South African sprinter Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800-metres champion, says the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) reinstatement of gender verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games is “a disrespect for women”.
The hyperandrogenic athlete on Sunday also expressed her disappointment that the measure was taken under new IOC President Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.
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“For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the Global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm,” Semenya said in Cape Town on the sidelines of a sporting competition.
The IOC said on Thursday that only “biological females” will be allowed to compete in women’s events, preventing transgender women from competing.
The IOC had previously used chromosomal sex testing from 1968 to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics before abandoning it in 1999 under pressure from the scientific community, which questioned its effectiveness, and from its own athletes commission.
“It came as a failure, and that’s why it was dropped,” Semenya said.
“It’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports. That’s a disrespect for women.”
Semenya has become the symbol of the struggle of hyperandrogenic athletes, a battle on the athletics tracks and then in courtrooms, to assert her rights, which she has waged since her first world title in the 800m in 2009.
In 2025, she won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.
The court’s highest chamber said in a 15-2 ruling that Semenya had some of her rights to a fair hearing violated before Switzerland’s Supreme Court, where she had appealed against a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It had ruled in favour of track’s international governing body, World Athletics.
The original case between Semenya and Monaco-based World Athletics was about whether female athletes who have specific medical conditions, a typically male chromosome pattern and naturally high testosterone levels, should be allowed to compete freely in women’s sports.
The European court’s ruling did not overturn the World Athletics rules that in effect ended Semenya’s career running the 800m after she had won two Olympic gold medals and three world titles since emerging on the global stage as a teenager in 2009.
IOC’s policy shift removes conflict with Trump
In a major shift of policy, the IOC is abandoning rules it brought in in 2021 that allowed individual federations to decide their own policy and is instead implementing a policy across all Olympic sports.
“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening,” the IOC said in a statement.
They will be carried out through a saliva sample, cheek swab or blood sample. It will be done once in an athlete’s lifetime.
“The policy we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts,” Coventry said.
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
The new policy removes a potential source of conflict between the IOC and United States President Donald Trump as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics comes onto the horizon.
Trump issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sport soon after he returned to office in January 2025.
The US leader took credit for the IOC’s new policy in a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday.
“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban Men from Women’s Sports,” Trump wrote. “This is only happening because of my powerful Executive Order, standing up for Women and Girls!”
2024 Olympic gender row
While sports such as swimming, athletics, cycling and rowing have brought in bans, many others have permitted transgender women to compete in the female category if they lowered their testosterone levels, normally through taking a course of drugs.
The IOC is bringing in the new policy after the women’s boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics was rocked by a gender row involving Algerian fighter Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.
Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.
However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.
Both boxers went on to win gold medals.
Lin has since been cleared to compete in the female category at events run by World Boxing, the body that will oversee the sport at the Los Angeles Summer Games.
“From the very, very beginning, Chad Bianco didn’t say this was political,” Bianco told me, referring to himself in the third person. “Chad Bianco said we have an allegation of fraud with numbers that don’t add up, and no one has an exact reason why. So we have to find out the exact reason why. It’s plain and simple. Plain and simple.”
If you’re clueless as to what Bianco is talking about, let me give you the short version. A citizens group of election “auditors” claimed that in the last election over Proposition 50 in November, there were about 45,800 more ballots counted than cast.
The Riverside County Registrar of Voters, Art Tinoco, a highly respected election official, gave a long presentation explaining why that number was not accurate. He said that the actual difference in ballots cast and counted is only 103, within the acceptable margin of error for the 1.4 million voters in his area.
But unhappy with that answer, the group apparently took their concerns to Bianco, who decided to use his powers of criminal investigation to circumvent the many established avenues for vote audits through his own county and the California secretary of state (though he hasn’t revealed publicly exactly what led to the investigation).
Using a secret, sealed warrant — so none of us actually know what he’s alleging — he seized more than half a million ballots. The court has apparently appointed a special master to count those ballots, though Bianco at first said his deputies would do their own counting. But we don’t know who that special master is, or even if he or she has yet been appointed.
Here’s what we do know, and why it counts as a danger not just to Riverside, but also to American democracy writ large, when a politically ambitious lawman decides to run elections himself.
The fraud fiasco
So where did the citizen-auditors get their 45,800 number? Like many California counties, Riverside tallies ballots as they come in. So for the 11 days voting was happening (and for the mail-in ballots that came later) someone was making a handwritten note for every ballot that the county received.
Yes, I said handwritten, for more than 600,000 ballots going through 2,500 workers and volunteers. It’s often inaccurate and not every ballot is going to end up being a good one — some lack signatures, for example.
Tinoco, the registrar, called these handwritten logs “raw data” that also are missing ballots from other sources that increases the final tally, such as people who register on the day they vote. So no one who understands elections expects this number to be accurate or final.
Once all these ballots are checked to make sure they should be counted, they are sent to an entirely separate system, which reads them electronically and provides the election results.
When the number of vetted ballots is compared with the number of ballots that are counted by the second system, the difference is 103, Tinoco said.
So no fraud, only human frailty with the difficult business of counting by hand.
Matt Barreto, a UCLA political science professor and director of its Voting Rights Project, said Bianco’s actions were similar to what happened in Fulton County, Ga., where the FBI seized ballots after Trump’s debunked claims of fraud — despite plain and simple explanations from election officials.
“In both cases, Georgia and Riverside, independent elections offices had already verified the accuracy of the ballot count, and in both cases the results had been certified by the Secretary of State,” Barreto said. “It is worrisome that a very partisan law enforcement officer is questioning the integrity of an election, perhaps because he did not support the results.”
The investigation
Bianco has been investigating the 45,000 claim for months, but it came to a head in recent weeks, in no small part thanks to a news conference he held. Bianco’s office, as first reported by the Riverside Record, served a warrant on the election office one day before Tinoco made his presentation to the Board of Supervisors in early February.
Since then, the California secretary of state, which handles elections, and the state Department of Justice have both tried to intervene to stop Bianco from taking ballots or doing his own recount, Pillow Guy-style. But they’ve had little luck.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber called the allegations “unsubstantiated” and questioned the legality — and common sense — of having deputies hand count ballots. Now, her office is trying to make sure folks trained in elections are involved in whatever happens next.
“The sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable,” Weber said. “The fact remains that he and his deputies are not elections officials.”
