california

Paramount CEO David Ellison may pull his operations out of California if the state does not end its attempt to block the company’s merger with Warner Bros Discovery and agree to settlement talks as soon as October.

The rumours were first reported by the publication Variety on Tuesday. They signal Ellison may be willing to leverage economic pressure on California’s ailing film industry in order to push through the merger.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently confirm the validity of the report.

In July, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that he was leading a coalition of 12 state attorneys general in an antitrust lawsuit to block the consolidation.

Should Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery combine, Bonta warned that the resulting company would control 27 percent of theatrically released films in the United States and a third of the country’s basic-cable output.

“Consolidation here not only leads to higher prices,” Bonta said. “It also leads to fewer opportunities for important stories to come to life, and fewer ways for audiences to encounter stories, ideas, and perspectives beyond their own experiences.”

But Variety reported that Ellison told Paramount’s senior executives that he would begin the process of moving the company out of California on October 1 if Bonta does not agree to settlement talks.

There could be downstream effects as well. The report also alleged that Ellison would pull Warner Bros Discovery out of California, too, if the $110bn merger goes through.

Variety indicated that Paramount is considering relocating to the US states of Tennessee, Texas or Georgia — none of which are involved in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit.

A growing enterprise

The dispute over Warner Bros Discovery’s fate stretches back to late 2025, when the company’s sale was first announced.

Critics quickly observed that the sale had the potential to shift the balance of power in Hollywood, with Warner Bros Discovery wielding influential properties including the news channel CNN, the production company New Line Cinema and the television-streaming service HBO.

The streaming giant Netflix initially emerged as a frontrunner to take over Warner Bros Discovery, but by February, Paramount succeeded in inking an agreement.

It was the second major merger Paramount had lined up in less than a year. In 2025, it had also succeeded in consolidating with the media production company Skydance, in a deal that generated scrutiny about the editorial independence of its subsidiaries.

Paramount’s decisions that year to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and enter into a $16m settlement with US President Donald Trump were widely perceived as efforts to curry government favour for the merger.

Paramount is considered a titan in US filmmaking and media production, as one of the oldest studios in the country. Its portfolio includes CBS News and Paramount Pictures.

A pair of lawsuits

The impending merger with Warner Bros Discovery has led to a fresh round of scrutiny for Ellison and the Paramount leadership.

Last week, Ellison addressed some of those concerns in an opinion column in The New York Times.

In it, he questioned whether the states’ antitrust lawsuit was “really about market share”, speculating that it was instead about control over major news outlets like CNN. He also sought to portray himself as politically independent.

“I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans,” Ellison wrote.

“When it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views.”

But the states have argued that combining Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount would create a monopoly, stifling competition.

If the merger succeeds, the states say that only four distributors would control 86 percent of the country’s films.

The merger could also mean job losses. As of the end of 2025, the headcount at Paramount stood at 17,600, while Warner Bros Discovery had 35,500 employees.

A day after the 12 states filed their lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) followed suit.

In its July 14 complaint, the guild argued that the merger would mean fewer jobs and more pressure on writers to accept less favourable working terms, owing to reduced competition in the media market.

“Writers will be paid less and have fewer employment opportunities,” the WGA complaint said.

In Los Angeles County alone, the merger could result in a loss of nearly 2,500 jobs, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity, published in June.

As many as 6,000 employees around the world could also see their positions cut.

By comparison, when the Paramount and Skydance merger was completed in 2025, the company laid off roughly 2,000 people.

Costly standoff

On July 24, Paramount Skydance agreed to pause the merger until a ruling in the states’ case is ultimately made or until June 1, 2027 — a move the WGA celebrated.

“It remains our view that this merger is unlawful, and we will continue the fight to block it,” WGA said at the time.

The WGA did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Slowing the merger could be costly for Paramount Skydance. Under the terms of the merger, the company would have to pay a so-called ticking fee of $7m per day, or $650m per quarter, if the deal does not close by September 30.

But the standoff with Ellison could also be costly for California, which is experiencing a downturn in the number of productions filmed in the state. New York, another state involved in the lawsuit, could see a backlash, as it houses studios for CBS News and Paramount’s executive offices.

Representatives for the state of California and Paramount Skydance did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Paramount Skydance’s stock is trending upward on the heels of Tuesday’s report. The stock was up 0.4 percent in midday trading, while Warner Bros Discovery was up 1.1 percent.

In a striking demonstration of support, hundreds of fired up Californians rallied in Santa Monica to speak out against the Trump administration’s attempt to wrest local control over the state’s beloved coastline.

The Golden State’s top environmental leaders, along with prominent elected officials, environmentalists, business coalitions, community activists, Indigenous groups and everyday citizens, packed a public hearing Monday before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Coastal Management, which has been tasked with conducting an unprecedented investigation that could ultimately strip California of its power to say no to federal projects.

Experts see the investigation — framed as a performance review of the state’s coastal management practices — as a thinly veiled attempt by Trump officials to open California’s coast to more offshore oil drilling, more rocket launches and possibly even floating nuclear reactors. If the federal government succeeds, many worry it could set the stage for similar actions in other coastal states.

“I’m scared, not because we haven’t built something worth protecting — we have. I’m scared because this meeting is performance theater. In some ways, the decision seems already made,” said Maureen Ellenberger, a resident of Santa Barbara who said she is haunted by the possibility of another oil spill. “But I’m speaking today anyway, so there’s a record. So years from now… everyone will know we fought, that we did not consent.”

Kate Huckelbridge, executive director of the California Coastal Commission, speaks during a NOAA hearing as Larry Goldzband, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, awaits his turn to make comments.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Citing California’s “environmental extremism,” Trump officials are attempting to decertify the state’s authority under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act, or CZMA. The act grants coastal states the right to review and object to any project in federal waters that clashes with state policy.

For the last five decades, the CZMA has been celebrated as a bipartisan co-management framework between coastal states and the federal government — and in California, the process had been relatively smooth through every presidential administration until Trump’s.

Tensions escalated in May when U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick declared that “California has repeatedly and unfoundedly obstructed spaceport development in bad faith” and announced that he was ordering a fresh evaluation of the state’s CZMA compliance using a “new approach.” He specifically instructed NOAA, which is under his purview, to take offshore oil production, pipeline maintenance, spaceport infrastructure, desalination projects and undersea cables into consideration, citing national priorities and economic interests.

Performance reviews under the CZMA are not uncommon (most states are subject to a routine review every five to 10 years) but what’s unusual in this case is the callout to specific industries, as well as the politically charged nature of how the review was announced (state officials learned they were under review through a social media post from the U.S. Department of Commerce.)

What was also unusual was the fact California had also just undergone a routine review during the Biden administration.

A draft of that review, which was completed in 2024, but not finalized because of the change in administration, gave top marks to the three California agencies charged with implementing the CZMA — the California Coastal Commission, the California State Coastal Conservancy and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The review found no issues.

Joelle Gore, left, chief of the stewardship division at the NOAA Office for Coastal Management and Keelin Kuipers, right, acting director at NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, listen to more than four hours of public comments.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

The new Lutnick-ordered review began in earnest on Monday with the only hearing that people can attend in-person during the 45-day-public comment period. (Two virtual hearings will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, and NOAA is required to review all written comments that are submitted from members of the public through Aug. 22.)

More than 15,000 people have written comments so far, and for more than four hours Monday, surfers, fishers, marine scientists, community activists, business owners, real estate brokers and Californians from a wide swath of interest groups — many traveling from Marin, San Jose, Mendocino and other parts of the state — lined up to speak before NOAA’s acting director for coastal management.

Nobody in attendance spoke in favor of the federal review. As people in the crowd held up signs declaring “NO FEDERAL TAKEOVER” and “NO SELLOUTS FOR BIG OIL,” speakers expressed their love for the California coast and urged federal officials to take note of the state’s thriving marine economy.

The crowd erupted in whoops and applause after each person spoke their three minutes of public comments. A number of speakers, some moved to tears, expressed afterward that they had never been more proud to be a Californian.

“It was just example after example after example of how the state’s coastal management program is working — it was really putting into the record those facts and also just so many personal stories,” said Jennifer Savage, a longtime policy advocate for Surfrider Foundation who drove more than 670 miles from Humboldt to testify at the hearing. “It showed more than anything that being able to go to the beach is such a unifying shared joy in California.”

The State’s top environmental leaders also took turns speaking about how the CZMA has long facilitated open dialogue and collaboration between the state and federal government.

“We sincerely hope that this review is not merely a pretense for removing California’s ability to hold public hearings on offshore oil and gas projects,” said Kate Huckelbridge, executive director of the Coastal Commission. “California has received very little information about why this new federal review is being undertaken. Still, we welcome a fair and transparent evaluation. Our record speaks for itself.”

Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources, provides public comment during a NOAA hearing.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Out of the more than 3,700 federal actions that have come before the Coastal Commission for review since the 1970s, the commission has aligned with the federal actions 96% of the time, Huckelbridge said.

Current and former coastal officials also spoke about their experiences with past reviews and questioned the unusual timing of this evaluation and how it doesn’t follow standard procedure.

“I have personally participated in several periodic reviews, and what has happened in this review is unprecedented and, quite frankly, bizarre. There is absolutely no basis for reopening the periodic review conducted in 2024,” said Jack Ainsworth, who had worked at the coastal commission for 34 years and led it for seven of those years. “I would also note that California is recognized as the gold standard for integrated coastal management in the United States and around the world.”

At a NOAA hearing Monday, the crowd applauded after each speaker expressed their love for the California coast and urged federal officials to keep things the way they are.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

What happens after this week’s hearings will be uncharted territory, but experts say that if the review does end up taking issue with California’s coastal management program, the state should be given the opportunity to respond to any proposed changes. The process laid out in the law appears to include multiple steps and opportunities for discussion, they said.

At a rally outside the meeting room Monday, more than a hundred environmentalists gathered alongside congressmembers, county supervisors, Indigenous leaders, environmental justice groups and business coalitions to further amplify the many voices that represent California.

Toni Cordero, a board member of Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, Surfrider Foundation, and Environmental Defense Center, speaks at a rally before a NOAA hearing Monday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“The Creator put us here to coexist and to collaborate in caring for our mother ocean and for all her relatives, all of her inhabitants and all those who call this coast home,” said Toni Cordero, a former tribal chair of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation who also served as a deputy state attorney general for more than 25 years. “We must remember them. It is their homelands, their well-being and their futures that are also at stake under the guise of ensuring compliance with the Coastal Zone Management Act.”

The crowd waved signs and cheered again as Wade Crowfoot, California’s Secretary for Natural Resources, stepped up to speak.

“It has been clear from Governor Newsom to Attorney General Bonta to our legislators to our congressional delegation: California’s coast is not for sale, and a hostile takeover of our coast by the federal government… won’t be tolerated,” Crowfoot declared.

“So rest assured,” he said. “We stand in strong solidarity with everyone here today — whether you’re a tribal government, a local government, a conservation organization or just somebody that likes to get out and be on a beach that’s safe and healthy, we are making our voices heard.”

A parody AI chatbot designed by California congressional candidate Scott Wiener’s campaign to mock the record of his opponent attracted the attention politicians crave and criticism most loathe.

The short-lived experiment stirred controversy over the use of artificial intelligence in campaigns ads and drew sharp criticism from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has endorsed Wiener’s opponent for the coveted San Francisco congressional seat. Wiener quickly pulled the plug.

Candidates on both sides of the aisle have been testing the waters by integrating generative AI into campaign ads. It comes as no surprise to political sociologist Mindy Romero, the director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, who said candidates have long used all tools at their disposal to reach voters, from the invention of the radio and TV to social media.

“Using AI is just part of the progression,” Romero said. Generative AI is particularly useful for political candidates since it allows them to subconsciously influence viewers by putting words in their opponents’ mouths, she said.

Even as political campaigns experiment with more outlandish applications of the technology, many have already been using AI in quieter ways, including to compose tailored mailings and participate in digital chat rooms, Romero said.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton on July 24 released three cinematic ads made using generative AI, the first of which features fictional portrayals of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, shown sharing a lavish meal.

The ad also depicts a fake Xavier Becerra, his Democratic rival in the governor’s race, who is heard saying, “I believe all the things that Newsom believes.” The ad ends with Hilton facing off against a massive red-eyed robot meant to represent the “Democratic machine.” An AI disclaimer appears in the last five seconds of the two-minute and 29-second video.

“Campaigns have always adopted new technology, from television to the internet to social media,” Hilton campaign spokesperson Hector Barajas said in a statement. “Generative AI is the next step, and we believe it would be irresponsible not to use every lawful, ethical, and innovative tool to communicate with California voters.”

Spencer Pratt, who unsuccessfully ran for L.A. mayor, in May reposted on X a viral Batman-inspired AI-generated video that depicted Mayor Karen Bass as the Joker, the clownish supervillain. Charles Curran, the filmmaker who made the fan video in support of Pratt, appears to now be working with Hilton’s campaign in a more official capacity, with his X account tagged on several campaign social media posts.

“I view this as the evolution of political satire,” Curran said, referring to his AI videos, in an interview with the Washington Times. “Like Mark Twain. Like Tammany Hall.” Curran did not respond to interview requests.

“We’re on the bleeding edge right now,” said Sacramento political consultant Tim Rosales, who ran Republican John Cox’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. He said he anticipates that campaigns will more fully understand and use AI to its full extent in the next two election cycles.

California campaigns have long been at the forefront of adopting new technologies. In the 1980s, the late political strategist Clint Reilly was among the first political consultants to use voter roll data to segment and target pivotal voters for turnout and persuasion.

Rosales said that because campaigns in California are more expensive and raise more money than those in other states, “You have a lot more tools in your tool box and more toys you can play with.”

Lynn Vavreck, a political science and communications studies professor at UCLA, said the persuasive effects of Hilton’s AI videos are likely “limited” as they are most likely being watched by supporters. The videos, she said, are more akin to “content creation” than to ads.

Romero said AI technology can be beneficial for campaigns, particularly those with limited funds, that may use it to create outreach lists, assist with analysis or generate creative and campaign materials.

But AI-generated video, images and audio are a “double-edged sword,” Romero said. While effective at drawing attention, they may have the unwanted effect of making viewers uncomfortable by blurring the lines of reality — even if the AI use is disclosed. As a result, political campaigns must make a “strategic calculation” when they opt to use them, she said.

Those perils surfaced last week when the campaign of Wiener (D-San Francisco), who is running for the congressional seat held by the outgoing Pelosi, unveiled an AI chatbot that could be accessed on the ConnieChan.ai website.

The site referred to itself as “Connie, the world’s first AI trained to say no to anything you ask.” The footer included a note that the site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Chan, is meant as parody, and is paid for by Wiener’s campaign.

“Bring me an idea and I’ll explain why it can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t happen,” the site said, followed by a box encouraging users to type in a query. The chatbot would then produce a snide response parodying Chan.

When The Times entered the word “housing” into the text box last week, its response came seconds later.

“I built my career opposing new housing in San Francisco,” the chatbot’s response read. “I aggressively defend the status quo, and I’m fine with exploding rents and mass displacement.” It then rattled off examples including Chan’s opposition to Wiener’s state law to streamline housing projects.

Wiener campaign spokesperson Joe Arellano said Wednesday that he came up with the idea of making a chatbot ad shortly after the June primary election, when he saw a video showing a group of people putting up parody tech and AI advertisements in the New York City subway.

