ballots

Across the country, debates over voter identification laws have become a flash point in broader fights about election security and voting access.

Supporters of voter ID laws say they are needed to prevent election fraud and ensure only eligible voters cast ballots. Critics argue there is little evidence of noncitizens voting and say the requirements instead would reduce voter participation in elections.

Under California law, voters in the state are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail. The state does require ID when registering to vote, and residents must swear under penalty of perjury that they are eligible to vote and they are a U.S. citizen.

Weber has opposed proposals that would require voters to show identification in order to cast a ballot. She and many Democratic leaders argue that voter ID laws can create barriers for eligible voters, particularly those who may not have easy access to government-issued identification.

Weber believes Voter ID efforts are meant to sow doubt in the integrity of the elections system.

“When you really get to it, Voter ID is a smoke screen for trying to create the idea that this is a corrupt system,” she said.

Weber instead supports policies aimed at expanding participation among eligible voters, including vote-by-mail ballots and automatic registration.

Conversely, Wagner wants the state to require voters to show ID at the polls. He argues that requiring identification would strengthen public trust in election results and align California with practices used in many other states. He said it’s patronizing to minorities when critics argue it’s hard for them to get identification.

“You need an ID to drive,” he said. “You need an ID to fly in a plane. You need one to buy alcohol. You need it to buy tobacco.”

Wagner has been working with proponents of the Voter ID ballot measure to raise money and helped gather signatures. That statewide ballot measure would require state or local elections officials to verify that Californians registering to vote are U.S. citizens by “using government data,” which according to supporters could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, jury summons information and other government records.

“What I’m pledging the people of California is that if they pass voter ID, I will protect it. I will sue if I have to,” Wagner said. “If I am secretary of state, I will implement it and hold the registrars accountable and hold my office and myself accountable for doing the will of the people.”

Robert Luna seeks a second term as L.A. County Sheriff but faces nine challengers, including predecessor Alex Villanueva, whom he defeated in 2022.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Robert Luna is hoping to be the first L.A. County Sheriff to win a second term in more than 10 years. He points to a reduction in crime for the county during his term and says he brought stability after a series of one-term sheriffs since 2014.

Last year, deputy-patrolled areas of the county experienced a 12.5% drop in serious crimes from the previous year, including a drop of 12% in murders and 20% in auto thefts.

Perhaps the most vocal and well-known of Luna’s opponents is his predecessor, Alex Villanueva, who paints a picture of a department in disarray, with low morale and trouble in recruiting. Villanueva claims his return would keep deputies from leaving and appeal to new hires.

Former sheriff’s Lt. Eric Strong, who also served as chief of campus safety and security operations at the county probation office, has entered the fray once again after finishing third in 2022. Strong has called for increased transparency by the department, advocating for the agency to work with oversight bodies like the Office of Inspector General and the Civilian Oversight Committee.

“Nothing has really changed, and that’s why I’m running,” Strong said.

Mike Bornman, a retired former captain, also is vying for the job. He’s looking to lift morale inside the department, which he said has faced a series of challenges with social movements that have been “anti-cop,” such as the George Floyd protests of 2020 and calls to defund the police.

“There’s been no real pushback from law enforcement; there’s been nothing coming from this office relative to that,” Bornman said.

He said the department is struggling with difficulty in recruitment, significant overtime hours and deputies at risk of burnout.

Sgt. Karla Carranza is running again after an unsuccessful campaign in 2022. At one point assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A., Carranza has made jail reform one of her top campaign focuses, promising to reduce violence and lower the risk of lawsuits and what she says are preventable inmate deaths.

Brendan Corbett, also running for the job, served as assistant sheriff during Villanueva’s tenure. He’s looking to restructure the department, focus resources on patrol and line functions and increase the reserve program.

Lt. Oscar Martinez, assigned to the department’s Palmdale station, is running to unseat his boss and criticizes Luna for fostering relationships with the county board of supervisors and oversight bodies, saying his focus should be on law enforcement, not politics .

“The sheriff is more interested in protecting the political establishment,” Martinez said. “Under my leadership, the mission of the sheriff’s department is to fight crime. Our job is not to fix politics.”

Andre White, a detective with about 11 years at the department, also vowed to take a “community-oriented approach” if elected.

Some voters may recognize Sonia Montejano, a former senior deputy in the department’s court services division, as the court bailiff in the television court program “Judge Joe Brown.”

Montejano filed paperwork for the position and listed her personal website on campaign forms. Her website, however, makes no mention of her campaign or position on issues involving the department. She did not respond to requests for comment.

Three seats — two contested — are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.

The nation’s second-largest school system, with about 390,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.

In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.

Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.

The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.

Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.

L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.

Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.

Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.

The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at the union’s expense.

UTLA is the most reliable funder of school board campaigns — and the union’s spending is not controlled by candidates.

Also exerting influence in recent elections has been the district’s other largest union: Local 99 of Service Employees International Union. It represents some 30,000 bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, gardeners, cafeteria workers and technical support staff. This union has yet to endorse candidates.