Separately, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has gone to the courts to try to keep Bianco from spiriting away the ballots. Bonta’s office went straight to the California Court of Appeals to ask it to force the sheriff to comply with their requests to take no further action and supply the Justice Department with the probable cause evidence used to obtain the search warrant — basically tell them exactly what proof he’s using to claim a crime might have been committed.
The appeals court declined to intervene until Bonta went to the lower Riverside County Superior Court. But in the meantime, Bianco went back to his judge and asked for another secret, sealed warrant — which he got.
The bigger problem
And that brings us to why we should all be concerned about Riverside County.
First, why all the secrecy? Shouldn’t elections and everything about them be transparent, so we all can feel confident any investigation is on the up and up?
I asked Bianco why the warrants are sealed, and he told me I didn’t understand investigations.
“In an ongoing investigation, we never unseal the warrants,” Bianco said. “No, I can’t say never. I can’t say never. Why are you coming at me like I’m the bad person here, instead of like a rational person?”
When I asked him why a sheriff needed to be involved, rather than allowing the state officials who handle elections to investigate, he told me this was a crime investigation just like any other — domestic abuse or murder, for example.
“It’s called fraud,” he said. “Let me ask you this: Do we just let, do we let doctors investigate themselves for medical malpractice?”
The implication there is that election officials are in a conspiracy to commit an actual crime — fraud — and can’t be trusted. That jumps the shark from maybe election staff counting sloppy in their handwritten tallies of ballots received, to a — yes, folks, here it is — a conspiracy of Democrats, from those volunteers up to the highest state officials.
“Oh, please,” Bianco said regarding my questions on whether this was, in fact, political. “I’m the sheriff of Riverside County, and my investigators are responsible for crime. I have nothing to do with this investigation.”
His news conference would beg to differ.
And now we have a precedent for a politics-driven sheriff seizing ballots, maybe to make headlines, maybe to please Trump, maybe both. What happens if other Republican sheriffs across the country decide to do some ballot seizing of their own in swing states or contested races come November?
Is it all fair game now for whoever can physically take the ballots to be the arbitrator of results?
George Skelton and Michael Wilner cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
George Skelton and Michael Wilner cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
SACRAMENTO — President Trump claims Gov. Gavin Newsom is unfit to be president because he has a “learning disability.” It’s a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The centuries-old pot-kettle idiom points out hypocrisy — as when one person accuses another of a flaw that afflicts himself.
California’s governor has battled dyslexia all his life — very successfully, by any measure. Dyslexia is a learning disability that makes reading and writing difficult. But it doesn’t mean a stricken person is unable to learn. He just needs to learn differently, as Newsom has done since he was a teen.
Trump apparently isn’t dyslexic. But he clearly has some learning disabilities — including stubbornness, narrow-mindedness and intolerance.
The president still hasn’t learned, for example, that he lost the 2020 election. He persists in the belief — or maybe it’s merely another boldface lie — that the election was stolen in a Joe Biden conspiracy. That’s a bizarre fantasy.
He also didn’t learn from past administrations that a commander in chief should not wage war against Iran without a concrete plan to keep open the Strait of Hormuz so Middle Eastern oil can keep flowing to the world.
And he never has learned what most of us were taught by our parents: that you don’t berate your friends if you expect to keep them friendly — lashing out, for instance, at allies before and after their balking at sending warships to help protect the vital strait.
Moreover, he didn’t learn that the nation’s founders embedded a checks-and-balances governing system in the Constitution and that Congress has a role in imposing tariffs.
When the normally Trump-friendly Supreme Court ruled against his unilateral tariff agenda, the spoiled president did what he usually does: attack, insulting the justices who struck down his edicts.
“Fools,” “lapdogs” and a “disgrace to our nation,” he whined. “It’s an embarrassment to their families.”
Trump still hasn’t learned to shut up and try to be civilized.
Not even after shocking everyone by saying of the late Republican Sen. John McCain, a Navy Pilot who spent more than five years as a tortured POW in the Hanoi Hilton: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
Any respect I might have had for the guy vanished in 2015 when the then-candidate for president publicly mocked a New York Times reporter’s disability. At a campaign rally, Trump jerked his arms and flailed his hands while making fun of the reporter’s palsy-like ailment.
So it wasn’t a surprise recently when Trump tore into Newsom for his dyslexia four times in one week.
Yes, Newsom has his eye on the 2028 presidential election and has been scoring points nationally with Democratic activists by using Trump as a punching bag. But Trump keeps offering himself up as an irresistible target.
Regardless, there’s no excuse — even in hard knocks politics — for attacking someone because of his disability.
“Gavin Newscum” — Trump’s synonym for the governor — ”has admitted he has learning disabilities, dyslexia,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Honestly, I’m all for people with learning disabilities but not for my president.”
“Everything about him is dumb,” Trump added.
In a Fox News Radio interview, Trump said that “presidents can’t have a learning disability.” And on Facebook, Trump wrote: “I don’t want the president of the United States to have a cognitive deficiency.”
A quick Google search could have shown Trump that several presidents have had learning disabilities, including dyslexia.
Start with George Washington, who struggled with grammar and spelling. And Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, who had trouble with reading and spelling.
Other presidents with learning disabilities: Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. “It’s a poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word,” Jackson asserted.
Scientist Albert Einstein was dyslexic. So were Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison.
Dyslexia affects roughly one in five Americans to some degree — more than 40 million people, although relatively few are aware of it, according to researchers.
Newsom has spoken openly for years about his struggles with dyslexia. It’s difficult for him to read, especially prepared speeches. So he reads and re-reads, underlines and highlights and meticulously takes notes. When a speech must be read off a teleprompter, he practices for hours.
In January, the governor began his State of the State address to the Legislature with this ad-lib:
“I’m not shy or, you know, embarrassed about my 960 SAT score. But I am a little bit about my inability to read the written [speech] text. And so it’s always been something that I have to work through and I’m confronting.”
In his recently released autobiography, “Young Man in a Hurry,” Newsom writes: “My high school grades were all over the place and I scored lousy on the SAT, three hours of dyslexic torture.”
Early in his political career as a San Francisco supervisor, he writes, “speaking to a crowd was not unlike the fear I felt in third grade reading to my classmates …. So I learned to memorize my talking points and best lines … and wing it from there.
“This is how I discovered one of the secret powers of dyslexia. I could read a room with the best of them. I’d walk in and immediately size up the faces, mood and manners. … I learned that an audience didn’t mind occasional hiccups of speech as long as you looked them in the eye.”