“I thought, this is an opportunity to do this right in the heart of innovation here in San Francisco,” Arellano said. “San Francisco right now is having this moment around AI and the billboards. … The overall craze around the industry has become a cultural moment.”

The chatbot cost $5,000 to make, a sum that includes the cost to secure the domain, host the site and obtain the pro version of Anthropic’s Claude AI model, plus staff time, according to Arellano. The campaign spent an additional $20,000 to rent two billboards in San Francisco promoting the bot.

The idea was to highlight Chan’s “record of obstructing progress” through a “chatbot that essentially says no to any kind of policy that you’re proposing,” Arellano said.

Chan’s campaign and her allies saw it differently.

“[It’s] never a good idea for a man to put words in a woman’s mouth — especially when they are falsities fraught with racist and sexist undertones,” Ian Krager, a spokesperson for Chan’s campaign, said in a text message. The chatbot, Krager said, showed Wiener was “bought and paid for by Big AI.”

Chan’s campaign shared several screenshots of interactions with the chatbot with The Times, including one in which the chatbot was asked if it was “from China.” (Chan was born in Hong Kong.)

According to the campaign’s screenshot, the chatbot replied that its “origins are classified under about seventeen different committee review processes.”

Then, it pivoted: “But I’d love to help obstruct something *else* you’re curious about! Here are some of my favorite topics,” and spat out a menu of topics to choose from, which included “blocking housing” and “derailing public transit.”

Wiener’s campaign said the chatbot was created with “strict guardrails” and designed to ignore controversial and malicious prompts and pivot back to Chan’s policy record.

Pelosi, who has endorsed Chan in the race, released a statement Thursday criticizing Wiener’s campaign for the chatbot, calling its use of AI to “fabricate a woman’s voice for ridicule or attack” a “gross misuse of technology.”

At first, Wiener defended himself, writing on X Thursday evening that his rival’s campaign inundated the chatbot with “malicious questions” about her accent, race and citizenship that the chatbot refused. The next day, Wiener reversed course.

“[Our] use of an AI chatbot clearly missed the mark,” Wiener said in a statement Friday. “The conversation became about the tactic instead of the issues that actually matter to San Franciscans.”

Wiener’s campaign on Friday took the chatbot offline and announced plans to take down the billboards.

Romero said experts began to have widespread discussions about how AI could be used to sway voters and affect democracy in the lead-up to the 2024 election when a company sent deceptive phone messages that used AI to mimic President Biden’s voice and discourage people from voting.

Since then, there have been several efforts by California lawmakers to rein in AI-generated advertising.

Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2024 signed several AI-related bills. They include AB 2839, which banned the distribution of materially deceptive content that could harm a candidate’s reputation or electoral prospects, with exceptions for satire and parody, and AB 2355, which requires a committee that creates a political ad to disclose if it was generated or substantially altered by AI.

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) have renewed an effort to update the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to clarify that existing bans on “fraudulent misrepresentation of campaign authority” and the “fraudulent solicitation of funds” also extend to AI-generated content.

“Fraudulent AI advertising has already proliferated in races across the country, and if Congress does not act, this runaway challenge will only get worse as AI becomes increasingly capable of blurring the lines between fact and fiction,” Schiff said in a statement.

Elena Kuhn, a spokesperson for Schiff, said the proposed legislation applies to material that attempts to “speak on behalf of other candidates,” meaning Hilton’s AI-generated cinematic clip of himself fighting a robot would be not be banned — contrary to the Republican candidate’s claims that it would be.

SACRAMENTO — Lawyer Kamalpreet Chohan ran her finger down a list of 57 names of people scheduled to appear during a morning of hearings at the immigration court in Sacramento and pointed out one glaring commonality.

“None of these folks are represented,” she said.

Chohan is the coordinator of a program that sends volunteer lawyers to immigration courts to assist people without representation and help them navigate the complicated legal system, where the stakes are a future in the U.S. or deportation.

Appearing without a lawyer opens up even greater risk under the second Trump administration, with the courts playing a key role in its mass deportation agenda. Courts are increasingly denying asylum, deportation officers have arrested immigrants in court hallways and the administration has packed courtrooms to cut backlogs and reduced lead time on hearings, causing people to miss them.

Data show that legal representation can be crucial to winning in court, but many immigrants, unable to pay for a private lawyer or find a pro bono one, navigate the system without an attorney at their side.

“Folks go into immigration court not knowing what’s happening. They come out not knowing what’s happening. And when there’s an attorney present,” Chohan said, “it’s just so helpful.”

No guaranteed legal representation

Unlike criminal court, there is no guaranteed lawyer in immigration courts.

Immigrants have to hire one at a cost of thousands of dollars or hope to get represented by one of the nonprofit organizations assisting low-income immigrants. But waitlists with those organizations are long, and many parts of the country just do not have that many immigration attorneys.

Of the roughly 3.2 million pending deportation cases currently in U.S. immigration courts, people in 52% of those cases do not have a lawyer, according to an analysis of immigration court data by the Vera Institute of Justice, a think tank.

A Congressional Research Service study from 2024 found that only 19% of people who did not have a lawyer won asylum or another avenue to stay in the United States. Among those who did have a lawyer, 47% were successful.

“Having an attorney is just super critical to be able to navigate the system successfully,” said Adriel Orozco of the advocacy group American Immigration Council.

Chohan said she frequently runs into people who have been scammed by lawyers or people posing as lawyers who take their money but do nothing for their case.

“I will give him a list of attorneys who are free and we have vetted,” she said, referring to one man who said he had been scammed. “They have long waitlists, but he should still ask.”

Speaking later to the Associated Press, the man described how he left Guatemala after being threatened by gangs and came to the U.S. in 2024 seeking asylum. Ever since, he said, he has done everything that has been asked of him while he tries to make ends meet, occasionally painting houses. He spent $4,500 on a lawyer who in the end did nothing to help him, he said.

“He turned out to be a scammer,” said the man, who did not want to be identified for fear of endangering his case. He is worried about what comes next in court after being warned by the judge that he could be deported. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said.

A busy day in court

Outside the Sacramento building where the court is housed is a long line of immigrants waiting for appointments with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is in the same building. Volunteers with a local anti-ICE resistance group stand ready to help.

Upstairs, two immigration judges are on the bench. One hears the in-depth individual cases of immigrants who are pursuing their claim of asylum.

The other judge has the master calendar docket, where dozens of immigrants will appear in brief hearings geared at making sure their case is ready to go to the next step.

Signs taped to the wall remind people not to make audio or video recordings inside the court complex. A security guard makes sure no one loiters in the hallways. Most people clutch stacks of papers documenting their cases.

After immigrants file into the courtroom for their hearings, Judge Susan Phan introduces Chohan and describes the services her organization offers.

“You are not required to meet with her, but it is a rare opportunity that we have someone volunteering their time,” Phan said before launching into the day’s work.

Details matter

Chohan, who works with the California Immigration Project, starts each hearing in the courtroom. She has a clipboard to take notes, extra copies of forms and a crate of books for restless children attending court with their parents. She spends the bulk of her time in the waiting room, talking to clients after their hearings and scanning their documents to flesh out what else they need.

Speaking to one young man from Mexico, she asks to see his asylum application, noting that the judge had pointed out that it was lacking in detail.

“Sometimes judges can deny a claim if there isn’t enough detail,” she said through one of the organization’s volunteer interpreters.

The organization frequently holds clinics to help immigrants fill out their asylum application. Chohan said she will alert him to the next one.

Another woman holding a stack of documents is there with her son and wanted to make sure her children could come with her if she is deported. Chohan also briefed her on what to expect at her upcoming asylum hearing and said the organization would send her an asylum filing guide.

Chohan highlighted places on forms where people need to give answers or answer in more detail. It’s OK to write “none, ” but she advises them to not leave boxes blank.

Everything submitted in Spanish must be accompanied by a translation into English that must be done by a person, not an automatic online translator. Copies of every page of a passport must be submitted. Documents must be sent in two weeks before the applicant’s hearing so the judge can review them.

Over and over, Chohan reminds immigrants to download their receipt showing they paid the $102 asylum application fee so they can submit it to the court.

Chohan said a lot of these procedures and forms are discussed in court, but it is happening fast and immigrants are listening through an interpreter, so they don’t always understand.

“A lot of times when they go into court, they’re just happy that they’re out of court and they’re not being arrested,” she said.

A changing court system

Chohan has witnessed the upheaval in the immigration courts during President Trump’s second term.

She was in the court hallways last summer when ICE officers waited to arrest immigrants after their hearings. Earlier this summer she watched as the administration started holding “mega masters,” hearings with dozens of respondents at a time that are meant to clear a backlog but have created chaos.

Chohan said there are not enough pro bono lawyers in the Sacramento area to help everyone who needs one, so the “attorney of the day” program is often the next best thing. She believes everyone should have access to a lawyer.

Until that day, she said, the program “helps bridge that gap.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

After a primary campaign filled with twists, turns and scandal, the election to determine California’s next governor has narrowed to two candidates: Xavier Becerra, a Democrat and veteran of California politics, and Steve Hilton, a Republican immigrant and ally of President Trump.

The two have similar origin stories as the sons of working-class immigrants — both even worked construction jobs to earn money as teenagers — but they have vastly different visions for California’s future. If elected, Becerra promises to solidify many of the state’s liberal policies and its opposition to Trump; Hilton pledges to reverse course by cutting taxes, ending regulations and shrinking state government.

The race is open because after two terms at the state’s helm, outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom is blocked from running again. He has endorsed Becerra and is considering a run for president in 2028.

In a state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly a two-to-one margin, Hilton has acknowledged his campaign is an uphill battle. Since the primary he has focused on reaching out to independent voters and making the case that after 16 years of Democratic control, poverty and wealth inequality in California have only worsened.

As the Nov. 3 general election nears, both have begun articulating their agendas, courting voters and lobbing attacks at one another.

Here’s more about the two candidates, along with their stances on a few top issues.

Xavier Becerra

Top job: U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services
Biggest splash: As California attorney general, sued the Trump administration roughly 120 times.
Particulars: Becerra, 68, lives in Sacramento with his wife, Dr. Carolina Reyes, and they have three adult daughters. Born in Sacramento, he is the son of Mexican immigrants: His mother was a clerical worker and his father picked vegetables, worked in construction and had other jobs. He is a Democrat.

Once considered an underdog among the many Democrats vying to replace Newsom, Becerra shot to the top of the polls after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct. In the scandal’s aftermath, several of Swalwell’s campaign advisors jumped to Becerra’s team. Voters in search of a new candidate said they were drawn to Becerra’s calm demeanor and decades of experience in government.

He finished first in the June 2 primary with 28.1% of the total vote. Under California’s top-two primary system, all candidates were listed on the same ballot, regardless of party, and first and second place finishers advanced to the Nov. 3 general election.

A steady, if inconspicuous, presence in California Democratic politics over the years, Becerra is largely perceived as a risk-averse candidate who would continue the status quo if he is elected.

The son of working-class Mexican immigrants — his mother was from Guadalajara and his father was born in Sacramento but raised in Tijuana — Becerra grew up in Sacramento with three sisters. In high school, Becerra convinced a classmate to hand over their unused application to Stanford University rather than throw it away. He filled it out and was accepted, becoming the first in his family to attend college, and graduated with degrees in law and economics.

Following a brief period doing legal aid work in Massachusetts while his wife finished medical school, Becerra returned to California to work as a legislative staffer for former state Sen. Art Torres and a deputy attorney general. Within a few years, he was recruited to run for a San Gabriel Valley Assembly seat.

Though he boasts a long resume in California electoral politics, Becerra went decades without a challenging election fight — until this year. Backing from a group of powerful Latinos helped him win his first Assembly race and, two years later, an open U.S. House seat, which he would hold for 24 years.

In 2017, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Becerra as state attorney general to fill the vacancy left by Kamala Harris’ election to the U.S. Senate. He quickly became a top legal foe of the first Trump administration, suing more than 120 times over issues including immigration enforcement, protections for clean air and endangered species, and the Affordable Care Act.

Four years later, President Biden nominated Becerra to lead the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services and he was narrowly approved by the Senate. He faced criticism in the role for keeping a low profile during the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign and for his oversight of tens of thousands of migrant children in federal custody who crossed the border without a parent or guardian. A New York Times investigation found that as a result of scaled-back vetting processes, many of the children ended up working, often in dangerous jobs at factories, farms and construction sites.

Becerra has defended his record at HHS, arguing that the Trump administration had left the agency ill-equipped to care for so many children and disputing the number of unaccompanied minors who were “lost.”

The candidate is linked to — but not accused of any wrongdoing in — a corruption case involving two former advisors and a lobbyist who siphoned $225,000 money from one of Becerra’s campaign accounts. Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief of staff; Dana Williamson, a Democratic advisor and former chief of staff to Newsom; and lobbyist Greg Campbell have all pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges and are awaiting sentencing.

Since the primary, Becerra has kept a low profile with few public events. After Hilton criticized his opponent’s absence from the campaign trail and challenged him to debate, Becerra’s spokesperson Jonathan Underland said he “is building a coalition of Californians ready to elect a governor who won’t bring Trump’s chaos to their front door” and that he will debate Hilton.

Steve Hilton

Top job: Senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron
Biggest splash: Fox News commentator
Particulars: Hilton, 56, was born in England and lives in the Bay Area town of Atherton with his wife, Rachel Whetstone, who worked as a public relations executive for Google, Uber, Facebook and Netflix. They have two children. He is a Republican.

With Trump’s backing, Hilton consolidated enough Republican support to finish second in the primary with 24.6% of the vote. The president’s endorsement, though, is a double-edged sword in California, where Trump is deeply unpopular.

Hilton has said he is “deeply honored” to have his endorsement. Since the primary, however, he has made overtures to independent and Latino voters, arguing that even if they dislike Trump, voters should choose him if they are dissatisfied with California’s progress on affordability, homelessness and other issues.

“We may not agree about national politics, but I think we can agree that we need change in California, and I’m going to bring that change,” he said during a July press conference.

Hilton has sought to keep the spotlight on Becerra’s handling of the child migrant crisis, releasing video interviews with a whistleblower and teenagers who said HHS released them to traffickers who forced them to work and did not intervene to stop sexual abuse.

Born in London to parents who fled conflict in their native Hungary, Hilton began a career in politics with Britain’s Conservative Party after graduating from Oxford University. He was a close friend and advisor to David Cameron, who served as the U.K.’s prime minister from 2010 to 2016.

In British politics, Hilton earned a reputation as a zany but genius marketer who pushed the Conservative Party to embrace same-sex marriage and climate-friendlier policies. He was satirized on the BBC political sitcom “The Thick of It” as Stewart Pearson, the Tories’ “eco-friendly, media-savvy, blue-sky-thinking” communications director. He was an early supporter of Brexit, the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Hilton and his family moved to California in 2012 after his wife, Rachel Whetstone, was promoted to lead global communications at Google. In the Bay Area, he became a visiting scholar at Stanford University and co-founded CrowdPac, a nonpartisan political fundraising platform. He left the company after his support for Trump stirred controversy.

For six years, he hosted “The Next Revolution,” a weekly Fox News show which Trump regularly tweeted clips from. On the show, Hilton lambasted lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and called for an investigation into alleged voter fraud after Trump lost the 2020 election.

