuse claims related to juvenile facilities following a similar change in the statute of limitations, Maryland capped sex abuse cases against government entities last year at $400,000 and limited attorneys’ fees to 25% for cases resolved in court.
For many California trial attorneys, ideas such as these are nonstarters.
“The reason they’re proposing a victims’ fund is they continue to know that those people don’t have any political power,” said John Manly, a veteran sex abuse attorney who is part of the second L.A. County settlement. “The only power they have is to hire a lawyer and get justice.
SAN DIEGO — Light rain slicked the pavement in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood on a recent morning, forcing some homeless people to scatter while others huddled under tents or slept through the drizzle.
I was on foot with Dr. Aaron Meyer, a psychiatrist frustrated by California’s most visible crisis: The failure to provide help for many of the people who need it most, despite all the programs rolled out over the years, and all the billions of dollars spent.
We see them in parks, on sidewalks and in other public spaces in obvious distress, and we’ve heard the never-ending conversations and political promises of better days. The problem goes well beyond homelessness: Thousands of severely ill people live with exasperated family members who wear themselves out trying to get help for loved ones.
“We have a history of services that have ended up prioritizing less severe people rather than the most severe,” said Meyer, a UC San Diego associate clinical professor of psychiatry who was speaking on his own behalf, as a university rep.
In searching for answers, Meyer teamed with lawyer Ann Marie Council, a former San Diego deputy city attorney who once worked in drug court. She was struck by the number of clients spun through the system countless times without getting treatment for addiction or mental illness.
“I was really sick and tired of watching people go to jail when they weren’t getting the help they needed,” said Council, who retired from public service and started Quarter Turn Strategies, a nonprofit focused on practical solutions to fractured public services.
It turns out the doctor and the lawyer make a pretty good team. In their research, they came upon a tool that could address chronic severe mental illness and addiction, and it was hiding in plain sight: in a book of California statutes, namely Section 5200 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code.
The state law governing involuntary commitments and conservatorships for people with severe mental illness is known as the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, and it includes the commonly used Section 5150 for those deemed “gravely disabled.” The process begins with a 72-hour hold that can lead to a longer commitment, but often does not.
Section 5200 outlines a far more thorough evaluation and care plan than 5150. The 5200 process can be initiated by anybody concerned about someone who is gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others (with misdemeanor penalties for abuse of the reporting privilege).
Dr. Susan Partovi, who has practiced street medicine in Los Angeles for many years, has a term for the 72-hour hold under 5150:
“We call it the 72-second hold,” she said.
I’ve written previously about Partovi’s moral outrage over the number of severely ill people who either are not deemed “gravely disabled” or who spin repeatedly through three-day holds and return to the same self-destructive routines. I’ve also heard her talk about who among her clients is likely to die next.
Partovi is a member of Grave Disability Workgroup of California, which has endorsed a research paper on 5200, “The Lost Legal Pathway to Mental Health Care,” co-written by Meyer and Council and released a few weeks ago by Quarter Turn. It detailed the frustrations of families, outreach workers and first responders and concluded that 5200 could help break down some of the bureaucratic barriers to life-changing mental health care.
In San Diego, as Meyer and I passed a woman trying to erect a tent in the rain and a person asleep on a littered patch of weeds, I asked him to explain the difference between 5150 and 5200.
Under a 5150 commitment, he said, a person is often brought to an emergency room for an assessment by someone who is not necessarily a behavioral health specialist. A decision is then made about whether the person meets the legal criteria for an involuntary hold.
“If they don’t, then they’re released, and there’s no requirement for any care coordination,” Meyer said. Under 5200, a full medical evaluation is required with a multidisciplinary team, “and it also requires a coordinated care plan on discharge,” raising “the hope of leading to something substantive.”
In their research, Meyer and Council found that 5200 is not known to be in use in any of the state’s 58 counties, with public officials either unaware of it or under the impression that it’s an unnecessary tool given other initiatives over the decades, and cost of implementation could be a problem.
Meyer argues that the state spends billions without addressing glaring needs, and 5200 could cost less than roller-coastering people through hospitals, courts, jails and prisons without putting them on a healthier track.
Meyer said he’s gotten pushback from civil libertarians and disability rights groups, both of which have long opposed coerced treatment and argued instead for a host of greater resources in housing and preventive healthcare, and for more outreach that can lead to voluntary treatment.
I understand the pitfalls of forced treatment, having been on a 20-year journey with someone who initially resisted help and objected to medication. It’s true that forced treatment doesn’t always get the desired outcome, and can backfire if it makes the person more resistant to treatment.
But some people can become too sick to make a decision in their own best interest, which is why we’ve seen so many of them at death’s door, living in squalor and desperation, tortured by psychosis or chewed up by killer drugs.
Care Courts, which were meant to help address this, have not yet had the anticipated impact, and some families have felt let down. Meyer and Council say that although those courts can implement 5200, that isn’t happening yet.
The fact that 5200 is little known and never used “is another example of systems failure,” said former state senator and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
Steinberg said although 5200 isn’t a one-step answer to homelessness or untreated severe mental and addiction illness, it’s worth implementing given the existing “set of systems that are not responsive to people who are the sickest of the sick.”
Jon Sherin, former head of L.A. County’s mental health department, called 5200 “one of the most powerful tools” available and said he tried to implement it several years ago but faced some of the same resistance described by Meyer.
“If you used it thoughtfully and had capacity, you could actually have a massive impact,” said Sherin, who urged those running for governor to “bring 5200 into the limelight and guarantee resources to counties.”
The same can be said about the race for Los Angeles mayor. Despite some progress, homelessness is still a public catastrophe, and gravely ill people are a haunting representation of policy failures.
Supporters of 5200 include Bay Area resident Teresa Pasquini, a mental health reform advocate whose brother and son have both dealt with severe mental illness. Pasquini, whose causes include “Moms on a Mission” and “Housing that Heals,” told me her son, now in his 40s, has been through the 5150 turnstile 40 times.
Pasquini said people in her circumstances have been accused of wanting to shed their troubles by having their kids locked away. All she really wants, she said, is for him to be housed and safe and given proper care.
“We need all the tools we can get … and we need 5200,” Pasquini said. “I’ve watched my son walk out the front door in handcuffs over 40 times. Treatment is not a bad word.”