Newsom was twice elected mayor and twice governor.
None of this means he should necessarily be elected president.
There may be policy and political reasons to consider him unfit — but not because of any learning disability.
At 95, labor icon Dolores Huerta made a shocking and heartbreaking revelation Wednesday, in the wake of a New York Times investigation into sexual abuse allegations against her fellow icon, Cesar Chavez.
“I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control,” Huerta wrote in a statement Wednesday. “I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.”
Like so many women who have carried the burden of their own attacks behind an iron curtain of guilt and shame, Huerta now finds herself in the difficult, painful position of having not only to relive this trauma as it becomes public, but explain it to the rest of us.
Huerta shouldn’t have to engage in this rite of self-flagellation, of course, but she and Chavez are linked by their legacies as two of the greatest civil rights fighters in our history. Now, this hidden truth rewrites not just his story, not just hers — but the entire legend of a workers’ movement that grew from the grape fields of California into a defining story of Golden State fortitude and hope.
If Chavez was a predator, where do we even go from here? What do we believe in when even our heroes are ghosts, as Pink Floyd long ago warned?
“It’s just a very heavy day,” said Huerta’s spokesperson, Erik Olvera. “It is incredibly overwhelming for her.”
And for all of us, really.
Reports of abuse
The New York Times investigation detailed the molestation and abuse by Chavez of two women who were teens at the time the events took place. Huerta, the sharpest 95-year-old I’ve even seen, also told the reporters that Chavez had forced sex on her when she was in her 30s, once by manipulation and once by force.
“The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” she wrote in her statement. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”
Huerta had two daughters from these encounters and gave them to other families to be raised, though she is close to both of them, Olvera, the spokesman, said.
Olvera said that Huerta was unaware of the allegations of the two other women interviewed by the New York Times until the reporters contacted her several weeks ago.
“She literally thought she was the only one,” Olvera said. “The guilt is really heavy for her.”
As the news broke this week, shock — but not disbelief — rippled through the political and union worlds where Chavez remains revered (he died in 1993) and Huerta remains active. Despite her age, she speaks at multiple events each week and is a fixture at the state Capitol advocating for workers’ rights.
While Huerta has never spoken before about Chavez’s attacks on her, his infidelities and autocratic leadership style — and rumors of misconduct — have been documented for years. In her 2014 biography, journalist Miriam Pawel detailed some of these complaints as well as Chavez’s troubled relationship with his wife.
In a statement, the United Farm Workers union called the allegations “profoundly shocking.”
It canceled all events celebrating the upcoming Cesar Chavez Day — a state holiday — and is working on a survivor-centered response with outside experts to help ensure a fair and inclusive pathway for other people to tell their stories.
Sen. Alex Padilla, who has worked for years with Huerta but who was a child when Chavez was organizing, called for “zero tolerance for abuse, exploitation, and the silencing of victims, no matter who is involved.”
“Confronting painful truths and ensuring accountability is essential to honoring the very values the greater farmworker movement stands for — values rooted in dignity and justice for all,” Padilla said.
Changing times
If there is the slightest bit of solace to be found in this tragedy, it is in the response. So far, we have been spared the usual attacks on victims — though almost certainly they are happening outside the public eye.
Though Huerta may carry guilt, as all survivors so unfairly do, coming forward now has quickly and forcefully changed the narrative. I suspect there are few people who would dare call Huerta a liar, or challenge her motives. I suspect without her revelations, the other women coming forward would be treated differently.
I imagine that had she spoken out back then, as a young mother in the 1970s, a Latina woman in the male-dominated culture of the Central Valley, she would likely have found little relief.
What must it have been like for her all these years to know the man we idolized had this monstrous side?
But after 60 years of hard work, Huerta is now powerful in her own right. And after 60 years of silence, Huerta wanted to use that power to support the other women speaking out. Olvera said Huerta came to that decision reading the New York Times piece, and for the first time understanding that these other survivors were children when their abuse happened.
“When she learned that, that’s when she was like, I need to come out and tell my story,” he said. “She didn’t want them to stand alone.”
In the end, every survivor stands alone because what needs to heal is a soul shattered by the trivial evil of carnal greed, a pain so personal and unique even another survivor can’t fully understand it. It is daring and noble in the crucible of that personal destruction, which lasts years if not decades, to demand accountability. Not all of our heroes are ghosts.
“Your courage and your voices matter,” Siebel Newsom said. “They open the door for so many others to follow suit and tell their stories so that one day soon, we will break this horrific cycle of repetitive abuse by powerful men.”
These women have now made it clear: Chavez was a predator — a powerful man who used his authority to manipulate and force women and girls into sexual encounters.
In the end, all the good Chavez did, the strength and dignity he brought not just to farmworkers but to immigrants across the country, will forever be bound up with this ugly truth — though the movement is far more than one man.
Chavez earned this ending. Hopefully, for Huerta and the other survivors, speaking out is the beginning of healing.
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George Skelton and Michael Wilner cover the insights, legislation, players and politics you need to know. In your inbox Monday and Thursday mornings.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
SACRAMENTO — Murder is considered the worst crime out there, but for my money, it’s child rapists who are the worst of the worst — especially the serial ones who destroy one life after another.
That’s wholly subjective on my part, but I doubt I’m alone. Which is why I was far from surprised at the outrage that accompanied two recent, successful parole hearings for convicted serial child predators in Sacramento.
Gregory Lee Vogelsang, 57, and David Funston, 64, both attacked children and were granted parole through California’s elderly parole program — though both remain behind bars for now.
But the fury over the possibility of their freedom has put the state’s controversial elderly parole program under scrutiny — again — and led to a flurry of legislation to add new restrictions. Should sex offenders be excluded? Especially heinous murderers? Everyone under the age of 75?
It’s easy to answer “yes” to all of the above.
“Part of the problem we have is we shouldn’t be making policy decisions based on speculation and on scary rhetoric that’s disconnected from the facts,” Keith Wattley told me. He’s the founder and director of UnCommon Law, a nonprofit that provides legal services and parole advocacy.
“That’s how politicians make people afraid, but it shouldn’t be how we make law,” he said.
And he’s right, as grotesque as these headline-grabbing cases are. In 2024, there were 3,580 elderly parole hearings and 606 people were granted that relief. Most have remained law-abiding. In the 2019-20 year, the most recent recidivism statistics available from CDCR, 221 people were granted elderly parole. Within three years, only four had been convicted of new crimes, and only one of those was a felony for a crime against a person. That tracks with lots of data that shows men generally age out of violent crimes.