Hilton became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2021 and last year renounced his British citizenship. Before running for governor, he founded Golden Together, a policy institute focused on researching issues like housing costs, homelessness and the state’s business climate. He has written several books that explore his ideas of “positive populism,” the role businesses play in social influence, and the “failures” of California government.

Housing

Fixing one of California’s most pressing issues — a severe housing shortage and sky-high prices — has been a rare point of unity in the governor’s race. During the primary, all major candidates agreed on the need to reduce roadblocks to homebuilding and permitting.

If elected, Becerra has said he would declare California’s housing shortage a state of emergency and direct his administration to identify ways to reduce the cost of building. He would expand the state’s down payment assistance program for first-time buyers and supports blocking institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes.

Becerra promised to continue Newsom’s legal crusade against cities that do not plan or build enough housing under state law. He has endorsed Proposition 1, an $11.25-billion affordable housing bond, and Proposition 37, a $25-billion down payment assistance program.

Hilton argues that layers of rules of permits have effectively halted construction of smaller and more affordable starter homes. He plans to prioritize construction of new 1,000-square-foot homes by fast-tracking their approval, reducing fees and placing a moratorium on new housing regulations.

He has proposed changing the California Environmental Quality Act to limit lawsuits that slow down or stall new home development. He’s also criticized the state’s “density bonus” law, which allows developers to increase the scale of housing projects if they include a certain percentage of affordable units.

“We’ve got to allow ourselves to build outwards, not just upwards, and we’ve got to end the bias against single family homes,” Hilton said at a March forum hosted by the California Assn. of Realtors.

California’s notorious cost of living

Hilton has promised to deliver $3 gas, slash utility bills by half and make Californians’ first $150,000 in earnings tax-free (an increase from his earlier proposal of $100,000). He said he can do all this by taking “a sledgehammer to our bloated, bureaucratic nanny state” and rolling back climate policies, which he blames for increased energy costs.

To lower gas prices, he has proposed increasing domestic oil production and cutting regulations on refineries.

Becerra would address the cost of living “by standing up to price gouging and unjustified rate hikes, expanding help with childcare and essential costs, and using the power of the state to lower prices where the market has failed.”

He does not specify how he would achieve those goals but touts his experience challenging anticompetitive practices among hospital systems as attorney general and negotiating more affordable prescription drugs for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries as HHS secretary.

Though he previously promised to freeze home insurance rates and utility costs, Becerra appears to have backtracked after Hilton and insurance industry representatives questioned whether it is legal.

Healthcare costs and coverage for undocumented immigrants

Early in his campaign, Becerra pitched himself as a “healthcare governor” who would lower costs and expand access to medical care by drawing on years of experience writing and implementing major healthcare laws. He was criticized by other Democrats during the primary for not committing to state-sponsored single-payer health care; Becerra said he supports nationwide Medicare for all.

Becerra’s 12-point healthcare plan includes expanding CalRx, the state’s generic drug manufacturing program, expanding access to telehealth appointments and investing in robust, community-based programs to screen for and prevent diseases.

After years of expanding Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants, Newsom and lawmakers last year froze enrollment to stem increasing costs. Becerra has said he would reverse the cuts, arguing that it is more cost-effective to provide regular care than push uninsured people into emergency rooms.

In a video posted to Facebook in early June, Hilton promised to eliminate “free healthcare to citizens of other countries who shouldn’t even be here.” He said he would lower costs by increasing competition among health insurance companies and stop consolidation in the healthcare industry.

Scott Lay, an attorney by training, a fierce advocate for community colleges and the author of a must-read newsletter in the state Capitol, has died at 48.

His death prompted an outpouring of grief in Sacramento, from those who knew Lay as a lobbyist to subscribers of the Nooner, Lay’s daily email roundup of political news, legislative activity, job openings and policy, all laced with insider gossip and observations.

“He was so committed to his community, whether that was his neighborhood, whether that was the community college world, whether it was a political party,” said Lisa Ortega, Lay’s sister. “He was always trying to build bridges and make the world better.”

Lay’s final newsletter was sent on Sept. 8; he was found dead at his Sacramento home on Sept. 13. The coroner has not determined a cause of death.

Born in Portland, Ore., Lay grew up in Placentia. His family frequently talked politics at the dinner table, and the extended family had lively political debates at gatherings.

Lay had severe asthma as a child, which led to frequent hospitalizations at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. His health issues prevented him from graduating from high school, but Lay earned his GED at 17 and enrolled at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

That’s where in 1991 Lay met Paul Mitchell, now a Democratic redistricting expert. They were in a speech class together; Lay would sometimes show up in scrubs after volunteer shifts at the children’s hospital. They cofounded a College Democrats chapter and served in student government and on the California Student Assn. of Community Colleges together.

“Getting into student government and getting into politics gave him a mission outside of himself,” Mitchell said, noting that when they first met, Lay volunteered escorting women into abortion clinics in the face of protesters. “Having that drive made him able to overcome a lot of his earlier health problems because he just had this focus and mission.”

Lay would go onto get a law degree from UC Davis, but his experience at Orange Coast was pivotal. He started working for the Community College League of California in 1995 and became its president and CEO in 2006.

“He was really passionate about the system and the access community colleges provided,” Mitchell said. “He saw in the system his story — a kid who doesn’t graduate high school growing up to become a CEO.”

Lay started working in Sacramento at a time of great turnover in the state Capitol because of term limits. Lay was among the new young lobbyists when he met Anthony York, then a cub reporter who now works in political communications, mostly for the California Medical Assn.

York and Lay became friends, and in 2004 the pair cofounded a daily email newsletter about politics called the Roundup, a precursor of the Nooner.

“Stuff like this was popping up in Washington. There was nothing like that in Sacramento,” York said. “Scott had the technical ability to make this stuff happen. He hand-coded it.”

(Lay also used his tech skills to create a legislative tracking and a campaign contribution database.)

The other blogs and emails at the time were largely simple aggregators of news stories; the Roundup and later the Nooner had personality, gossip, observations and quips. It was Politico before Politico. That’s why Lay’s loss was being mourned by many, said York, who worked for the Los Angeles Times from 2010 to 2014.

“Through his email, he had a very specific voice and type of coverage you normally don’t get. I think it really bred a familiarity with this kind of niche audience,” York said. “It’s written about insidery stuff for insidery types with a very personal tone and touch. I think it’s reflected in the reaction to the news of his death. You can sense a real void without that voice.”

Lay’s relationships crossed party lines. Another of his close friends going back to his college days is GOP strategist Mike Madrid, who was at Moorpark College at the time Lay was at Orange Coast.

“The band of us met and we differed a lot on policies, but we fell in love like brothers, and just kind of came up through the system together,” Madrid said.

Lay put on a sunny face on social media, posting about his latest haul from the farmers market and his trips to his favorite taco stand. But he also acknowledged struggles with alcoholism, and was in failing health in recent years.

His friends say that while he was publicly forging relations with so many people through his newsletter and on social media, he began isolating himself from his personal relationships.

“He was the first of our generation to go, and to go that way, and to have him slip through our fingers is just heartbreaking,” Madrid said. “He was extremely talented, not just on policy, not just on politics, but on both. And he loved being part of the Capitol community.”

In addition to Ortega, Lay is survived by his father, Roy Lay, and his mother, Linda James.

Lay and Mehta both served on the board of directors for the nonprofit Open California.

OAKLAND — Mayor Lionel Wilson, a fixture in this city’s politics for three decades, was fighting off a nasty cold as he took his campaign for reelection to a hall filled with real estate agents recently.

In past years, Wilson could have stayed home to nurse his ailment. He long ago endeared himself to Oakland business leaders by presiding over a boom in downtown building that brought a glistening skyline to the city. As he seeks a fourth term, however, the soft-spoken mayor finds he can take no group for granted.

Concluding his speech to the agents, he pleaded, “Give me a chance to complete the job I started.” But on this day, in a city beset by a continuing drug crisis, crime, a troubled school system and the aftermath of last October’s earthquake, the applause for the mayor was polite, and nothing more.

At 75, Wilson is facing the toughest campaign of his career, challenged by politicians who barely were teen-agers when he began his government career in 1960. The most likely outcome is that no candidate will win more than 50% of the vote in the nonpartisan June 5 election, and the two leading vote-getters will face off in November. But a recent Oakland Tribune-Gallup Poll confirmed what local politicos have been saying for weeks: Wilson may not make it to the runoff.

Only 18% of the likely voters backed Wilson. Assemblyman Elihu Harris, a Democrat who is giving up the legislative seat he has held for 12 years to mount a well-heeled effort to unseat Wilson, led with 32%, the poll showed.

Harris’ closest rival was veteran City Councilman Wilson Riles Jr., liberal son of the former state superintendent of schools, who was supported by 22%. Five other candidates had lesser support. And 22% were undecided.

In a sign of Wilson’s past impact on Oakland, candidates Harris, Riles and City Councilman Leo Bazile all have been labeled his protege in the past. Now, though, they depict him as a figure whom time has passed by.

“It is sad,” Riles said of the sinking political fortunes of the city’s first black mayor. “He was probably the right person to break the color barrier. (But) I don’t know whether he should have gotten a second term, and certainly not a third term. . . . People are saying it is time for a change.”

The campaign has been mean even by Oakland’s fractious standards. Candidate forums routinely are interrupted by demonstrators, and campaign rhetoric frequently has been downright nasty.

At a recent candidates forum, Bazile, a city councilman since 1983, ignored a thoughtful question about the future of downtown and accused Harris of a cavalier attitude toward crack cocaine use because he has broached the prospect of legalizing drugs.

Harris restrained himself, answered the question about downtown, and waited until after the debate to respond. He said he did not advocate that crack be made legal, though he added that in the fight against drugs, “We should not be afraid to discuss all of the options.”

Such asides notwithstanding, the issues in Oakland are considerable. Last October’s earthquake hit the city hard; repairs to city-owned buildings may cost $250 million. Officials must negotiate with Caltrans over a replacement for the collapsed Nimitz Freeway.

Meanwhile, thousands of blue-collar workers could lose their jobs if a federal study recommending closure of Oakland-area Navy bases becomes reality.

Crack use is epidemic, straining the health care system and fueling crime. A city of 360,000 people, Oakland had a record 148 homicides last year. The murder rate was third-highest in the state last year for cities with populations of more than 100,000, and the overall crime rate was second-worst.

Oakland schools, though not the mayor’s responsibility, are a major campaign topic. A state trustee has been appointed to oversee the Oakland Unified School District, and a criminal investigation has led to the arrests of 13 district employees for theft and embezzlement.

“The solutions to those problems are going to have to come at a quickened pace,” said Alameda County Supervisor Don Perata, who is neutral in the race. “Rhetoric won’t get by. You’re going to have to have some very adroit leadership.”

Then, there’s football.

After initial reluctance, Wilson backed an ambitious plan to lure the Los Angeles Raiders back to Oakland with an unprecedented $600-million-plus package of loans, grants, guaranteed profits and a promise to rebuild the Oakland Coliseum, all to suit team owner Al Davis.

Politicians quickly discovered that while Oakland football fans may pine for the Raiders, they don’t miss Davis. This is the man who spurned them by moving the team to Los Angeles after the 1981 football season. The thought that the city would guarantee him profits angered so many that 31,000 residents signed petitions to place the plan to bring the Raiders back on the ballot. The referendum was put on hold after Wilson withdrew his support of the deal; city officials and the Raiders have reopened negotiations.

Wilson conceded that the proposal has been “a negative” for him. He added, “I got caught in the middle.”

Even Councilman Riles, who scored big by opposing the deal, was shocked at the reaction. The deal elicited more angry calls than any municipal issue Riles could recall. “I lucked out,” he said.

Riles, long Wilson’s nemesis, tried to unseat the mayor in 1985. An ally of liberal Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Berkeley), Riles battles the moderate Wilson on such issues as rent control and development. He contends that more should be spent on the city’s poor neighborhoods and less on big downtown projects.

Wilson encouraged interest in his job by strengthening the office. Under a 1988 City Charter change that he engineered, the next mayor will make $80,000 a year, up from the previous $30,000.

He also supported moving local elections to even-numbered years. For the first time, the mayoral campaign is being held in conjunction with major state races. Turnout could hit 50%; in the last two mayoral elections, it was less than 28%.

At the time the changes were being debated, Wilson was leaning against running. He changed his mind last summer, saying he concluded that no other candidate could see through to completion development of a major downtown retail center.

However, as many voters apparently see it, Wilson’s day is over.

Clinton O’Keefe Killian, a 32-year-old lawyer and Harris supporter, talks of Oakland’s “tremendous potential,” but points to opportunities lost under Wilson. He extols the lifestyle in his ethnically diverse city, though he has complaints with faulty city services and frets about sending his children to Oakland schools.

“Oakland could be the town in California where blacks and other minorities can show they bring something to the table,” Killian said. But for all its promise of becoming “Atlanta-West,” Oakland won’t “go any further unless somebody is pushing it.”

Harris has tailored his message to such voters. While Wilson proved to any skeptics that “blacks could run the city,” Harris said, there’s a need now to move “beyond presence and become more aggressive.”

Harris has built his campaign around high-quality public schools. In some ways, it’s an odd issue to champion, given that the mayor has no say over the schools, which are run by an independently elected school board.

Still, Harris made a name for himself last year by pushing state legislation that led to the naming of a trustee to oversee the school district. The bill came after years of poor academic performance by students, studies critical of district management, and, finally, the criminal investigation.

Harris won popular support with the bill, but has taken his share of hits over it. Wilson charged that he pushed it merely to gain needed name identification.

The move also angered members of a black neighborhood group called the People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. Using a variety of disruptive tactics, Uhuru adherents have been hounding Harris.

Their point: Harris backs “white colonialists” and “the U.S. government’s war against the black community” with his support of the school trustee.

SACRAMENTO — Weeks before voting ended in California’s primary for governor, Los Angeles-based influencer Shaka Smith took to Instagram to tell his more than 700,000 followers whom he was voting for and why.

“Healthcare shouldn’t bankrupt you, housing should not feel impossible, polluters shouldn’t pass their bill to us, and artists should not be replaced by AI,” Smith said. “That’s why I’m supporting Tom Steyer for governor.”

But Smith started the video with a disclaimer: “This is an ad, and honestly, I wish more political content said that first.” His caption specified that he was paid by Steyer’s campaign.

California is one of two states, along with Texas, that have passed policies requiring content creators to say if they’ve been paid by a political campaign to post, and the Golden State is considering cracking down by fining people who don’t.

Campaigns have long worked with celebrities and major influencers to win over voters, but now they are teaming up with smaller creators — sometimes with fewer than 100,000 followers — to reach more tailored audiences. That has sparked debates about whether disclosure rules for political advertisements should apply to content creators, who are expected to play prominent roles in the upcoming midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

“If you’re running for president and you are not currently trying to court some of these people or lining up your own people to act as surrogates for you, you’re already behind,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist who worked for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

Campaigns tap creators to spread their message

Questions about transparency have been fueled by high-profile instances of influencers making content intended to change minds or votes without disclosing they were being paid.

In 2022, the campaign of Democratic then-Senate candidate John Fetterman paid Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of “Jersey Shore” to record a video teasing his GOP rival for leaving New Jersey before announcing his run in Pennsylvania. In 2023, content creators were paid by an influencer marketing agency with conservative ties to defend Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, a Republican, after he was impeached for alleged bribery and other accusations of misconduct, according to the Texas Tribune. The payments weren’t clearly disclosed in either case.

