california

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton dove deep into his housing platform and lobbed a few attacks at his Democratic opponent, Xavier Becerra, during a town hall with Los Angeles news outlets Tuesday.

Hilton also pointed to some disagreements with President Trump, providing daylight between himself and a president who remains deeply unpopular in California, during the event hosted and livestreamed by the Los Angeles Times and LAist.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s final term ends in early January, providing California voters the opportunity to select a new governor at a time of conflict between the state and the Trump administration over environmental policies, immigration, healthcare and other pressing issues.

Ballots already have started to arrive in California voters’ mailboxes ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Here are the top takeaways from the discussion with Hilton:

Walking the tightrope on Trump

Republicans running for statewide office already have an uphill battle because of California’s heavily Democratic electorate. It’s an acute challenge this year, campaign experts say, because many Democratic voters are itching to help their party regain control of Congress and neutralize Trump’s agenda.

Trump endorsed Hilton in April, which helped the former Fox News host pull ahead of his GOP rival, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, and secure the second-place spot in the primary election, behind Becerra.

On the campaign trail, Hilton has remained supportive of Trump and said Democratic policies, not the war in Iran, are to blame for high prices.

Pressed to name an instance where he disagrees with the president, Hilton named federal funding cuts for the University of California, threats to withdraw Customs and Border Protection agents from airports in states with sanctuary policies, and the federal government buying stakes in California-based companies.

The Republican said those differences are rooted in his strong support for states’ rights.

“The broader point I want to make, and you can track this back to the commentary and what I’ve written over the years, is I’m a strong believer in decentralizing power,” he said. “I think there’s far too much involvement of the federal government in our affairs in California, and I’m going to be a very strong advocate for bringing those powers back in all sorts of ways.”

Gas prices, taxes and housing permits

Hilton described California’s cost of living as “a nightmare” and a major contributor to residents and businesses moving out of the state.

He laid out an affordability plan, which he refers to as “Califordable,” that he would prioritize if elected governor. His plan includes:

• Ending income taxes for Californians who earn $150,000 or less.
• Slashing oil industry regulations and clean energy mandates for utility companies to achieve $3 gas and lower electric bills.
• Ushering in a new construction boom of single-family homes, including by developing 10 new cities around the state, and capping government fees on newly constructed houses.

He blames the state’s affordability woes on Democrats, who have controlled the state legislative seats and held every elected statewide office since 2009.

“It’s not just that it’s time for some change in California, it’s time for balance. It’s time to try something different after 16 years of doing it the same way,” he said.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton said he does have some policy differences with President Trump during a town hall at the Los Angeles Times Building on Tuesday in El Segundo.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Hilton said he would stop enforcing laws requiring communities to meet housing production goals and instead focus on building in undeveloped areas of the state that want new homes.

“We’ve got this attitude that the only place you can build is inside what’s currently developed, and that’s motivated by a desire to stop traffic and sprawl and all these things. But the consequence of that is that you end up finding [it] almost impossible to build anything” because of permitting battles and lawsuits, he said. “My plan is to open that up so that we build outwards, not just upwards, increasing the amount of space we use for housing.”

How he would pay for it all

Hilton said that Newsom and Democratic lawmakers have gotten accustomed to spending big and that he wants to return California’s state budget to its pre-pandemic size.

Earlier this year Newsom signed a budget just shy of $352 billion. His first budget as governor, in 2019, clocked in at nearly $215 billion.

The growth occurred during a time “when around 2 million people on net have moved out of the state,” Hilton said. “So we’re spending twice as much for a big reduction in population and worse results.”

He said he could offset the tax cuts by ending funding for high-speed rail, trimming state agencies by 5% and cracking down on Medicaid fraud. Together, he estimates those cuts would save about $25 billion annually. He has also promised to end state-funded healthcare for undocumented immigrants and to hollow out agencies that regulate the state’s air quality and coastlines.

Another round of attacks on Becerra

While he largely stayed focused on policy, Hilton criticized Becerra’s record as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and dinged him for skipping the town hall.

“Looking forward to perhaps one day having another chance to sit down with my competitor in this race, Xavier Becerra. We’ve had one debate. He promised that there would be debates, plural. Not to be today. But hopefully we can have that conversation because Californians deserve a conversation about the future of our state,” he said during his opening remarks.

On Monday, Hilton attacked Becerra for having “pulled out” of the debate, though the Democratic candidate never agreed to attend a debate proposed by The Times and LAist. Becerra’s spokesperson said the campaign declined the invitation because of a full campaign schedule.

In the weeks following the June primary election, Becerra made himself scarce on the campaign trail and attended few public events. In August, he told reporters there would be multiple debates. He and Hilton faced off last week in an hourlong debate on CNN but no other debates have been announced.

Offshore wind projects “grotesque,” Hilton says

At a time when the Trump administration has systematically dismantled climate and environmental policies, Hilton took care to cast himself as an environmentalist who is concerned about climate change.

He criticized many of the policies favored by Democrats, however, as a “very one-dimensional way of thinking” and offered a more business-friendly approach to addressing climate change:

• Planting 3 billion trees and restoring wetlands.
• Expanding the use of climate-friendly geothermal energy near places such as the Salton Sea and Sonoma and Modoc counties.
• Expanding oil production in California, which he said reduces the need to import foreign oil on tanker ships that spew carbon emissions.

“So that’s a way of reducing carbon emissions that doesn’t burden working people and small businesses with the highest energy costs in the country. We’ve got to get the balance right,” Hilton said.

Hilton aligns with Trump’s vehement opposition to offshore wind projects, a potential source of abundant renewable energy. This year, the Trump administration announced deals to pay wind project developers billions to abandon U.S. wind leases off the coasts of California, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey.

“I think offshore wind is an absolute abomination. I mean, you look at beautiful Morro Bay or Humboldt up in the northern part of our state,” Hilton said. “The industrialization of our coastline that offshore wind would create, I think, is just grotesque, and I’m dead against it.”

Working across the aisle

When asked how he would work with a Democratic majority in the state Legislature, Hilton said he has experience doing it — as an advisor to former United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron, he shared an office with a member of the opposite party.

“We worked together very well. Didn’t agree on everything,” he said. “That would be my attitude. I’m very open. I’m not tribal. I’m not particularly partisan. I’m a pragmatic, problem-solving kind of person, and I’m looking forward to working with the Legislature.”

He said he would press the Legislature to cut spending and “the endless number of bills that they pass every year. … But I want to work together to reduce costs for Californians.”

Hilton also found alignment with Democrats who ran in the gubernatorial primary, including former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

“Katie Porter in the primary … actually endorsed my tax plan. Matt Mahan and I agree on a lot of things to help” cut costs and speed up housing constriction, he said. “Antonio Villaraigosa, we agreed on a lot of things to do with energy policy. So I think there are Democrats who we’ll be able to work with to get consensus on some of the things that we need to get done.”

WASHINGTON — As President Trump zigzags across the country in the final weeks before the midterm elections, he has made California his favorite foil as he tries to fire up his base.

On Monday, he blamed the Golden State for the rising cost of gas prices, claimed without evidence that its elections are rigged, and at a Nebraska rally suggested Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego.

“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump said. “They can take out a city, let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay.”

The president’s team on Tuesday said his remarks were misunderstood, arguing the president “clearly” stated that U.S. cities would have been threatened “if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped.” Trump declined to clarify what he meant by his statements when asked by a reporter Tuesday.

But by then, Trump’s remarks had already drawn fierce condemnation from California leaders, including Republican Jim Desmond, a Navy veteran running in a highly competitive race that is key to helping Republicans retain control of the House.

“I vehemently disagree with President Trump’s comments,” Desmond wrote on social media. “America must stand up to Iran and defend our interests, but the first responsibility of our Commander in Chief is to protect the American people and our homeland.”