But Funston and Vogelsang are the worst of what we fear when we talk about parole, and their cases rightfully make us wonder what the heck the parole board is doing. Though Gov. Gavin Newsom sent both of these decisions back for review, it’s easy to imagine the attack ads should he run for president: Under Newsom’s watch, child rapists walked free.
“Elder parole has gone too far,” Thien Ho, the Sacramento district attorney whose office prosecuted both men, told me. “I support the opportunity of people to be rehabilitated. But I think that certain individuals, in my opinion, and in my experience, cannot be rehabilitated.”
Here’s where I’m going to make a lot of folks mad on both sides of this issue. I agree with Ho, but also, I agree with Wattley. I don’t think we can pass laws based on our grimmest view of humanity. Removing hope from the system turns our prisons into dungeons and does not ultimately serve public safety.
But then, neither does releasing child molesters into our communities.
Lost in all the wrath about these two cases is the difficult business of justice that led to the early release law in 2014, and any interest in the hard and nuanced conversation that we need to have around terrible crimes. It’s easy and popular to say no violent criminal should ever be released, but we can’t just lock up everyone with no possibility of ever getting out because the “R” in CDCR stands for “rehabilitation,” and also — we just can’t afford the forever scenario, morally or fiscally.
California tried the throw-away-the-key model in the 1980s and ‘90s and ended up with prisons so overcrowded that the federal courts stepped in. The original elderly parole effort came through a 2014 court decision on overcrowding that gave inmates 60 or older who had served at least 25 years a chance to go before the parole board. A chance — no guaranteed freedom, and usually it takes multiple hearings years apart before the board approves it.
Later, the Legislature expanded elderly parole to inmates 50 or older who had served 20 years, but excluded those sentenced under the “three strikes” law or those who had murdered peace officers.
The reality is California has a lot of old, aging and sick people behind bars — at great expense. As we grapple with the idea of universal healthcare, there’s one place in California where it already exists — our prisons and jails. We currently pay more than $41,000 in healthcare costs per inmate per year, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
I’m not going to tell you it’s the best healthcare, but it’s taxpayer-funded, and includes even long-term dementia care. And yes, we do have incarcerated dementia patients.
“This is about reducing our prison population and our liability to cover housing and healthcare for an aging prison population, and we have to balance that with the safety of the community and the rights of victims,” state Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento) told me. She’s sponsoring a bill that would create an additional layer of safety around sex crimes by referring these possible parolees to the civil system that evaluates sexually violent predators for confinement in mental facilities after their prison terms.
“Under some circumstances, it is worth considering paroling some of these defendants,” she said, with the kind of thoughtful rationality sure to offend many. “But the cases that you’re seeing right now are completely egregious, and those defendants should not be released.”
Vogelsang was convicted of almost 30 counts of kidnapping and sex crimes, against kids as young as 5. He’s served 27 years of a 355-year sentence.
David Allen Funston, a Sacramento County child predator convicted in 1999 of multiple counts of kidnapping and child molestation. Funston was granted parole suitability under California’s Elderly Parole Program after serving more than two decades in prison.
(Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office)
David Allen Funston was convicted in 1999 of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation for kids as young as toddlers. He was sentenced to three consecutive 25-to-life prison sentences. Newsom bounced his first successful parole bid back to the parole board for a review, and on Feb. 18, it affirmed its decision.
But Placer County prosecutors quickly charged him with an old crime that had never been filed due to the Sacramento case, and he remains incarcerated awaiting trial on those charges.
Vogelsang’s case particularly raised a red flag for me. He told the parole board he’s been working successfully for about five years to control his thoughts about children.
“I don’t want to become aroused, but I know it’s always going to be there,” he said during the hearing.
Newsom also sent Vogelsang’s case back for review, and he will go before the board again on March 18. Vogelsang’s testimony was concerning enough that if I had a vote in this, I’d probably ask him to come back again in a few years, but we’ll see what the board does.
I’ll admit my decision would be emotional, and these cases do make me wonder. But Wattley is right that condemning elderly parole based on the monstrous deeds of these child predators is shortsighted. There is likely little to no public safety benefit in raising the overall age for elderly parole, and certainly no fiscal benefit.
“When you’re paying for older, sicker people to be incarcerated, and they don’t pose a risk to public safety, what are we actually getting for that? We’re not getting anything that supports survivors. We’re not getting anything that prevents crime. We’re just spending taxpayer dollars on something that doesn’t correlate with the public safety risk,” Wattley pointed out.
As hard as it is to wrap our minds around, it’s best for public safety to allow even the worst of the worst their chance in front of the parole board. It may even make sense for some who have committed truly terrible crimes decades ago to be released, if there is strong evidence of change and a low risk to public safety. That’s the kind of fair and realistic justice that no one on either side of the issue wants to talk about.
I’m not convinced Vogelsang and Funston have met those bars. But that doesn’t mean we should throw out the bars.
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Weighing in at about 550 pounds, Woody, his largest hog (named by a grandson after the “Toy Story” icon) plays “like a puppy” in his free-range paddock, Staples told me, gobbling up the rye, clovers and winter peas that have grown knee-high under the Southern sun.
Swine life on Staples’ sustainable family farm is a jarring contrast to the existence of a pig on one of America’s “intensive” corporate-owned mega-farms, where some sows are confined to cages so small they literally can’t turn around or take more than a step or two in any direction.
“It’s not necessary and it hasn’t proven to be good science,” Staples, a self-described conservative Republican, said of Big Ag porcine lockups. “It’s also cruel.”
At issue is the Save Our Bacon Act, a sneak attack backed by foreign corporations currently hidden deep inside the farm bill. It would severely curb the ability of states to enact limits on animal confinement and maybe accidentally open the door for ending all kinds of state-level food safety laws.
The SOB Act, an apt nickname, would not only cripple small family farmers such as Staples (though its supporters claim it helps family farmers), it would negate the will of California voters, potentially introduce risk into the food chain, and turn greater power of our food supply over to China.
It would also limit consumer choice at a time when more Americans — from fans of far-right Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to far-left granola grandmas — are demanding a say in how their food is produced.
Let’s break that down.
What is the SOB Act?
