essential politics

There are many states in America where a governor shares the ticket with his or her running mate. Nevada is not one of them.

That, however, is but a small detail.

Joe Lombardo, Nevada’s Republican governor, is seeking election to his second term. His chief opponent is Aaron Ford, Nevada’s Democratic attorney general.

But to hear Lombardo and his allies tell it, Ford’s guru, his doppelganger, his soulmate and political inspiration — if not his actual running mate — is the Democratic governor living next door. It’s almost as if Lombardo is facing Gavin Newsom in November.

Look, there, along the streets of Las Vegas, you’ll see California’s governor on billboards, grinning alongside Ford.

Stop at the gas pump, wince at the pain and ask yourself why? It’s not President Trump and the muddle-headed war he started over in Iran. Blame Newsom.

Higher taxes and more spending? Only if Newsom, er, Ford, has his way.

“It’s official,” a chirpy announcer says in one pro-Lombardo campaign spot. “Shared vision. Shared values. Aaron Ford: Gavin Newsom’s choice for Nevada.”

Lombardo seemed, for a time, the most politically vulnerable Republican governor in the country. Things have looked up. He’s built a big financial advantage over Ford. But anti-Trump sentiments are keeping the Democrat in contention, which is what happens when an incumbent is running shackled to a ball and chain.

Enter Newsom.

A familiar playbook

It’s not at all surprising he would endorse a member of his own party, especially in Nevada, which is holding one of the first contests of the 2028 presidential race. Newsom, if you haven’t heard, has been positioning himself for a potential White House bid for years. Backing Ford is a way of collecting chits, as they say in gambling and politics.

It’s also not surprising that Lombardo would try to deflect from the unpopular Trump by yoking his opponent to Newsom. Select a polarizing member of the opposite party and suggest your rival is their slavish devotee; it’s a strategy as well-thumbed as a Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas road atlas. (Google it, kids.)

In Nevada, the attack can have added resonance when the offending politician is from California, which has long been viewed, by some at least, as an overpriced, tax-happy, left-wing lunatic asylum.

“There’s a tendency in Nevada to worry about what’s called ‘Californication’ and this has gone on quite a while,” said Michael Green, a historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who suggested it’s a particular slice of California, not the moderately conservative Central Valley but rather outré San Francisco, that Lombard is trying to convey.

For the governor, Newsom-bashing is a return to form.

Four years ago, as the sheriff of Clark County — that’s Las Vegas — Lombardo said the Democratic incumbent, Steve Sisolak, cared “more about copying Gavin Newsom than governing in the best interest of Nevadans.”

This time, Lombardo has focused on high fuel prices, a particular torment in a vast state with a lot of long, gas-guzzling stretches of rural highway. In March, he sent an open letter to Newsom blaming California’s environmental policies for running up energy costs. (Nevada relies on California for nearly 90% of its transportation fuels, which mainly flow from Southern California refineries to Las Vegas.)

In April, he explicitly blamed “Gavin Newsom’s energy policies” for “driving higher gas prices for Nevada families” and said Ford refused to push back because “he doesn’t want to risk his relationship with his biggest ally.”

Newsom vs. Lombardo

Turnabout being fair play, the Ford campaign has responded by tying Nevada’s governor to the unpopular president.

“Joe Lombardo is endorsed by Donald Trump and is running on a platform of raising costs and is laser-focused on taking care of Trump’s billionaire friends and padding the pockets of greedy corporations,” said spokesperson Tai Sims, who suggested the governor was relying on a “failed MAGA playbook” because “he’s too busy embracing Trump’s cost-raising agenda to acknowledge the economic pain caused by the Lombardo-Trump economy.”

Newsom and Lombardo have also gone at it.

“Since I took office, Nevada has created more jobs than California,” Lombardo boasted in a July posting on X that, of course, tied Ford to Newsom. “As Governor, I’ll never let Nevada become an extension of California’s failed agenda.”

“FALSE!” Newsom’s press team replied, with a Pinnochio-nosed emoji and a link to Federal Reserve data. “Using the same official jobs measure your office cites, California added about 340,900 jobs from December 2022 through June 2026. Nevada added 100,800.”

Lombardo hasn’t just focused on economics. Playing on old animosities, he told a Jewish Republican audience in Las Vegas last month that a certain California governor “wanted to pass two holidays for the Muslim community, agnostic to the Jewish community.” (Legislation that would add Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to the list of state holidays is on Newsom’s desk, for him to sign or veto.)

“That’s not going to happen in the state of Nevada,” Lombardo said to applause, and so much for appealing to the better angels of our nature.

In the end, will the forced marriage of Newsom and Ford matter?

Probably not a whole lot. There are doubtless many things that matter more to your typical Nevadan than whether California’s governor hearts the state’s attorney general.

Wait until 2028. If Newsom is on the ballot, then we’ll find out what Nevada truly thinks of its next-door neighbor.

What else you should be reading

Get smart: Questions swirl over Trump’s pledge to give $5,000 payouts if GOP wins
The deep dive: Will the economy motivate voters? This Central Valley swing district could be a test
The L.A. Times Special:California provides tax breaks to Hollywood. Why not struggling news outlets?
Until next time,
mzb
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SACRAMENTO — President Trump and the Republican Congress have unintentionally provided California state government with the financial means to subsidize — help save — endangered local news reporting.

Now it’s up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to capitalize on the unanticipated gift.

He can sign or veto legislation to end state tax breaks for large corporations paying top executives $1 million-plus salaries and, instead, provide tax breaks for struggling California news outlets employing local reporters.

The state legislation would conform California law to a little-known provision of Trump’s “Big Beautiful” tax bill that eliminated corporate deductions for execs’ compensation exceeding $1 million.

California newsrooms — print, broadcast, digital — would receive an estimated $43 million in tax credits for employees’ wages. There’d still be a net $15 million left over for a small state revenue boost.

I’ll admit to feeling a bit squeamish about this.

First, it’s a conflict of interest, arguing that a governor — whom my colleagues and I write about often — should shovel public dollars into our profession.

