gender

SACRAMENTO — If Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature truly believe that slow vote counting is a horrible problem — which it’s not — right now is the time to fix it.

They’re crafting a new state budget. And they could choose to spend the money needed to help counties hire more temporary election workers, buy more sophisticated vote-counting machines and add space for all of it.

That’s the only way to significantly speed up vote counting and mute the MAGA drivel about California being a national “laughingstock.”

How much money?

“We’ve suggested $55.5 million,” says Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, which pushes to improve the election process.

“That’s not a lot in the big scheme of the state budget.”

She’s right. It’s essentially pocket change in a proposed budget still being negotiated that tentatively totals $356 billion.

But don’t bet on much of it being allotted for swifter vote counting.

Regardless of all the potshots at California from cable news panelists about our “embarrassing” elections, faster vote tallying doesn’t seem to be a high priority for the Legislature.

Democrats are justifiably much more concerned about protecting poor people’s healthcare, in-home services for seniors and the unraveling safety net as the Trump administration and GOP Congress slash federal funding.

Federal cutbacks aside, the state for years has been spending more money than it takes in despite tax revenue exceeding expectations. Sacramento has a severe deficit spending problem that is projected to last for a while.

So, allocating more money to speed up vote counting by a few days isn’t very high on the governor’s and legislative leaders’ to-do lists.

“The reality is elections currently are underfunded,” says Assembly Elections Committee Chairwoman Gail Pellerin, a Democrat who was Santa Cruz County’s chief elections official for 27 years.

She also says, referring to demands for faster counting: “The media outlets want to call the races and be the first. And that’s what this is all about.”

I don’t disagree. By our nature, we journalists are anxious to report fresh news, including the outcomes of elections. And we become impatient when vote counts roll in seemingly at a snail’s pace.

But come on, it’s not a horrendous burden on the public to wait a few days for an accurate vote count.

It does, however, provide an excuse for President Trump and MAGA Republicans to regurgitate unfounded accusations that elections won by Democrats are “stolen” from the GOP.

“Look what’s happening in California … it’s a rigged election,” Trump bellowed in a June 7 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker. “They’re cheating on the election.”

When Welker challenged him for evidence, Trump heatedly replied: “They’re crooked just like you’re crooked. Your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked. … You’re either crooked, or you’re stupid.”

To put this in context, the Trump diatribe came immediately after he called police officers attacked by Jan. 6 Capitol invaders “a bunch of dirty cops” and “crooked cops.” The Trump-inspired rioters were trying to prevent Congress from certifying President Biden’s “rigged” election.

It’s constantly puzzling why millions of Americans take this unhinged man’s blatherings so seriously. But they do.

And when the president lies about ballot fraud, it erodes public confidence in the integrity of our election system and undermines democracy. Americans become even more cynical and polarized.

So, the governor, Legislature and counties would do everyone a favor by investing in a faster vote count.

“It’s a problem,” Alexander asserts. “The slow vote count has become the norm in California, but it’s not normal for a democracy. It opens the door for false fraud claims.”

Much of the slow count results from tallying mail ballots, which amount to at least 80% of votes cast. They take longer to process, largely because each voter’s signature on the ballot’s envelope needs to be checked against one on file.

So, California could speed up counting by mailing out fewer ballots. Now, every registered voter gets one. We could go back to requiring voters to request an “absentee” ballot.

But forget that. We’re right to make it easy for people to participate in democracy — as long as safeguards are maintained to prevent fraud.

Some counties have taken advantage of a new law that allows a voter to drop off a filled-in mail ballot inside a voting center. There, it’s handled like an old-fashioned ballot that’s filled out at a booth. This significantly reduces processing time. But many counties say they need more state money to implement the program. I have no idea why.

Counting also is slow, of course, because lots of voters wait until election day — or near it — to cast their mail ballot. That clogs the system.

If the ballot is postmarked by election day, it’s allowed seven days to reach vote processors. Trump and fraud conspirators want to trash all ballots arriving after election day. That would speed up counting. But it’s un-American.

California election officials also try to pressure voters into mailing their ballots early. Rubbish.

Election day should mean something. It’s a day citizens are allowed to vote — whether they hand their ballot to a clerk at a voting center or drop it in the mail. They’ve got a right to take their sweet time in concluding what the wisest voting decisions are.

After all, the government allows us to drop our tax return in the mail on April 15 each year — and is very happy to receive our check a few days later. They process that check plenty fast.

“There’s nothing wrong with a slow count,” says Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor who specializes in election law. “But it‘s a major problem because, unfortunately, it’s a manufactured crisis that can undermine public confidence. And it has gotten worse.”

So, Sacramento needs to undermine the demagogic manufacturers by stepping up vote counting while keeping elections virtually fraud-free.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump prosecutor in L.A. pushing unusual public search for voter fraud during ongoing count
California love: From the scene of South L.A.’s erupting sidewalks, 5 questions for Bass and Raman
The L.A. Times Special: Who loved Bass, Raman and Pratt the most? A district-by-district breakdown

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Thank you, Steve Hilton, for calling out President Trump for the liar he is.

Hilton on Tuesday addressed the president’s unfounded but vociferous claims that Democrats have massively cheated in our recent election.

“We’ve got teams standing by, we’ve got lawyers standing by, very focused on that,” Hilton told reporters, including my colleague Seema Mehta, outside the L.A. elections headquarters. “We don’t want to let anyone down, we don’t want to let anything slip away, and we’ve seen nothing.”

We’ve. Seen. Nothing.

How refreshing to have a MAGA insider repudiate the lies.

If only more RITOs (Republicans in Trump Only) would follow suit. But, alas, the conspiracies rage on, aided and abetted by L.A.’s own First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, who recently told right-wing commentator Glenn Beck (among others) that he expected his office to charge people in voter fraud cases in coming months.

“But we need a wide-scale audit of the California voter roll,” Essayli told Beck.

Voter rolls are a huge refrain in conspiracy theories and the subject of numerous (mostly unsucessful) lawsuits by Trump‘s Department of Justice. Trump is demanding that the federal government “audit” the voter rolls to ensure ballots go only to legal voters, which is one of those scary and ill-conceived ideas that sounds reasonable on the surface.

Trump’s lawyers, some of whom made careers out of civil lawsuits around voter conspiracy allegations before being appointed to office, claim untold thousands of ballots are sent out erroneously, then somehow, via Democrats, land in the hands of undocumented immigrants and others who use them to vote illegally.

It is nonsense, but also now government-backed nonsense.

“It certainly is a new level of danger that the people who spent unlimited amounts of time and money trying to prove that the 2020 election was stolen are now leading and staffing the Department of Justice,” Eileen O’Connor told me. She’s a senior counsel at the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, a nonpartisan effort to protect democracy.

“There have just been people who have spent every waking moment of their lives, practically for decades now, searching for all of this voter fraud that they claim is happening and not finding it,” O’Connor said. “And they’re still failing to find it.”

So what’s the deal with voter rolls? Are they really the dark heart of a Democratic scam to rig elections? Or is the scam that Trump and MAGA are attempting to use the boring and bureaucratic nature of voting rolls to do the very thing they claim to be fighting — undermine of free and fair elections?