The backlash exposed the risk of Trump’s closing midterm strategy. Bashing California is a reliable applause line in red states like Nebraska, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma, where the president has been holding rallies trying to ensure his supporters get out to vote. But in this modern era, an incendiary comment can travel fast online and leave Republicans running in competitive districts in awkward spots, trying to distance themselves from Trump.

Overall, political observers see the episode as an example of how the president’s political strategy can be unpredictable at a time when Republicans are trying to control the message the most.

“Whether you like Trump or not, he is good at getting his message out and coming up with a message that can resonate and catch fire,” said Mindy Romero, founder and director of the nonpartisan Center for Inclusive Democracy. “I think the question now is: Is he starting to fail himself when it comes to his messaging?”

California Democrats were quick to use Trump’s remarks as a line of attack against him. Gov. Gavin Newsom called him “deranged and dangerous” and opened the state emergency operations center to assess potential threats. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria told Trump to “keep our city out of your reckless war talk.” And Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said his comments could “potentially compromise our safety.”

Trump’s remarks about the California cities on Monday were the most striking example yet of the president using California as a foil to rally a base in GOP strongholds.

In Nebraska and other red states in recent days, Trump has repeatedly cast California as a political boogeyman as a means to motivate voters to cast their ballots for the GOP candidates.

At an Oklahoma rally last week, Trump told the crowd that Republicans need to keep the party in control of Congress so that his administration can continue the work of combating fraud in blue states, like California. The administration’s efforts, led by Vice President JD Vance, have sometimes been overestimated or nebulous.

But Trump tells supporters that in places like California, the administration is seeing “billions and billions of dollars of fraud.”

In a social media post Monday, Trump began blaming the cost of fuel — a defining issue for voters this election cycle — on states like California.

“What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote. The issue, he said, is refineries being “closed up in Blue States, like California, by the Dumocrats.”

Hours later, while rallying in Nebraska, Trump seemed to contradict himself as he promised the crowd that fuel costs would go down once the war in Iran was over.

“That will end very quickly, one way or the other, very soon, maybe a little after the election, maybe a little before, but it is going to end very soon,” Trump said. “When that happens, the oil will come tumbling down.”

Trump’s messaging underscores how the war with Iran, which has gas prices topping $6 a gallon, has emerged as a potential liability for Republicans that the president is trying to address in subtle ways.

Polling on Trump’s handling of the economy has remained low, even among Republicans. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll last month found that only 22% of Americans perceive the economy in a good or fair state.

In California, a poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that 70% of California voters disapprove of Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran, including 1 in 5 Republicans.

The softening of Trump’s approval even among those who still support his performance could translate into lower GOP turnout in the state’s few competitive races, the poll’s director, Mark DiCamillo, said.

Trump’s strategy in the final stretch before the midterms has largely focused on rallying the base in hopes that they will turn out to vote. Part of that strategy includes using California as a punching bag.

One particular line of attack has been disparaging the state’s voting systems. He suggested Monday that Democrat-led cities are trying to cheat in November as he touted the fast count of ballots in foreign countries.

“In Detroit, Philadelphia, California and numerous other U.S. Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate,” Trump wrote on Monday. “Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!”

In another social media post, he said: “California: Took 38 days with 16.1 million ballots in 2024.”’

Trump using California as a foil for any given issue could be a risky strategy, Romero said.

“He’s expanding the types of things that he’s blaming California for, like the gas crisis,” she said, arguing that such statements could “start to lose credibility with those people that he has credibility with.”

For Republican voters in California, the ploy may be even riskier, especially when Trump suggests Iran could “take out” their cities.

“I don’t think that message necessarily plays well here because Californians are Californians,” DiCamillo said. “There is a certain pride in being a Californian, certainly not held by everybody … but I would think that the mainstream would be defending the state.”

Democrat Xavier Becerra, the frontrunner to become the state’s next governor, often invokes the story of his parents’ humble beginnings as immigrants from Mexico who, through hard work, built happy and productive lives in California.

“My parents came to California with $12 in their pocket. They lived the California dream,” Becerra said during last week’s gubernatorial debate with Republican rival Steve Hilton, aired nationally on CNN.

Becerra for years has described himself as the “son of immigrants” when talking about his upbringing, but that claim has come under scrutiny by Hilton and other critics who accuse Becerra of embellishing his family history. Becerra’s mother is from Guadalajara, Mexico, but his father was born in Sacramento and raised in Tijuana — making him a U.S. citizen and not a legal immigrant.

“Unlike Xavier Becerra, I am an immigrant. Unlike Xavier Becerra, my father was an immigrant. My stepfather too. My whole family,” Hilton wrote in a post on X.

Hilton is an immigrant from the United Kingdom and is the son of Hungarian immigrants who fled their homeland during a revolution in 1956.

Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration official, accused news outlets of letting a lie “continue for decades” throughout Becerra’s tenure as California attorney general and then as a Cabinet official in the Biden administration.

Becerra has openly discussed the details of his parents’ story, which unfolded on both sides of the border and in many ways reflects Mexican immigrant trajectories during the historical period of the 1920s and 1930s.

During speeches and in interviews Becerra has described how his father, Manuel, was born in Sacramento in 1928 and taken back to Tijuana as a young boy, with few jobs for Americans during the Great Depression, and even fewer jobs for Mexicans working in the U.S. His father traveled between the two countries often, and, as an older child, he would look for work in the U.S.

Becerra on Tuesday accused Hilton of “casting lies” about his family’s background, saying that the Republican failed to understand the struggle that many Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans faced in this county decades ago. He said his dad would tell of the days when he couldn’t walk into some establishments that had posted signs that read “No dog, Negros or Mexicans allowed.”

“This is what happens when people who don’t understand immigration start to pontificate,” Becerra said Tuesday after a morning rally against Proposition 39, a voter identification measure, at Guelaguetza, a Oaxacan restaurant in Los Angeles’ Pico-Union neighborhood.

“I am very proud of my parents, and I consider them immigrants because even though my dad was born in the U.S. — in a country that wouldn’t treat him the way it would treat other U.S. citizens — my dad was a proud immigrant,” Becerra said. “I am proud that I am their son. I am the son of immigrants.”

G. Cristina Mora, a UC Berkeley professor of sociology studying attitudes toward immigration, said Becerra’s critics misunderstand a common phenomenon at the time, when immigrants moved back and forth across a southern border that was much more porous — very different from the militarized border of today.

Beyond the dwindling jobs and precarious economics of the 1930s serving as a push factor for many Mexican families, a wave of xenophobia also helped send hundreds of thousands back to Mexico. A wave of mass deportations across the Southwest states resulted in more than 1 million Mexicans and their descendants being forced out of their homes and loaded on trains out. More than 60% were U.S. citizens.

Mora, who also serves as co-director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, said “it was a time of very great anti-Mexican fervor.” Many sought to later return. Some were deported multiple times.

“There are many types of immigrants. There’s so much nuance,” Mora said. “To think there’s only one immigrant story would just be to not know California.”

Becerra’s campaign spokesperson Jonathan Underland in a statement accused Hilton of hypocritically attempting to capitalize on an immigrant narrative.

“Steve Hilton doesn’t seem to have a problem with immigrants who look like him — but openly attacks immigrants who look like Xavier Becerra,” Underland said. “Trump ignited a deep anti-immigrant animus among MAGA voters, and Hilton is tapping into that as he scrambles to distract from his bizarre ad campaign that alienated some of his closest allies.” Last week, Hilton’s campaign put out a provocative, sexually suggestive ad that drew criticism from his fellow Republicans.

Becerra, both on Tuesday and throughout his long political career, has often described his parents’ upbringing.