Second, why should state government and taxpayers be asked to subsidize a private enterprise that’s flailing in the marketplace? Especially one that prides itself in being an impartial watchdog over government actions and politicians’ behavior. The dog shouldn’t be begging for food from the critters it watches.

Well, one answer is that state government provides tax breaks for lots of interests, including Hollywood movie studios. We’re allotting $750 million annually in tax credits for films produced in California.

And there’s a bill on the governor’s desk to offer $100 million annually in tax credits for post-production work, such as editing, sound mixing and visual effects.

That’s all fine. What would California have become without a healthy Hollywood? I don’t want to imagine.

Newsom also recently provided $3,500 rebates to first-time electric vehicle buyers, benefiting Tesla and other EV makers. It was “investing in our future,” the governor explained.

OK, but subsidizing local news reporting is investing in democracy. Robust coverage of city halls, school boards, Sacramento politicians and the like is essential for self-government.

And that journalism is in free fall all across America as exploding technology and social media opportunism have altered news consumption, mostly bypassing local communities and often spewing misinformation.

So this legislation, AB 2222 by Assemblyman Christopher Ward (D-San Diego), reaches far beyond just helping the troubled news industry. It’s about more than providing media outlets with financial incentives to retain and hire local reporters. It’s bolstering democracy.

Independent journalism is a pillar of democracy, providing citizens with reliable, fact-based information about how their elected representatives are performing their duties, fulfilling their campaign promises and cozying up to special interests.

You’re not going to glean that information from the politicians. You’re going to get mostly self-serving spin — government propaganda — whether it emanates from the White House, the state Capitol or the local mosquito abatement district.

That’s why the nation’s Founders protected press freedom in the Constitution’s 1st Amendment.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Of course, that was early in Jefferson’s political career, before he became vice president and later president. He ultimately turned into a harsh press critic. For example: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

Jefferson, like countless politicians ever since, apparently carried a huge chip on his shoulder because of reporting on his job performance that ticked him off.

Newsom is a master at attracting friendly national news coverage, especially on cable TV. But he naturally shudders at more critical coverage by Sacramento beat reporters.

As of this writing, the governor hadn’t publicly disclosed how he feels about the local reporter tax credit bill.

His finance department, which crafts the state budget, opposed the measure when legislators were considering it. The state would “not [be] receiving any incremental economic benefit to justify the expenditure,” its analysis read.

Again, even if that were true, citizens and democracy would benefit.

Also, the analysis contended, the tax credit would likely “provide windfall benefits” for news media owners “rather than encourage new hiring activity.”

That’s not quite accurate. Anyway, it could discourage layoffs and save reporters’ jobs.

Late last week, the McClatchy newspaper chain — owner of the Sacramento Bee and several medium-sized California papers, plus dozens across America — announced massive newsroom layoffs.

Since 2002, more than 12,000 local journalism jobs have been lost in California, according to the bill’s sponsor, the advocacy group Rebuild Local News. More than 3,500 newspapers have closed nationwide.

Many communities have become “news deserts.”

When that happens, fewer citizens turn out to vote, tax money gets spent more carelessly and political corruption increases.

Under the legislation, California media outlets — big and small — would be granted modest tax credits for each employee covering state and local news. There’d be $20,000 for up to five full-time positions and $15,000 for each of the rest. On top of that, there’d be an additional $15,000 for every new full-time job that’s created. Part-timers would be entitled to $7,500.

“National news outlets would be excluded. So would partisan ‘pink slime’ sites controlled by political action committees,” says Matt Pearce, policy director for Rebuild Local News, a former Los Angeles Times reporter and newspaper guild leader.

It would be the most ambitious program of its kind in the country. New York, Illinois and New Mexico currently offer local news subsidies.

“It’s about civic infrastructure and the foundation of democracy. We’re teetering toward autocracy,” says former state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), an ex-mayor who has long pushed for stronger local news coverage.

This bill won’t save local newsrooms. But it may give them breathing room while the big thinkers try to concoct a more profitable business model for democracy’s watchdog.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Architect of billionaire tax tried to ‘extort’ support for the measure and targeted women, union reports find
Money (That’s what I want): Becerra backers with business in Sacramento spend tens of millions boosting his gubernatorial bid
The L.A. Times Special: Will ‘Coxon Day’ save us from AI destruction?

Until next week,
George Skelton

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SACRAMENTO — If artificial intelligence doesn’t destroy humanity and there are actually future generations that look back, Sept. 8, 2026, may come to be known as “Coxon Day.”

That would be a reference to 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, an AI researcher and whistleblower at Anthropic (and previously OpenAI) who resigned in protest of the unchecked danger his work poses to us all. He posted a warning to the world on X that has gone viral.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon wrote. “No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

Within minutes, replies starting pouring in, including one from Evan Hubinger, another guy at Anthropic charged with making sure AI doesn’t destroy everyone.

“Jacob is correct here — we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” Hubinger wrote. “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”

Coxon’s post has racked up more than 150 million views — including from legislators who until now have largely sidestepped the issue of regulating AI, and those within the industry who have long warned allowing it to move forward with no oversight is downright dumb.

That included Eliezer Yudkowsky, a founder of the Berkeley-based Machine Intelligence Research Institute and the co-author of “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies,” which, as far as book titles go, really cuts to the chase.

Yudkowsky has tried with little luck to publicize the urgency of this technological moment for years, and he was the one who named Tuesday in honor of the tech whistleblower for breaking through to our consciousness with one bold act of defiance.

“Happy Coxon Day to all who will one day celebrate it,” he wrote, highlighting that as as bad as things are, it’s not too late to change course.

What exactly is the risk here?

“The Matrix,” “Terminator,” “War Games,” take your pick — the notion of a superintelligent machine taking over humanity is well-established in our psyches.

Current AI systems aren’t there yet, but they are on track to become smarter than humans in the next few years — if not sooner. This is mostly because AI companies are trying to create AI systems that make AI systems.

Right now, humans are in charge of creating what they have dubbed large language models. Whatever sanitizing term the industry slaps on them, the truth is, even those making them don’t understand exactly what they are.