For the vegetarian hard-liners out there, it is true that Woody himself will someday likely be bacon.
But, increasingly over the past decades, meat-friendly consumers have moved toward wanting animals to “live a really great life and have one bad day,” as Nate Beaulac, another conservative Oklahoma pork farmer, describes it.
In 2018, to further that aim, about 63% of California voters passed Proposition 12, which increased the space that breeding sows were required to have, from something about the size of a small car trunk to the size of a coat closet. We’re not talking rolling acres here — just enough room to turn around. Some of these sows are basically caged for the majority of their breeding life — years — and are about the size of a black bear.
But here was the real bite in Proposition 12: No pork from any state could be sold in California if it didn’t come from a farm that met the new standard.
Overnight, the corporate breeders were locked out of the Golden State market. They sued bigly, and lost bigly in 2023 at the Supreme Court, which upheld California’s right to impose the state standard.
The SOB Act would negate Proposition 12 (and a similar law in Massachusetts) and forbid states from making laws regarding animal confinement, according to an analysis by the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law.
That would emphatically overturn the will of the majority of California voters who want those standards.
But hey, Big Pork would make big bank.
“They want to limit American consumers’ ability to fight,” Beaulac told me. “They wanted to limit Americans’ ability to pursue any sort of change. And that is why me, not only as a farmer, but as an American and a capitalist, I’m strongly opposed to the Save Our Bacon Act, and in staunch support of Proposition 12.”
What Prop. 12 did
Beaulac was once a Californian himself, before heading to the Sooner State for college. He describes himself as a “Christian, capitalist, conservative environmentalist,” and a sustainable farmer who depends on consumers’ desire for healthy food to sell his pigs, chickens and cows.
Proposition 12, Beaulac said, “was a huge help to smaller farms, and the only people that it really hurt were the huge multinational conglomerates.”
“I mean very simply, we want the opportunity to compete,” he said.
Staples, Woody’s owner, who is also an expert in project management and environmental compliance from a previous career in the power industry, makes the case that the mega-farms can also come with mega-dangers.
“You have 100,000 pigs within two miles of each other, the chance of issues with a swine flu or natural disaster just increases,” he said. He points out that issues such as disease, groundwater contamination and waste disposal have already become problems for some large farms.
The flaws in the SOB Act don’t stop there.
The Harvard Law analysis points out that the loose language of the bill could have other consequences, maybe even gutting some state safety, labeling and cleanliness standards.
And some Republicans in Congress, including Californian Reps. David Valadao and Young Kim, oppose the measure and sent a letter to the Agriculture Committee late last year urging them to dump the act, pointing out that at least a quarter of Big Pork is owned by Chinese companies and does not represent American interests.
“Foreign-owned corporations — particularly those tied to adversarial nations — already hold a disturbing amount of control over U.S. agricultural assets,” the letter read, citing Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the United States.
The SOB Act “could further consolidate the influence of such foreign entities,” the letter‘s authors warned.
Armed with those arguments and others, Staples and Beaulac traveled to Washington recently to make their case against the SOB Act with lawmakers.
But, both men told me, they were met with a wall of lobbyists and money.
“It’s very eye-opening in terms of how many lobbyists are there every day,” Beaulac said. “The reality is Big Ag donates big money to the senators, and so when they need their bill to go through or they need a bill shut down, they’re going to have a lot more leeway than the small farmers.”
The lobbyists, Staples said, had the debate wrapped up tight long before the farmers even knocked the dirt off their boots and entered Congress.
“It was very obvious,” he said. “I was not prepared for what Big Ag had done, how they had prepared members of Congress to address the issues we wanted to address.”
Beaulac said he’s discouraged and fears the SOB Act will pass, but also isn’t giving up hope. He sees it as a bipartisan issue, and one he hopes for which people will stand up. This week, a social media post featuring a sad photo of a caged pig went viral, drawing attention across party lines.
“Blue, red. It doesn’t matter. People want healthy food,” Beaulac said. “They want to know how it’s raised. They genuinely care how they’re feeding their family, and it has nothing to do with who they vote for in November.”
P.S. Here’s a post by right-wing commentator Michael Cernovich on the SOB Act, just a taste of how much some of the MAGA folks don’t like this measure.
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SACRAMENTO — One unique perk California kids enjoyed for generations was tuition-free college. Now, a candidate for governor promises to bring that back. And bravo for her.
The candidate, former congresswoman Katie Porter of Orange County, even suggests a way to pay for her bold pledge. That’s unusual for a politician. It’s normal to promise the moon without specifying how to get there.
She‘d raise the corporate income tax a notch.
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The powerful business lobby would scream, even though California companies would benefit from a more educated workforce.
And California’s public universities would probably cry about their revenue streams having to rely on unpredictable corporate profits rather than the pocketbooks of students’ parents.
But at least there’s a potential governor who’s advocating tuition-free higher education and proclaiming it to be a priority.
Why is this Democrat, a UC Irvine law professor, pushing the issue? Tuition cost doesn’t show up anywhere on voter lists of important concerns. But California’s high cost of living is a gigantic gripe. And “affordability” these days is one of the most overused words in any politician’s vocabulary.
“When we talk about affordability, there’s lots of talk about the problem, but people want to hear what [candidates] would do about it,” Porter told me over coffee last week. One thing she’d do is eliminate much of the tuition at public universities.
Another reason for making college tuition-free again, she said, is that “it was a promise made to the people” by the California Master Plan for Higher Education.
But that was 66 years and nine governors ago. A lot has changed.
Actually, tuition-free public higher education was a California birthright long before Gov. Pat Brown’s master plan.
Policymakers regarded tuition-free college as a sound economic investment. It was in the state’s self-interest to produce highly educated innovators and skilled professionals to grow the economy. The middle class expanded, with people landing good-paying jobs that resulted in higher tax revenue for state coffers.
That didn’t mean college was free — and it wouldn’t be under Porter’s plan. There’s still housing, meals, books and annoying fees.
But Sacramento switched priorities in the 1970s, spending tax money on other things: enhanced welfare, healthcare and specifically K-12 schooling.
Free tuition existed before the creation of Medi-Cal healthcare, which now eats up 20% of the state general fund. It also was prior to Proposition 13 in 1978 that dramatically cut property tax revenue for K-12 schools. The state felt obliged to make up the difference.
Naysayers contend California can’t possibly afford to educate students today without their paying tuition. Nonsense. The state could happily afford it long before we expanded into the world’s fourth largest economy. It’s about priorities.