He said his father’s family moved back to Tijuana during the Great Depression. His father, he said, was the eldest child and was forced to leave school after the sixth grade to help support the family. He began working as a preteen, bouncing back and forth between the U.S. and Tijuana. He would tell stories about being a shoe shiner, at times of celebrities and movie stars. He also worked in the farm fields with his dad and sometimes with his uncles.

In the early 1950s he married Becerra’s mother, Maria Teresa, who lived in Guadalajara.

“When they decided to make a go of it outside of Guadalajara, they went to Tijuana. They didn’t have great success, so that’s when they decided to come to the U.S.,” Becerra said on Tuesday. “So when I say my parents came to California with $12 in their pocket, it’s because, Steve Hilton, my parents came to California with $12 in their pocket.”

Becerra’s father later began a construction career that lasted 30 years, while his mother worked as a clerical worker and later purchased rental properties.

Times researcher Cary Schneider contributed to this report.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a hero among the nation’s progressive voters, stumped in Southern California on Monday for a wealth tax on the California ballot in November that has drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending.

“What you are showing people from coast to coast and all over is that, yes, we can take on the greed of the oligarchs,” said Sanders (I-Vt.), who called Proposition 40 the most important ballot measure in the country. “Yes, we can create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.”

Sanders name-checked billionaire tech founders including Elon Musk of SpaceX, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose mentions were repeatedly met with boos from the crowd gathered at the Novo in downtown Los Angeles.

Labor leaders, speaking earlier on Monday at a union training facility in La Palma, argued that although the billionaires tax is billed as a one-time tax on the assets of the state’s wealthiest residents, it includes a loophole that would allow state lawmakers to tax the savings and retirement accounts and home equity of all Californians.

“In the trades, we know you always read the blueprints and you always read the fine print,” said Xochitl Medrano, the political director for the district council of the Ironworkers of the State of California and Vicinity. Medrano was surrounded by union workers chanting, “No on 40!”

“Our workers are not billionaires; they are working people. After 20, 30, or even 40 years of breaking their backs on the job sites, our members have the opportunity to have a decent pension, some retirement savings, and equity in a home that they’ve been working to pay off,” she said. “That’s not wealth handed to them. That’s sweat equity. … We won’t stand by and let a tax that’s supposed to target billionaires turn into a trap door for working families.”

Proposition 40 is among the most contentious issues on the Nov. 3 ballot. The measure was crafted by a healthcare union to offset $100 billion in impending federal healthcare funding cuts approved by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump last year. Millions of Californians could lose their healthcare coverage because of those cuts.

There are two opposing measures on the November ballot, Propositions 41 and 42, that would nullify the billionaires tax if either receives more votes.

About 45% of likely voters supported Proposition 40, while 42% opposed it and 13% were undecided in a late September poll by UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times. That’s a decline in support compared with a poll six weeks earlier, when 48% of likely voters supported it while 41% opposed it.

The proposal has drawn more than $300 million in campaign contributions, nearly all against it. Ballot measures are not subject to caps on campaign donations.

Sanders was joined by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and artists including the rapper Common, who called for “them billionaires to pay up” between freestyle verses. Shepard Fairey, known for his famous portrait of President Obama, unveiled banners in support of the wealth tax campaign, which served as a backdrop on the event stage.

Rally attendee Datosha Williams, an SEIU-UHW member who works in healthcare customer service, said Proposition 40 is a backstop to federal healthcare cuts, which could lead to hospital closures around the state.

“My biggest fear is that I will see some of my coworkers lose their jobs,” she said. “My biggest fear is that my 8-year-old son, who is asthmatic, will have long waits in an ER.”

At the event at the Ironworkers Training Center in La Palma organized by labor leaders to oppose the wealth tax, apprentices attended workshops about rigging and collective bargaining rights.

“We’re not opposed to making the wealthy pay their fair share. We’re not opposed to creating a high-quality and low-cost health insurance plan for Californians,” said Andrew Gonzales, the council representative for the Los Angeles and Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. “We just don’t think Prop. 40 is the right vehicle to go about that.”

Gonzales pointed to the volatile state budget’s dependence on tax revenue from wealthy Californians, some of whom have proactively moved out of the state because of the proposal.

“That’s already having an immediate impact to the state’s budget,” he said. “So we already see the danger that can occur.”

Foes of Proposition 40 attend a rally on Monday at the Ironworkers Training Center in La Palma.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed legislation cracking down on the practice of luxury-car buyers in California registering cars out of state to avoid taxes.

Senate Bill 1406, introduced by state Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton), closes the so-called Montana loophole, in which tax evaders create shell companies in Montana or other states without sales tax or vehicle registration fees and use them to purchase Ferraris, Porsches and other luxury cars. The state estimate it loses millions of dollars annually because of such schemes.

The new law expands California’s definition of who is a resident under state sales tax law in an effort to weed out phony shell companies, making a company liable for state taxes when at least one member of the business is a California resident.

The law, which went into effect immediately, also authorizes the state tax agency to impose tax liability on individual members of a business.

California had already looked to enforcement efforts to investigate suspicious out-of-state car sales, which officials estimate amount to $10 million annually in lost tax revenue.

Under state law, residents were already required to pay California sales tax on vehicles unless they are first used out of state and stay out of state for at least 12 months. Dealers are required to maintain records showing sales of vehicles so that authorities can ensure vehicles sold to buyers in another state are actually delivered there.

Earlier this year, the state’s Department of Justice charged 14 people — including auto dealers and customers purchasing cars — with concealing the purchase of more than $20 million worth of high-end vehicles including Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis, and evading upward of $1.8 million in state taxes.

Text messages included in the criminal complaint showed buyers seeking to conceal their purchases. One Lamborghini buyer boasted about fees avoided: “70k saved — I can’t believe Montana registration lasts for 5 years — that’s crazy. Stupid California. Paid 3k to own a 600k car for 5 years — lol in Cali that’s like 75k for 5 years. Hella dumb.”

The new law further develops criteria to help show an LLC as a shell company involved in a potential tax evasion scheme.

If the LLC lacks a specific business activity or purpose, fails to maintain a physical location outside California, fails to employ people, or fails to file federal tax returns in another state, it could now be considered as evidence of such a scheme.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has purchased three immigrant detention facilities in Adelanto for $950 million, according to the private prison corporation that sold them.

The sale by the GEO Group, a Florida-based government contractor, follows an initial $1.5-billion sale over the summer of two other California detention facilities by GEO’s competitor, CoreCivic of Tennessee.

The facilities owned by GEO Group include the 1,280-bed Adelanto West ICE Processing Center, the 660-bed Adelanto East ICE Processing Center and 704-bed Desert View Annex.

In total, the federal government has now spent nearly $3.2 billion on detention facility purchases, the majority of them in California. CoreCivic sold off two other facilities, in Minnesota and Kansas, in August.

The sales were made possible by an infusion last year of $45 billion for immigration detention from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

In its announcement, GEO Group sad it will continue managing daily operations at the facilities under the company’s existing contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is effective through Dec. 19, 2034.

The company said it is engaged in an “active process” with Homeland Security for the potential sale of multiple other facilities. Those sales hinge on GEO Group’s ability to continue managing those facilities under long-term contracts, the company wrote.

“We are pleased with the completion of these important asset sales to the U.S. federal government, and we look forward to continuing to provide high-quality secure support services under our existing long-term contracts with ICE,” George C. Zoley, the company’s CEO, wrote in a news release.

“We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities,” Zoley added.

During a shareholder call in August, Zoley said ICE was contemplating buying more than 10 facilities, and that number “could continue to grow.”

“We believe we have two types of assets: the buildings and the businesses of providing support services,” he said on the call. “We are pursuing a potential sale of the buildings, but we want to retain the business. We consider ourselves primarily a support services operator, and will place particular importance on our ability to continue our support services at any facility sold to ICE.”