“We know what data we put into them, but we already have very little ability to understand and control what AIs are after,” Rob Bensinger, research communications manager at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and a colleague of Yudkowsky, told me.

That’s because, as ChatGPT explained to me, “the inner mathematical reasoning and neural pathways are so vast and complex that how it arrived at a specific conclusion is hidden and poorly understood.”

But companies are hoping that these poorly understood but powerful machines can take over creating newer, even less understood but even more powerful AI systems — leaving humans largely in the dark about what they are creating and even what these beasts can and want to do.

The idea is that, because AI systems even right now are so fast and powerful, they can do the job of creating new versions of themselves at a pace and scale humans simply can’t.

Why, you ask, would this speed-without-understanding be a good thing? Isn’t it a bit like driving a race car while blindfolded?

Yes, yes it is.

But for-profit companies like making profit, and to do that, they want the most powerful product to sell.

Many in the industry are framing this recklessness as a necessity to prevent another country, China in particular, from creating a superintelligent AI system first. The Trump administration has so far grasped on to this greedy bit of misdirection like, well, oligarchs clinging to money.

Those who would prefer not to destroy humanity have urged international cooperation in the form of a slowdown while we figure out how to proceed safely.

We have no reason to believe China would not go along with this — in fact, China has more national-level AI regulation than the U.S. And humans have successfully controlled other technologies with catastrophic power, such as biological and nuclear weapons, through cooperation.

Does it matter which country creates the AI that kills humanity? The logic here seems to be that if anyone is going to cause a mass extinction event, it had better be an English-speaking AI, because it would be a huge loss to America if the planet were destroyed by one speaking a foreign language.

Is 10% really so bad?

In truth, 10% is an arbitrary number. Some put the chance of AI destroying everyone, everywhere, all at once at around 50%. Some go all the way to 90%.

“Nobody knows how to estimate it,” Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize winner and the so-called godfather of AI, said on the BBC, calling 10% a not unreasonable estimate.

But remember, 10% was Coxon talking about the chance that AI wipes out all humans in a decade.

What about some humans next week?

The odds that a rogue AI causes something unfortunate and unexpected to happen in the near future aren’t bad, either.

There have been multiple examples recently of AI breaking free of safety restraints and doing things — like hacking into other companies and stealing stuff — that, if done by a human, would be a felony.

This shouldn’t be taken as proof they are conscious or have nefarious intent, researchers have told me. It’s more that they have been trained to be relentless in pursuing the goals we give them, but aren’t great at sticking to rules. Like their makers, they too often pursue winning at all costs.

“Which means the AIs will just get more and more kind of relentless and creative and adaptive at working around obstacles,” Bensinger said. “And unless we get exactly the right goals into the AIs, eventually humans will be obstacles.”

So if successfully completing a mission involves, say, shutting down the electrical grid or even doing something obviously deadly, like attempting to manipulate someone into suicide or releasing a bio-weapon, we can’t with any certainty say an AI system wouldn’t do it.

That might not wipe out the whole planet, but it is certainly worth avoiding.

The bright side

Which brings us back to Coxon Day, our collective chance right now to change this grim future. Bensinger said we overcomplicate regulation. Simply control the resources AI companies need — water, power, data centers — and suddenly we have leverage.

Since Coxon’s post, there has been enormous political and social momentum behind the demand for meaningful regulation. Anthropic and OpenAI, among other AI companies, have vowed to do better with safety.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has demanded a ban on superintelligent AI and a pause in global development. He’s holding a briefing for Congress with Hinton next week.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), the most MAGA of MAGA legislators, called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to call a special session on AI. Other Republicans, including Rep. Nathaniel Moran of Texas, a longtime proponent of AI regulation, have also spoken out.

“Innovation and safety are not mutually exclusive,” Moran wrote online. “We can achieve both through deliberate, thoughtful, and prudent policymaking.”

Yes, we can. If we demand it now.

What else you should be reading
The must-read: Anthropic Researchers Raise Alarm Over A.I. Acceleration
The California angle: Jimmy Kimmel interview with Senate candidate James Talarico won’t air on ABC
The L.A. Times Special: Leaked emails reveal industry plan to kill California’s plastic and recycling laws

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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Is a hissy fit worth $200 million?

That was the tab in 2021, when California held a recall election less than a year before Gov. Gavin Newsom was set to face voters.

There was angst — the COVID-19 pandemic was raging. There was anger — the lifesaving restrictions imposed by Washington and Sacramento made daily living a chore and drove many small businesses to the brink. Others went clear over the edge.

There was also no small amount of political opportunism at play.

The recall gave Newsom’s critics, mainly on the right, a chance to try to chase the Democrat from an office that Republicans, under normal circumstances, stood little chance of winning.

In the end, the recall effort amounted to scarcely more than a partisan tantrum. The result — 61.9% voting no, 38.1% voting yes — matched the outcome of the 2018 gubernatorial race down to the decimal. All that money and effort wasted on an election in which voters said pretty much, yep, we meant what we said. Not too long after, they gave Newsom a second term.

The plebiscite, and its pointlessness, underscored the many flaws inherent in California’s recall system. In November, voters will get a chance to remedy at least one of them, eliminating the chance a candidate could take office with just marginal support from voters.

Trigger warning: What follows is a somewhat wonky explanation of election rules and procedures.

One choice, not two

Currently, a recall election is conducted in two parts. Voters are asked whether a lawmaker should be removed and, if so, who their replacement should be. If the incumbent is ousted, whoever gets the most votes takes their place, even if they fall well shy of attaining majority support. (Which is not out of the question in a large multi-candidate field; in 2003, 135 people were on the ballot, vying to replace Gov. Gray Davis.)

Among its provisions, Proposition 5 would amend the state Constitution so that voters would be asked a simple yes-or-no question: Do you wish to recall the incumbent? If so, the lieutenant governor would serve as governor for the rest of the ousted executive’s term — unless the recall occurred during the first two years a governor was in office and before the filing deadline for the next statewide election.

In that case, a special election would be held on the same date as the next primary and a candidate receiving a majority of votes would serve out the governor’s term. If no candidate received a majority, the top-two finishers would face each other in a November runoff, with the winner taking over as governor.