Steyer, a Democratic billionaire who spent more than $215 million of his own money on his unsuccessful bid for governor, took fire from rivals for paying content creators. He wasn’t the only contender in the race paying influencers, but he faced much of the blowback because he had already been accused of trying to buy the election for having poured much of his personal fortune into his campaign. Many of the creators who worked with Steyer’s campaign disclosed that they were paid, but the state’s campaign finance watchdog is investigating several other instances in which creators allegedly didn’t.

There are no federal disclosure rules

Sen. Adam Schiff of California introduced federal legislation last month, but it hasn’t received a vote yet. Some outside groups are urging the Federal Election Commission to pass its own rule.

California’s law requiring disclosure, passed in 2023, is difficult to enforce. The state’s campaign watchdog can seek a court order compelling an influencer to disclose that they were paid, but that can take months.

That prompted Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) to write a new bill to penalize content creators and political committees if the creator fails to state they were compensated. The bill would give the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission the power to fine influencers and committees if they are found to have violated the law, allowing the commission to bypass the court process. They could face fines of up to $5,000 per violation, according to the commission.

“Voters should have a right to know whether or not campaigns are paying for the messaging that they’re seeing,” Berman said.

Texas’ campaign watchdog passed a rule in 2024 requiring content creators to include disclaimers when they are paid for political advertisements, and the New York Legislature is considering a similar requirement. Other disclosure bills failed in recent years in Utah and Georgia.

Influencer says his ad had an impact

Smith, the L.A. influencer, hadn’t committed to a candidate for governor when a trusted friend told him to look into Steyer. That friend had been paid to post about Steyer.

Smith liked Steyer’s promise to increase taxes on billionaires and his refusal to accept donations from corporate political action committees.

He ended up doing two paid ads, both of which included compensation disclaimers that the Steyer campaign told him were a requirement.

Smith wouldn’t say exactly how much the campaign paid him, but he said it was in the thousands of dollars. He thinks the posts had an effect on his followers, with only a few detractors objecting.

“They kind of trust my voice,” he said of his audience. “They knew that if I’m saying it, it’s at least something they should look into.”

Creators respond to proposed policy changes

Dustin Torreverde, a content creator in Southern California who hasn’t been paid by a political campaign for social media posts, said it’s important for influencers to be transparent with their audiences. But the bill could pose an unfair burden on creators who are just trying to make a living, he said.

“A lot of us are very small creators,” he said. “So if we were to get penalized and we have to get lawyers, stuff like that, it’s going to be very difficult for us.”

Adina Flores, a libertarian content creator in Northern California who votes for both parties, said influencers should have to disclose if they are paid and that she generally supports penalties. She worries some people may take money to post political content without doing a “deep dive into the candidate to make sure that’s somebody they should support.”

Saurav Ghosh, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on protecting American democracy, hopes disclosure requirements passed by states will lead to federal rules.

“Transparency is one of the most important pillars of our election system,” he said.

Austin writes for the Associated Press.

For six years, Californians have been able to shake up a craft cocktail at home using alcohol delivered to their doorstep. Now, it’s last call for the distillery deliveries, unless lawmakers intervene by the end of this month.

That’s unlikely, thanks to opposition from California’s wine industry, Teamsters union truck drivers and corporate alcohol wholesalers and distributors.

The influential, well-funded groups lobbied the Legislature behind closed doors this year to block legislation that would have made permanent pandemic-era rules that allowed craft distillers to ship spirits directly to their customers.

During the pandemic lockdowns, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that allowed craft distillers to ship spirits to their customers’ homes. In the years since, lawmakers passed temporary laws allowing craft distillers — defined as those that produce up to 150,000 gallons a year — to keep shipping their spirits.

The latest extension expires Dec. 31.

“I don’t have a lot of hope that we’re going to be able to salvage this,” said Folsom Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover. He tried unsuccessfully this year to amend one of his bills to let small distillers continue shipping directly to their customers.

The groups blocking Hoover’s proposal have spent more than $1 million lobbying the Legislature and state government this year. They have donated at least 11 times that much to California politicians and their campaigns over the years.

The craft distillers, who have spent a fraction as much on state politics, say all that spending from the opposition, particularly from corporate liquor distributors, appears to have paid off.

Cris Steller, owner of Dry Diggings Distillery, talks about the various products that are made in his distillery.

(Fred Greaves / For CalMatters)

“They went directly to legislators’ offices and basically torpedoed any effort we came up with,” said Cris Steller, acting executive director of the California Distillers Assn. and the owner of Amador and Dry Diggings Distillery in El Dorado Hills, a family-run business that makes whiskey, brandy, vodka and gin.

The fight is about more than whether Californians can have a bottle of whiskey or gin delivered. It illustrates how decisions are made in Sacramento, where wealthy and powerful interests can shape or kill policy in secret negotiations with lawmakers. Politicians, in turn, benefit when proposals die quietly because they don’t have to explain their decisions to voters.

Opponents insist they aren’t using the political system to crush competitors as national alcohol sales slump.

Instead, representatives of the major alcohol wholesalers and distributors that stock shelves at liquor retailers say they oppose the proposal because it primarily benefits out-of-state companies and weakens safeguards that include preventing alcohol deliveries to minors.

Teamsters lobbyist Matt Broad said the labor group’s truck drivers aren’t opposed to allowing craft distillers to ship their product. They just want them to use established shipping companies that have actual employees, including those that employ Teamsters, such as UPS. Those companies, Broad said, have standards to ensure liquor is delivered legally.

Those companies have standards to ensure legal delivery, Broad said. When they employ drivers rather than use contractors, the companies — not the drivers — bear legal liability.

Federal law preempts California from mandating hiring unionized truck drivers, Broad said.

“We are absolutely not opposed to the little guys being able to ship directly to consumers, and in fact, we have a track record of supporting the proposal but with meaningful guardrails that protect our members and protect the public,” he told CalMatters.

The California wine industry, which has been allowed to ship bottles directly to customers in California for decades, isn’t necessarily opposed either. But its representative says wine sellers are leery of giving little alcohol sellers delivery rights when big liquor companies deserve the same. Wineries of any size can ship to their customers in California.

Big Booze, Big Labor spend big

The U.S. Postal Service prohibits most alcohol shipments to homes, but California allows certain types of alcohol sellers to use private shipping companies. Breweries are prohibited from shipping directly to California customers.

Hoover hoped his Assembly Bill 2211, a proposal to give craft distillers the ability to offer tastings and sell spirits at locations other than their distilleries, could be amended to give craft distillers a permanent direct-to-consumer provision.

It has advanced through the Legislature without formal opposition or any lawmaker voting against it, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database. The measure is pending before the full Senate.

There may be no formal opposition, but reports filed with the California secretary of state show an extensive behind-the-scenes lobbying effort aimed at preventing any changes.

At least six groups, including some of the biggest national alcohol distributors, have reported lobbying on Hoover’s bill.

The reports show those groups spent more than $1 million on lobbying this year. State ethics laws only require entities to report the total amount they spent lobbying the government in a year. They’re not required to report how much they spent on specific legislation, so it’s unclear how much they spent trying to influence lawmakers as they considered AB 2211 and its never-published direct-shipping amendment.

Those groups, along with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Wine Institute, have given at least $11 million to both Democrats and Republicans in California since 2000, according to Digital Democracy, including at least $738,000 since 2025, the start of the current two-year legislative session.

By comparison, California’s craft distillers reported spending $54,000 on lobbying this year.

They reported just three donations to lawmakers in the past decade, according to Digital Democracy. One was a $42 bottle of whiskey in 2022 to former Napa Democratic Sen. Bill Dodd, who now lobbies on behalf of the craft distillery industry. In 2023, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas received $215 in tequila. Democratic Assemblymember-turned U.S. Rep. Adam Gray received a $1,300 campaign donation in 2016.
Hoover said he has been trying since last year to add language to his bill that would allow craft distillers to permanently keep shipping. He succeeded last year in getting the extension that expires Dec. 31, but this year he’s been unable to overcome the opposition to expanding the tasting room measure.

“I’m always open to figuring this out, if there’s a way that we can make this work. … but I don’t have a lot of hope that this bill is going to preserve those provisions this year,” he said.

With less than a month left before the Legislature finishes for the year on Aug. 31, Democratic leaders would probably need to sign off on changes to Hoover’s tasting room measure. They’ve offered little indication they intend to intervene for craft distillers.

Rivas, who’s received at least $108,000 in donations over the years from opponents of Hoover’s unpublished proposal, declined CalMatters’ request for an interview. Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, who’s received at least $33,000, responded to an interview request with an emailed statement saying she is aware of the pending deadline.

“This bill will continue to work its way through the legislative process as intended,” it said.

Bottles of spirits produced by Dry Diggings Distillery in El Dorado Hills on Aug. 4.

(Fred Greaves / For CalMatters)

Democratic Sen. Susan Rubio and her sister, Democratic Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, oversee the committees that regulate California’s alcohol industry. When Hoover’s measure passed through their committees, the chairs could have allowed Hoover to add the direct-to-consumer amendment. They did not.

Susan Rubio has received at least $65,000 in donations from the groups blocking the direct-shipping proposal, according to Digital Democracy. Blanca Rubio has received at least $129,000.

Sen. Rubio’s spokesperson, Giovanni Ruiz Reyes, responded to interview requests with emailed statements. The first said “conversations between stakeholders are ongoing” and that she “looks forward” to reviewing potential legislation.

Ruiz Reyes said in a second statement Thursday that she’s supported four previous extensions of the craft distiller shipping policy.

“There is currently no bill or amendment before the committee seeking another extension,” Ruiz Reyes said. “Accordingly, it would be inaccurate to suggest that Senator Rubio or the committee has blocked or refused to hear an extension when no such proposal is currently before the committee.”

Assemblymember Rubio didn’t return interview requests.

Fewer Americans are drinking

The liquor industry is facing a nationwide decline as more Americans cut back on drinking.

In that difficult business climate, corporate liquor wholesalers and distribution companies lobbied “to obliterate competition,” said Dodd, the former state senator from wine country lobbying on behalf of craft distillers.

“We oppose any effort to make DTC (direct to consumer) permanent,” the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors and the California Family Beer Distributors wrote in a joint statement to CalMatters.

Craft distilleries’ direct shipping “was always meant to be temporary pandemic relief, and it’s expiring exactly as designed, six years later,” said the groups, which represent local and national companies that move many of America’s best-known beer, wine and liquor brands. They argue that after the law expires, spirits can still be delivered to customers through services such as DoorDash. DoorDash is listed as a member of the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America on its website.

The groups’ representative, Kevin Luckey, declined an interview request.

Steve Gross, president and chief executive of the Wine Institute, said the wine industry has worked hard over the decades to have large and small wine sellers treated equally under California and national alcohol distribution laws. He said it would undermine his industry’s efforts if small distillers get delivery rights in California when large ones don’t have them.

“They have the option to go in and try and fight for a bill that we and others could also support,” Gross said. “They’ve chosen not to because those larger distillers are not their members.”

The Wine Institute is a lobbying group that represents more than 700 large and small wine sellers, including one of the world’s largest, Modesto-based Gallo Winery.

Craft distillers say they’ve tried to work with the groups blocking their bill to address their concerns, but they have gotten nowhere.

In the meantime, Steller, the El Dorado Hills distiller, has already started pulling back on shipping bottles to his customers because the Legislature won’t budge.

“I don’t want to keep putting money into a program that’s going to get yanked,” he said.

Ryan Sabalow writes for CalMatters.

In a matter of a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can find themselves deep in conversation with “Psychologist,” a chatbot character that describes itself as an expert in “empathy” and “active listening.”

It responds to messages of anxiety and sadness with reassurance. It asks questions and offers advice; it even responds with italicized nonverbal cues: “The psychologist’s expression softens with compassion.” In smaller font, a disclaimer reads: “This is A.I. and not a real person. Treat everything it says as fiction.”

As more people turn to chatbots for mental health help and advice — including by some estimates one in eight teens and young adults — legislators are in a race to keep up with the quickly developing technology. Among the latest efforts is a bill that would add restrictions around the use of chatbot companions and other artificial intelligence-powered tools that people use to support mental healthcare or in lieu of professional help.

State Sen. Steve Padilla, a San Diego Democrat and the bill’s author, said the intent is to draw a line: AI can be used for administrative purposes and to support clinicians, but it cannot practice psychotherapy.

“We’re dealing with a new impactful technology that is unfolding and is deployed in our world at light speed, and so it is both extremely powerful and consequential,” Padilla said.

The debate has taken on new urgency amid wrongful death lawsuits — some playing out in California federal courts — that accuse AI chatbot makers of contributing to users’ suicides.

Senate Bill 903 would ban companies from advertising chatbots as therapy. It would prohibit AI from making therapeutic decisions without the review of a licensed professional and require health providers to disclose and get a patient’s permission before using AI tools to record therapy sessions or to triage mental healthcare.

Consumer protections vs. innovation

The bill is backed by professional associations that represent psychologists, therapists and counselors. Also behind the bill is the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has been leading a push against unchecked use of artificial intelligence and digital tools in mental healthcare. Most recently, the union filed a complaint with state regulators against Kaiser Permanente for its alleged use of an automated algorithm in mental health triaging.

Padilla and supporters argue that the legislation is needed to protect consumers from AI in formal and informal spaces, but also to protect licensed professionals from being displaced by AI.

Le Ondra Clark Harvey, chief executive officer at the California Behavioral Health Assn., told lawmakers that without clear safeguards, chatbots can provide inaccurate information or mishandle crisis situations. “The difference between a licensed clinician and an automated response is not technical. It can be life altering,” Harvey said.

Opposition to the bill has largely focused on the restrictions of AI use in formal clinical spaces. TechNet, which represents tech-sector companies, argues the legislation could restrict beneficial uses of AI in healthcare and stifle innovation. Robert Boykin, TechNet’s executive director for California, said the bill could limit the use of tools that help expand access to mental healthcare.

“At a time when every county in California faces a shortage of behavioral healthcare workers, SB 903 still puts a clinician bottleneck in front of the intake and screening tools that help patients reach care faster,” Boykin said in an emailed statement.

The bill awaits its next vote in the Assembly’s fiscal committee.

Popular chatbot ‘therapy’

Every day millions of people turn to AI chatbots through programs such as ChatGPT and Character.ai to help with research, work tasks and troubleshooting. But the top use of chatbots over the last two years has been companionship and “therapy,” research shows.

Experts say that’s in part because of a tremendous amount of loneliness, especially among young people. It is often hard or costly to get timely mental healthcare at the same time there is a spike in mental health diagnoses.

People turn to chatbots “because they have unmet needs,” said Dr. Jodi Halpern, professor of bioethics and medical humanities at UC Berkeley. But once people start using chatbots in this informal way, she said companies rely on a business model built around maximizing engagement “including by manipulative tactics,” such as praise and agreement.

General chatbots are largely free, available 24/7, and involve no hassle with insurance, making them appealing to many. But they function with no oversight from licensed professionals. In addition to general chatbots, there has also been a rapid uptick in AI-powered mental health apps — often requiring paid subscriptions and advertised as “pocket therapists” or “AI coaches.”