What the heck is a voter roll?

Voter rolls are the lists of eligible voters kept by each state.

States run elections, because, well, the Constitution. But that structure is also a good idea because states keep closer track of who is a legal resident and where they are than the federal government.

Those like O’Connor who care about democracy and fair elections point out federal meddling with an “audit” of these lists is vastly overstepping federal power — and likely will knock of numerous voters who have a right to cast a ballot.

Part of that is because voter rolls are “loose,” according to Chris Fowler, a professor of geography and demographics at Penn State who specializes in voting rights. Most states have laws that strive to be inclusive and are slow to remove people from the lists, precisely because we want as many people to vote as we can get.

Some people in California are added when they get a driver’s license. Some people move and ask the postal service to update their voter registration. Some people register once, move dozens of times and never think to tell their secretary of state.

Some people die. Some people get married and change their name. Some people don’t vote for 10 years, then do. You get the idea. Life happens, and updating voter registration is rarely our first thought.

And yes, there are cases of folks illegally getting onto voter rolls, such as one Essayli recently pointed to in which a signature gatherer was paying folks on Skid Row to register to vote. The key there being register, not actually vote.

One-off cases like this should be and are prosecuted, but the inclusive nature of the rolls is by design, not a flaw.

“They’re imperfect,” Fowler said.

Why not audit?

Fowler added, though, if someone wants to make a big stink about fraud without any actual evidence, that inaccuracy is the perfect sleight of hand. To the average person, it sounds bad that we can’t keep a clean list of eligible voters.

But here’s what the conspiracy folks leave out: Being on the voter roll doesn’t automatically mean a vote will be counted or even that a ballot will be sent. It’s just the starting point of everyone who might be invited to the party.

There are numerous safeguards, such as signature verification, that cast ballots go through before the vote is considered legitimate. When there is doubt, the vote is “cured,” which is an unnecessarily convoluted way of saying local election officials may go as far as tracking down the actual voter and making sure they are legit. Yes, if there is a question, actual people contact an actual voter. If they can’t get in contact, the vote is usually set aside.

The MAGA demand to audit voter rolls ignores all this reality and is instead based on the false idea that voter rolls translate directly into counted votes.

The game MAGA is running with voter roll audits is that it was never about election integrity. It’s about suppressing the vote of Black people, brown people, young people and others who tend to vote Democratic and also tend to have more unsettled lives that would lead them to have inaccurate information, such as conflicting addresses, on the voter rolls.

Federal audits would, instead of protecting elections, allow a conspiracy theory to be weaponized into a way to keep legal voters from casting their ballot. Call it the new Jim Crow — a disingenuous way to suppress certain votes all gussied up as safety.

But the effort creates a win-win for Trump. If his Department of Justice is successful in getting state voter rolls — which it has been in more than a dozen states that have voluntarily turned them over — they can demand as many names as they want be removed.

The federal government has not said what criteria it will use to “clean” these rolls, who will be in charge, how the information will be used or kept, or how people will even know they’ve been knocked off until they try to vote. There is even concern the information gathered from audits will be used for other purposes, such as immigration enforcement or surveillance activities.

And for the many states such as California who are fighting the demand in courts — the DOJ lost its California case and has appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — MAGA is simply screaming that the mere fact of protecting these lists from federal interference is proof that we’re covering up this vast conspiracy.

“It is part of laying the groundwork to just be able to say either we have all these voter rolls and we’ve analyzed them and they’re full of errors, or to be able to say, ‘Oh, you didn’t hand over the voter rolls. What are you hiding?’ O’Connor said.

None of that is actually good for elections, or democracy. That’s the real scam with voter roll audits.

They are a Trumped-up attempt to make us doubt a system that is working just as designed, imperfectly and inclusively, protecting democracy while encouraging legal voters to participate.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump Previews Fall Strategy With Baseless Claims of California Vote Fraud
The deep dive: Spencer Pratt could have been a real contender. His greatest enemy was himself
The L.A. Times Special: Why the L.A. mayoral runoff is about to be a ‘knife fight’

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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SACRAMENTO — Winning elections — or achieving any success — often is about being in the right spot at the right moment. Getting lucky and capitalizing. Xavier Becerra is a textbook example.

Becerra’s moribund campaign for California governor was flatlining in early April when he got a shocking break. Five women publicly accused the Democratic front-runner, Rep. Eric Swalwell, of sexual misconduct, including rape. He denied the allegations but quickly quit the race and Congress.

And Becerra surged, leaping from his political deathbed to Democratic front-runner in the contest to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, ultimately earning one of two gubernatorial slots on the November ballot.

That’s assuming the agonizingly slow vote count in last week’s primary election holds up, and it’s virtually inconceivable that it won’t.

But Becerra didn’t suddenly just get lucky with Swalwell’s demise. He has capitalized on life-altering sudden good fortune much of his life.

There was a fortuitous incident in high school that substantially upgraded Becerra’s higher education and undoubtedly his career.

Becerra, the son of Mexican immigrants whose construction worker father didn’t go past the sixth grade, was pulling down good grades at McClatchy High in Sacramento when he was invited to a summer program at UC Davis for promising students of color.

One day he saw a classmate toss some wadded paper into a waste basket.

“What’s that?” Becerra asked.

“I was going to apply to this college, but now I’m not,” the kid replied. He had screwed up on a final exam.

“Give it to me,” Becerra said.

It was an application form for Stanford University. Becerra filled it out and “got it in the mail at the last moment,” he recalled to me years later.

He was accepted. His working-class family was able to send him to the pricey, private university thanks to scholarships, federal aid and after-school work.

“I didn’t know where Stanford was until I rode there with my mom,” Becerra told me.

Becerra got a B.A. in economics at Stanford, then earned a law degree there. That ultimately landed him a job as a deputy state attorney general.

He eventually was elected to Congress, filling a vacant central Los Angeles seat when longtime Rep. Edward Roybal retired. He served 12 terms, rising to the No. 4 Democratic leadership position as party caucus chairman.

A big career break came just before the 2016 election. Becerra was back in Sacramento campaigning for two congressional candidates and was invited to a nonpolitical reception. Also attending by chance was Gov. Jerry Brown’s top aide, Nancy McFadden.

McFadden was impressed. They wound up having a long private talk in a corner. Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris was about to win a U.S. Senate seat and Brown would be appointing her replacement as AG.

“What about Xavier?” McFadden thought to herself, she later told me.

McFadden suggested Becerra to Brown, who didn’t really know the guy. But Becerra’s resume stood out and Brown phoned him. There was an instant liking.

“It wasn’t a hard decision,” McFadden recalled. “It just made sense.”

So, Becerra became California’s so-called top cop, a post he really hadn’t been seeking.

But it was the perfect job for Becerra because goofy Donald Trump became president at the same time. Becerra — often with other Democratic state attorneys general — filed 123 lawsuits against the Trump administration and won the vast majority.

The suits ran the gamut of issues, and one was particularly highlighted: Trump’s efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Fast-forward to Joe Biden’s ouster of Trump in 2020 and the newly elected president’s search for Cabinet members.

Biden needed a health secretary and was drawn to Becerra partly because he had helped jockey Obamacare through the U.S. House as a congressional leader and had staunchly defended it in court as California attorney general.