Still there?

Proposition 5 has two benefits. It would save taxpayer dollars by consolidating elections and it would enhance the legitimacy and political standing of a replacement governor by ensuring he or she assumed office with at least 50% support.

But there’s still more to be done.

Ending political promiscuity

California makes it way too easy to qualify a gubernatorial recall measure.

Of the 19 states that allow their governor to be booted, California is by far the most permissive. Forcing an election requires signatures reflecting just 12% of the ballots cast in the prior gubernatorial contest. In Newsom’s case, proponents needed just under 1.5 million signatures in a state with more than 22 million voters and nearly 40 million residents.

Not exactly a thundering roar.

The threshold should be higher and the reasons for kicking a governor out of office should be more serious, such as corruption, official malfeasance or conviction for a serious crime. Not just because a governor is a member of the opposite party, or people on the losing end of an election are unhappy with the result.

“The system in its current form offers bad actors an incentive to target an elected official with whom they disagree and to have the official replaced by someone who otherwise would not enjoy the support of a majority of voters,” Josh Newman of Fullerton and Isaac Bryan of Los Angeles said in advocating change. The two Democratic lawmakers authored the constitutional amendment, which was placed on November’s ballot by the Legislature.

If you think overhauling the process is simply about protecting partisan interests, consider: Should Republican Steve Hilton pull off an epic upset and become California’s next governor, is there any doubt a recall effort would be underway before he and Mrs. Hilton even had the chance to start boxing their belongings for the move to Sacramento?

The recall is a vestige of the Progressive-era good-government movement. But the process needs to be revamped to reflect today’s bad-faith political environment.

The Little Hoover Commission, California’s independent oversight agency, has recommended several changes, including raising the signature requirement and prohibiting recalls undertaken during the first 90 days and the last six months of an officeholder’s term.

Elections, it’s said, have consequences. They also have — or should have — end dates and final results that are respected, not re-litigated until the losing side gets its way.

Proposition 5 is a step in the right direction. More should follow.

What else you should be reading

Get smart: Trump’s economic record is working against him in the midterms
The deep dive: Backlash over data centers hits California, and the midterms
The L.A. Times Special:Integrity on the ballot: Election deniers target secretary of state races in key states

Until next time,
mzb
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SACRAMENTO —  It was unprecedented and stunning: California’s governor and top two legislative leaders negotiated a compromise on a big bill — and one house rebelled, refusing to bring it to a vote.

Not just any bill, but this year’s biggest in the state Legislature, dealing with catastrophic wildfires, arguably the state’s most perilous problem.

The issue: who gets hit the hardest financially when a for-profit utility’s electrical equipment ignites a blaze. The utility’s investors? Its ratepayers? The insurers? Their premium payers?

At stake, depending on who you talk to, is whether the electricity providers can afford to stay in business and keep our lights on. Will some utility — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric or San Diego Gas & Election — be forced into bankruptcy when the next powerline-caused wildfire explodes?

Alternatively, there’s another unacceptable potential outcome: Property insurance companies completely stop issuing policies — not just in obvious fire-prone areas, but in tree-lined urban neighborhoods — and basically pull out of California. Or their premiums become flat-out unaffordable.

Politically, the wildfire legislation’s flameout called into question Gov. Gavin Newsom’s seeming weakness as a lame duck chief executive who will be termed-out of office in January.

Newsom stuck out his neck and took it on the chin from fellow Democrats — showing that even with lopsided one-party rule, unity and success aren’t always guaranteed.

But the episode also raised doubts about Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ leadership capability. The Hollister Democrat signed off on the deal with Newsom and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limon (D-Santa Barbara), but reneged at the last minute under pressure from the Assembly Democratic Caucus. They killed the bill without a floor vote.

I’m in my seventh decade of covering California governors and legislatures and never have seen — or heard of — anything like this: a legislative leader backing out of a deal agreed to with the governor and the other house’s leader.

But in truth, Newsom didn’t really like the agreement much anyway. He was on the utilities’ side, and they were out-lobbied by the insurers and ratepayers.

“I know we all hate utilities, so no one wants to defend a utility. But you’ve got to deal with reality. This thing’s not going to get better on its own,” Newsom told reporters at the Capitol on the night before the deal collapsed, referring to the utilities’ worsening financial liability.

Personally, I think it’s an overreach to conclude that Newsom’s power has been severely weakened — or that Rivas necessarily showed lack of leadership. One can question their reasons for doing what they did, but that doesn’t mean it was because of political debility.

“Newsom’s still a powerful lame duck because he could be a presidential nominee,” Republican consultant Rob Stutzman says.

“One of the better things he has done all year is taking on this issue. It would have been very easy for him to just pass it on to the next governor.”

Leaving aside whether this governor could become a president, there are hundreds of bills piling up on his desk that he must sign or veto by Sept. 30. That gives him tremendous clout. It’s good politics — and human nature — for a governor to lean more favorably toward a measure if it’s authored by a legislator who has voted with him.

Plus, one of the Legislature’s last acts last week was to send Newsom a bloated supplemental budget bill containing more than $3 billion in spending, including countless stacks of pork sought by lawmakers for their districts. Newsom easily and gleefully could discard any or all of it.

So Newsom has awesome power, lame duck or not.

But he’s vulnerable to criticism for his style. He has had an annoying habit of waiting until the very end of a legislative session to spring a hefty proposal on the lawmakers. It’s called “jamming.”

In the past, this pressure tactic mostly worked, although it ticked off lawmakers. This time Assembly members rebelled.

It’s not clear whether his jamming is mainly strategy, or just lack of focus and a tendency to push too many projects at once. Or is he preoccupied with positioning himself to run for president in 2028? Probably all of the above.

“If we had more time, we could have had a different outcome,” Rivas told me.

With only a few days remaining in the legislative session, Newsom initially proposed an ambitious plan that would have shifted more cost for utility-sparked wildfires to property insurers, sharply raising premiums across California. Utilities would have gotten some relief.

It became a titanic fight between two powerful special interests. And insurers — teamed with consumer advocates — triumphed, forcing Newsom to back down.