And today, free tuition could be the PR tonic California needs to brighten its faded image across America. It could attract middle-class families to California and keep those already here from fleeing.
Porter promised a return to yesteryear in a speech that was a far cry from old-time political rhetoric. Addressing more than 2,000 delegates at a recent Democratic state convention in San Francisco, she held up a whiteboard with two words in large letters: “F— Trump.”
And she led the delegates in shouting “F— Trump.”
That was a bit of a turnoff for this old traditionalist, who thinks politics has gotten too coarse and foul-mouthed.
I asked Porter what prompted the profanity and whether she had any regrets.
No, she answered. Candidates were allotted only four minutes to speak and “I was economical with my time.
“I wanted to be very clear in the first 15 seconds that I would fight Trump. I wanted the other three minutes and 45 seconds to be about all other stuff.
“Some people just want to talk about Trump because they don’t want to talk about our own problems.”
Plowing into her speech, she quickly promised to “deliver single-payer healthcare, less-expensive housing, free childcare for all, zero tuition at our UCs and CSUs, and [elimination of] income tax for those earning less than $100,000.
“Those are real affordability solutions.”
Right. But no specifics. How does a state wading in red ink afford all that?
I pressed her when we met later. She didn’t have time for details at the convention, she said. But this is her plan on tuition:
Free tuition only for California residents who are undergrads. And only in their third and fourth years at the University of California and California State University. If they desired free tuition in their first two years, they could attend community college.
Many community colleges already waive course fees for full-time, first-time students. Kids are better educated in their first two years at community college anyway, the UC professor said.
Many liberals complain that free tuition would waste tax money on rich kids who don’t need it.
“I’m a believer in universal programs” that don’t base eligibility on income, Porter said. “Something I learned in Congress. You know what never gets cut? Universal programs such as Social Security and Medicare.”
Anyway, she added, “Kids from really wealthy families go to Harvard or USC or other options.”
Public school tuitions are bargains in California compared to other states and private universities.
At UC, annual tuition is roughly $14,900 and at CSU it’s around $6,500. Without tuition, UC would lose roughly $5.9 billion and CSU $3.7 billion, state budget officials say.
But under Porter’s plan, the universities would lose much less. They’d still collect tuition from freshmen and sophomores and hefty levies from non-Californians. Also student aid could be cut back if kids weren’t saddled with tuition.
Hiking the corporation tax from 8.84% to 9.5% “would generate way more than I need for tuition-free,” Porter said. “I would use any extra money for free childcare.”
Political promises often aren’t worth a nickel. But tenacious and feisty Porter’s free tuition pledge might be worth at least a few bucks. And, maybe some votes.
Aimee Zambrano is a Venezuelan anthropologist, researcher, and consultant who has made significant contributions to the struggle against gender-based violence in the country. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Women’s Studies. She is the founder of the Utopix Femicide Monitor, a platform that collects data on femicides from open sources. In this interview, Zambrano sheds light on the main challenges to advance a feminist agenda in Venezuela.
How has gender-based violence evolved in Venezuela in recent years?
It is difficult to answer precisely because there are no official figures. The former Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, presented some figures, but he did not break them down; rather, he spoke in general terms about a period during his tenure. So it is very difficult to assess what changes have occurred, especially in quantitative terms.
We undertake a partial registry based on cases that appear in the media, so these are not official figures. But it is enough to see patterns emerging. We have been monitoring since 2019 and saw an increase in femicides in 2020 due to the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which also led to an increase in all types of gender-based violence, not only in Venezuela but in most countries around the world. In 2019, when we began monitoring, we recorded 167 femicides, then in 2020 we recorded 256. In 2021, there was a decrease and we counted 239 cases. In 2022 and 2023, there were 240 and 201, respectively. In 2024, we recorded 188 femicides, and for 2025, we estimate that the figure will be around 165.
Utopix’s Femicide Monitor has tracked femicides from open sources. (Utopix)
There has been a decrease in the number of perpetrated femicides. However, when we look at other forms of violence, such as attempted femicides, we are seeing an increase compared to previous years. This is a warning sign because these are attempts to murder women that leave physical, psychological, and social consequences on both the survivor and her environment. We have also seen an increase in femicides of Venezuelan women abroad year after year. We are also witnessing a large number of cases of sexual abuse, especially child sexual abuse and trafficking, both abroad and in our country. Similarly, here in Venezuela, the disappearance of women is not classified as a type of gender-based violence, but according to various investigations we have carried out, disappearance or abduction, in the specific case of women, girls, and teenagers, is directly related to gender-based violence, and many of these disappearances are associated with femicides where the bodies are hidden, or cases of gender-based violence where the aggressors end up confining the victim. At the same time, we have seen a large number of cases of vicarious violence, where the aggressor inflicts violence on children, family members, or even pets.
So, a decrease in the number of femicides does not mean that other forms of violence are not on the rise. It is also important to talk about political violence. In the context of the July 2024 presidential elections, two femicides occurred and we saw threats against many community leaders by right-wing groups, who persecuted and harassed them. The same goes for media violence, social media, and artificial intelligence. In fact, there need to be changes in the laws so that these new forms of violence can be punished.
How does the lack of official and updated figures from the Venezuelan government affect the implementation of effective public policies to combat gender-based violence?
It has a huge impact. It’s not that there are no figures, but that they are not public. In fact, several public programs such as the Mamá Rosa Plan for Gender Equality and Equity, the various homeland plans, and even the Organic Law on Women’s Right to a Life Free of Violence, mandate that the state must create an observatory for gender-based violence.
The absence of data means that we cannot measure the efficacy of the public policies that are being enacted. Statistics could also allow organizations to develop proposals, not only legislative ones, but also from women’s groups, which must also participate in the elaboration of these policies.
“How many more must die?” poster in a feminist rally. (Archive)
It is often said that the deterioration of living conditions in Venezuela disproportionately affects women, but what does this mean in practice? Does it also impact the number of femicides?
Yes. We were affected by the rentier culture, the crisis, and economic sanctions. It has been a multifactorial phenomenon. The rentier culture did not change, public policies depended on oil revenues, and a series of US-led unilateral coercive measures were imposed on us that affected all aspects of life. In crises, it is always women’s bodies that pay the price. Currently, we have to work four or five jobs, usually informal ones, to make ends meet. For those of us with children, it is even worse, because we also have the burden of unpaid work in the home. The same is true for the care of the elderly or people with disabilities, which always falls on our shoulders.