GEO Group said it anticipates receiving $705 million in proceeds from the sales, after taxes and transaction fees. The company wrote that net proceeds will reduce the company’s debt and facilitate the repurchase of company shares.

This story will be updated.

Every fall, I teach a Latino History of Orange County course at Chapman University — from the Portola expedition all the way to Huntington Beach’s MAGA Latina councilmember, Gracey Van Der Mark. The lecture last week focused on how anti-Mexican politics have always worked in Orange County and usually go on to be copied nationwide.

I usually, sadly, have to update this lecture every year because the lowlights just keep coming. That’s why this time around, one of my PowerPoint slides ended with “2026: Anaheim?”.

Haven’t you heard? A lawsuit accuses Anaheim mayor Ashleigh Aitken of calling her chief of staff a “dirty Mexican.”

Stay classy, O.C.!

TimesOC writer (and my fellow Anaheimer) Gabriel San Román first reported on the allegation last month. He revealed that a lawyer for Aitken’s chief of staff Berenice Ballinas was seeking mediation from the city after his client suffered a “sustained pattern of harassment, discriminatory treatment and, most recently, retaliation” while doing her job. A legal claim filed soon after offered pages of alleged incidents detailing what Ballinas claimed she had to deal with when her boss supposedly had too much to drink while on city business.

It’s an ugly read, with incidents at Disneyland’s Club 33, Angel Stadium and other Anaheim landmarks. Yet no passage is more damning — yet more Orange County — than when Ballinas claimed Aitken once called her a “dirty Mexican” in front of then-city attorney Jim Vanderpool and said another time that the mayor didn’t want “a Mexican” like Ballinas to drive her car while Aitken was supposedly what the British satirical magazine Private Eye would call “tired and emotional.”

The mayor, a Democrat who’s running for reelection, has denied the explosive charge in an official statement and during a recent council meeting. And yet the allegation against her now enters Orange County’s long, sad spectrum of anti-Mexican political history.

Just part of the list: Proposition 187. Poll guards. Trying to give local police immigration-enforcement powers. When then-Orange County supervisor Ronald Caspers called a group of Mexican American county employees who demanded promotions “bandidos” during a 1972 supervisors meeting, then suggested the supes move the county seat away from Santa Ana because the city “does not have a normal ethnic balance” — in other words, it was too Mexican.

Or how about when a Newport Beach council member, Dick Nichols, opined during a 2003 council meeting that he opposed expanding the grassy areas of Corona del Mar State Beach because Mexicans “claim it as theirs, and it becomes their personal, private ground all day”? (Asked to apologize, Nichols doubled down by saying, “Where the hell am I in any way discriminating or being a bigot by making a statement that is blatantly true?”)

My hometown is not exempt from this sad parade. Anaheim’s schools, parks and swimming pool were segregated until the 1950s. In 1999, the Anaheim Union High School District board of trustees voted to sue Mexico for $50 million for educating the children of undocumented immigrants (The Times’ write-up was the first time I appeared in the paper, although the writer misspelled my last name).

Why all the O.C. anti-Mexican hate? You’ll have to enroll in my Chapman class for the full explanation. But the main reason is that Mexicans have long functioned as O.C.’s demonized minority. When millions of O.C. residents have grown up believing the powers that be that all Mexicans do is work low-paying jobs and underachieve in life, no wonder politicians bash them again and again — and no wonder many Anaheim residents aren’t giving Aitken the benefit of the doubt.

On Friday, the Anaheim City Council announced after a closed session that it would launch an independent investigation into Ballinas’ allegations. Aitken had an eventful Friday of her own. She admitted on Instagram that she has an “unhealthy relationship” with alcohol and sighed to CBS Los Angeles that Ballinas was “somebody who I thought was my right-hand person.” And while local activists have demanded she resign, O.C.’s ascending liberal machine isn’t asking for her head the way they would’ve if it were a Republican official: Mayor Anaheim gave the opening remarks at the Orange County Labor Federation’s annual Solidarity Awards gala on Friday night to cheers.

Stay classy, O.C.!

The week’s biggest stories

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton visits patrons at Victorio’s Ristorante in North Hollywood, where a watch party was held for the CNN governor’s race debate Wednesday night.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

California politics

• A sexually suggestive ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has drawn millions of views — and condemnation from allies on the right and Democrats.
• Latino voters have shifted away from Karen Bass in the L.A. mayor’s race, according to a new poll.
• The poll’s findings contrast the results of the June 2 primary, in which Bass carried 35 Latino-majority neighborhoods compared with Raman’s seven.

Helicopter tragedy

Paramount-Warner Bros. merger

• David Ellison said the merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance — the moniker he picked nearly two decades ago when he began building his Hollywood empire.
• Although the name of the corporate parent will change, the two historic studios will continue to operate under their names.
• As Ellison names his new empire, the message is clear: He owns Hollywood, writes news and culture critic Mary McNamara.

More news

Editor’s pick

More picks

Things to do

Retro candies, zombie-themed chips, ghost-branded coffee and large-scale movie characters can all be found at the Horror Boodega snack shop in Burbank.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s recipe

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

For culinary content producer Owen Han, his nonna’s recipe for meatballs is as classic as they come. She does not brown the meatballs but instead poaches them in the copious tomato sauce (she called it salsa di pomodoro, or sugo, but you might know it as marinara) so they are extra tender.

Photo of the day

(Nava Rawls / Los Angeles Times)

Games

Here’s today’s mini crossword, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court will open its new term Monday by hearing arguments on whether the oil and gas industry may be forced to pay damages for the scorching heat waves, wildfires and droughts that are blamed on climate change.

It’s a momentous question the justices have put off deciding for nearly a decade — and may do so again.

California joined more than two dozen blue states and municipalities in 2023 when it sued the five largest oil companies, alleging “decades of deception” over the danger of a warming climate.

They have “privately known the truth for decades but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said.

Fire and smoke rise at the Chevron Refinery in El Segundo in October 2025.

(Robbin Goddard/Los Angeles Times)

Such climate-change lawsuits were patterned after the mass claims against the tobacco and opioid industries. Both were accused of concealing the dangers of their very profitable products.

But the climate suits have stalled. Judges have been divided over whether these potentially huge claims should be decided in federal or state court, and if so, under what law.

Last year, Boulder County, Colo., won a 5-2 ruling in the state Supreme Court that allowed its 2018 suit to proceed as a claim of a public nuisance, an unjust enrichment or a civil conspiracy. These are referred to as “common law” claims that are long-standing and traditional but do not rely on a measure approved by the Legislature.

The Colorado judges also said the climate-change suits are not “preempted” or blocked by federal anti-pollution laws because the suit for damages did not regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The dissenters said the state court was giving Boulder a “green light to act as its own republic” to punish the Exxon Mobil Corp. for the impact of “global climate change.”

Appealing to the Supreme Court, the oil companies sounded the same theme.

“Boulder, Colorado cannot make energy policy for the entire country,” they said. A ruling for the county would “authorize all 50 states and tens of thousands of municipalities” to ask their local juries to “impose ruinous liability” on the fossil fuel industry, they told the court.

The Trump administration joined in support of the industry’s appeal.

“Our federal system would disintegrate if each state could tackle inherently national or international problems by forcing its regulatory prescriptions on the other 49,” the administration’s lawyers wrote.

In February, the justices voted to hear the case and decide whether federal law blocks state law claims for the “effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions.”

The court scheduled the case of Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil vs. Boulder County as the first of the new term.

Legal experts say the industry’s claim to be shielded by federal law is weak.

UCLA law professor Alejandro Camacho described the “preemption arguments as the latest and perhaps most ambitious effort to weaponize federal law to prevent polluters and fraudsters from paying for the harms they cause.”

Neither the Constitution nor the Clean Air Act provides such a shield, he said.