After hard bargaining, the governor and legislative leaders finally agreed on a post-midnight deal to help wildfire victims receive compensation more quickly — a so-called fast-pay program — and to step up fire preventative efforts.

But utilities’ financial risks weren’t significantly reduced, and they quickly mounted an opposition campaign. That resulted in Assembly Democrats scuttling all of it on the session’s last day.

“It’s unfortunate that [bill] was not given a vote,” Limon said, adding that the Senate was prepared to pass it.

“I don’t want us to do the easy stuff and call it a day,” Rivas told me. “I wanted to see real utility accountability. This bill did not go nearly far enough.”

It went a fair distance, however, in helping future fire victims get their insurance payouts faster. And it probably should have been passed.

Half a loaf. Bird in hand. Incremental change. Next year more incrementalism. Ultimately it can add to massive reform.

Some problems are just too tough to resolve in one sitting.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Reining in Big Tech: How California lawmakers plan to regulate AI and social media
California vs. Trump: Judge dismisses Justice Department lawsuit challenging California transgender sports policies
The L.A. Times Special: Texas is red, California blue — but for how much longer? A Lone Star toss-up will tell

Until next week,
George Skelton

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For more than three decades, California and Texas have been like tectonic plates drifting in opposite directions.

California, the ancestral land of Republicans Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan, has become a Democratic stronghold. It’s been 20 years since a GOP candidate won statewide office.

Texas, which bred Democratic giants such as Sam Rayburn and Lyndon B. Johnson, has become a Republican fortress. A Democrat hasn’t been elected statewide in more than 30 years.

And yet with the midterm election about to enter its final, post-Labor Day sprint, Texas is home to not one but two competitive contests, for governor and U.S. Senate. It’s a stark contrast with California, where Democrat Xavier Becerra appears to be a shoo-in for governor and Adam Schiff, in 2024, waltzed into his Senate seat.

There’s still plenty of time between now and election day on Nov. 3. Democrats, to their deep consternation, have repeatedly seen their hopes rise, only to crash once Texans actually turn out to vote.

“You don’t take anything for granted,” said James Aldrete, a Democratic strategist in Austin, who’s watched for years as his party wandered fruitlessly in the campaign desert. “But there is beautiful native wildlife that grows in the desert, and it’s blooming right now.”

The question — for the moment, at least — is why California hasn’t budged while Texas has become a surprise battleground.

The answer involves individual personalities, demographics and political headwinds.

Of the two contests, the fight for Texas’ open Senate seat appears to be much closer. Election handicappers rate it a toss-up.

The Democrat, state Rep. James Talarico, is a highly gifted campaigner and prodigious fundraiser. But arguably the best thing he has going for his candidacy is his Republican opponent, Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, whose history of scandal, shady dealings and moral lapses trail him like dirty footprints on a white carpet.

Paxton stomped incumbent John Cornyn, with the help of President Trump, in a vicious GOP primary that left ill will among a number of Republicans. Had Cornyn won, many doubt the Senate seat would be in play.

‘A big ask’

In the race for governor, Republican Greg Abbott is facing Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa as he seeks an unprecedented fourth term — “a big ask of voters,” in the words of J. Miles Coleman, who analyzes elections at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the center’s forecasting project, recently moved the gubernatorial race to “likely Republican,” a shift away from “Safe Republican.”

Other election handicappers have done the same.

Texas has long fancied itself a place apart; secession is one recurring fantasy. But for all its perceived go-your-own-way independence, the state isn’t immune from broader trends, which helps explain why it’s suddenly in play.

“One of the external factors that’s making Texas competitive is the degree of wind in Democratic sails,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin.

Whether it’s anti-establishment anger, directed at the party in power, or frustration with Trump, his war-making and failure to deliver the sterling economy he promised, “when you think of the problems Republicans are having at the national level … that’s helping Democrats here as well,” Henson said.

(Trump’s taint is also a problem for California Republican Steve Hilton, running for governor in a state where the president’s approval rating rests at the subbasement level.)

By the numbers

Henson, who conducts polling statewide, said another reason Texas is more competitive than California is simple mathematics: “Democrats [haven’t] fallen quite as far in Texas as Republicans have in California.”

Texas doesn’t register voters by party. But weighting political surveys by demographics and following election results, Henson expects about a 10% Republican turnout advantage in November. By contrast, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in California by nearly 2 to 1.

Yet another reason Texas appears to have grown more competitive is the apparent discontent of Latino voters, an increasingly important part of the state’s burgeoning electorate.

Though Latinos shifted strongly in Trump’s favor in 2024, many have grown disillusioned in the nearly two years since. “They’re moving away from both parties,” said Mike Madrid, a California strategist who’s spent decades studying the Latino vote. “When the environment is bad, they’re punishing whatever party is power.”

Two years ago, it was Democrats. Now it’s Republicans.

In recent years, as the country cleaved, California emerged as the unofficial capital of blue America, offering a political, social and cultural counterweight to Texas, the unofficial capital of red America. The two states anchor the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, and are key to their financial well-being and the success of their candidates nationwide.

A Democratic toehold in Texas would instantly scramble long-standing political calculations, starting with the 2028 presidential race.

“It changes the narrative. It changes the demographic strategy,” Madrid said. “It changes the 270 [electoral college] map. It changes the whole strategy.”

In short, a November win would be more than symbolic, or gratification after years of Democratic futility. It would be a political earthquake.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Whistleblower says USPS defied court to push ‘untested’ portal for Trump mail voting order
The deep dive: A conservative California upbringing paved Natalie Harp’s way to Trump
The L.A. Times Special:Don’t look now, but suddenly the U.S. Senate is in play

Until next time,
mzb
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SACRAMENTO — California could have some zany theater this fall: county prosecutors charging federal postmasters with felonies for obeying President Trump’s order to withhold delivery of mail ballots to voters.

Does Trump then federalize the California National Guard to protect his postmasters from local sheriffs bent on hauling them off to the jailhouse?

Just wondering after reading legislation whipping through the state Capitol.

None of it seems likely to happen, but with this unhinged president and his conservative Supreme Court hardly anything is certain — except chaos.