Groups like the American Psychological Assn. warn that chatbots are not a safe or effective replacement for true therapy. Trained clinicians look for cues like tone of voice, eye contact and body language and can detect more serious conditions; AI is not equipped to manage urgent symptoms, such as suicidal ideation, even though people increasingly share such thoughts with chatbots.

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, revealed in a report last fall that about 1.2 million users a week share thoughts of suicide on the platform. OpenAI said that in such cases, it recommends people speak to a professional and directs them to resources like the 988 hotline. Families who have filed wrongful death lawsuits against OpenAI and other companies claim chatbots assisted their loved ones through their suicide plans.

The cases have helped raise the stakes for lawmakers around the country. Last year, Illinois became the first state to pass a law prohibiting the use of AI in therapy services. A handful of other states have since followed with similar restrictions.

AI use in health spaces

One gray area in the discussion is exactly which tools this bill applies to.

NUHW’s complaint against Kaiser targets its e-visit screening tool, which evaluates patients who think they may be experiencing anxiety or depression. According to the complaint, patients answer a multiple choice questionnaire and the tool “automatically and instantaneously generates care recommendations and referral pathways based on the responses provided.”

The union argues that because care recommendations are generated so quickly, it is unlikely that a licensed professional is reviewing patients’ answers — which it says puts patients at risk and violates state law.

It’s not clear whether SB 903 would apply to Kaiser’s e-visit tool.

“That tool is in a black box. Kaiser is not sharing with us or others about exactly how it works and exactly what it does,” said Benjamin Eichert, NUHW’s director of public policy.

In response to the complaint, Kaiser told CalMatters its e-visit tool “does not use AI to diagnose patients, make clinical decisions, or determine medical necessity.”

Eichert said many other behavioral health provider groups are already advertising using AI during triage — a practice he said would fall under SB 903’s requirements.

“That intake process, that triage and screening process, is where implementation [of AI] has happened fastest,” Eichert said. “That’s why those provisions were proposed because it’s an area where this technology is already being used without guardrails.”

For NUHW, the bill and the complaint against Kaiser represent two tracks toward the same goal: reasserting the place of practitioners in spaces increasingly taken over by algorithms. State regulators are investigating the union’s complaint.

Ibarra writes for CalMatters.

Spectrum owner Charter Communications is nearing the finish line in its long-awaited $34.5-billion purchase of Cox Enterprises to form the nation’s largest internet and cable television company.

California’s Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote next week to approve the merger that would bolster Southern California’s dominant provider with more than 5 million customers. Securing the approval of California regulators — the deal’s final hurdle — has been a slog as federal officials gave Charter their consent months ago.

Customers of privately held Cox, the Atlanta-based company that serves Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates, Las Vegas and large parts of Orange and San Diego counties, would be switched to Spectrum service. Charter is the industry leader, providing Spectrum internet, phone and cable TV packages for Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

It’s been more than a year since the companies unveiled their proposed union, and they hope to combine operations this month. But flaps have flared up in the last lap.

Public interest groups have argued that the PUC’s proposed settlement with Charter doesn’t go far enough to ensure long-term affordable internet for low-income residents or accommodations for customers reeling from natural disasters such as last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires.

In addition, advocates have asked utilities commissioners to demand that Charter commit to fostering workplace diversity, equity and inclusion among its proposed 9,000-member workforce in California. Such programs have been under siege since President Trump returned to the White House.

“State regulators like the CPUC have an important role to play — they have a voice and leverage if they choose to use it,” said Jason Solomon, director of the National Institute for Workers’ Rights, a Bay Area group that is lobbying for Charter to renew its commitment to a diverse workplace.

“It’s important that California stand up for its own laws, policies and values,” Solomon said.

A Spectrum truck in New York City.

(Star Max/IPx)

The five-member commission is set to vote on the Charter-Cox merger Thursday. The panel will consider two competing proposals; both would allow the merger to go through with various conditions.

Charter years ago pledged to create a diverse workplace but scaled back its public statements amid Trump’s vocal demands that companies dump DEI programs. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, also has championed eliminating diversity programs, saying they are discriminatory.

The FCC in February approved Charter’s proposed purchase of Cox’s residential cable, commercial fiber, cloud and information technology businesses. To win Carr’s approval, Charter agreed to “new safeguards to protect against DEI discrimination,” according to the FCC.

Charter is in a bind. It disavowed diversity efforts to win the FCC’s blessing but now is facing calls in California to embrace such commitments.

“In a state as diverse as California we should protect diversity in the workplace,” said Jessica J. González, co-chief executive of advocacy group Free Press. “We have a responsibility to stand up to what’s been going on in the federal government, and in the Trump administration, to force companies to roll back their policies.”

In its public filings, Charters said it would reach out to diverse suppliers and work with business groups, including the Women’s Business Development Council, the California LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, the African American Chamber, the California Hispanic Chamber and the Cal Asian Chamber.

“This transaction will be good for consumers, community leaders, and businesses across California as it will provide them with lower prices, greater value, better service, and support from Spectrum’s 100% U.S.-based employees,” the Stamford, Conn. company said in a statement.

Concerns heightened among activists after one of the two proposed settlements, hashed out between Charter and Commissioner Matthew Baker, the commission’s Public Advocates Office and the California Emerging Technology Fund, failed to include diversity efforts.

Advocates viewed Baker’s proposal as weaker on broadband access provisions too, including commitments to provide low-cost internet for disadvantaged residents and communities that lack service.

“For us, it’s really about making sure everyone in Cox’s and Charter’s service territory benefits from this transaction,” said Paul Goodman, counsel for the Berkeley-based Center for Accessible Technology.

“We want to make sure that communities that have been historically overlooked get the same benefits from the transaction as everyone else,” Goodman said.

For example, a coalition of advocacy groups is seeking to prevent Spectrum from tacking on equipment charges for customers on low-income plans.

Commissioners will be asked to select from Baker’s draft decision or last month’s proposal from the agency’s administrative law judge, Jamie Ormond. Advocates are urging the panel to adopt Ormond’s version because it contains more compliance conditions, including mechanisms to foster an inclusive workplace.

Commissioners have “a statutory duty” under the state’s utilities code “to deny the transaction outright rather than approve a weaker deal,” the advocates argued in a recent filing.

Solomon’s group is pushing for an “organizational infrastructure for equal opportunity compliance,” including reporting compensation and promotion data for Charter’s California workforce and pay equity audits.

The state has required diversity measures before — despite such initiatives being out of favor in Washington. In January, the commission approved Verizon Communications’ purchase of Frontier Communications.

In that proceeding, Verizon pledged to “further California’s public policy goals of diverse supply chains and workforces, including a $10 million partnership with the California State University system,” the PUC said.

Under both Ormond’s and Baker’s proposals, Charter would be required to offer affordable broadband to low-income residents, including California LifeLine service tiers. It would have to sell stand-alone broadband plans for five years, although advocates would like to see that extended to 10 years.

The company has agreed to spend at least $275 million to upgrade its California network and complete its 1-gigabit service capability across its legacy service areas within three years.

Charter also agreed to invest at least $30 million in customer outreach initiatives, such as digital literacy training and device access for low-income communities. The company also is being asked to provide free broadband and Wi-Fi service for about 50 eligible institutions, including schools, libraries and community centers for several years.

Charter was criticized after the January 2025 fires for charging fees for equipment that burned, said Natalie Gonzalez, director of Digital Equity Los Angeles, one of the advocacy groups that is asking for Charter to “improve disaster response and customer service standards … during life’s most challenging moments.”

Charter pushed back on that contention, saying it helped residents in the burn areas.

“We opened all our wifi hot spots to anyone (non Spectrum customers) and were deeply involved in the restoration efforts,” the company said in its documents.

The advocates, including Digital Equity LA and the California Alliance for Digital Equity, compiled evidence to help commissioners determine whether the merger was in the public interest.

Should the deal go through, Cox subscribers will soon see changes. Charter plans to roll out its Spectrum products and fees to Cox customers next month.

Subscribers can opt for their existing pricing or switch to a Spectrum bundle that includes such apps as Disney+, Hulu, ESPN and Paramount+.

Charter has also said it would offer Cox subscribers a year of free service when they switch their cellphone carrier to Spectrum.

The Charter name will be dropped in one year and the combined company will become Cox, although consumer products will keep the Spectrum brand.

The switch is because the Cox family — descendants of an Ohio press baron who bought his first newspaper in 1898, began acquiring cable systems in 1962 — will become the firm’s largest shareholder group, with about 23% of the stock.

In a recent earnings call, Charter Chief Executive Chris Winfrey told investors the combined company would have nearly 37 million customers nationwide.

It expects to generate $67 billion a year in revenue and about $28 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

A state judge Thursday rejected a challenge to how California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office summarized a strict new voter ID measure on November ballots — ruling that the summary language accurately describes the measure’s effects were it to pass.

Another judge dealt the backers of the measure a second loss by tentatively finding that their description of the measure, submitted for the official state voter’s guide, was misleading. They had claimed that Proposition 39 would make voting easier.

In the first case, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jennifer K. Rockwell ruled that the label, title and summary of the certified ballot measure accurately describe Proposition 39 as a measure that “prohibits citizens from voting” — language the measure’s backers specifically objected to — unless they provide a government-issued ID.

According to minutes from a Thursday hearing on the matter, Rockwell concluded that, to the extent the measure’s backers object to that language, they are objecting to “the provisions of the measure itself.”

Rockwell rejected the argument put forth by the measure’s backers that it would not prevent people without ID from voting, only their votes from being counted — a distinction the judge found lacking.

Both parties had asked the court to move quickly ahead of printing deadlines for November ballots.

The attorney general’s office is responsible for preparing titles and summaries for ballot measures, and is not required by law to use the same language as a measure’s proponents when gathering the necessary voter signatures to place the measure on the ballot.

Bonta’s office had argued in court that his office applied the same standard of review to the voter ID measure as every other ballot measure that has come before his office.

Bonta praised Rockwell’s decision on social media Thursday, writing that it “confirms what we have said from the start: the ballot materials at issue — the ballot title and summary and ballot label — give a true and impartial statement of Proposition 39’s chief purpose and points.”

“My office followed the law and fulfilled its duty to provide California voters with clear, accessible, and accurate information,” he wrote. “We’re pleased that the court agreed with us.”

California Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), the chief backer of the court challenge and chairman of the group Reform California, responded to the ruling with a video post to social media, writing that it was “expected” but nonetheless “disappointing.”

DeMaio accused Bonta of trying to “manipulate the vote” with “rigged” language, and Rockwell of being a “liberal judge” who had unsurprisingly decided that Bonta “gets to do corruptly what he wants to do.”

“It’s pissing me off,” DeMaio said in his video post.

DeMaio predicted that Proposition 39 will still pass, but that it will take “all of us spreading the word that the attorney general has tried to manipulate the title on the ballot measure.”

Voter ID requirements are being pushed by Republicans across the country — from President Trump down — as necessary to prevent voter fraud, including by noncitizens, despite elections experts saying that such fraud is exceedingly rare and that there is no evidence that it exists in volumes large enough to swing elections.

Democrats, including in California, have argued that states already have robust measures to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots, including through existing security measures such as signature verification. They said stricter voter ID requirements would lead to eligible voters without ready access to documents being denied access to voting — including poorer, elderly and rural voters and married women who have changed their names.

A majority of California voters back stricter voter ID requirements, according to recent polls.

The Trump administration has been pressing for new voter ID requirements nationwide, including in Congress, without success.

Passage of Proposition 39 in liberal California would represent a massive win for the administration and a setback for California’s Democratic leaders. It would require substantial reforms to how the state accepts ballots both in person and through the mail — the latter being the preferred option for the vast majority of voters in recent California elections.

Backers of Proposition 39 also took a hit in a separate court proceeding Thursday, where another judge — siding with top Democratic lawmakers — issued a tentative finding that the measure’s backers were misleading voters by claiming in voter guide language that the measure would make voting easier in the state were it to pass.

“It is hard to conceive how it would be ‘easy’ or ‘easier’ to vote if a voter has to take the extra step of either bringing government-issued identification when voting in person or search for their government-issued identification and supply the last four digits if they vote by mail,” wrote Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang.

The voter guide language will need to change as a result.

California leaders who brought the challenge — including State Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Goleta) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) — praised the decision.

“Prop 39 is a MAGA-backed power grab by Donald Trump’s closest allies,” Rivas said in a statement. “As today’s ruling underscores, Prop 39 isn’t about election security or fair elections — the real goal of the MAGA activists who wrote Prop 39 is to make it harder for Californians to vote.”

DeMaio denounced the decision, accusing Chang of having “sided with the politicians” in California to “strike legitimate arguments on why Voter ID is needed to improve election integrity.”

Even though it was late October, I couldn’t help but feel jealous as I watched my best friend Jenny swim into the calm, clear water of the American River near downtown Sacramento.

I was in town to cheer Jenny on as she competed in a long-distance triathlon. Although the race was such a fun experience, that moment on that tree-lined river bank stuck with me. In my home state of Oklahoma, I regularly swam in lakes and kayaked and rafted in rivers. But freshwater recreational opportunities were harder to come by once I moved to L.A.

This all led me to wonder: Will it ever be safe to swim in the Los Angeles River?

A large white bird stands along the L.A. River in the Glendale Narrows area of the waterway near Elysian Valley a.k.a. Frogtown.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

This felt like an especially relevant time to discuss this question, as Friends of the L.A. River will host its annual (free!) RiverFest this Sunday from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. at L.A. State Historic Park in Chinatown. This year also marks the organization’s 40th birthday.

After reading this edition of The Wild, our weekly outdoors newsletter, I hope you feel as fired up as I do about how we can work toward a day when the answer to my question is “Yes!” But we aren’t there yet. Let’s explore why.

The L.A. River is a 51-mile waterway that flows from the confluence of Bell Creek and Arroyo Calabasas in Canoga Park, ending in Long Beach as it flows into San Pedro Bay near the Queen Mary.

Candice Dickens-Russell, chief executive at Friends of the L.A. River, told me that her organization’s founder spent decades trying to persuade Angelenos to understand that our local watercourse was not a manmade concrete flood channel but actually a river that has been surrounded by concrete.

“I’m feeling like we’re at a tipping point for people to understand that the L.A. River is really a river, which is wonderful because our founder spent his entire life trying to get people to understand that,” she said.

Channelization of the L.A. River started in the mid-1930s after a number of devastating floods and was completed in 1960.

In an early 1936 article, Times real estate editor Charles C. Cohan seemingly praised the channelizing of a nine-mile stretch of the river from Fletcher Drive westerly to Lankershim Boulevard, calling it “one of the greatest stream-channel transformations ever undertaken in the West.”

Ducks hang out in the Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Cohan went on to write: “Men and machinery directed by the United States Army engineers are changing that vitally important length of the river from an irresponsible water course into a far larger, thoroughly conditioned channel that will be a vitally important flood protection while at the time conforming to the well-ordered, picturesque region through which it passes.”

It didn’t have to be this way.

Before the devastating flooding of 1938, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce commissioned two major landscape architecture firms in 1927 to develop a report analyzing how the region could develop more parkland in an already park-poor city.

“The report imagined an ‘emerald necklace,’ an urban paradise of parks and rivers and open spaces and public beaches encircling L.A. County, and it also laid out the practical, political and financial mechanisms to make it happen,” Times columnist Patt Morrison wrote in May.

The Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The report’s authors wrote about how flood-prone land would make for better park space than business and residential developments, as anything built in these areas would inevitably be damaged during floods. The parks could also serve as their own kind of protection.