Without being appointed AG, Becerra might be running for House reelection in November instead of now seemingly having an easy shot at becoming California’s first elected Latino governor.

Becerra got a huge break in the gubernatorial race when two potential heavyweight contenders concluded the job wasn’t worth running for. Either person would have been heavily favored to win.

Former Vice President Harris decided to retain the option of seeking the presidency for a third time in 2028.

Sen. Alex Padilla opted to keep his comfy job, which opens lots of doors to national cable news sets and doesn’t require running vast, nerdy state bureaucracies.

But “if it hadn’t been for Swalwell’s demise, Becerra never would have made the top two” list of vote-getters in the primary, veteran Democratic strategist Garry South says.

Why did Swalwell’s collapse benefit the mild-mannered, low-key Becerra much more than any other Democrat?

“People are looking for something stable,” he told me several weeks ago. “Everybody likes pizzazz and glitter. Then all of a sudden their hero falls from grace. And they look for who they can trust.”

That trust is built on an impressive resume and likability.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, who has never held public office, spent tens of millions of dollars attacking rival Becerra in TV ads. But it apparently didn’t work because he lacked credibility. Steyer came across to many voters, I suspect, as a wild-eyed meanie.

He would have been better off spending his negative ad money on positive spots promoting himself and becoming more likable.

Likability is a candidate’s No. 1 asset. We learn that as grammar schoolers in class president elections. It beats a billion dollars every time — at least in California.

Now Becerra is on the verge of another break — facing Republican former Fox news commentator Steve Hilton in a lopsided fall contest. Californians haven’t elected a Republican to statewide office in 20 years.

Becerra merely needs to remind voters that Hilton is endorsed by Trump — a nice break gifted by the president.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Becerra advances to November, moves closer to becoming California’s first elected Latino governor
This just in: 2026 live primary election results
The L.A. Times Special: How a simple mix-up fueled false conspiracies about L.A. vote count

Until next week,
George Skelton

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TWILIGHT star Taylor Lautner has revealed the gender of his unborn baby in a sweet video with his wife Taylor.

The couple, who are expecting their first child together, took to Instagram to share the exciting news with their fans.

In the video, the pair are seen covering their eyes while finding out the gender on a laptop in front of them.

They scream in excitement as the word ‘Girl’ flashes on screen in pink.

She begins crying as he puts his arms around her to console her.

He looks at her and says: “We did it,” as they both wipe away tears from their faces.

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They captioned it: “Our little secret is now yours,” with pink and blue heart emojis.

Their fans flocked to the comments section to share their well-wishes for the soon-to-be-parents.

One person gushed: “I will forever be watching this on repeat. It’s a girl! I guessed right! I’m so excited for you guys!”

Another social media user commented: “I love how intimate this moment was for you both.”

Somebody else enthused: “Congratulations to a beautiful couple that will be the best parents in the world.”

Yet another wrote: “It’s so nice and wholesome to see a man so excited to have a girl!

“Congratulations guys, this beautiful angel is lucky to have such wonderful humans as her parents.”

While a fifth added: “My kids are obsessed with Shark Boy and Lava Girl and watch it about five times a week and now shark boy is having a baby?! Congratulations!”

The couple revealed they were expecting their first child in March.

The actor, 34, shared a sweet snap of him planting a kiss on his wife’s blossoming baby bump.

The glowing couple also posted a baby scan in an adorable family photo.

Taylor cheekily captioned the post: “What’s better than two Taylor Lautners?” – a nod to the fact his wife shares his first name and surname.

The image was the first in a series shot by snapper Chanelle Sekas-Whitacre showing the couple dressed in white in a countryside setting.

The husband and wife revealed last year on their podcast The Squeeze that they had been exploring their fertility as they planned to start a family.

Taylor’s wife bravely opened up about her fertility concerns, recalling a chat with her doctor about whether she’d have enough eggs.

“My doctor was a little concerned for me because I’ve been on birth control for 10 years and never taken a break.

“And she was like, you could, like, not have any eggs right now,” she said, adding: “We’re in the clear. I got a lot of eggs.”

The two tied the knot in a lavish November 2022 wedding.

A federal judge sided with California and other Democratic states on Friday in a preliminary injunction that blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to condition food benefits on compliance with the president’s policies on gender and immigration.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in March against the Trump administration in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, arguing that the “unlawful” and “unconstitutional” funding requirements are vague and designed to force policies on states.

Billions in federal funding are ultimately at stake, including money for school lunch programs that provide meals to 30 million children nationwide and food stamps that support about 40 million Americans living in low-income households.

“As the Trump Administration tries to use essential programs and billions in funding as leverage to advance their hateful, discriminatory agenda, California continues to fight to uphold the law and ensure that our communities can continue to access the funding they need to thrive,” said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta in a statement.

The policy shift from the United States Department of Agriculture marks another effort by the president to force left-leaning states to submit to his positions on hot-button political and cultural issues to receive government funding. California’s current budget relies on $174.5 billion in federal dollars, or roughly one-third of the overall state budget funds.

Last year, the Trump administration canceled a sexual education grant to California after the state declined to remove gender identity from sexual education curriculum. The administration is also restricting federal funds in an attempt to force states to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The funding conditions from the USDA relate to gender ideology, women and girls’ sports and immigration, according to the lawsuit.

States argue that the conditions do not explain what activities are prohibited for entities that receive grants. The USDA did not cite any law allowing the organization to impose anti-discrimination policies that go beyond federal law, the suit states.

The states that joined the lawsuit contend that they are left with the “unlawful” choice of adhering to the conditions or risk losing up to $74 billion in collective federal assistance from the USDA.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun approved a preliminary injunction Friday and is expected to issue a memorandum later explaining the decision, according to the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — As Californians cast their ballots in the state’s closely watched gubernatorial primary Tuesday, a very different race was playing out in Iowa — one that holds clues about the mood of Republican voters heading into November.

President Trump’s endorsed candidate in Iowa’s high-stakes governor’s race, Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, lost his bid for the party’s nomination, a rare defeat for a Trump-backed candidate.

The outcome exposed fractures among Republican voters, though their choice of Zach Lahn, who ran on an “Iowa First” and Make America Healthy Again platform, didn’t amount to a rebuke of Trump’s politics, said Jimmy Centers, a Republican strategist in Iowa.

The primary race was “emblematic of the seismic plates that make up the Republican Party in Iowa,” Centers said — the successful MAGA-style message, from Lahn; a more traditional conservative platform, from Feenstra; and a conservative Christian approach, from candidate Adam Steen.

“It’s a bit of a look-ahead in terms of how the Republican Party is going to be shaped in what will be a post-Trump era,” Centers said. “Those plates are moving, and last night in Iowa, we had an earthquake.”

Results from Iowa, California and other late-stage primaries portend contentious fall campaigns, with control of the House and Senate hanging in the balance.

“You’re seeing Republican primary voters rebel against politicians, whether it’s Dusty Johnson in South Dakota or Chip Roy in Texas,” said Matt Gorman, a longtime Republican strategist and chief communications officer at Targeted Victory. “There’s clearly a backlash against sitting politicians, and Republican primary voters are looking for outsiders.”