A potential but diminished source of election-funding firepower would be charter school advocates — who once routinely outspent the unions.
Retired businessman Bill Bloomfield — a charter school ally who makes his own calls about whom to support — has been a big spender inrecent elections, typically as a counter to teachers-union-endorsed candidates. He has not committed to being involved in this school board election cycle.

The material below was assembled through reporting and surveys provided to candidates. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.

Three seats are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, but the District 6 race is essentially a foregone conclusion: The only name on the ballot is two-term incumbent Kelly Gonez.

The nation’s second-largest school system, with close to 400,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.

In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.

Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.

The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.

Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.

L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.

Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.

Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.

The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at that union’s expense.

The material below was assembled through reporting and a survey provided to Gonez. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.

The most unpredictable California governor’s race in recent history took another set of dizzying turns on Monday, with former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra surging after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out in the face of sexual assault and misconduct allegations, and former state Controller Betty Yee ending her bid.

The race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom is the first in a quarter of a century with no clear front-runner and a sprawling field of candidates who have been jockeying for the attention of Californians, who are just beginning to pay attention to the campaign two weeks before ballots arrive in their mailboxes.

“I certainly could not have imagined the twists and the disturbing turns that this race has taken,” Yee said as she announced she was dropping out. “But through it all, my values and my vision for California has never wavered.”

A poll released Monday by the state Democratic Party — its first since Swalwell (D-Dublin) dropped out — showed Becerra’s support jumped nine points to 13%, placing him in a tie with Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior. Former Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County saw a slight bump to 10% from 7%, while the remaining Democrats in the contest were mired in the low single digits.

The party began the surveys out of concern that Democrats could be shut out of the governor’s race because of California’s unique primary system, where the top two vote-getters in the June 2 primary move on to the November general election regardless of political party.

“I continue to believe there are too many Democrats in the field,” California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks told reporters Monday. “My call for candidates to honestly assess the viability of their candidacy and campaigns still stands, especially if you are stalled in the single digits, seeing financial resources dry up and/or are failing to pick up additional support.”

Hicks and other party leaders and allies had unsuccessfully urged low-polling candidates to reconsider their candidacies before the filing deadline in an attempt to cull the field and avoid splintering the Democratic vote. Though most did not name candidates who they thought should think about their viability, Yee was widely believed to be among them.

Yee became emotional as she said on Monday that she decided to withdraw from the race because she wasn’t able to raise the resources necessary to compete in the state. She also said her message of competency and experience wasn’t resonating among voters who were seeking a fiery foil to President Trump, not “Boring Betty,” as she dubbed herself. Yee said she would assess the field before making an announcement on whether she would endorse one of her fellow Democrats.

Becerra was another candidate believed to be a target of party leaders’ efforts to shrink the field. But he held on and apparently benefited from Swalwell’s downfall.

“I’m not the richest candidate, I’m not the slickest candidate, but I am the guy that’s got you,” Becerra said, rallying supporters in Los Angeles on Saturday.

The audience was filled with members of labor groups backing the longtime politician, and Becerra told them he’d serve as a “union man” in the governor’s office.

Pro- and anti-Becerra forces tussled outside the town hall after two people, who declined to identify whom they were working for, passed out fliers highlighting critical media investigations of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the migrant crisis when the agency was led by Becerra.

Pro-Becerra attendees grabbed the fliers and told the men to go away, prompting a security guard to intervene.

The question is whether Becerra, who also served as state attorney general, a member of Congress and a state Assembly member, can raise the funds necessary to compete in a state with some of the nation’s most expensive media markets. And he was tied in the state party poll with a billionaire who dumped an additional $12.1 million of his own money into his campaign last week.

Steyer’s total investment in his bid reached $133 million, according to the California secretary of state’s office. He also received the endorsement of Our Revolution, a progressive political organization founded by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

“We’ve never endorsed a billionaire — but Tom Steyer is using his position to upset the system,” the group posted on X on Monday. “As Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese told @theintercept, ‘He’s been a partner in the movement. Most billionaires have used their wealth and privilege to lock in the status quo. Tom is doing the opposite.’”

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who is also running for governor, accused Steyer of hypocrisy for the hedge fund he founded profiting from investments in private prisons being used to house ICE detainees, and Steyer calling for the abolishment of ICE.

Steyer got “rich investing off the ICE infrastructure he now wants to abolish,” Mahan posted on Instagram.

Steyer, who sold his stake in the hedge fund in 2012, has said he ordered the company to divest from the private prison company and has repeatedly expressed remorse about his former firm’s ties with the detention company.

Mahan also appeared Monday at a Hollywood production lot to announce his proposal for a special fund to lure sporting events, concerts and other productions to California as part of his plan to help the struggling film and television industry.

An independent effort supporting Mahan has also raised roughly $11 million since Swalwell left the race.

Mehta reported from Los Angeles and Nixon from Sacramento. Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.