Trump keeps making himself even more unpopular with Democratic voters and tarnishing the GOP image.

One glaring example is Trump’s hypocritical move to interfere with state elections and cripple voters’ ability to cast ballots by mail.

“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” Trump asserted in March, while escalating his crusade against popular “absentee” voting. “Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on.”

It’s a big lie. There has never been any hard evidence produced by anyone, anywhere of significant mail-ballot cheating.

It’s also hypocritical because Trump routinely votes by mail himself in Florida elections.

Why is mail-voting OK for him but not for other Americans? “Because I’m president of the United States,” he told reporters. “I had a lot of different things” to do. As if the rest of us don’t. Voting apparently only needs to be convenient for him.

But Trump obsessively keeps trying to justify his false claim that Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over him was rigged. It’s sick.

It may please his MAGA base, but Democrats and independents across America — especially in California — frown on Trump’s attack against their voting rights. They favor mail voting.

Overall, 58% of Americans support allowing ballots to be cast by mail, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. But there’s a huge difference between the parties — 83% of Democrats and left-leaning independents favor mail voting while 68% of Republicans oppose it.

In California, 72% of all voters approve of balloting by mail, according to a recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. But there’s a big split ideologically: 93% of Democrats and 72% of independents approve, but 62% of Republicans disapprove.

Regardless of what GOP voters tell pollsters, they must be overwhelmingly voting by mail. That’s because 81% of all California ballots were cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. In this year’s gubernatorial primary, it was up to 89%.

In March, Trump issued an executive order directing the Homeland Security Department to compile a list of eligible citizen voters in each state and commanding the U.S. Postal Service to handle only the ballots of people on the list.

Gosh? What could possibly go wrong with Trump’s Homeland Security agency — the overseer of divisive ICE — deciding who is entitled to vote in the pivotal midterm elections?

California, along with a coalition of several blue states, sued.

The nation’s Founders decreed in the Constitution that states could decide on “the times, places and manner” of federal elections — unless Congress wanted to alter the rules. Trump persuaded the House of Representatives to pass legislation restricting mail voting, but the bill died in the Senate, blocked by Democrats.

Trump’s executive order was an effort to bypass Congress and essentially enact a law by himself.

The Supreme Court decreed on a 6-3 vote last week that Trump could proceed with his planning. But since no precise regulations had yet been announced by the administration when the opposition lawsuit was filed, it was premature to rule on their constitutionality.

But now Trump’s draconian rules have been revealed. And California has joined other states in filing a new lawsuit.

“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared. “California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy.”

In the Legislature, a bill was introduced to make it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a person in authority to order the withholding of a ballot’s delivery to a voter or its return to a local election official.

A person like a postmaster? Who else could order mail carriers not to deliver ballots to some registered voters?

“That’s for law enforcement to decide,” says the bill’s author, Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), who was just elected to finish the current term of resigned U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.

“My bill is trying to protect all voters. They may be on vacation, they may be ill. They may want to vote early or late. Whatever. They remain entitled to vote by mail.”

Her bill breezed through three Assembly committees in 24 hours — Democrats voting yes and Republicans no.

The measure is unlikely, however, to ever result in a postmaster being jailed for obeying the president.

For starters, it’s hard to envision the president’s executive order ever being ruled constitutional — even by this lackey court.

“Trump is trying to exercise control over elections when he has absolutely no authority to do so,” UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in a Times opinion piece last week.

If the Supreme Court shockingly did rule that Trump has the authority, then could his postmasters be arrested under the new state law? Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the answer would seem to be “no.” Federal law generally supersedes conflicting state law.

“An executive order cannot supersede state law,” says UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, who specializes in election law. “But there are all kinds of immunity doctrines and other reasons why a state would have a hard time prosecuting a federal official for violating state law in the conduct of official duties.”

The real answer is for Trump to stop trying to concoct a solution to an election problem that only exists in his warped imagination.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Will Trump interfere in the midterms? Democrats and their allies are preparing
California vs. Trump: Racist ‘Magic Deportation Bus’ isn’t the way for Trump to keep Latino voters
The L.A. Times Special: Two of California’s top law enforcement leaders trade barbs over state election integrity

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Where, Robert Garcia must consider, does one begin?

Garcia is a two-term Democratic congressman from Long Beach. He’s the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, which makes him the top Democrat on the panel charged with patrolling and policing operations of the federal government — a role congressional Republicans have conspicuously abdicated. If, as seems likely, his party wins control of the House in November, Garcia is poised to take over as chairman.

After two years of reckless abandon, the most obvious target for some badly needed congressional oversight is the crooked occupant of the White House. Like a shoreline strewn with seashells or a meadow bursting with mushrooms, President Trump’s brazen corruption and naked self-dealing offer a field that is ripe for the plucking.

So, given the gavel, where to start?

“First we have to ensure that people understand that this president and the administration, what they’re doing, is unprecedented and the most corrupt administration we’ve ever seen,” Garcia said.

To wit: In just his first year back in the Oval Office, Trump reported earning at least $2.2 billion, which is 5,500 times the president’s $400,000 annual salary. (No wonder he gives away his paycheck.) But it’s not just Trump who’s raking it in hand over fist.

“You have Jared Kushner getting billions from the Saudis and other foreign governments,” Garcia said. “You have [Trump’s sons] doing real estate deals across the country, being on boards that are getting contracts from the federal government. You have the selling of pardons. I mean, the list goes on…. It is just like an endless amount of corruption.”

Before he digs in, however, Garcia has to win reelection in November.

A vote, then a reckoning?

His reconfigured congressional district, which straddles Los Angeles and Orange counties, is somewhat less friendly than it used to be. As part of a redrawing under Proposition 50, the 2025 measure California voters passed to boost Democratic membership in the House, the lines were extended south, to take in the Trump-friendly territory of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. (The remap gave away a chunk of Garcia’s Democratic voters to bolster other districts.)

Still, the odds are strongly in his favor — especially in a midterm election serving as a referendum on the deeply unpopular incumbent.