That pro-outsider outlook has been promoted by Trump himself in some races, as he has used his endorsement to boost primary challengers to victory over Republican incumbents — notably in Texas, Louisiana and Kentucky. In Tuesday’s primaries, however — held in six states — none of the races involved Republican veterans whom Trump wanted to see ousted.

Outside of such races, Trump — who last week said, “I don’t care about the midterms” — has taken a more laissez-faire approach. In Iowa, he did not endorse Feenstra until Friday, a last-minute boost that didn’t help the congressman over the finish line.

Lahn, in a victory speech Tuesday night, acknowledged the upset he had pulled off.

“Nobody thought this could be done,” Lahn said. “We were outspent, opposed by the establishment, told to wait our turn.”

Lahn will face Iowa state auditor Rob Sand, who ran uncontested for the Democratic nomination. The seat is being vacated by Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican who is not seeking reelection.

Iowa Republicans will now ramp up efforts to retain both the governor’s office and the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Joni Ernst, as Democrats target both offices for flipping.

The race to replace Ernst is now on between Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has been in Congress since 2021 and has Trump’s support, and Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, a former Paralympian who was backed by a leadership PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Economic issues, particularly in the agricultural sector, where farmers have been squeezed by Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran, could dominate the races. Centers said both parties are acutely aware of the economic factors — and aware that Democrats’ chances in Iowa could be slightly better than “a hope and a prayer,” though the state’s voter-registration edge remains solidly red.

“I don’t think many Republicans in Iowa are bashful about acknowledging the environment we’ll face in November,” Centers said. “It’s going to be a hard-fought race.”

Other Tuesday takeaways

Elsewhere on Tuesday, voters chose candidates in races for U.S. Senate, House and governor’s seats, setting up some lively November match-ups.

In New Jersey, the state’s 7th Congressional District will be a closely watched contest — largely because of the recent absence of Republican Rep. Tom Kean, who has not been publicly seen for months as he deals with an undisclosed medical issue.

His absence has provided an opening to Democrats, who have ramped up attention on the seat as they attempt to flip as many House seats as possible. Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, won the Democratic nomination Tuesday.

Kean, who has support from Trump, ran unopposed. In a statement Tuesday evening, he laid out plans to reveal his medical condition when he returns to in-person work, which he said would be “within a matter of weeks.”

The race could become key to Democrats’ attempt to win control of the House in November.

“We’re ready for this fight. Bring it on,” Bennett wrote Wednesday on X.

In Montana, the race for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, being vacated by Republican Sen. Steve Daines, was also set to get interesting.

Trump-backed Republican Kurt Alme, a former U.S. attorney, and Democrat Alani Bankhead, an Air Force veteran, won primaries Tuesday — but former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar has launched an independent bid for the seat. Bodnar said Tuesday that he had delivered enough petition signatures to the secretary of state to get on the November ballot.

And in New Mexico, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland secured the Democratic nomination for governor, advancing in her bid to make history as the first Native American governor in the United States. She will face Republican Gregg Hull, a former local mayor, in November.

What’s next

Next week brings Maine’s Senate primaries, following a Democratic race that has taken several twists and turns. Democrats have held hopes of unseating Sen. Susan Collins, the veteran Republican lawmaker, as part of their long-shot attempt to flip the Senate along with the House.

But leading Democratic candidate Graham Platner has been dogged by controversies. The primary vote will be held just more than a week after a New York Times report that he had sent sexual messages to several women outside his marriage. This week, Gov. Janet Mills, who had opposed Platner but suspended her campaign at the end of April, said, “I am still on the ballot.”

Also to watch: Next week’s outcomes in South Carolina’s crowded gubernatorial field; the June 16 Georgia Senate runoff to determine which Republican will face Democratic Sen. Jon Osoff; and the June 16 Democratic primary for Senate in Oklahoma.

Times staff writer Michael Wilner,in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: The U.S. is investigating two more Mexican governors for connections to cartels
The deep dive:Can we speed up California’s vote count already?
The L.A. Times Special:More middle-class Californians cancel health coverage after losing federal aid

More to come,
Justine McDaniel and Michael Wilner
—
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SACRAMENTO — Regardless of the final vote count, Xavier Becerra’s pre-primary sprint to the front in the race for governor was remarkable and historic.

Here’s a low-key 68-year-old candidate who excited no one. And that apparently was a major strength. He was easygoing, non-threatening and a safe bet.

He also had an impressive resume — former U.S. health secretary, California attorney general, longtime congressman and state assemblyman. This seemed to attract voters.

People perpetually badmouth politicians. That’s in the American DNA. And in California, there’s always loud anti-Sacramento jabber. But voters tend to prefer politicians with Sacramento experience when electing governors — unless a celebrity entertainer is available.

Politics is cyclical, however. In the past six decades, Californians have gone from electing fascinating Govs. Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown to selecting uninspiring George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis — then returning to headliners like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brown again and Gavin Newsom.

Now we’re ready for boring Becerra?

The last pre-primary poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found Democrat Becerra leading the pack. But he was closely trailed by Republican former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton and Democrat billionaire Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder turned climate activist.

The large field of candidates wound up with those three leading — Becerra drawing 25% support, Hilton at 21% and Steyer with 19%.

A later Emerson College poll also found Becerra in front but Steyer and Hilton in a statistical dead heat: Becerra 28%, Steyer 22%, Hilton 21%.

The top two vote getters will qualify for the November general election.

In contrast to earlier hot speculation about two Republicans — Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — finishing in the top two and locking out any Democrat from the November ballot, the final IGS and Emerson polls showed that an opposite scenario was possible. Two Democrats could conceivably advance to the November voting.

As campaigning neared an end, Becerra apparently tried to help Hilton attract more MAGA support to prevent Steyer from edging out the Republican. Becerra would be a shoo-in over any GOP opponent in November, but could face a tough fight facing Steyer with his bottomless checkbook.

The games-playing involved Becerra running a statewide digital ad subtly reminding Republican voters that Hilton was President Trump’s “favorite” candidate for governor. The spot asserted that Becerra is “Trump’s worst nightmare.”

Steyer would be Becerra’s worst nightmare in a general election brawl.

Another major poll completed a few days earlier by the Public Policy Institute of California found the same basic rankings as the IGS survey, but with Steyer a bit further back.

Becerra was leading with 23%, followed by Hilton at 20% and Steyer at 15%.

Every independent poll found Becerra surging from irrelevancy in March to leader of the pack by late May.

It’s “one of the most unusual gubernatorial election campaigns in modern California history,” IGS poll director Mark DiCamillo says.

Particularly unusual was the April frontrunner, then-Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), abruptly withdrawing after multiple accusations of sexual misconduct and assault, which he denies.

Most of Swalwell’s voter support soon went to Becerra, which helped him attract campaign donors and endorsements by interest groups.

Becerra, who had been moseying along the race track, suddenly got a second wind. And voters sensed a breath of fresh air.

“Voters are exhausted by Trump. He makes it hard to sleep at night. ‘Cool and calm’ win,” says Chapman University political science professor Fred Smoller. “People want a candidate like a no-drama Becerra.