Legal experts on the other side question the notion that a public nuisance can be defined so broadly to include both the sale of a legal product and the impact on carbon pollution, much of it coming from China and India.

The outcome in the Supreme Court remains in doubt.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, left, shown with Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh in 2025, withdrew from involvement in the climate case being argued Monday, when the court term begins.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Last week, Justice Samuel A. Alito, a reliable conservative, announced he was withdrawing from the case. He did not say why, but he owns stock in other oil companies that could be affected by the court’s decision.

A broad ruling for Boulder would send a shock through the fossil-fuel industry and clear the wave of climate-change suits to proceed in state courts.

The industry may turn to Congress. Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced bills that would shield energy companies from such liability claims.

Similarly, a broad ruling shielding the oil companies probably would block all of the climate change suits, including California’s.

The justices may opt out of ruling, however.

When they granted review of the case, they asked the lawyers on both sides to weigh in on whether the high court had “jurisdiction” to decide the Boulder case.

Usually the U.S. Supreme Court reviews only final judgments handed down by state courts, and the Boulder case did not result in a final ruling.

And without Alito, the court could split 4 to 4.

A decision based on a tie vote would affirm Boulder’s early stage victory but would not set a precedent that would govern other cases.

In its new term, the court also will hear major cases on immigration and guns.

Two of the cases test the Trump administration’s strict deportation policies. One denies bond hearings to people who entered the country illegally and may be deported.

In the past, the government usually offered bond hearings to those who could be held for months or even years while their claims were pending, so long as they could show they were not a flight risk or danger to the public.

But the Trump administration said it plans to detain tens of thousands of such persons indefinitely, even if they have no criminal record and pose no risk.

Government lawyers pointed to a provision of the 1996 immigration law that said people who entered the country illegally “shall be detained.” Previous administrations applied the mandatory-detention rule only to migrants who entered the U.S. illegally and were arrested near the border.

A refinery in Carson in 2024.

(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)

On Thursday, the court announced it will hear arguments on the mandatory detention policy, likely to be scheduled for January.

The other case involves so-called “third-country removals.”

The administration is determined to deport immigrants who have “final orders of removal,” many of whom have criminal records. But in some cases, they may not be sent back to their country of origin.

The policy of sending them to a third country has been condemned as harsh and cruel. Thousands of these people have been flown to impoverished countries that are dangerous and where they may be subjected to abuse.

The administration says it seeks assurances from those countries that the deported persons will not be not be abused or persecuted, but it refuses hearings for individuals.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston has ruled these deportees are entitled to a “meaningful notice” of where they are being sent and “meaningful opportunity” to contest this if they have a reasonable fear they will face persecution and torture.

Trump administration lawyers filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court to set aside Murphy’s orders. They argued that the judge had gone beyond his authority, and the court’s conservatives agreed.

In December, however, the court will hear arguments from both sides on what the law calls for in such deportation cases.

Meanwhile, on Dec. 2, the court will hear a potential landmark on gun rights and and decide whether states may prohibit possession and sale of semiautomatic AR-15 rifles.

California and 11 other blue states have adopted such laws, often in response to mass shootings.

Gun rights advocates say these rapid-fire rifles are among the most popular weapons nationwide and should be protected as lawful under the 2nd Amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms.”

After turning away cases for a decade, the justices voted to hear 2nd Amendment challenges to the laws in Cook County, Ill., and the state of Connecticut.

Proposition 42 would prohibit new taxes on “retirement holdings, individually-owned assets, and other forms of personal savings” that take effect after Jan. 1, 2026. That includes financial assets, investment accounts, intellectual property, personal belongings and other assets used for retirement or financial planning.

It also would bar retroactive taxes on past earnings unless the state is using revenue from the tax to respond to emergencies such as a fire or a flood.

Proposition 42 could nullify Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax, because the two measures conflict with one another. If voters approve both, the one with the most “yes” votes generally would become law, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Proposition 42 could reduce state tax revenue but it’s unclear by how much, according to the office’s analysis. Currently, the state does tax certain personal property such as vehicles. It doesn’t tax people for owning financial assets like stocks and investment accounts but does tax income from them.

California Professional Firefighters, the California Federation of Teachers, the Nurse Alliance of SEIU California and the California School Employees Assn. all oppose the measure. They argue that it will make it harder to pass tax hikes to pay for police and fire departments, fix and repair local roads, staff local schools or backfill federal healthcare cuts.

They also argue that Proposition 43 skirts the California Supreme Court’s opinion on the threshold.

Gubnatorial candidate Xavier Becerra opposes Proposition 43. In a statement, he called corporations “special interests” that want the proposition to pass in order to block new taxes.

“Prop. 43 would hand special interests the power to block the resources our communities count on most: fire protection, safe roads, good schools,” Becerrra said.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the legislation that became Proposition 43 — ACA 22 — opposes the measure and has urged Californians to vote against it. She said the only reason she crafted the bill was because it was a necessary bargaining chip to torpedo another ballot measure backed by the Jarvis taxpayers group that would have devastated revenues for local governments and retroactively rescinded some local tax increases.

The California Taxpayers Assn., the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, the CalAsian Chamber of Commerce and others back the proposition. They say it would result in the government spending taxpayer dollars more wisely while improving transparency.

The bulk of the contributions to support the proposition have come from Building a Better California, data from the California secretary of state’s website show. Top contributors to Building a Better California include Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder; John Doerr, chairman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins; and Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google.

Proposition 41 “requires more accountability, transparency and trackable progress of programs funded by our taxes, so that we stop funding failure and start funding successful outcomes,” a website for the proposition states.

As a candidate in 2022, Cohen said she’d conduct audits of homeless spending, the Department of Motor Vehicles and Employment Development Department if elected. However, her office didn’t do audits of homeless spending, a spokesperson said.

Cohen said her office sought funding from the governor and the state to conduct homeless audits but was denied. Her office clarified the request was for money for high-risk audit investments but didn’t specifically mention homelessness.

Cohen also acknowledged that she didn’t conduct reviews of the DMV and EDD, because, she said, other agencies were doing those audits and she didn’t want to duplicate their efforts.

After Cohen’s election, her office found itself in a public dispute over the state’s annual comprehensive financial report, a summary of California’s spending.

The report, published each year by the controller’s office, is used by credit agencies to monitor the state’s fiscal health and for years has been published months after it is due. Cohen blames other departments’ delays in turning over data as part of the reason for its chronic lateness.

The state auditor, a separate agency that reports to the state Legislature, launched its own audit about the timeliness of the report. In a 2025 letter, the auditor accused the controller’s office of spending more than a year “resisting an independent review” of the delayed report, which almost led to a legal showdown between the agencies.

Cohen, in an interview this year, said she succeeded in getting the report published closer to its due date. Her office also disputes the state auditor’s version of events.

Also this year, Cohen’s press officer secretly was recorded by a woman who pretended to be on a date with him. In the recording, the officer is heard saying that the office’s auditing team was cut by the state and that the office doesn’t have the resources to proactively perform audits. The recording was procured by conservative activist group O’Keefe Media.

Cohen called the recording illegal and declined to comment. The officer didn’t respond to The Times’ request for comment.

During the offseason, Rams coach Sean McVay said that receiver Davante Adams’ name came up when the Philadelphia Eagles were shopping for trade partners for receiver AJ Brown.

Adams said at the start of training camp — months after the Eagles traded Brown to the New England Patriots — that he understood that was part of the business.

The Rams are happy that Adams remains in the fold.

Heading into Sunday’s game against the Eagles, the 13th-year pro has amassed a career-best 358 receiving yards through three games.

“Fine wine gets better with time,” offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase said.

Adams, 33, is coming off two consecutive 100-yard receiving performances.

With receiver Puka Nacua sidelined because of a hip injury, Adams caught eight passes for 195 yards and two touchdowns in a 28-6 victory over the New York Giants, and he had seven receptions for 137 yards in a 30-26 defeat by the Denver Broncos.