“Parkways along the river were intended to reduce the need for structural flood protection features,” according to a 2001 state report.

For political and financial reasons explored in the book “Eden by Design,” that plan was shelved and long forgotten after it was published in 1930. Around 1938, local officials worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to channelize the L.A. River, literally paving the way for what we experience today and what we’ve seen on film in everything from “Grease” to “Drive.”

In recent years, local groups have started advocating for a “rewilding” of the L.A. River, removing some level of concrete and instead using our natural environment and watershed as a means of flood control.

A large bird that appears to be a type of heron flies over the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

“If we develop and retrofit land to capture water, we can reduce the intensity of flood waters and peel back concrete to enable all of the essential functions healthy rivers and soil provide,” according to the local nonprofit the River Project.

This would certainly also change the swimming experience to a much more natural opportunity, rather than feeling like you’re floating about in a large, flowing swimming pool.

The future of the river becoming swimmable, though, depends in large part on how much water is left for recreation, a complicated equation for officials to develop in a region constantly grappling with how to rely less on imported water.

A person rests in the shade of trees along the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Presently, the L.A. River is fed, in part, by rain and snowmelt in the wet months.

In the dry months, its main water source is three water reclamation plants that release tertiary treated water into the river. “These plants take all the wastewater from apartment buildings, houses and commercial operations and cleans it. Some of that water is used for irrigation at city parks and golf courses. Some feeds Lake Balboa,” my former Times colleague Deborah Netburn wrote in 2018. “But most of it — more than 30 million gallons each day — ends up in the river.”

Dickens-Russell of Friends of the L.A. River said for the last three years, she has sat alongside leaders from government agencies, local nonprofits and more to discern, among other things, just how much water our river needs. (For my fellow nerds who want to Google their hearts out, the full name of this effort is the Los Angeles River California Environmental Flows Framework Project, or CEFF.)

The Glendale Narrows is one of three soft-bottomed areas of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

For example, the L.A. River has three soft-bottomed areas where plant and animal life thrives. If the river were starved of reclaimed water in the dry months, what would happen to those ecosystems?

“No one is saying the river doesn’t need water — there is no debate about whether there should be water in the river — the debate is … how much water does the river need?” Dickens-Russell said. “We’re trying to establish that baseline.”

The CEFF group will meet for the last time in less than two weeks, and afterward, its members will send their findings to the state water board, which oversees any changes to river flow in California, she said.

The Glendale Narrows area of the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Even as officials discern the amount of the water the river needs for its multitude of uses, the L.A. River also has to be clean enough to swim in.

And humans and our behaviors are one of the biggest reasons our river water becomes polluted.

When it rains in cities, that water runs off buildings, driveways and roads, picking up fertilizer from our yards and farmlands, motor oil spilled on our streets and highways, pesticides sprayed on our plants, dirt and bacteria. This untreated runoff makes its way through storm drains and ditches into our local streams and rivers and eventually, the ocean.

Additionally, for years, runoff from industrial sites along the river have added to the problem, an effort that’s been highlighted as climate justice activists work to develop the former Taylor Yard, a railroad maintenance yard, into a park.

This is all part of a much larger problem beyond the banks of the L.A. River. “Polluted runoff is one of the greatest threats to clean water in the U.S.,” according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The river is especially gnarly after its so-called “first flush,” when L.A. experiences its first big rain after a lengthy dry spell, and everything that’s built up on our roadways flows into the river.

A sunflower-like plant resembling California brittlebush grows among invasive plants in the L.A. River.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Addressing this pollution to the extent that would make the L.A. River swimmable is not an impossible task, but it’s one that would require significant investment in our local infrastructure — like implementing creative solutions to keep out or remove trash from the river. That’s where public opinion and advocacy come into play, Dickens-Russell said.

Cities across the world like Portland and Copenhagen have successfully transformed their urban rivers into green spaces that offer reprieve from intense and increasingly frequent heat waves in our climate-changed world. Unlike Paris, which made a $1.5-billion investment in cleaning the Seine, our river won’t be ready — unless something substantial changes — for the 2028 Olympics.

The possibility of swimming in the L.A. River, though, is far from a new idea.

“Towards a swimmable, fishable, boatable river,” read the first page of the Friends of the L.A. River’s first “State of the Los Angeles River” report, published in 2005.

Lino Jubilado using a tenkara-style fly fishing rod in the L.A. River in Long Beach.

(Jerry Hsu / For The Times)

Swimming in our river isn’t going to happen with just “one good project,” but instead a mix of people changing their behaviors and also pushing for change, Dickens-Russell said.

“Looking at your question, ‘When will we be able to swim in the L.A. River?’” Dickens-Russell said, “I don’t know that that’s the question. I think the question is what we’re willing to invest to make that possible. A swimmable river is an achievable goal, but it’s going to require sustained investment in water quality and things like habitat restoration and safe and equitable public access. Every project that reduces pollution and restores natural function brings us a little bit closer to that. And yeah, we should be planning for a future where Angelenos can safely swim in the L.A. River. Why not?”

While digging through The Times’ archives for this story, I found a new visual of a river to inspire me: Three boys swimming in the L.A. River in 1936.

“Viewing the dusty Los Angeles River bed last week no one would have thought of swimming in connection with it,” the caption read. “But yesterday Bob Henderson, Stanley Hayden and Archer Bolton frolicked in the flood waters near Bell, thanks to the week-end rain.”

Ninety years later, I’m dreaming of one day doing the same. How long will that take exactly? It’s up to all of us to find out.

3 things to do

Hikers learn about their local ecosystem on a previous hike with environmental educator Jason Wise and others.

(Jason Wise)

1. Celebrate the full spectrum of the animal kingdom in L.A.
Environmental educator Jason Wise and biological anthropologist Natalia Reagan will host a sunset queer ecology walk from 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 13 in Griffith Park. The co-hosts will dive deep into the world of animal homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, polyamory and more. Suggested donation of $30. Register at eventbrite.com.

2. Churn up hills in L.A.
Labyrinth, a trail run club, will host Dirt & Dessert from 7:30 to 10 a.m. Saturday in Griffith Park. Participants will tackle a 5K trail run while churning their own ice cream. Runners should bring their own bag, vest or backpack to hold ice cream-making materials, which will be included in the $14 event fee. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Nurture native habitat in Northeast L.A.
We Explore Earth needs volunteers from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Ascot Hills Park to beautify the park’s hillsides and trails. Participants will remove invasive species and support native habitat recovery. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

Marc Papas cycles past graffiti next to the L.A. River.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Cyclist Marc Papas is on a mission to bike every public street in L.A., an estimated 7,516.07 miles. Papas moved to L.A. in late 2020 after completing his PhD at Georgia Tech, freelance journalist Oren Peleg wrote for The Times. Papas was initially scared to ride his bike around L.A., fearful of all he’d been told about our city’s car-filled and dangerous streets. Then he found himself asking: “With perfect weather year-round, and a mostly flat topography, why wasn’t everyone in L.A. riding bikes?” His passion evolved into “The Project,” of which he’s already ridden over 78% (about 5,840 miles) of our city’s streets.

Who else feels inspired to jump on their bike?

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

After my friend Maria told me she’d signed up for $10 kayaking classes after learning about them from my Instagram Stories, it made me realize that there were likely many others who’d like to know that information. L.A. County Parks and Recreation is hosting stand-up paddleboard and kayaking classes, and they’re only $10 per session. Instructors will teach participants about proper paddling technique, balance and coordination, and water safety. The classes will be offered at Santa Fe Dam, Bonelli Regional Park and Castaic Lake. August classes have sold out at Santa Fe Dam and Bonelli, but several spots remain at Castaic Lake, which sits north of L.A. and offers amazing views of the San Gabriel Mountains. Sign up by searching “kayak” or “stand” on the county’s activity registration website. A great way to have fun and stay cool this summer!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Refreshing and laced with seaweed, aromatics and sauces, Hawaiian poke can be one of the most energizing and delicious meals to seek out, especially during the summer. Los Angeles was an early appreciator of poke, embracing the raw, seasoned cubed fish long before it went mainstream throughout the country in the 2010s.

Raised in Pepeʻekeo, Hawaii, Unreal Poke co-founder Jordan Maldonado credits this not only to California’s proximity to Hawaii, but also to L.A.’s understanding of poke as it pertains to Hawaiian culture and tradition. The latter, he said, is fueling a new wave of independent poke shops and pop-ups throughout L.A. and Orange County.

“It’s gone further than what happened in the big poke boom of 2008 to 2015,” Maldonado said. “Culture is just as important as food and flavor, and I think that people in L.A. are waking up to: This is a community, this is a culture, these are people that were displaced… They say, ‘Hey, not only do I want to eat here because the food’s good, but I feel like I’m supporting something bigger.’ That became kind of unexpected for me, like, ‘Whoa, my customers care.’”

Maldonado and others are educating customers not only on poke flavors and formats, but also about seafood sourcing and Hawaii’s fishing ecosystem. Some are also introducing guests to new products by stocking imported teas, pantry items, macadamia nuts and nori. Others are infusing traditional poke with their own heritage, incorporating Korean banchan or Laotian sauce blends.

As a result, L.A.’s poke landscape is more diverse and more thoughtful than ever before.

“I was proud that we had a poke shop doing pretty well in Hawaii,” said Ry’s Poke Shack co-owner Ryan Ching, who expanded his famous Oahu stand to Pasadena and Lomita earlier this year. “The next state that’s very competitive for the poke industry is California, so I figured if we start in the two hardest locations, then every other state should be a cakewalk.”

From stalwart South Bay spots to a new parking lot poke pickup in the San Fernando Valley, here are 13 of L.A.’s best poke spots. —Stephanie Breijo

The more I think about Proposition 40, the billionaire tax that will go before California voters in November, the angrier I get.

I’m angry at President Trump. His cruel slashing of Medicaid threatens the health of millions of Californians, may lead to the loss of hundreds of thousands of medical jobs and is the stated reason behind Proposition 40, which would levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires. Trump invoked government deficits, but this was really his latest attack against people he sees as losers and thus expendable — people of color, the undocumented and especially the poor. “Evil” isn’t mean enough a word to describe this.

I’m upset at what Proposition 40 proposes to do. It’s a temporary stopgap that doesn’t reverse Trump’s Medicaid cuts and won’t solve the fundamental problems facing healthcare, or all the other things that make life in California so expensive. Plus, since when has a tax happened just once?

Proposition 30 was supposed to be a temporary tax increase for Californians who earn more than $250,000 a year in the name of propping up K-12 schools and community colleges. Passed in 2012, it was supposed to expire in 2019. Instead, voters extended it to 2030 — and our public schools are in more dire need than ever.

If Proposition 40 succeeds, you know every advocacy group from Yreka to San Ysidro will propose one-time taxes in the name of rescuing something or other. But relying on new taxes, or strengthening old ones, only shows that people are out of ideas — a dangerous scenario for democracy.

I’m enraged at billionaires. In the past, California’s captains of industry — your Dohenys, Gettys, Huntingtons and so many more — at least pretended to care about the rest of society by funding charities, the arts and other things meant to better the masses. Not this generation. Their avarice, their gleeful supplication before a tyrant like Trump, their obsession with breaking things and not caring about the consequences and their indifference to how the rest of us live have made billionaires a deserved scapegoat, about as popular as a diaper rash.

I’m furious at Proposition 40’s supporters. For a generation, California’s left has treated the rich as a goose that keeps laying golden, taxable eggs, making the state budget too reliant on a sliver of the population. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget summary this year estimated that the top 1% of Californians paid about 45% of the state’s personal income taxes from 2002 through 2023. What Proposition 40 supporters don’t get is that you can only smack a goose so much to give more until it bites back, which is what California billionaires are increasingly doing by throwing their cash around to defeat any political candidate exuding a whiff of progressivism.

Mark Zuckerberg and Lauren Sanchez attend the inauguration of President Trump Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington.

(Kenny Holston-Pool / Getty Images)

I’m upset at Proposition 40’s opponents. Backing two other ballot initiatives that would neutralize Proposition 40 doesn’t amount to a convincing argument against it. A point they do argue — that picking on billionaires will alienate them, push them out of California and tank the state’s budget — is at least plausible. But it’s not a winning argument in this era of populism on both the left and right, where voters seem to approve of cutting off your nose to spite the man.

I’m disgusted by Proposition 40’s architect. Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West President Dave Regan represents everything wrong with the union movement in California. He has made a mockery out of the proposition system by continually trotting out initiatives in the name of bettering the lives of blue-collar Californians. But as my colleague Taryn Luna reported last month, Regan doesn’t even believe in what he sells: He uses the threat of ballot measures to cut deals for his members, and his members alone. Way to use the rest of us as a bargaining chip, Dave.

I’m done with Newsom. He opposes Proposition 40 in the most Newsom-esque way possible. One of his arguments is that it will scare away billionaires from California — there he goes, carrying water for oligarchs again. His other argument is even more ludicrous — that Proposition 40 isn’t enough because there should be a permanent national tax on billionaires via changes to the tax code instead of a one-off. So Californians shouldn’t go after billionaires because you want to do it? Good luck explaining that logic to voters across the country if you run for president in 2028.

I’m mad at California Democratic Party leaders. Its executive board recently endorsed Proposition 40 despite the many loyal soldiers and allies who are opposed, including gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, the California Teachers Assn. and Planned Parenthood. Other unions are expected to oppose Proposition 40 or sit out the campaign, setting up the party’s latest civil war in an election year when state Democrats need the fewest distractions. But that’s the party’s leadership for you — they’ve never met an internal crisis they didn’t make worse.

I’m revolted by the California Republican Party. It entered the second Trump administration with tailwinds behind its sails after a generation of statewide failures, installing a record number of Latino GOP legislators in Sacramento and grabbing enough voters of color to imagine a future in which they once again mattered. Instead, the party’s blind devotion to Trump has left it with the moral authority of a dandruff flake.

California’s Republican congressional delegation unanimously voted for Trump’s Medicaid cuts, even though rural parts of the state, which also happen to be deep red, will be severely affected. State GOP leaders either stayed silent or cheered as Trump volleyed other financial missiles against California, including canceling billions of dollars in clean energy initiatives solely because we’re a blue state. Proposition 40 supporters just need to say that Republicans oppose the ballot measure and Californians will line up to vote “yes” like In-N-Out fans idling to grab a Double-Double.

Not me. I’m angry, for sure: The fight over Proposition 40 will add nothing but rage to this election and a redwood grove’s worth of political mailers. The Medicaid cuts will worsen life for too many people. As odious as Trump and his side have been, Proposition 40 solves too little for too short a time, while potentially making things permanently worse.

Count me as a big, beautiful “no.”

President Trump touched down in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening and headed directly to his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course to headline a fundraiser for the Republican Party.

Though the visit was for a standard campaign benefit in the run-up to November’s elections, it was not without drama.

While the President was en route to California, authorities announced the arrest of an armed man who had been spotted suspiciously documenting security preparations at the golf course Sunday.

Sheriff’s deputies discovered the man had brought a gun and ammunition to the golf course. On Monday, they uncovered an alarming weapons stash, including an illegally modified AR-style rifle, a .45-caliber pistol and high-capacity magazines, at his Downey residence.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, a group of more than two dozen protesters gathered outside the Trump National Golf Club entrance in anticipation of the president’s arrival.