“The fact he has a charisma deficit may in fact be his political asset.”

But Becerra also has other assets, notes UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser — ”legislative and executive experience…. He was safe and predictable.

“And he’s second only to Gavin Newsom in opposing Donald Trump.”

Yes, a calm temperament appeals to voters fatigued by political fire and brimstone. But California Democrats also want someone who will fight back against Trump’s policies.

Becerra repeatedly points out that as state attorney general, he sued the first Trump administration more than 120 times and won the vast majority of cases.

“Becerra has caught the attention of Democratic voters who overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump,” says PPIC Poll Director Mark Baldassare.

How overwhelmingly? Ninety-five percent disapproval by Democrats in the latest PPIC survey, 70% among all likely voters.

Becerra “stood out from the rest of the candidates because of his background as attorney general,” Baldassare adds.

“And look at the other candidates. You can’t name one who has had experience in Sacramento.”

Longshot former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was once state Assembly speaker, but that was nearly three decades ago.

Among the last nine California governors, only Schwarzenegger and Reagan have been elected without serving prior Sacramento stints.

Becerra also has another asset: He’d be the first elected Latino governor in California history. He finished the primary campaign with a comfortable lead among Latino voters, as well as Asian American.

As Becerra’s political stock rose, Democratic rivals — especially Steyer — tried to portray him as incompetent, touched by scandal and a Chevron tool. But the mud didn’t seem to stick.

A natural Becerra strength is likability.

DiCamillo recalls what his mentor, the late legendary pollster Mervin Field, used to say about how voters choose between candidates for governor or president.

“It’s a highly personal choice,” DiCamillo says, quoting Field. “People put more mental energy into choosing a top-of-the-ticket candidate than any other.

“It’s like trying on a new suit. If it doesn’t fit well, you don’t buy it. You’ve got to be comfortable in the feel.”

Many California voters apparently feel that way about Becerra — nothing flashy, just plain but comfortable.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Becerra leads governor’s race, with Hilton and Steyer in tight contest for second spot, poll finds
Money honey: Record-setting outside money pouring into California governor’s race
The L.A. Times Special: Voter guide to the 2026 California primary election

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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When Congress passed the big, ugly bill known as HR 1 last year, most Americans understood it meant cuts to Medicaid, the safety net program millions rely on for medical insurance.

But few Californians realized just how much it will affect the Golden State when its provisions really kick in, starting after the midterms (the Republicans aren’t that dumb) and continuing on in cascading cuts for the next few years.

Millions of Californians — not just low-income folks — are going to feel the effects, whether through a loss of insurance, fewer providers able to keep their doors open, or rising premiums and costs.

“This problem trickles up,” state Senate leader Monique Limón (D-Goleta) told me. “This is not just going to impact the people that have a public healthcare plan. When you see a hospital close, when you see medical providers no longer being able to practice, it is absolutely going to impact everybody, the middle class included.”

Added to the loss of federal funds, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s most recent budget plan (which the Legislature has to debate in coming weeks) includes cuts at the state level. This is in part to contend with the loss of federal money, but also because healthcare costs keep rising and even in this wealthy state, we can’t afford the bills — at least not without some changes.

What those changes are — and who should bear the brunt of them — is a complicated and largely ignored debate happening right now. While our candidates for governor have been grilled on whether they support single-payer healthcare or not, (Becerra is a sort-of, Steyer is a yes) the real question isn’t how is the next governor going to expand access to care — but how are we going to keep the whole system from collapsing right now.

“This is not hypothetical, this is what’s coming down the line,” Limón said.

The problem

About 15 million adults and children, or about 1 in 3 of our state’s residents, rely on Medi-Cal, which is what California calls its Medicaid program.

Through a creative bit of state financing called the Managed Care Organization, or MCO, tax, the federal government has been paying for a big chunk of the costs of that insurance, about $7 billion a year. President Trump’s HR 1 makes that money go bye-bye by greatly reducing the MCO, leaving the state to figure out how to backfill that cash. And that’s just one of the ways the big, ugly bill hurts California. Yes, it’s complicated.

The number of Californians losing health insurance coverage could roughly double in the next four years. Above, a patient undergoes treatment for tongue cancer at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on March 6, 2026.

(David McNew / Getty Images)

Newsom’s budget plan relies in a not-small way on restructuring the MCO tax to fit HR 1’s new rules. But here’s the problem with that — any fix will require approval from the Trump administration, which has repeatedly shown the welfare of Californians is not a high priority. In fact, the Trump administration in March rejected California’s request to update another fee related to hospitals that also generates billions for Medi-Cal.

So maybe Newsom will be able to negotiate a plan that saves the MCO and California healthcare. But wouldn’t it be much better for the GOP, with a presidential election looming, to watch California (and her presidential-contender governor) tumble off a healthcare cliff? Few states rely on an MCO tax the way ours does, which means our pain is going to be far more visible and profound if we lose this funding.

That means if Newsom’s budget is approved by the state Legislature with the MCO fix, the state is taking a gamble. If the feds don’t approve some new version of the MCO tax, “it would have major implications,” Adriana Ramos-Yamamoto told me. She’s a senior policy fellow with the nonpartisan California Budget and Policy Center.

Sort-of solutions

What’s the fourth-largest economy in the world to do? Limón would like to see the state stop subsidizing corporations who pay so meagerly that their employees qualify for Medi-Cal.

“We don’t have the luxury of being able to provide these tax subsidies,” Limón said.

Turns out, 42% of Medi-Cal enrollees are full-time workers, according to a new report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Although most big corporations offer some sort of health insurance, it’s often tied to working a certain number of hours (which they then make sure not to schedule) or it has prohibitive costs or other barriers.

In 2022, the Labor Center found, 34% of low-wage workers received their health insurance through employers, compared with 69% of higher wage workers — meaning California is picking up insurance costs because low-wage employers are finding ways out of them.

“Over the decades, Medi-Cal has really undergone a significant transformation. It’s shifted from a program that primarily served the disabled and indigent and elderly folks to one that largely supports folks that work in low-wage industries,” Tia Orr, the executive director of SEIU California, told me. “Medi-Cal has now become a program where folks that work every single day have to rely on it. The idea that someone can work every day and qualify for food stamps and Medi-Cal, it should be eye-opening to folks.”

Right now, she points out, California taxpayers are paying about $7,800 a year for each person on Medi-Cal.

“The corporations that they work for don’t have to pay one dollar of that, right?”

Limón and her Senate colleagues would like to change that. They have proposed the “Fair Share” plan that would impose a tax on the state’s largest and wealthiest corporations whose employees rely on public assistance. It’s more of an idea than a fleshed-out policy at this point, but as ideas go, it ain’t a bad one. It’s been done in Massachusetts, and New Jersey’s governor has suggested it.

In California, it deserves more attention than it’s currently being given.

To be fair, Newsom’s plan also would also limit state corporate tax credits to $5 million, as my colleague Taryn Luna points out, or 50% of a firm’s tax liability, whichever is greater. That change could bring in $850 million next year to state coffers and grow to $1.8 billion by the end of the decade. That’s still not nearly enough to cover healthcare costs.