“I don’t necessarily need a 100-yard game to validate what I can do on the field,” said Adams, who is in his second season with the Rams. “Coming to a team like this where you have playmakers literally at every single position, it’s not necessary.

“If it is necessary and I’m called on, then I’ll go and answer the bell on that. Whatever my game or my role looks like for whatever the situation is, I try to live up to that.”

Adams is tied for the league lead with nine catches of 15 yards or more.

Asked if he was conscious that after catching passes in space at 33, he might not get to a faraway end zone as quickly as he did in his 20s, Adams had a good-natured response.

Adams said he has never been looked at in the same way as “a burner” such as Tyreek Hill. But he makes the most of speed and experience.

“When I see an open field, I’m running, obviously, as hard as I can to get to the end zone and try to score any time that I can,” he said. “Angles and certain things obviously influence whether or not you can get in. I don’t have a whole lot of 91-yard touchdowns in my career so I don’t know if I would have got in as a 24 or 23-year-old.

“When I see that space, I’m always pushing to get there. I’m running as hard as I can without pulling any ‘hammies’ [hamstrings] or doing anything crazy out there.”

Nacua, the NFL receptions leader last season, will return to the lineup against the Eagles. Nacua and other Rams receivers continue to be awed by Adams after his back-to-back 100-yard performances.

“It’s funny because with him being the veteran in our group and quote-unquote ‘the old guy,’ it’s been really exciting for him,” Nacua said. “There’s a breath of fresh air that I think we bring to him, but also that standard where he’s as competitive as it comes.”

Key injuries

Rams: DL Aaron Donald (back) out; CB Jaylen Watson (shoulder) out; TE Terrance Ferguson (ankle) out; TE Colby Parkinson (shoulder/knee) questionable; OLB Josaiah Stewart (groin) questionable.

Eagles: LB Zack Baun (concussion) out; WR Marquise Brown (ankle) out; TE Dallas Goedert (knee) out; OL (knee); WR DeVonta Smith (hamstring) out; S Marcus Epps (groin) out.

How to watch and listen to Rams vs. Eagles

The Rams and Philadelphia Eagles will play Sunday at 10 a.m. PDT at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. The game will be televised in California on Fox and will be available nationally via a subscription to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. In Southern California, fans can listen to the game on 710 AM, 93.1 FM and 1330 AM (Español).

Betting lines and odds for Rams vs. Eagles

Who will win Rams vs. Eagles?

The return of Nacua — and the odds against the Rams losing to the Eagles again on a last-second blocked field goal returned for a touchdown — will help McVay get his first win against Eagles coach Nick Sirianni.

Gary Klein’s pick: Rams 27, Eagles 20

Organizations publicly opposing Proposition 44 include the California Medical Assn., the California Hospital Assn., which represents hospitals and health systems, the Assn. of California Healthcare Districts, which represents the state’s 76 public healthcare districts, the California Teachers Assn., the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliate, the state Democratic Party, the state Chamber of Commerce and Reform California, a conservative advocacy group.

Opponents say the proposition’s vague wording could result in vital services being excluded from the list of program expenses permitted in the 90% of revenues, prompting clinics to cut programs to avoid financial penalties. A study commissioned by the California Primary Care Assn. found that clinics could face up to $1.7 billion in collective penalties in the first year of the measure’s implementation alone, an additional expense that could leave up to 88% of clinics operating in the red.

Opponents also say the measure adds an expensive layer of bureaucracy to the state’s budget and grants elected officials — in this case, the attorney general — authority to determine which services clinics can offer.

Whitesides was the first chief executive of Virgin Galactic, which employed hundreds of people in Antelope Valley. Previously, he worked on President Obama’s 2008 transition team and was chief of staff for NASA in the Obama administration. Whitesides co-founded nonprofit organization Megafire Action to advocate for policy solutions to prevent massive wildfires and served as a member of the Antelope Valley Economic Development and Growth Enterprise board of directors.

He was elected to Congress in 2024 and is running for reelection to continue creating jobs and expanding opportunity in California’s 27th District.

Gibbs was elected to Santa Clarita City Council in 2020 and chosen by his fellow council members to serve as mayor in 2023. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly and, according to his campaign website, worked on the the Delta II, Delta IV and Atlas V rocket launch systems in the local aerospace industry. Gibbs has served on the board of the Boys and Girls Club, the Valley Industry Assn. and the Salvation Army, according to his website.

He is running for Congress because he feels Washington is broken and believes in “common sense, accountability, and putting our community ahead of politics,” he says on his website.

Oct. 3, 2026 3:03 AM PT

Menopause has been having a moment lately, and Washington is taking notice. On Sept. 16, the Senate held its first hearing on the dismal state of federally funded menopause research and vast gaps in treatment and care. Within 24 hours, the Department of Health and Human Services also convened pharmaceutical manufacturers and physicians to troubleshoot the alarming lack of availability of estradiol patches, an essential menopause hormone treatment, and the Food and Drug Administration held a full day of expert panels on female-dosed testosterone, which is currently only FDA-approved for men.

One week later, Health and Human Services joined the American Urological Assn. for a discussion about a silent killer of postmenopausal women: urosepsis from recurrent urinary tract infections. There is a simple solution — localized vaginal estrogen — and yet because of outdated guidelines and lack of clinician training, the medication is too often ignored or denied. Nor is the prescription routinely covered by Medicare, despite its well-established health and longevity benefits for women over age 65.

These are among the attempts to now, finally, address decades of policy failures — a refreshing change, quite frankly, given neither political party has ever prioritized menopause. That 2026 marks the year when menopause has entered the policy arena comes as little surprise to me. I’ve been beating this drum for years. Every aspect of daily life that menopause touches — the soaring cost of medical care, inadequate access to health insurance, extreme underinvestment in scientific research focused on women’s health, even the myriad ways midlife women are stretched to the limit caring for kids and aging parents — is smack in the middle of the political zeitgeist. These are the kitchen table issues on the minds of voters this election.

Menopause moment, meet the midterms.

Another issue rightly revealed by menopause is the chasm of public trust in government. As one of the four expert witnesses who testified at the Senate, I was heartened that it was a true bipartisan endeavor. But that’s a rarity these days in Congress, an institution rife with dysfunction. Our federal health agencies have become so shamelessly politicized they are on a collision course with science — from HHS’ overt moves to undermine childhood vaccines, to the decimation of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is struggling to respond to the crisis of measles outbreaks across the country.

My goal as a policy advocate is to help turn the tide on this country’s long record of neglect when it comes to menopause. Like many other women’s and reproductive health advocates, after the 2024 election l turned my attention to state legislatures — not just as a consolation prize but as a way to test what range of reforms were feasible and to get as many good laws as possible passed. It was the right move. Over the last two years, more than 60 bills have been introduced in 28 states — to do things like require private insurance and Medicaid to cover menopause care and treatment, improve clinician training and public education, and bolster antidiscrimination protection in the workplace. Ten of those states now have 21 laws on the books.

California is one and can claim real leadership. Among the bills passed by the Legislature, Assembly Bill 2270 from 2023-24 incentivizes continuing medical education on menopause for clinicians, the majority of whom receive little to zero training while in medical school and residency. The California Department of Corrections is now collaborating with medical experts to help bring menopause resources to incarcerated women in state prisons.

Newsom also just vetoed AB 1940, which would have codified menopause as a protected category in the state’s workplace antidiscrimination laws.

The Legislature has been especially deft at easing access to FDA-approved hormonal treatments, including testosterone, often used off-label by menopausal women: AB 82 ends the requirement to report prescriptions to the state’s tracking database; AB 1778 proactively declassifies testosterone as a controlled substance under state law, should there be action in Washington to do the same under federal law.