Though his district leans left even after modification, Garcia said his pursuit of Trump isn’t some ideological bender. The president’s malfeasance is something constituents raise often, he said. “It’s corruption and it is affordability,” Garcia said this week from his district office in Long Beach. “Those are the two issues I hear constantly about. It’s just nonstop.”

Apart from Trump and his family, Garcia has a long list of administration officials he’d like to hold to account, and an even longer list of questions he’d like answered.

Why, for instance, are “JD Vance and Susie Wiles and Kash Patel having secret meetings in the Situation Room about the Epstein files?” Garcia asked, name-checking, respectively, the vice president, White House chief of staff and FBI director. “Why is [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller out there essentially creating this huge … loss-of-due-process crisis in this country as it relates to what he’s doing with” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security?

Also, Garcia said, he wonders what businesses have gotten in return for their generous giving to this most avaricious of administrations.

“If you are cutting secret deals with the Trumps, if you are helping to set up these these crypto schemes, if you are paying for this ballroom that no one knows about and you are gaining some sort of favor from the presidency,” he said, “we need to understand exactly what’s going on.”

Of course, any attempt to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing is sure to run into stonewalling from an obstructionist White House. The “Justice” Department, which has been thoroughly tainted and co-opted by Trump, won’t be any help either.

For that reason, Garcia said, “not only does there have to be efforts made by the Congress and the House … we also have to partner with our state partners and attorneys general and governors and outside organizations…. I think the state court process is going to also be really important for us.”

Impeachment in abeyance

Impeachment, which has a visceral appeal to certain of those deeply aggrieved by this lawless president, is not a first resort, Garcia said. Nor, he suggested, is it necessarily the second or third resort.

“Trump commits an impeachable offense every week,” Garcia said, exaggerating somewhat. But, as he noted, Trump was impeached twice in his first term and still won reelection in 2024. (Throw in a conviction on 34 felony counts and you can see the futility of trying to shame Trump into submission.)

“I don’t think you ever take anything off the table, and that includes impeachment,” Garcia said. “But that’s not our focus on Day One…. It’s time for [Democrats] to work on actually passing a forward-looking agenda and making sure that we are taking on this family and these dealings that are clearly the most threatening we’ve ever seen. To me, that has to be the immediate priority in front of us.”

Garcia and fellow Democrats are mindful of what’s driving unhappy voters who face a vexing mix of inflation and weak economic growth. Affordability is, for good reason, the central issue this election season.

But accountability matters, too. Indeed, in Trump’s debauched Washington, it’s long overdue.

That’s something else voters should consider in November.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Supreme Court for now allows Trump to plan new mail ballot rules. California to sue again
The deep dive: Will Trump interfere in the midterms? Democrats and their allies are preparing
The L.A. Times Special: Two good ideas from Republicans dead on arrival in Democratic Legislature

Until next time,
mzb
—
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SACRAMENTO — Memo to Democrats and independents: Just because an idea emanates from a Republican, doesn’t mean it necessarily stinks. Here are two examples.

Legislators wearing red jerseys have proposed to:

• Make the California secretary of state officially nonpartisan. Rip off the seemingly inevitable blue jersey and replace it with a neutral referee’s garb.
• Similarly, seize the job of writing official ballot proposition titles and summaries from the partisan attorney general and hand it to the nonpartisan, universally trusted Legislative Analyst‘s Office.

Both ideas, of course, were dead on arrival when introduced in the Democratic-dominated state Legislature, which is about to wrap up a two-year session.

But both make good government sense and promote democracy, which the Democratic Party claims it’s fighting for against the President Trump-led GOP.

The secretary of state is the chief overseer of California elections. That office holder, regardless of party, has never favored one side over the other in balloting, although many GOP politicians have been parroting Pied Piper Trump’s nonsense about election rigging.

California Republicans pushing to neutralize the office argue that Democratic incumbent Shirley Weber has taken public policy positions that echo her party’s stands. Shock! This is America. She has a right — a democratic duty — to take any position vocally that she desires.

But it’s logical for the secretary of state to officially operate as a political nonpartisan — as does the state superintendent of public instruction and all county voter registrars, who actually administer the elections and count votes.

“It’s time to take the secretary of state out of the partisan mix,” says former Orange County Assemblyman Don Wagner, who is Weber’s underdog Republican opponent in the November election.

“The secretary should be calling balls and strikes as opposed to being on the red team or a blue team.”

Realistically, no red team member is likely to win any statewide office in California for the foreseeable future, given that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 and Trump is widely detested in this state.

“Sometimes Trump does make it harder in California for Republicans,” Wagner acknowledges.

The legislation to make the secretary of state nonpartisan was a proposed California constitutional amendment, introduced by Republican Assemblymembers Natasha Johnson of Lake Elsinore and Josh Hoover of Folsom.

But it was submitted so late in the legislative session that there was no chance of it ever receiving a committee hearing. It didn’t really matter anyway. Even if it had been introduced on Jan. 1, Democrats would have instinctively tossed it in the trash.

They’re never going to make it remotely possible for a Republican to win this office any time soon.

The measure’s authors say their proposal would help “restore Californians’ trust in the electoral system.”

Actually, the only Californians who largely distrust the electoral system are Republicans. And the best way to fix that is for Trump to shut up and stop telling lies about stolen elections and hordes of undocumented immigrants voting illegally.

A recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that 88% of Democrats and 64% of independents have confidence in California’s election system. But 76% of Republicans do not — a sign of our polarized times.

Of the two Republican proposals, the most significant is the one stripping the attorney general of the power to write titles and summaries of ballot measures.

Often, the only thing many voters know about a proposition is what they’re told in the title. They aren’t inclined to wade through neutral details in the official state Voter Information Guide.

The legislative analyst is a political noncombatant appointed by the Legislature and basically agreed to by both sides. The highly respected policy wonk already writes the proposition analyses included in the voter guide. Why not also the measures’ titles?

Increasingly in recent years under Democrats, including projected next governor Xavier Becerra, the attorney general has been dishing out party propaganda in official proposition titles.

State law requires the attorney general to provide an “impartial statement of the purpose of the measure” in language unlikely “to create prejudice for or against” the proposal.

But often on hotly contested measures, the language reads like talking points for the blue side.