To add to the drama, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office predicts all this will get worse — that the number of Californians losing health insurance coverage could roughly double in the next four years. The Newsom administration projects federal Medi-Cal changes could push off 44,000 people in 2026-27, growing to 1.3 million people by 2029-30.

That means more people getting sick and dying because they can’t afford a doctor. It means more doctors, clinics and hospitals losing income vital to keeping their doors open, and more emergency rooms being overloaded because it’s the only option.

“The worst is yet to come,” Rachel Linn Gish, interim deputy director at Health Access California, a consumer healthcare advocacy coalition, told me. “If you wait to take action until it gets bad, it’s already going to be way too late.”

She’s right, and however you look at it, a fix should include corporations paying their fair share.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Justice Department sues UCLA for the third time, alleges antisemitism against students
The deep dive: The $400 Million Showdown Between a Billionaire and a California Mayor
The L.A. Times Special: Garden Grove crisis exposes Southern California’s hidden industrial risks

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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SACRAMENTO — Like millions of Californians, I haven’t voted yet in the primary election. That’s because I can’t decide who should be our governor. Here’s what I’m thinking:

It’s an underwhelming field. But one of these Democratic contenders will very likely replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in January.

Based on the latest polling, a Democrat — probably Xavier Becerra — will qualify for the November general election ballot. That Democrat will face a Republican — very likely Steve Hilton.

It’s inconceivable that a Democratic gubernatorial candidate would lose to a Republican in this polarized, deep blue state. That means we’ll actually be choosing the governor in next Tuesday’s primary. You can dismiss the November face-off as essentially moot.

My mail ballot, like millions of others in California, has been sitting on the kitchen table for weeks.

As of this writing, I only know who I’m not voting for. And that’s either of the two Republicans: former Fox News host Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. That’s not because they’re Republicans. I’ve voted for plenty of Republicans — for governor, senator and president.

But Hilton won’t acknowledge that President Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020. And anyone who doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to Trump and recognize a basic fact of our democracy shouldn’t be trusted as our governor.

Bianco disqualified himself by buying into Trump’s persistent lies about election fraud and seizing 650,000 ballots from last November’s Proposition 50 voting. The sheriff wasted taxpayer resources and, moreover, doesn’t have any vote-counting expertise.

Now for the Democrats:

It has been a disappointing campaign — a missed opportunity to seriously discuss crucial issues such as the need to become more self-sufficient locally on water supply, significantly improve wildfire prevention and regulate the coming AI menace.

I’ve winced during televised debates and TV ads at ugly attacks against opponents.

For a while, I considered casting my vote for the Democrat ranking highest in the polls. I thought that in a large Democratic field, the vote could be splintered and only two Republicans would qualify for November. But that now seems inconceivable because three Democrats dropped out.

Anyway, an individual’s vote is too precious not to be used for the candidate considered best for the job.

These are my thoughts on who that might be:

Becerra, 68. He’s the Democratic front-runner and seemingly the safe choice. Not a huge risk taker. He probably wouldn’t screw up and make things worse. He might even marginally improve some stuff.

Calm and understated. Decent. Likable. He brings an impressive resume with the experience and knowledge to handle the job: a former U.S. health secretary, California attorney general, longtime congressman from Los Angeles and a state assemblyman.

Unfortunately, he has often been too vague about what he’d do as governor. That’s largely because he’s not the sort who rushes into things. He wants to first “scrub” the matter. Not a bad trait.

He should have better answers, however, for accusations that he was derelict in Washington for releasing thousands of undocumented immigrant children to sponsors who exploited them as laborers — and also for a scandal involving his top aide who pilfered Becerra’s campaign account. Becerra said he didn’t know about it. But he should have.

Becerra would be California’s first elected Latino governor. Like many California Latinos, he’s the son of hardworking Mexican immigrants who took advantage of their opportunity to seek the California Dream.

Tom Steyer, 68. Here’s the liberal firebrand who wants to shake up Sacramento.

The question is whether he has the ability and knowledge to pull it off. Steyer wants to split up the private utility monopolies and lower consumers’ electricity bills. And how’s he going to do that? We really haven’t heard.

He’s a billionaire who has never held public office and is trying to start at the top by spending $200 million of his own money to buy into the governor’s suite. California voters have always rejected such candidates.

I’ve got nothing against billionaires. In fact, I think it’s a noble use of their money to participate in democracy and try to fix the state.

But in Steyer’s case, his recent unrelenting attack ads against surging Becerra — now his chief campaign rival — are disturbing and seem like overkill. He’d be better off telling us how he plans to improve our daily lives.

Katie Porter, 52. I find her refreshing, despite a feisty personality that grates on many voters.

She’s a former Orange County congresswoman and longtime professor of consumer law who’s plenty smart.

What I like is she has done her homework, is very conversant on most issues and is specific about what she’d do as governor.

OK, some of her goals are probably beyond financial reach: single-payer healthcare, free college tuition and free child care.

But she’d shake up Sacramento and that’s needed. She’d stand up to special interests. And she’d be California’s first female governor.

Could she work well with the Legislature? Probably well enough, given a governor’s immense power to reward and punish.

Matt Mahan, 43. The centrist San José mayor hasn’t spent enough time in his current job to prove himself to voters beyond the San Francisco Peninsula. And he entered the race too late.

He’s not quite ready. Knock again in a few years.

Antonio Villaraigosa, 73. He might be the best potential governor of the lot.

He understands Sacramento as a former Assembly speaker and urban problems as an ex-Los Angeles mayor. He’s a no-nonsense guy who has been leveling with voters..

But age discrimination is a problem, although he’s only five years older than Becerra and Steyer. And he hasn’t held office in many years. His time is past.

For me, it’s time to pick up my ballot and decide who should be California’s next governor.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Voter guide to the 2026 California primary election
Money, it’s a gas: Billionaire Tom Steyer’s $192.4-million self-funded California gubernatorial bid shatters records
The L.A. Times Special: Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt need Latinos, not Trump

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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Tuesday night, America voted in primary elections and the big winner was President Trump.

One after another, his enemies — and by that I mean anyone who has ever done anything other than grovel — were defeated in elections across the country.

Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican, was perhaps the most high-profile to go down in flames. Massie, you may recall, joined with his California Democratic colleague Ro Khanna to campaign for the release of the Epstein files, which made Trump big-mad since his name is in them a lot.

The Trump-endorsed candidate Ed Gallrein won instead.

“You are ruled by the Epstein class that cares nothing about you,” former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, also a victim of Trump’s ire, posted on social media after Massie’s loss. “Tonight the future of the Republican Party was destroyed.”

But was it? Or is it simply now crystal clear that it is a party that will follow its leader, no matter the consequence — even personal ruin? And if Trump still wields this much power over his base, what does it mean for the November general election?

“Republicans are united behind President Trump,” RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels told Politico. “While the media tries to manufacture division, Republicans remain focused on delivering results for the American people and building momentum heading into 2026.”

As much as I’d like to believe Greene has a point (I can’t believe I’m saying that), all signs instead indicate Pels is, at least mostly, right — the Republican party is alive and well, by Trump’s standards, anyway, and may be gaining momentum for a November none of us will ever forget.