Although Newsom twice vetoed bills to mandate insurance coverage for menopause treatment — and deserved all the flak he received — the 2026-27 state budget includes a minor course correct: a $3.4-million “trailer bill” to invest in public education and make menopause treatments more affordable; Medi-Cal patients are not fully covered by the addendum, though, making it a toothless reform for those who need support the most.

Why should California’s menopause agenda, or that of the other 27 states that have introduced reforms, matter to the rest of the country? They offer useful models of what to do — or in the case of Medicaid exclusion, what not to do — in crafting meaningful policies. Perhaps more important, they offer a rationale that can help persuade the public; those who might balk at a congressional bill or federal policy, in part because of skepticism of the federal government or the current administration, can listen to and learn from other stakeholders, including governors and state lawmakers and activists.

Take for example the FDA decision in November 2025 to remove the long-critiqued “black box” warning on estrogen products for menopause. This was the culmination of a decade-long campaign by physicians, researchers and scientists — who had been waging the fight for accurate labeling well before the acronym MAHA ever existed and regardless of which party held power. Yet the very image of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. using his moment at the podium to credit the Trump administration’s deep commitment to women’s health posed a serious credibility challenge. Aligned and contemporaneous state reforms offered much-needed reassurance and clarity to many.

Trust in government is understandably at a low point, but this happens to be when menopause finally has caught the attention of policymakers at all levels of power. Some are taking long-overdue steps for women’s health, however implausibly. Let’s take the wins.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is the author of “When in Menopause: A User’s Manual & Citizen’s Guide.” She is executive director of NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center.

Take a deep breath in Hollywood’s Kimpton Everly Hotel and you may catch a whiff of sandalwood, leather, fennel, cardamom, violet and cedar.

And if you sniff the lobby of downtown Los Angeles’ Ritz-Carlton, you may detect “bright effervescent notes … layered with soft florals,” a custom fragrance known as Champagne & Shimmer.

For years now, hotels have been spending more and more on signature fragrances to woo and hook guests. But what if they make some people sick instead? Would those visitors be victims of discrimination?

One California law firm says yes, and has filed a barrage of lawsuits this year, targeting hotels in California and elsewhere over synthetic fragrances in common areas. (The Kimpton Everly and downtown Ritz-Carlton are not named.)

The conflict highlights an emerging debate about synthetic scents: Many hotels use them, but some sensitive guests consider those aromas as welcome as secondhand smoke.

For better and for worse, smells “can trigger so many things,” said Juliana R. V. Tkatch, an assistant professor at the Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, who specializes in experience design, events and theme parks.

Tkatch added that there’s nothing new about using scent as a marketing tool, at least not since the first time “the owner of a restaurant cooked a pie and put it on the top shelf.”

The difference now, Tkatch said, is more advanced technology, making it easier to widely circulate synthetic fragrances and natural scents in a way that’s discreet and constant. Doing so can strengthen customer loyalty, she said, but “it’s a good practice to let people know up front.”

The current controversy began in May and June, when the Oakland-based law firm Cole & Van Note filed a series of class-action lawsuits representing California hotel customers with fragrance sensitivities and targeting major hotel chains.

Some cases, including a May 8 filing that targeted Marriott International Inc., have already been dropped. Others, including a June 4 filing that named Hyatt Hotels Corp., remain in early stages.

In general, the lawsuits allege that artificial fragrances used in many hotel public rooms violate the federal Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, because those fragrances make it dangerous or impossible for some people to share the space.

Attorney Scott Cole, founder of Cole & Van Note, described a recent visit to Las Vegas. “At least 95% of the places that I visited had some kind of fragrance or heightened VOC [volatile organic compound] levels,” Cole said. “I was shocked at how widespread it was there.”

In court filings, Cole’s firm asserts that 26.8% of adults suffer from asthma or asthma-like conditions and 27.5% suffer from chemical sensitivity. He contends that when hotels circulate synthetic fragrances through scent dispersion machines, they may be spreading toxic chemicals, potentially causing respiratory problems, headaches, skin irritation and gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and cognitive problems among vulnerable guests.

As his firm’s campaign has evolved, Cole said, some of the dropped federal cases are being refiled in state courts. He said he expects more filings outside California in coming months.

A spokesman for the California Hotel & Lodging Assn. said its members “work hard to create safe and accessible spaces” and that the industry “consistently reviews best practices to ensure guests are welcomed, comfortable, and safe.”

Representatives for Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental Hotels Group and Loews hotel chains, all targeted in the first volley of lawsuits, did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., the industry’s leading trade group.

But the association’s website asserts that the Americans With Disabilities Act “has been used as a weapon by scheming lawyers seeking to extort easy settlements … after alleging ambiguous violations of the law.”

This debate turns on several questions, including what constitutes a disability under ADA, what responsibilities businesses should shoulder and how the U.S. regulates fragrances.

Many of the companies that supply hotel fragrances belong to the Switzerland-based International Fragrance Assn. (IFRA), which sets voluntary guidelines for ingredients. But the U.S. government frequently doesn’t require disclosure of fragrance ingredients because blends are often trade secrets.

“It’s outside of the [Food and Drug Administration’s] domain and so the regulatory framework becomes much less stringent,” said Alexander M. Spokoyny, professor and chair of UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Outside the courtroom, a broader conversation simmers on social media.

“It’s honestly time all these scents are banned the same way smoking has been banned pretty much everywhere,” one traveler complained on Reddit.

Another, citing their allergies, wrote that “it’s REALLY hard to find a place that doesn’t stink.”

Yet another responded that “I’m very sensitive to scents and never noticed this.”

Hotel industry veterans note that if guests call in advance, many hotels are able to prepare guest rooms without artificial scents. And some hotels with green leanings, like those in the Laguna Beach-based boutique Soul Community Planet (SCP) Hotels chain, use essential oil diffusers, which rely on plant-based ingredients instead of synthetic ones.

Meanwhile, sales figures suggest that strategic scents, synthetic and otherwise, are helping businesses win over travelers and other consumers. By one estimate, the global scent-marketing business now adds up to $4.1 billion yearly.

The Marriott chain sells candles and diffusers with “the signature scent of your favorite hotels,” including subsidiary brands Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, Westin, Sheraton and Courtyard. You can even order up the scent of a Fairfield by Marriott, often favored by travelers on tight budgets.

Scentair, a scent-marketing company based in North Carolina, claims customers in 119 countries, including many hotels, and says its creation was “inspired by a Disney Imagineer’s Idea in 1994 to add scents to attractions.”

Another scent company, Australia-based Air Aroma, has created fragrances for Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills (“notes of blackberry and Damascan Rose”), for DoubleTree properties (“uplifting notes of lemon, white tea, and freesia, and warm comforting notes of cedar and musk”) and for the Hilton Curio Collection’s Starling Atlanta Midtown (“ginger flower, orange, coriander, ivy, and lavender”).

Scent is “memory, mood and emotion, distilled into something you can’t see but never forget,” Air Aroma said in a Facebook post earlier this year.

Yet among skeptics, questions and doubts remain on the safety of chemical entities, fragrances included.

“Even if something might be natural, if you aerosolize it and spread it across buildings, it’s not necessarily great,” UCLA’s Spokoyny said. “I do think it requires more thorough public scrutiny. … You just don’t know what you don’t know.”

Tran, 45, is an attorney and U.S. Army veteran who served in the U.S. Operations Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom. He runs a pharmacy with his wife, Michelle. He is the son of refugees who fled communist Vietnam and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, graduating from Rosemead High School.

Tran’s first term included small victories for his constituents, including helping trim processing time in the social security system for small businesses and individuals and small business loan payouts totaling $5 million this year, his office reported. He also delivered $1 million to the city of Cypress for flood prevention infrastructure.