The demonstrators chanted “Impeach Trump”and waved signs with slogans such as “Save our democracy” and “Pretti good time to resist,” referencing ICU nurse Alexander Pretti, who was fatally shot by federal agents in January, as passing cars periodically honked in approval.

“There are so many things that have happened [during the Trump administration] that are so disgusting, and I’m so worried for my children, my grandchildren and future generations,” said Redondo Beach resident Jeanette Boston. “They deserve better.”

A smaller group of around 10 counter-protesters gathered along Palos Verdes Drive wearing MAGA gear and American flag clothing. Several yelled “We love you Trump” as Marine One landed at the golf course carrying Trump just after 5 p.m.

The campaign fundraiser was closed to members of the media. However, a White House spokesperson said Trump would use the event to tout his administration’s achievements and “draw a sharp contrast between his commonsense agenda and the radical policies of Democrats like Gavin Newsom.”

Tuesday marked Trump’s second visit to Los Angeles during his second term in office. He last visited the region in January 2025, when he toured the fire damage in the Pacific Palisades and signed an executive order intended to expedite rebuilding efforts.

Since then, there has been a standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over federal disaster aid.

California has submitted more than $1.5 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement claims for emergency response and infrastructure repairs stemming from the Eaton and Palisades fires, but only $37 million in funding has been approved thus far, according to the governor’s office.

“Donald Trump is coming to Los Angeles to raise money while wildfire survivors are still waiting for the federal recovery funding he promised 18 months ago,” Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement. “Californians deserve a President focused on helping families rebuild — not raising money for himself at his golf course.”

Trump, for his part, ignored criticism around the wait for wildfire relief on Tuesday and instead took to social media to promote what he sees as his administration’s economic achievements.

He wrote in a Truth Social post that investments in the U.S. economy and more “factory activity” were evidence of how well the country was doing.

“The Fake News and the Dumocrats are doing everything they can to distract people’s thoughts from these MASSIVE Successes, but it’s getting harder and harder for them to do,” Trump wrote. He added: “This is the GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA, and we’re just getting started.”

On Wednesday, Trump will head to Las Vegas to deliver a speech at a casino focused on the economic achievements of his administration. While his California visit is focused on replenishing campaign coffers, the Nevada stop is more closely tied to election strategy as the swing state could play a key role in deciding who controls Congress after the November midterms.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Tuesday that his office has protected more than $200 billion in federal funding for the state, defended core civil rights and removed military forces from Los Angeles streets by suing the Trump administration about once a week.

“Since President Trump returned to office, California has been under attack — and has led the way in fighting back,” Bonta said.

Bonta said his office has filed 82 lawsuits against the administration since Trump’s inauguration last year, in addition to 122 amicus briefs supporting lawsuits against the administration by other parties and 112 comment letters in response to federal actions.

That work has saved the state an estimated $207.1 billion, Bonta said, including $168 billion — equal to a third of the state’s annual budget — that was threatened when the Trump administration tried to freeze trillions of dollars in federal funding to the states last year. Billions in threatened cuts to transportation, emergency preparedness, education and family assistance funding were also prevented, Bonta said.

The work has also protected birthright citizenship for the U.S.- born children of immigrants, ensured that National Guard troops are not deployed in major California cities against the wishes of local leaders, lifted multiple sets of tariffs driving up costs for American consumers and repeatedly blocked administration efforts to interfere in California’s elections, Bonta said.

“We’ve protected funding that keeps our communities safe, feeds hungry families, and ensures our kids get the education they deserve. We’ve gone all the way to the Supreme Court to defend constitutional rights — and won. We’ve protected our elections and stopped the militarization of our cities. We’ve defended our right to prioritize public safety over assisting with the President’s inhumane immigration agenda,” Bonta said.

As it has done in the past, the White House on Tuesday derided Bonta’s lawsuits as misguided.

“Instead of bragging about filing frivolous lawsuits against the Trump Administration, the California AG should focus on addressing problems in his own state — like the countless criminal illegal aliens the Newscum Administration allows to roam free and terrorize communities,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in a statement to The Times.

The White House has previously said Trump is “trying to restore American Greatness” and that Californians would be “infinitely better off” if Bonta got out of the president’s way.

Bonta’s office is required to report annually to the state Legislature on its work fighting the Trump administration as part of a 2025 special session measure delivering it an extra $25 million to fund such litigation. His office published its latest report to lawmakers Tuesday.

The report said the office had received $19.2 million of the special session funding through July 30, which had “contributed to — but in no way has been sufficient to cover — the costs of the litigation.”

Bonta’s office has also received regular appropriations to fund such litigation in each of the state’s last two budgets, of $14.2 million last fiscal year and $23.9 million this fiscal year. The office’s overall budget is about $1.4 billion.

At a morning news conference with other state leaders, Bonta said his office has spent close to $30 million on its “federal accountability work” overall since Trump took office, and argued that investment has been “paying off in droves” given the billions saved.

Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón (D-Goleta) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), standing with Bonta, agreed.

Limón said she was proud to have worked with Bonta and Gov. Gavin Newsom to form a “collective backstop” against the Trump administration, while Rivas said the funding provided to Bonta’s office “may be one of the smartest investments that this legislature has ever made.”

Of the 82 lawsuits, 66 remain active, according to the report. Despite that, Bonta said his office has won 45 orders providing some early relief from the Trump administration’s actions, and 21 final orders in its favor. In eight cases, he said, the administration “backed down” in advance of a trial.

Bonta’s office has lost arguments made against the Trump administration, including on behalf of other litigants, particularly on issues related to transgender rights and the scope of Trump’s executive power to reshape government and federal immigration policy.

However, Bonta claimed his office has won in 83% of the court orders issued in cases brought by the state and praised his team for having “worked around the clock on behalf of Californians, pulling countless all-nighters along the way” to make it possible.

Bonta, who is up for reelection in November, is campaigning in part on his willingness to stand up to Trump — which polling and voting has suggested many Californians want their elected officials to do.

Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor, is running on a similar message. Before he was the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, Becerra had Bonta’s job and sued the first Trump administration more than 120 times, often successfully.

Bonta said he expects Becerra will be an “incredible partner” in the fight moving forward.

Republicans Michael Gates, who is running against Bonta, and Steve Hilton, who is running against Becerra and is endorsed by Trump, have said they would work collaboratively with the Trump administration to ensure the needs of Californians are met, rather than fighting it at every turn.

“I would be wanting to work with the administration to help Californians,” Hilton has said. Gates has called Bonta’s campaign against Trump “out of touch.”

Many of the lawsuits Bonta’s office has brought against the administration have been filed as part of a multistate coalition of Democratic attorneys general. As presidents of both parties have flexed more executive power in recent decades, state attorneys general have become more collaborative and litigious in fighting back — and that has been especially true under Trump.

Bonta said Trump will be remembered in part for his “repeated attacks on California, on Californians, on our Constitution, and on our democracy,” but California will be remembered for fighting back.

“Are these trying times? 100%. Absolutely, yes,” Bonta said. “But we shouldn’t be helpless, because we’re not helpless.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump will travel to Los Angeles on Tuesday and Las Vegas on Wednesday as part of a two-day West Coast trip aimed at highlighting his administration’s economic record ahead of the midterm elections, a White House official confirmed.

In Los Angeles, Trump is scheduled to attend a Republican National Committee dinner at Trump National Golf Club. The visit comes as the administration seeks to draw attention to his economic policies as time runs out for his administration to ease economic pressures ahead of the November election.

“The president will draw a sharp contrast between his commonsense agenda and the radical policies of Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who keep raising taxes, inviting rampant fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, and protecting illegal immigrant drug dealers, rapists, and murderers,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement Monday.

Trump is expected to “tout his wins for the people of the Golden State despite failed Democrat leadership,” Wales said, citing what she described as the “largest middle-class tax cut ever, the most secure border in American history, and a plummeting crime rate.”

Newsom has not yet publicly commented on Trump’s pit stop in California, but the Democratic governor in recent social media posts has criticized Trump’s handling of the economy.

In one post on X, Newsom pointed out that California is raising the minimum wage to $17.40 an hour next year as a way to attack Trump and the GOP for “defending a $7.25 minimum wage while workers scrape by.”

“Pitiful,” the governor wrote.

In a second post, Newsom amplified a post on X that shows how the prices of items like rice, cotton and wheat have increased since the start of the year.

“Great work, @realdonaldtrump,” he wrote.

Trump’s visit to Los Angeles will be his second since returning to office. He toured Pacific Palisades in January 2025 after the L.A. neighborhood and Altadena were ravaged by wildfires. During the visit, Trump signed an executive order intended to expedite rebuilding efforts.

Since Trump last visited the city, there has been a standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over federal disaster aid.

In April, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and county Supervisor Kathryn Barger met with Trump in the Oval Office to talk about their request for funding to help with the wildfire recovery efforts, an ask that Trump signaled support for but has yet to formalize.

Following his visit in California, Trump will travel to Nevada, where he will deliver remarks on the economy at Red Rock Casino.

California filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration Monday — one to block President Trump’s latest round of tariffs on international trading partners, the other to block his administration from sharing needy families’ personal data with immigration officials.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office brought the lawsuits alongside other Democratically led states, said they were both intended to rein in a lawless president pushing policies that threaten American families already struggling to afford basic necessities.

Bonta said the new tariffs are part of a “failed and illegal economic policy” that has previously been blocked in court. He alleged that the proposed data sharing was part of a broader and illegal “mass surveillance effort” by the Trump administration to target its political opponents.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the two lawsuits. But it has previously defended both tariffs and data-sharing policies as part of Trump’s “America first” agenda to improve the economic standing of American families.

Trump has defended his tariffs, and a previous set that was ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court, as necessary to fix years of unfair trading practices in which international partners took advantage of the U.S. However, many economists have determined that the cost of the tariffs are being passed on to U.S. consumers and contributing to the persistent inflation causing economic pain nationwide.

Trump, the White House and top officials in his administration have also defended the sharing of personal data among U.S. agencies, and from individual states to the federal government, as a commonsense way to reduce waste and fraud and to identify and remove people who are in the country illegally and consuming benefits intended for American families.

The administration has previously sought the personal data of Medicaid recipients, SNAP food assistance recipients, immigrants who have filed taxes with the Internal Revenue Service and registered voters in states across the country. All of those demands have also been challenged in court, with varying degrees of success.

Bonta’s office has now filed 82 lawsuits against the current Trump administration.

Tariff lawsuit

Trump’s latest tariffs, levies of between 10% and 12.5%, took effect late last month and apply to more than 80 countries, including some of the closest U.S. allies and largest trading partners such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union. They followed a Trump administration announcement of new 50% tariffs on many Canadian products, set to go into effect this month.

“Tariffs are taxes, and the American people cannot and should not shoulder the extra costs that come from the president’s failed and illegal economic policy — no matter how much the president wants them to,” Bonta said in announcing the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Two previous attempts by the Trump administration to unilaterally levy tariffs on trading partners were rejected by the courts in the face of similar legal challenges by California and other states. In February, the Supreme Court rejected a sweeping slate of tariffs Trump had imposed on an emergency basis. In May, the Court of International Trade turned back another set.

The Trump administration has said the president’s latest tariffs are authorized by a separate law not considered in the previous litigation — one related to combating forced labor in global trade.

The states’ lawsuit argued that the reliance on labor law was simply a “guise” used by Trump to impose new tariffs, and that “there is no rational fit between the purported problem of forced labor in international supply chains and the blanket global tariffs” imposed.

Bonta brought the case alongside the attorneys general or governors of 24 other states.

Data-sharing lawsuit

California joined a similar coalition of Democrat-led states to file a lawsuit challenging the sharing of needy families’ data, in federal court in Washington, D.C.

The lawsuit challenges a notice the Trump administration issued last month announcing the Administration of Children and Families would begin sharing the personal information of recipients in the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to outside agencies — including with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration enforcement units.

A spokesperson for the Administration for Children and Families said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

The program provides $16 billion in grants annually to the states, which use it to provide cash assistance to low-income families. Some 350,000 families in California receive support through the program each month, Bonta’s office said.

Bonta said the sharing of program data with Homeland Security would be a clear violation of the law establishing the fund.

“The Trump Administration is exploiting a program designed to ensure children do not go hungry and to help needy families get back on their feet in order to fuel its mass surveillance effort. It’s cruel, unnecessary, and illegal,” Bonta said in a statement.

During a morning news conference, Bonta said one of his concerns is that immigration officials will use data to target the undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children who are legitimately receiving assistance through the program.

“They’re seeking Social Security information, marital status, income information,” he said. “We think that they might be interested in that information to potentially target parents.”

He said he also believes the data sharing is part of a much broader effort by the Trump administration to gather up as much data as possible in order to target individuals who do not conform with the administration’s political agenda, including on immigration policy and on issues such as abortion and gender-affirming care.

“While the Trump Administration continues to break the law in order to amass an ever-greater trove of people’s personal information, we’ll continue stepping in to protect the privacy of our people,” Bonta said.

The lawsuit is just the latest in a much broader legal war over the Trump administration’s drive to force all kinds of federal and state social services and financial programs to share the personal data of benefit recipients and other program users.

California is fighting alongside other states in court to block the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from sharing personal data of Medicaid recipients with Homeland Security, though some of that data have already been shared.

California is also fighting alongside other states in court to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s demand that states turn over the personal data of millions of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients. The demand came with a threat from USDA that it would cut off funding to states that don’t comply. Courts have blocked the suspension of funds, but some data have been shared.

Immigrant rights groups, including Los Angeles-based Inclusive Action for the City, are also suing to block a Trump administration plan to share IRS taxpayer data with Homeland Security. The Trump administration has said the data sharing would be used to target only criminals, but immigrant rights advocates have denounced it as an attempt to do just the opposite — to target immigrants who have been in the country and paid taxes for years.

SACRAMENTO — Today we’re talking about California’s Proposition 39, a bid to turn Trump’s election conspiracy fantasies into California law, and a proposal so disingenuous it’s caused Democratic legislators to sue the Democratic secretary of state in an attempt to stop the misinformation surrounding it.

As these lawsuits move forward and the November election rolls closer, we’re going to hear a lot about Proposition 39 — a measure that would require in-person voters to present government-issued identification, among other provisions. I fear most if not all of this debate will revolve around the false claim that large numbers of undocumented people vote illegally in our elections.

“It’s directly a product of all of the rhetoric that Trump has been putting out there regarding election fraud and voting fraud,” said Mindy Romero, founder and director of the nonpartisan Center for Inclusive Democracy.

Romero stresses that there is not and has never been any evidence of widespread voter fraud in California, and the state already has a system that effectively checks voter eligibility.

Proposition 39 is “seeking a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, and a solution that actually could cause additional problems,” she said. “So in and of itself, it perpetuates this false and dangerous narrative that there has been voter fraud in California.”

That lie is part of the ongoing grievance-fueled Trump campaign against non-white “replacement” Americans, meant to undermine trust in elections — you may recall he’s gone so far as to say immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” It’s a venal and dark vein of partisanship aimed at keeping the far-right in power even at the expense of democracy.

But also an effective lie. Because many folks don’t know exactly how their ballots are verified but do have ID, they don’t see the full impacts of Proposition 39.

The easy ID myth

I’ll tell you more about Proposition 39, but I’m starting with a story about an all-American teenager I’ll call “Sofia.” I’ve been helping Sofia,18, attempt to get her first government-issued identification. I stress attempt.