Tuesday’s proof

Gallrein wasn’t the only Trump-backed Republican to win voter approval. Trump also saw his candidates win in places including Idaho, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Georgia.

And in Texas, Trump threw down another retribution bomb by endorsing state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. That race will go to a runoff next week, with Paxton’s chances significantly boosted.

And in case there’s any doubt on why Trump is choosing his favorites, just check out his reasoning in his own social media post for that endorsement. Spoiler: It has nothing to do with the good of the country or even the Grand Old Party.

Paxton, Trump wrote, is “someone who has always been extremely loyal to me,” even trying to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results. Meanwhile, Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

So personal loyalty is the name of the game, and Republicans seem more than willing to play it.

Still, there has been some chatter that ousted lawmakers including Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who just lost his primary to a Trump candidate, could gum up the works for Trump in their remaining months. Cassidy voted with Democrats this week on a war powers resolution to at least slow down Trump’s Iran offensive.

Personally, I wouldn’t bet on it. Recent polls have shown Trump’s approval ratings to be down in the dumps, but not with Republicans. They still love this guy.

A poll by Echelon Insights this week found that 74% of GOP voters view Trump favorably. That’s about the same percentage of people who love Costco and NASA, and who doesn’t love Costco and NASA?

Add to that a Wednesday poll from Quinnipiac University that found that while 64% of voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy, 73% of Republicans actually approve — for real. They are OK with $6 gas and beef priced like gold.

Granted, that’s down from 88% of Republicans loving this economy a month ago, but still, three-quarters of Trump’s base backs this dumpster fire of financial mismanagement and looting.

In the same poll, 80% of respondents said congressional Republicans should be doing more to work with Trump, while 13% said they should be standing up to him.

Folks, Republicans are not turning away from this president — they are embracing not a party, but his one-man rule, and doing it with a big, warm bear hug.

Get to November

What does all that mean for the November election? Not a whole lot of good for Democrats, but I’ll start with one possible bright spot: Texas.

Yes, Texas — where, if Paxton does beat Cornyn, Democrats will do a happy dance. That’s because Paxton is seen as the more extreme candidate, plagued by scandal, and would be running against the increasingly popular everyman-preacher man James Talarico. If Talarico prevails, he would be the first Democratic to win a statewide office in the Lone Star state since the 1990s.

But on the national front, there is very little reason to believe any Republicans will break with Trump, as voters or candidates. That means it will come down to gerrymandering and independents, neither of which is especially hopeful for Democrats.

In the Echelon poll, 68% of independent voters said they believed the country was on the “wrong track,” with more than one-third citing the economy as their most important issue. The Quinnipiac poll found that only 26% of independent voters who responded approve of how Trump is handling the job of president.

But.

Both polls found independent voters also did not approve of the job Democrats are doing in Congress — almost three-quarters had a bad impression. Despite all of the middle-ground voter animus toward Trump and those he backs, Democrats apparently have done almost nothing to capitalize on it.

The takeaway is that the voters who will decide November — at least in the remaining places where maps are not rigged — really don’t like any of their choices, and may just hold their noses and vote for whoever seems least-worst.

If he finds a way to bring prices down, that could be Trump‘s GOP.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump’s Spring Revenge Tour Routed G.O.P. Foes. But Fall Headwinds Loom.
The deep dive: A gray wolf has entered Sequoia National Park for the first time in a century
The L.A. Times Special: San Diego attackers’ hate manifesto targeted many groups, sought ‘destruction of political system,’ sources say

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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SACRAMENTO —  The Democrats’ mantra this election year — especially among wannabe governors — is that the richest Californians should “pay their fair share.” But by any objective measurement, they already do.

I’m referring to state taxes, not federal. It’s a valid argument that the most prosperous Americans should kick in more to the federal government, particularly after President Trump and the Republican Congress lowered taxes for the wealthy, who already had a pretty good deal.

But it’s a different story in California, where state government lives off the well-heeled. Yet, never-satisfied liberal Democrats and public employee unions constantly cry for more.

In fact, an unexpected surge of $16.8 billion in state tax revenue, mostly due to the stock market boom and capital gains earnings, is bailing out Gov. Gavin Newsom and allowing him to claim a balanced budget as he prepares to depart Sacramento and run for president in 2028.

The state Franchise Tax Board recently reported which income groups pony up the most taxes. The more money you earn, the steeper your income tax burden. Of course, that’s the way it should be. But California pushes its progressive tax system to the extreme.

We’ve got by far the highest state income tax rate in the nation at 13.3%.

In 2024, the latest year for which there’s complete data, the top 1% of California taxpayers accounted for 40% of the total state income tax revenue, the FTB reported. But they earned just 24% of the taxable income. To be in the top 1%, your annual earnings had to be at least $973,000.

The top 0.1% kicked in 21% of the tax, while earning 12% of the income. To be in that megarich class, you needed annual earnings of at least $4.7 million.

By contrast, middle-class families with incomes between $73,000 and $139,000 paid 9% of the state’s income tax take.

This doesn’t mean we should weep for the rich and demand more from the struggling lower middle class.

But the problem with Sacramento living off the wealthiest taxpayers is that they’re unreliable. Their fortunes flourish in boom times and fall when the economy busts. When the stock market sneezes, California state government catches pneumonia.

If the state treasury is overflowing, Democratic lawmakers tend to spend freely, expanding programs and creating new ones. Then when the cache inevitably shrinks in bad times, the policymakers’ usual response is to essentially turn their eyes.

Rather than sharply whack spending and raise taxes, they gimmick up the budget with borrowing, deferred spending and crossed fingers. And they dig the hole deeper.

For decades, under Democratic and Republican governors, we’ve sorely needed to update our archaic tax system to make it less volatile and more dependable.

A reform that makes lots of sense is to extend the sales tax to services primarily used by businesses. They could deduct the cost on their federal tax returns. And California state and local governments would steadily collect several billion dollars annually. Some income and sales tax rates could even be lowered.

California also has the nation’s highest state sales tax rate at 7.25%. Combining state and local sales tax rates, we have the seventh-highest at 8.99%.

Taxing deductible business services makes sense to many politicians — but only privately. They’re too weak-kneed to seriously consider it in public. There’d be winners and losers and high political risks.

When Xavier Becerra, the current Democratic front-runner in the June 2 gubernatorial primary, entered the race a year ago, I asked him about extending the sales tax to services, as all other states do. He wanted nothing to do with it.

“We need to stabilize our tax system in California with a more steady source of revenue,” he told me. “But I’m not a fan of the sales tax to begin with. It lands on working families.”

He was not interested in exploring a possible tax on services that didn’t hit working families.

Becerra, a former California attorney general and U.S. health secretary, added: “Before we start exploring new taxes, we should explore existing budget spending. We have to scrub the budget.”

In revising his new budget proposal last week, Newsom proposed $5.1 billion in modest tax hikes on businesses — even as unanticipated revenue was surging. He asked the Legislature for a limit on corporate tax credits and a tax on digital software.

He also proposed to trim $3.7 billion from Medi-Cal healthcare for the poor.

Newsom proposed spending $349.9 billion in the next fiscal year and asserted that budgets would be balanced for 18 months. But after that, he and practically everyone else in Sacramento foresee deficit spending without extensive fiscal restructuring.