He also has championed bills, such as the WARRIOR Act, which codifies a woman’s ability to serve in combat in the Armed Forces. He and Republican Rep. Don Bacon (Neb.) also teamed to author the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Foreign Interference Safeguard Act, which aims to protect such entities against hacking and cyberwarfare.

Tran is endorsed by the unions for Orange and Los Angeles counties’ deputy sheriffs, the International Assn. of Fire Fighters, the California Federation of Labor Unions and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Vo, who fled Vietnam as a child, served as the mayor of Cerritos while a member of the city council from 2020 to 2025. Vo, 50, recently retired after working as an officer for the Torrance Police Department since 1999.

On the city council, Vo touted some of Cerritos’ success, including the creation of the city’s annual Moon Festival, the extension of a Kia automotive dealership extension until 2045 and the redesign of the city’s website.

He differentiates himself from Tran by saying he is “not a career politician promising to fix D.C. from the inside.”

“I’ve spent my life doing the work on the ground and serving our community,” he said.

Vo is endorsed by the California Republican Party, Los Angeles County Lincoln Clubs, Orange County Supervisors Janet Nguyen and Don Wagner and a slew of city mayors from Fountain Valley to Garden Grove and Norwalk.

Kounalakis is well known in state politics. She is serving her final term as lieutenant governor, a largely ceremonial role that includes seats on various higher-education boards including the University of California Board of Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees.

A major Democratic donor, Kounalakis in 2023 launched a campaign to become California’s next governor before dropping out of the race and announcing in August 2025 she would run for state treasurer.

Kounalakis holds a master’s in business administration from UC Berkeley and is the daughter of Sacramento real estate magnate Angelo Tsakopolous. She spent 18 years working for AKT Development, the business her father founded, eventually becoming its president. In 2009, she was appointed to the U.S. ambassador post in Hungary by President Obama.

“I have been using my international experience serving the state as our representative for international trade and investment, which has a very heavy economic development piece to it,” she said this year.

Hawks is a retired businesswoman and a Republican activist. She has served as president of Palo Alto Republican Women Federated, been involved with the California Federation of Republican Women and has gathered signatures for the GOP-led voter ID measure, Proposition 39.

Hawks spent two decades working as an executive assistant at the Sacred Hearts School, a private Catholic school in the tony Silicon Valley town of Atherton, before her retirement in 2021. Before that, she worked in various human resources and office manager roles.

“I am a people person,” Hawks said on Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s (R-San Diego) Reform California podcast. “I’ll get to know [the] rank-and-file in there, and I will garner their trust.”

The Times submitted surveys to the candidates. Unedited excerpts from the surveys, in which candidates lay out detailed goals and policy analysis, can be found at the links below.

Barrera

Shaw

Aligned with their parties

Shaw, 44, is the president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education, overseeing a relatively large school system of 26,000 students in San Bernardino County.

Barrera, 59, is the president of the San Diego Unified Board of Education, which governs the state’s second-largest school system with about 113,000 students. Barrera also serves as a senior adviser to state Supt. Thurmond, whom Shaw has sharply criticized.

Both are parents. Barrera’s children are grown; Shaw’s still are in school.

Shaw broadly characterizes the public education system as failing because of liberal Democratic policies, although she praises the quality of the public school system over which she presides. On the culture-war front, she supports flag bans at schools — which were conceived to target gay pride flags — and book restrictions that target content deemed as sexually obscene.

She became politically activated by the pandemic’s prolonged school closures, COVID vaccine mandates and mask mandates — all of which she opposed.

Despite a consistent policy alignment with the Trump administration, Shaw, a longtime religious conservative and a small business owner, objects to any implication that she is falling into line behind Trump or that she is subservient to his policies.

“I don’t put loyalty behind a person,” Shaw said. “I put my my effort and my love and my everyday sacrifice behind protecting kids, whether it’s this president, the next president or whatever. If they’re on the right side of protecting kids, then, of course, when it comes to the issues, I’m all in. I really honestly hate the division. In my heart, if we just speak on our issues, it’ll bring people together. We could see more eye to eye. We can actually have decent conversations, right?”

At times, Shaw presents a sharp rhetorical style, as when she characterized a September court ruling that placed limits on when school officials would have to notify parents about their child’s gender issues. Shaw believes such notifications should be mandatory. Her first emphatic comment, in an interview and a social media post after the hearing, which she attended, was: “Kangaroo courts. Dishonorable judges.”

Shaw sidesteps discussions about Trump’s immigration enforcement. “Districts should follow the law, communicate clearly with families and keep their attention on the classroom … That’s where our energy belongs,” she said.

Barrera, in contrast, calls Trump’s immigration raids harmful.

“This assault on our immigrant families by the Trump administration absolutely is a real issue that affects students and affects educators,” he said. “And I’m going to stand up to those assaults, and Californians will continue to stand up to those assaults.”

Barrera defends the quality of public schools and advocates for increased funding and expanding what works from successful campuses to those with poorer academic results.

Barrera sees the superintendent as a convener and organizer to advance initiatives that benefit students — with or without state funding or direction from the governor and Legislature.

As an example, he cited the education department’s effort to promote affordable workforce housing projects on school district property. He also cited efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism, for which the department gathered a working group that has produced guidance for schools.

Barrera has a long career in community and labor organizing and worked as a senior official in two unions. That background, combined with his 18 years on the San Diego school board, where he has been a union ally, made him an ideological fit with CTA. Neither Barrera nor CTA had to compromise values or shift positions to join forces for this campaign.

“I have absolute respect and … a long demonstrated partnership with the unions that represent our educators,” Barrera said, “and believe strongly that unions are democratically elected, governed institutions where the educator voice comes out most powerfully, and so for me, the unions are a partner and will always be a core voice in influencing the way that I make decisions.”

Von Wilpert, 43, has served as a member of the San Diego City Council since 2020, representing District 5.

Before her foray into politics, she was an attorney who founded a legal health clinic in Mississippi to combat discrimination in housing, employment and medical care against HIV/AIDS patients. She later served as counsel on the House Education and Labor Committee and focused on labor rights during the second Obama administration.

As a council member, Von Wilpert authored bills to ban untraceable guns and launched housing grant initiatives for educators. She focused much of her tenure working to update labor laws to allow federal workers to organize, bargain with employers and establish monetary penalties for labor violations.

Desmond, 70, has served as a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors since 2019.

Desmond is a Navy veteran and former Delta Air Lines pilot and served as the mayor of San Marcos from 2006 to 2018. As mayor, he worked to reform the pension system in order to balance the city’s budget, growing $40 million in fiscal reserves.

He has been a staunch, fiscally conservative voice on the county board of supervisors, representing county District 5, with a focus on regional infrastructure and supporting additional behavioral health facilities after San Diego County had a series of closures.

The cornerstone of Kim’s platform is her call for the state-run property disaster insurance program, which largely would be funded by policyholders. Coverage would be universal, with policyholders automatically enrolled. With no need to generate shareholder profits, fund marketing or pay high executive salaries, she contends the plan could better invest in fire prevention and make buildings and property more fire resilient. Such a drastic change in the insurance system would require legislation and support from the governor.

“Voters I’ve talked to don’t want to see the same old tinkering with the system, because most voters agree that it’s actually magical thinking that doing the same tinkering of the existing system is going to lead to a different result,” she said.

Allen is sharply critical of Kim’s plan, which he says is woefully short on details. Instead, he is focusing on the mechanics of improving the current system — for both homeowners and insurers. He wants to speed reviews of insurer rate applications, create a business office to attract more carriers to the state and work with elected officers at all levels to design programs that reduce fire risk of individual properties and at the neighborhood and community scale.

“I’m focused on what’s actually doable. The people who suffer from these terrible fires don’t need a 10-year experiment. Voters of all stripes, not just Republicans, are not interested in making the state a guinea pig,” he said.