In Venezuela, the vast majority of heads of households are women, who are either alone or part of extended families of women living together and raising children. In addition to this, women are the ones who make up a large part of the social fabric, they are grassroots leaders. At the same time, the country is experiencing a crisis in services, electricity, water, and gas, which further increases the burden of care work. Women have to figure out how to get water for cooking, washing, and bathing their children, how to cope when there is no electricity, or how to cook without gas, especially in the interior of the country, where public services are in a more dire state.
Does this have an impact on the number of femicides? It does. Violent, aggressive men find themselves in the midst of an economic crisis, where there is unemployment or underpaid work, they become increasingly frustrated, and where do they take out all this frustration? On women, their partners, their families, their homes. It would be interesting to see if GDP figures or periods of high inflation correlate with peaks in femicides.
With the US attacks on January 3, we saw the kidnapping of Cilia Flores and also the rise to power of the first female president, albeit in an acting capacity, Delcy Rodríguez. How can this be interpreted from a feminist perspective?
The bombing of Venezuela was a flagrant violation of international law, but we also saw how National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores appeared during the arraignment hearing in New York with bruises on her face and body. Her attorney requested medical attention, which indicates that during the operation she was the victim of violence by the US military. This, of course, is indicative of what foreign powers do when they bomb and invade other countries, especially in the Global South, where they do so to extract natural resources.
Talking with friends, I have realized that many of us feel violated, as women, by everything that has happened. Now the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, has a very difficult task: to take the reins of the state with a gun to her head. It takes a lot of courage to face this. In addition, after the bombing, Trump’s threat to her was very direct: do what I want or you will be worse off than Maduro. It is difficult to take on that role and have the responsibility of preventing more lives from being lost.
Zambrano argues that the lack of official data hamper gender-equality policies. (Archive)
In the current context, what are Venezuela’s main challenges in terms of the feminist agenda? You have suggested, for example, the need to create a structural feminist emergency plan. What would that look like?
The first thing is to define what that feminist agenda is, because in Venezuela there are different grassroots movements and organizations with different political stances, and polarization sometimes makes it very difficult to unify the points. Sometimes we try, but the efforts can get fragmented again due to specific political events. I would say that there is the issue of gender violence and also the decriminalization of abortion in Venezuela, as common ground that unifies many of us. We also demand a justice system that has a gender and feminist perspective because the current one is built from an androcentric, patriarchal perspective; that is, it is a justice system created by men and for men. An amnesty law is currently being implemented, so this has to be included in it.
By a feminist emergency structural plan, we mean that the Ministry for Women and Gender Equality should not be the only institution responsible for public policies relating to women and the LGBTIQ+ population. It should rather involve the entire state. I am not saying anything new because this already appears in the Organic Law on Women’s Right to a Life Free of Violence and also in the Mamá Rosa plan, which was supposed to culminate in 2019, but almost nothing that was stipulated ended up being implemented. All ministries, all affiliated entities, all state institutions, including governors’ and mayors’ offices, must address gender issues, and a robust budget is needed for this. For example, the Ministry of Communication must run ongoing campaigns in the media and on social networks about the different forms of violence and the telephone hotlines and websites where incidents can be reported. The Ministry of Housing must focus on creating shelters for victims. The Ministry of Education must review the curriculum to include gender studies, comprehensive sexuality education, and different types of violence, as well as implement protocols for care in schools, high schools, and universities. In addition, all state officials have a duty to educate themselves on the issue.
How do you assess the retreat of the state in certain areas and the growing “NGOization” leveraged by Western funding?
It’s complex because initiatives, activities, marches, etc., require resources, and many of our organizations don’t have them. In addition, there is another factor at play here, which is the proliferation of religious groups, especially Pentecostal evangelicals, who have grown significantly in Venezuela, have a presence within the state and within political parties, and are also very wealthy, which allows them to carry out campaigns, mobilizations, etc. Feminist movements face many obstacles because most of us also have to work several jobs and take care of our homes and communities. So it is difficult to keep up with evangelical and conservative right-wing groups.
I think we need to identify who the enemies are, who targets our rights, and then assess the contradictions and coordinate women’s and feminist movements. I make the distinction because there are women’s organizations that do not necessarily identify as feminist. But we have to grow, see what issues unite us, and begin a series of actions. I always make this call: despite our political differences, let’s try to unite around an agenda that unites us all.
Despite a downturn in femicides, other forms of gender violence have been on the rise in Venezuela, Zambrano argues. (Archive)
How does social media influence the proliferation of violence, and gender violence in particular?
I believe that violence has always been present, but now it is exposed because some forms of violence that we used to consider normal or common have been explained or denormalized. In addition, social media and the internet allow us all to learn about different cases in different parts of the world. But, on the other hand, we have the issue of anonymity and lack of accountability, meaning that people can say outrageous things, threaten, insult, and commit violence facilitated by technology. Social media also allows virtual groups to come together to commit violence, and there are also certain influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok spreading crazy ideas. Guys like El Temach in Mexico, who speak to you from their machismo, what some call “toxic masculinity” but I call “the healthy descendant of patriarchy.”
There is also another point here: the algorithm. For example, a teenager starts searching for content about exercise, and soon after, the algorithm will introduce them to these influencers, thus creating mass communities such as incels, which organize themselves through forums like Reddit. This also breaks down the entire social fabric of face-to-face interactions, and people end up isolated but believing they are “accompanied on social media.” All of this leads to disorders such as anxiety and depression. In addition, teenage girls and women become caught up in the aspirational idea of having a certain type of body, aesthetic violence, etc. In short, I’m not saying this from a moralistic point of view, but social networks have encouraged a lot of violence. Besides, who owns these networks? What ideology do they profess? What are they using them for? We have to investigate so we can arm ourselves and fight this battle.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court revived a San Diego judge’s order Monday and said parents have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school.
The decision came in a 6-3 order granting an emergency appeal from lawyers for Chicago-based Thomas More Society.
They said the student privacy policy enforced in California infringes parents’ rights and the free exercise of religion.
“The parents object that these policies prevent schools from telling them about their children’s efforts to engage in gender transitioning at school unless the children consent to parental notification,” the court said. “The parents also take issue with California’s requirement that schools use children’s preferred names and pronouns regardless of their parents’ wishes.”