The latest example is Proposition 39, a Republican proposal requiring Californians to show identification when voting. Election officials also would have to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens.

I’m no fan of that measure. It overreaches, is unnecessary, could suppress voting and is merely a tool to drive up the GOP vote. Democratic legislative leaders and the party are fiercely opposed.

But Proposition 39’s title is unfairly negative and loaded against the measure. It reads: “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.” All some voters will focus on are the first four words.

Proponents sued, but judges are historically reluctant to interfere in election campaigns. A Sacramento judge OKd Democratic Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s biased wording.

The legislation for nonpartisan labeling of propositions cleared the Senate Elections Committee but later was quietly killed behind closed doors in the Senate Appropriations Committee, a notorious graveyard for measures sentenced to execution by legislative leaders.

“The Democratic leadership doesn’t want it passed,” notes the author, Sen. Roger Niello of Sacramento County, who recently was elected the next Senate minority leader. “If they kill it [in appropriations] nobody has to vote on it and it dies without fingerprints.”

That’s common legislative games-playing: Keep potentially popular but politically undesirable bills off chamber floors so majority party members can avoid shamefully voting “no.”

But these are still excellent Republican ideas.

There are times when politics should be taken out of elections.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: California backtracks on good-government policies in divided Trump era
Law & Order & Politics: Eric Swalwell briefly detained as feds seize his phone at San Francisco airport, source says
The L.A. Times Special: It’s beyond debate. California voters deserve a Becerra-Hilton face-off

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Barring some extraordinary event — a health emergency, a career-ending scandal, a killer asteroid destroying all life on earth — Xavier Becerra will be the next governor of California.

That’s not partiality or wish casting on the part of your friendly political columnist. The fact is Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans in California, in both registration and inclination.

The GOP brand has been political poison in this Tahoe-blue bastion for decades now. But under Donald Trump, it’s grown even more toxic. His endorsement, which the president bestowed upon Republican Steve Hilton mid-primary, is the political equivalent of sarin; like the deadly nerve agent, it can kill on contact.

Still, give credit where due.

The gregarious and media-savvy Hilton has been waging an energetic and effervescent run for governor, with multiple appearances a day and frequent updates to his cheeky social media accounts.

“He’s going to San Francisco” — into the bowels of the liberal beast — “he’s going into schools, talking to labor groups,” said Hector Barajas, a campaign spokesman. “He’ll go everywhere.”

Becerra not so much.

The Democrat has appeared here and there since finishing first in the June 2 primary, securing one of two slots in November’s runoff. He’s offered a few modest proposals, including a plan to deliver two free hours of electricity a day to low-income households and a call for stiffer regulation of artificial intelligence.

A sprint vs. a stroll

That said, if Hilton is flat-out running for a job he stands virtually no chance of winning, Becerra is embarked on more of a leisurely stroll toward his all-but-certain perch in Sacramento.

That’s not a terrible thing at this midsummer stage of the race. Once, in the blessed era before the 24/7 news cycle and the omnipresence of social media, there was a lull in the months after the primary, with campaign activities picking back up around Labor Day.

On Tuesday, during a walking tour of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo neighborhood, Becerra pushed back on the notion he was taking his election — and California voters — for granted. “If I were trying to coast,” he told reporters, “I’d be out on the coast right now instead of here with you all.”

Becerra’s pace aside, the days between now and the Nov. 3 election offer him plenty of time to spell out what, exactly, he has to offer his home state and how, in a broad sense, he plans to tackle one of the highest profile, most vexing jobs in all of American politics.

At least one of those days should include a face-to-face debate between Hilton and Becerra. The two shared a stage multiple times during the primary season. They have not appeared together since.

More than a half-dozen news organizations have offered to host the gubernatorial rivals in a one-on-one session. Several other groups have proposed forums that would allow them to discuss their differences together in person.

Barajas, the spokesman for Hilton’s campaign, said the Republican hopeful has agreed to each and every invitation.

“He’s got absolutely no problem” appearing anytime or anywhere, Barajas said. “He will go to East L.A.. He will go to South-Central. He will go into the heart of the Central Valley. It doesn’t matter to him.”

That’s no surprise.

When a candidate is an underdog, like Hilton, they’ll typically show up at the opening of an envelope if it means appearing before a crowd. Conversely, a candidate on a seeming glide path to election, like Becerra, will often balk at giving their opponent the exposure afforded by a debate, much less risk harming themselves with a bad performance.

The Democratic front-runner said Tuesday that “there will be debates,” though he didn’t say where or when.

An obligation to voters

There’s a lot of virtue signaling that surrounds the notion of candidate debates.

Far from a high-minded discussion of policy differences, they often devolve into a stale recitation of talking points and pre-scripted zingers. After a while, debates can grow redundant and, frankly, boring as contestants repeat well-worn phrases and replow deeply furrowed ground. Such was the case by the time California’s gubernatorial hopefuls met for their sixth televised debate in the spring.

Most voters — many of whom profess to care oh-so-deeply about issues and matters of great import — don’t even bother tuning in. If they found debates that captivating, shows such as the “PBS NewsHour” would routinely outdraw the latest season of “Love Island USA.”

No matter.

There is an audience, however limited, for debates. Even if they don’t bother watching, many voters read about the encounters afterward, catch snippets online, or glean useful insights from the extensive coverage that follows.

Above all, a willingness to debate is a sign of respect — for voters as well as the political process the candidates are a part of. Minimizing direct confrontation with Hilton may play to Becerra’s inherently cautious nature. It also makes sense from a purely strategic standpoint.

But it doesn’t serve the people of California, or give voters their due. This is a campaign for governor. Not a coronation.

Becerra owes California, and Hilton, the chance to take the candidates’ measure side by side before their contest is over. The sooner Becerra commits to a time and place, the better.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump turns to containing the fallout from setbacks in Iran
The deep dive: War was supposed to crush Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance.’ Instead, it’s bloodied but unbroken
The L.A. Times Special: Xavier Becerra won’t deliver the home runs — or strikeouts — racked up by Newsom, Schwarzenegger

Until next time,
mzb
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