Folks, there’s been hoops, there’s been hurdles, there’s been Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

For people like Sofia that don’t have bills or jobs or even accurate student records (she’s moved a lot), scraping up enough documentation to convince the DMV you are who you say you are is tough. First, you really need a certified birth certificate.

Sofia wasn’t born in the county where she lives (it’s county recorders that keep them), which means she had to either drive hours or go through the state’s third-party online vendor to order one, at a cost of about $30. But here’s the catch — she needed proof of identity to order it.

So to get a birth certificate to get her ID, she needed ID.

Stuck in this circular nightmare, we found, after much effort, a loophole: I could appear in front of a public notary with Sofia, to testify using my ID that she was indeed Sofia. Strange, but whatever. We did it.

That wasn’t enough for the DMV. Sofia also needed two bills or other documents verifying her address. Because they will literally give a credit card to anyone, she applied to an online company, and got her first statement. One document down.

Again, scouring the DMV rules for days, we found another weird loophole: The second document can be a letter from a nonprofit with the person signing it vouching for Sofia’s identity. We got the letter, and Sofia’s Real ID was issued.

But then she had to move before it arrived. She tried to arrange mail forwarding with the postal service, but guess what? They required ID.

So the ID was lost in transit, and we are back to square one.

Who Proposition 39 really targets

That means Sofia is one of thousands of Californians, born and raised in the Golden State, who lack official identification because its not as easy to obtain it as some want you to believe.

And because she lacks it, she could be prevented from voting if Proposition 39 is passed, even though she is a legal citizen with every right to have her ballot counted, and California already has a system in place to ensure only citizens vote.

Sofia is exactly the kind of voter that Proposition 39 is actually aimed at. This is a voter suppression law, plain and simple, and it will harm women with name changes, naturalized citizens, young people, older people and virtually anyone who cares about not returning to Jim Crow-style laws that push people out of voting with subterfuge.

Proponents of the proposition would like you to believe it’s something very different from what I just described. Their fight about how we talk about this proposal has led to two lawsuits so far — one filed by the backers of Proposition 39 because they don’t like the official title the California attorney general put on it, and one filed by the leaders of the state Legislature because they argue the statements written by proponents for official voting materials aren’t truthful.

I’ll give you a taste of both of those arguments. Right now, the state is proposing to title the measure “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.”

State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), the always-Trumper behind Proposition 39, helped lead a lawsuit claiming that is inaccurate.

DeMaio issued a statement claiming Democrats are “trying to deceive voters by putting a false ballot title on it and are now even distracting voters from their tampering of the ballot title with this frivolous lawsuit.”

That frivolous lawsuit he’s complaining about is the one where the Democratic leaders of the Legislature last week sued the Democratic secretary of state and others over the language included in the state voter guide. The Democrats aren’t really angry at each other, it’s just that Secretary of State Shirley Weber is in charge of voter materials, so she’s one of the folks they’ve got to sue to make their case.

The lawsuit alleges, among other complaints, that proponents are falsely framing Proposition 39 as making it “easier to vote” when in fact it does the opposite.

“Prop. 39 requires no burdens be placed on voters,” the materials at issue read, according to the lawsuit. “No additional documents (birth certificate, marriage license, etc.) are required.”

So I take you back to Sofia. Because while Proposition 39 might not ask her to bring her birth certificate to the polls, it would ask her to bring her ID, which required her birth certificate to get.

A distinction without a difference.

“The fact that Donald Trump has endorsed it tells you everything you need to know,” wrote the lawsuits’ plaintiffs, House speaker Robert Rivas and Senate pro Tempore Monique Limón, in a statement. “As Californians and Latinos, we will not let MAGA cronies take Constitutional rights away from voters.”

That lawsuit will likely have its first hearing in court this week. But whatever a judge decides, the ballot box is where the fate of Proposition 39 rests.

Though it seems like average Californians could see through this sham, there are big bucks backing it, and money always speaks loudly.

The donors in support read like the guest list for a White House dinner. So far, they’ve raised more than $15 million. That includes $4 million from Richard Uihlein, the Illinois billionaire and Trump supporter who often funds organizations and causes that promote election conspiracies and far-right candidates.

The crypto-billionaire Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, have each donated $250,000, along with other Silicon Valley types including former RFK Jr. running mate Nicole Shanahan, who ponied up $370,000 in support of Proposition 39.

Oh, and by the way, L.A. developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso has donated $25,000 to the effort.

That’s a lot of dough being poured into stopping certain Californians from voting. If they succeed, it won’t just be an inconvenience at the polls — but instead a double victory for Trump, both suppressing the vote ahead of the presidential election and legitimizing his election lies through law.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: FBI Escalates Trump’s “Voter Fraud” Crusade With Disturbing Move
The California angle: How Trump’s Endangered Species Act rollback is roiling Northern California
The L.A. Times Special: Trump running out of options to fix inflation, economic woes before election, experts say

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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Esther Kim Varet has gotten a lot of questions recently from “depressed” liberals wondering whom they should vote for in November to represent them in the redrawn 40th Congressional District, which covers a large swath of inland Orange County and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The Democratic art gallery owner placed third in last month’s closely watched primary for the seat, behind Republican incumbent Reps. Ken Calvert of Corona and Young Kim of Anaheim Hills. Calvert and Kim were pushed into the same district by last year’s Proposition 50 and will be the only two candidates facing off for the seat in November.

Kim Varet said her supporters have “obviously put a lot of thought into” which of the incumbents to support, but they have had a hard time swallowing the idea of voting for either. So she tells them why, “if we’re playing a kind of longer game,” they should vote for Kim.

She says Calvert is favored to win, so supporting Kim will “force both sides to spend more on this race” and reduce Republican spending on other races where Democrats still have a shot at beating a GOP incumbent. She says Calvert is “much more senior” than Kim, so ousting him would be “more significant.” And Calvert, as chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has funded Trump’s war in Iran and would be “morally the better target.”

In last month’s primary, Kim Varet and other Democratic candidates collectively won 42.9% of the district vote, compared with Calvert’s 34.9% and Kim’s 20.6%. If enough of those Democratic voters coalesced behind Kim, they could end Calvert’s 33-year run in Congress.

Whether they will, however, is unclear. Such “orphaned” voters — those left without a candidate of their party in a general election — are historically just as likely to abstain from voting or to vote based on far less strategic considerations. Californians created that dilemma more than a decade ago when they approved the top-two primary system that puts all candidates on the same ballot and only allows the top-two finishers to advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

Paul Mitchell, a Democratic redistricting expert who devised California’s new congressional map under Proposition 50, said the backers of California’s primary system sold it years ago as a moderating force, where those orphaned voters would be encouraged to select the least partisan general election candidate.

But in reality, Mitchell said, “it doesn’t work that way.”

Voter decisions

Mitchell said intraparty matchups in the past have shown 35% of orphaned voters or more simply abstain from voting in that race.

A recent analysis Mitchell conducted of races, including for seats in the state Legislature, showed such undervoting among orphaned voters in every intraparty race for a state Senate seat in 2024 — one clear example being the competitive and costly battle between two Democrats, Laura Richardson and Michelle Chambers, in South Los Angeles.

Many others vote based on “tertiary things,” he said, such as a candidate’s race or gender, or whether they seem local or a Washington insider.

“Traditionally, it isn’t so much about somebody being more moderate,” he said, in part because voters can’t always discern moderation among candidates of an opposing party. “Republicans might be able to tell the difference between a moderate Republican and a conservative Republican, but Democrats can’t tell the difference.”

Incumbency can also be a drag on a candidate if orphaned voters dislike their track record, even if their opponent is even further from those voters politically. As one example, Mitchell pointed to rural, more conservative parts of the state going for Kevin de León over Sen. Dianne Feinstein when he challenged her in 2018, despite his running to her left.

“You’re like, how in the hell did these rural counties vote for Kevin de León? And it was because there were a lot of Republicans who, if they were going to vote in the U.S. Senate race, just wanted to vote against Feinstein,” Mitchell said.

Katelyn Stauffer, an associate politics professor at University of Georgia who has studied voter behavior in top-two races in California, said people “like to make decisions that are easy,” and “for most people, the ultimate cue is, does this person share my party?”

When party doesn’t differentiate candidates, voters tend to rely on other “simple cues or heuristics,” Stauffer said.

For example, based on her research, she said, women regardless of party and Democrats regardless of gender are more likely to vote for a woman in such scenarios.

Candidate messaging

Candidates could consider moderating their message to attract orphaned voters, though that can be perilous.

In a statement to The Times, Calvert accused Kim of trying to woo orphaned voters with a more bipartisan message, as evidence she is untrustworthy.

“Young Kim has bragged to some voters that she’s a moderate who censured President Trump. She’s then claimed to others that she [is] a 100% Trump Republican. It’s obvious Young Kim will say anything to try and hold on to her job, which is why voters from every party just can’t trust her,” Calvert said.

He said he has “been a consistent conservative in Congress for many years and that’s not going to change.” He also claimed to be “one of the most effective members of Congress,” saying he has secured funding to reduce traffic congestion, fight fires and improve water infrastructure in his district — things “voters from all parties want.”

Chris Pack, a spokesman for Kim, denied that Kim is changing her tune depending on her audience, and dismissed Calvert’s claims of serving his constituents well, calling him a “do-nothing dinosaur” who has failed to improve his constituents’ lives for decades.

“The truth is he’s had more than enough time to deliver for the people of California, and he hasn’t,” Pack said.

Similar intraparty battles are playing out in other congressional races between Democrats.

In the 4th Congressional District, which stretches through the Napa and Sacramento valleys, Republican voters could help decide between incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) and his challenger from the left, venture capitalist Eric Jones.

Thompson — who has been in Congress since 1999 and sits on the powerful Ways and Means Committee — won 41% of the vote in the primary, while Jones won 22.2%. A slate of six Republican candidates collectively won 36.1%.

Jones, who backs progressive measures to expand Medicare and cut working-class taxes, said he hopes voters of all stripes look beyond political labels and see that he is the only candidate in the race who will take on big utilities, healthcare lobbyists and other big-business interests who fund Thompson’s campaigns.

“I want voters to realize that there’s a real choice in front of them,” he said.

Thompson said he is focused on doing his job, introducing himself to voters in the new parts of his district, reconfigured under Proposition 50, and “figuring out how I can work with them” to address their concerns. He said there is “a lot of commonality” among voters of all parties who want “good roads, clean air, water, strong [agriculture], safe communities,” and that he’s been endorsed by local Republicans and Democrats alike.

Thompson also rejected Jones’ criticism of his fundraising, saying he has “done a lot of good work that’s not necessarily in the interests” of those who have contributed to his campaign. He also said fundraising is necessary in a race against a wealthy opponent like Jones, who donated millions of dollars to his own campaign.

In the 7th Congressional District, Republican voters will help decide between incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) — who has been in Congress since replacing her late husband there in 2005 — and her challenger from the left, progressive Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang.

Vang won 31.2% of the primary vote. Matsui won 29.1%. Two Republican candidates together won 37%.

In a statement to The Times, Matsui said November’s general election “will be a significantly different race because there will be many more voters that didn’t vote in the primary,” and that she will “work harder to court voters by meeting them where they are and informing them how I’ve delivered on my promises,” including on healthcare, public safety and jobs.

Vang did not respond to a request for comment but has previously accused Matsui of not delivering on her promises for decades.

“After 20 years, families are living paycheck to paycheck, people of my generation are no closer to owning a home, and you still can’t afford a doctor visit,” Vang said last month.

Party involvement

Political parties have traditionally shunned meddling in races where they lack a candidate of their own, experts said. They sometimes endorse in races where two members of their own party are facing off against each other, but not always.

Nick Poche, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, said his organization is largely focused on three races in which Republicans are either looking to hold or win seats from Democrats: the 13th Congressional District, where Republican Kevin Lincoln is challenging Rep. Adam Gray (D-Merced); the 22nd Congressional District, where Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) is trying to fend off Democrat Randy Villegas; and the 48th Congressional District, where Republican Jim Desmond is facing off against Democrat Marni von Wilpert for the seat of retiring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall).

He called the Democrats in those races “radical socialists and emblematic of California’s far-left failures,” and said his party would be campaigning against them. But he declined to speak to the Calvert-Kim race, or the races in which two Democrats are facing off.

The California Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.

Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said his party is focused on “fulfilling the promise of Proposition 50” to flip five seats to help his party win control of the House, and is also focused on three competitive races: those for Valadao’s and Issa’s seats, and one in the 6th Congressional District, where Democrat Richard Pan is taking on Republican-turned-independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of Rocklin.

Hicks said the party will not endorse Calvert or Kim, whom he called “two rotten choices,” but has endorsed incumbents Matsui and Thompson in their races against fellow Democrats because they have “been leading” on issues of affordability and access to healthcare and “are best positioned to be reelected.”

Jones scoffed at his party endorsing his opponent. “Are we really excited that the Democratic machine keeps trying to choose our electeds for us?” he said.

A controversial wealth tax won backing from the California Democratic Party on Sunday, the latest episode in the measure roiling the left and its allies.

The party’s executive board voted Sunday to endorse Proposition 40, which, if approved by voters this November, would impose a 5% one-time tax on billionaires’ assets to pay for healthcare.

The measure has proved divisive. While it has support from progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), others including Gov. Gavin Newsom, gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, and a growing list of labor unions have come out against it, arguing the one-time nature of the tax and billionaire flight could cause more harm than good to California’s state budget.

“This endorsement puts to rest the idea that California Democrats are not united by the billionaire tax — they are,” said Dave Regan, President of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the labor union that gathered enough signatures to put Proposition 40 on the ballot.

Regan cited an internal poll which found more than 80% of registered Democrats support the tax, “and now the Democratic Party of California has officially embraced that strong support through this endorsement.”

Public opinion polls have shown the measure with slim majority support. According to a May poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, 54% of likely voters and 76% of Democrats said they would vote for the tax.

Proposition 40 seeks to raise $100 billion over a five-year span to backfill cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Trump last year. Its supporters argue that the federal tax cuts benefit the wealthy at the expense of low-income people and that Proposition 40 would reverse the damage.

Its opponents, which include the California Teachers Assn. and tech founders spending millions to defeat the measure, argue it could destabilize the state budget — which already taxes wealthy earners at higher rates — by pushing billionaires to leave California for other states.

In a statement, the No on Prop. 40 campaign said Newsom, Becerra, and organizations including the California Professional Firefighters union and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California oppose the tax “because it’s bad for our budget, bad for our economy, and bad for our future. We need smart, durable solutions to our biggest challenges, not unreliable, untested schemes that shortchange healthcare, education, and public safety.”

Democratic executive board members endorsed the measure Sunday during a meeting in San Diego. The party also voted to oppose two competing ballot measures that seek to undercut the billionaire’s tax, along with a voter ID measure and a proposal to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act for housing and infrastructure projects.

Democrats voted to endorse two housing bonds — a $11.25-billion bond to build affordable housing and a $25-billion down payment assistance program — and an $8.4-billion immunology research bond.

The party is also supporting a measure to make permanent an existing tax on high-income earners which funds education and health care.

“Every endorsement we make is earned, not given,” California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement. “California Democrats take a deliberative approach to our endorsement process that puts our values first and ensures our members have a meaningful voice in shaping the future of our state.”