The judge’s injunction “does not provide relief for all the parents of California public school students, but only for those parents who object to the challenged policies or seek religious exemptions,” the justices added.
The six conservatives were in the majority, while the three liberals dissented.
Religious liberty advocates hailed the decision.
“Parents’ fundamental right to raise their children according to their faith doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse door,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “California tried cutting parents out of their children’s lives while forcing teachers to hide the school’s behavior from parents. We’re glad the Court stepped in to block this anti-family, anti-American policy.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had put on hold a late December ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who held that the student privacy rules enforced by California school officials were unconstitutional.
“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence,” Benitez wrote. “Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence.”
Escondido public schoolteachers Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who described themselves as “devout Catholics,” sued in 2023, and they were later joined by parents in Pasadena and Clovis.
The Supreme Court’s ruling refers only to the parents.
The parents who brought the case “have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the court said.
The court added: “Gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child’s mental health, but when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours.”
“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back.”
The 9th Circuit had agreed with the state’s attorneys who said the judge had misstated California law.
“The state does not categorically forbid disclosure of information about students’ gender identities to parents without student consent,” they said in a 3-0 decision.
“For example, guidance from the California Attorney General expressly states that schools can ‘allow disclosure where a student does not consent where there is a compelling need to do so to protect the student’s wellbeing,’ and California Education Code allows disclosure to avert a clear danger to the well-being of a child.”
In their parents’ rights appeal to the Supreme Court, attorneys said school employees are secretly encouraging gender transitions.
“California is requiring public schools to hide children’s expressed transgender status at school from their own parents — including religious parents — and to actively facilitate those children’s social transitions over their parents’ express objection,” they told the court.
“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene immediately,” Jonna wrote in his appeal. “Every day these gender secrecy policies stay in effect, children suffer and parents are left in the dark.”
California state attorneys had urged the court to put the case on hold while it is under appeal.
They said the judge’s order “appears to categorically bar schools across the State from ever respecting a student’s desire for privacy about their gender identity or expression — or respecting a student’s request to be addressed by a particular name or pronouns—over a parent’s objection.”
They said the order “would allow no exceptions, even for extreme cases where students or teachers reasonably fear that the student will suffer physical or mental abuse.”
SACRAMENTO — The race for California governor couldn’t be much closer. And that’s scary for Democrats.
Only the top two vote-getters in the June 2 primary — regardless of their party — will advance to the November election. And although still unlikely, it’s increasingly conceivable that both could be Republicans.
“Scare tactics,” claim naysaying Democrats of such speculation.
But Democrats should have heeded scary rumblings 10 years ago when long shot Donald Trump was first running for president — and not buried their heads in the sand again two years ago when Joe Biden was feebly seeking reelection.
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They ignored the warning signs and paid the price.
Now, the latest independent poll of likely voters shows that Republican candidates are running in two of the top three places for governor — meaning it’s possible both could qualify for the November ballot, guaranteeing the first election of a GOP chief executive in 20 years.
The best odds are on one Democrat and one Republican finishing in the top two — virtually assuring a Democratic victory in November.
California is too solidly Democrat — and President Trump too despised here — to envision a Republican beating a Democrat to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But Democrats could beat themselves if the current field of candidates remains intact. There essentially are eight Democrats and only two Republicans competing in the primary.
If the combined Democratic vote is splintered among the eight Democratic contestants, the two Republicans could end up finishing first and second.
“It’s hard to come up with the math that makes that work,” asserts Mark Baldassare, polling director for the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. He just completed a survey in which “a lot of things show that a Democrat and Republican [top-two finish] is the likely outcome,” he says.
But political data guru Paul Mitchell has been running primary election simulations and after Baldassare’s latest poll, he calculated the chances of an all-Republican finish at 18%.
That seems like the danger zone.
The solution is for some Democratic candidates who have little hope of winning to drop out of the race — very soon, in fact. They shouldn’t even file their official candidacy papers that are due by Friday. After that deadline, it’s impossible to remove their names from the ballot even if they’re no longer really running.
The PPIC poll, released last week, showed a statistical tie between the top five contenders — three Democrats and two Republicans, all within 4 percentage points of each other.
The breakdown:
Republican former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton, 14%; Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter, 13%; Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, 12%; Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, 11%; Democratic hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, 10%.
Then came five Democratic stragglers.
Former U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Controller Betty Yee each had 5%. Trailing them were San José Mayor Matt Mahan with 3% and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond at 2%.
Mahan’s a centrist wild card who jumped into the race while the polling was underway. So, there’s a valid excuse for his poor showing.
Swalwell and Steyer entered late last year and apparently took votes away from Porter and Becerra.
Porter and Yee are the only prominent female candidates, but they aren’t particularly being helped by female voters, the poll showed.
There was good news in the survey for Democrats hoping to pick up more congressional seats in California and help the party seize control of the House of Representatives from Republicans.
Asked whether they’d vote for a Democrat or Republican for Congress, 62% replied Democrat and only 36% Republican. That’s not surprising, since Democrats already hold 43 of California’s 52 seats.
Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature last year gerrymandered California’s House districts with the goal of gaining at least five more seats. Voters approved that move by passing Proposition 50.
The especially bright news in the poll for Democrats was that in the five new House districts considered the most competitive, Democrats had a slight edge in voter preference. That was also true in districts held by Republicans.
Additionally, Democrats are much more enthusiastic than Republicans about voting in the congressional contests.
In the competitive districts, nearly two-thirds of voters disapprove of tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in corralling undocumented immigrants. And 57% disapprove of Trump.
Anti-Trump sentiment is extremely high among all voters — 30% approval and 70% disapproval.
One head-scratcher in the poll was the voters’ denial about their political polarization. They were asked what qualification they considered most important in choosing a governor. Only 6% said it was the candidate’s political party. Rubbage.
“There are very few people who are voting outside their party,” Baldassare notes.
Two-thirds of voters answered that a candidate’s stand on issues is the most important consideration for them. Voters of both parties, plus independents, rated a candidate’s position on “affordability” as “very” important — and it topped their list of concerns.
A majority of voters said California is “going in the wrong direction.” This is a gloomy finding for Democrats who have been ruling state government — and most large cities — for many years.
But a much larger majority believe the country also is headed in the wrong direction. Back at ya, Republicans. It’s the GOP that’s in total control of the federal government.
Both parties in California have reasons to run scared this year.