But you don’t hear a peep about that from leading Democratic candidates running to replace Newsom. Most are talking about imposing significantly higher business taxes to pay for new or expanded programs.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer wants to close “the corporate tax loophole.” What he’s talking about is gutting Proposition 13’s property tax breaks for commercial holdings. He’d make it easier to reassess when partners sell their portions of a property — a commonly called “split roll” that would treat commercial property differently than residential.

That was tried in 2020 and rejected by voters.

Steyer also supports the billionaire tax that’s expected to be on the November ballot. It would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of California’s 200-plus billionaires.

To their credit, no other gubernatorial candidate supports this misguided proposal. Practically all the $100-billion windfall would flow solely into healthcare while causing fed-up super wealthy to flee the state.

Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter would raise taxes on the most profitable corporations to pay for free child care and college tuition. They’re both good causes but of questionable fiscal feasibility right now.

Rather than pushing rich investors and job creators out of state, we should be encouraging them to stick it out in California and continue to pay their fair share.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Who won and who lost in Thursday night’s California gubernatorial debate? Our columnists weigh in
TikTok dough: The Steyer campaign pays influencers. Their posts don’t always make that clear
The L.A. Times Special: Steyer campaign staffer linked to video of rival Katie Porter berating staff

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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Three political ads meant to break through our collective indifference caught my eye this week, as we come down to the wire on the June 2 primary election.

Each one says less about the candidates involved, and more about this moment in politics and where the races for California governor and L.A. mayor may be headed. Each ad also hints at deeper issues that haven’t quite reached the water-cooler conversation level, but maybe should.

Becerra blunder

The first ad that grabbed my attention was a quick-turn by San José Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan (still stuck in single-digit polling numbers), who jumped on Xavier Becerra’s first major mess-up.

Becerra chastised KTLA interviewer — on camera — not to give him too many hard questions because, “This is not a gotcha piece, right?”

That left a lot of folks wondering about his temperament and transparency, something rival Katie Porter knows a bit about.

The video went viral, and Mahan mashed it up with now-infamous clips of Porter walking out of a different interview earlier in the campaign cycle.

The result was a fast, funny, pointed jab that made both Becerra and Porter look prickly and unaccountable. For Porter, that damage was done long ago. But this moment for Becerra, the very-slim-margin front-runner, could have sticking power.

New polls, which likely don’t account for the impact of this gaffe, have Becerra edging up in a lead over Tom Steyer or maybe just tied. If Becerra is leading, it’s not by much, and he’s not a shoo-in by any means.

The bigger issue is that there are many hard questions that Becerra will likely need to answer if he does make the general election — questions he’s largely been dodging with pat answers.

This week, one of the lobbyists charged in a scheme that allegedly stole more than $200,000 from one of Becerra’s old campaign accounts will appear in court again.

She’s apparently been working on a plea deal, so it’s likely either that will be formalized, or the case will move forward to a trial. Becerra is not accused of any wrongdoing and told my colleague Dakota Smith that he had testified before the grand jury in the case.

But Becerra has also said he was aware that up to $10,000 a month was being paid out of a dormant campaign account to manage that money, since his role as the Health and Human Services Secretary made it illegal for him to be involved directly.

The question that seems relevant in this age of fraud-and-waste panic is who pays $10,000 a month to have someone watch over a dormant account and doesn’t think that’s excessive? Becerra may have been an innocent victim, but $120,000 a year is a lot of money to pay someone to babysit a largely unused stack of cash.

If Becerra does make it through to the primary and faces Hilton or potentially Steyer, both successful businessmen, expect this lack of financial acumen to be an issue — a hard question that is fair to ask of the person who wants to run the fourth largest economy in the world.

Steyer backers

Speaking of money, the second ad (or sort-of ad) that caught my attention is tied to Steyer, the billionaire who has spent more than $100 million of his own money in this race.

The Sacramento Bee reported that Steyer’s campaign has been paying influencers to post support of him online. The account mentioned in the Bee’s report seems to have removed those videos, but others have archived some of them.

These posts are meant to decidedly not feel like advertisements, but just organic support from Steyer supporters. Steyer’s is far from the first campaign to do this and won’t be the last.

Trump, Kamala Harris, Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — all of them have courted influencers, paid or unpaid, to reach voters, especially young ones. California is one of the few states with a law that tries to regulate some of this type of content, but it’s not a strong law.

While there may be nothing shocking in Steyer’s digital strategy, it should alarm us on the larger level of having a healthy democracy. We’ve largely forgotten the black hole of delusion that millions of Americans fell into during the pandemic era from online misinformation brokers. Remember QAnon?

Influence campaigns are shockingly powerful, and growing in sophistication by the minute. While Steyer’s efforts may be run-of-the-mill, it’s an area of political communication that demands greater transparency and regulation.

Pratt problems

Which brings us to Spencer Pratt, and the ad (ads, really) that caught everyone’s attention — the AI-generated mini-movies that blatantly steal the “Batman” and “Star Wars” intellectual property and which have earned so much viral attention that the mayor’s race can now fairly say it’s got national reach.

Pratt did not make these ads, but he’s reposted them, and millions have watched. Though it may seem obvious they are made by artificial intelligence, they are not identified as such.

Pratt has portrayed himself as angry with what he’s sees as Bass’ failure after the Palisades and Eaton fires — a fair criticism that many share. He’s made his own ads highlighting how his family is forced to now live in an Airstream trailer, though TMZ reported Wednesday that Pratt has actually been camping out at the Hotel Bel-Air, where rooms were starting at $1,420 a night this week. (Pratt disputes this reporting and said Wednesday that he doesn’t live anywhere.)

Though parody is protected speech, one of the AI videos Pratt has promoted ends with a crowd, including a child, pelting L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris with fruit until they flee.

Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, posted online that it was “maybe the best political ad of the year.”

I disagree. While a certain segment of conservative white male voters might find it hilarious to pelt women of color until they run in fear, I’m pretty sure there are some messages in that missive that aren’t getting the scrutiny they deserve.

The links between hate speech and political violence are well documented. Outrage and action are tied, but now increasingly removed from reality. How AI — especially AI depicting political rivals as unhinged, evil villains — will affect voters, and democracy in general, isn’t yet understood.

I doubt these ads on behalf of Pratt will change the minds of many voters, but they do change politics.

And not for the better.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Ex-gubernatorial candidate Stephen Cloobeck interfered with witness in girlfriend’s case, authorities say
The deep dive: How a fast food taco showed us who Steve Hilton really is
The L.A. Times Special: A bombshell fraud case takes the spotlight in California’s high-stakes race for governor

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

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MOLLY-MAE Hague fans think they’ve worked out the gender of her unborn baby after spotting a ‘clue’ in the background of her latest YouTube vlog. 

The 26-year-old and boyfriend Tommy Fury are getting ready to welcome their second child next month.  

Former Love Island star Molly recently revealed she’d decided not to share the gender with fans – despite filming a reveal video with daughter Bambi, three.  

But in her most recent vlog, some eagle-eyed fans noticed a book called ‘Peppa’s new baby sister’ – leaving them convinced she’s having another girl.  

One wrote: “Ooh I never noticed this!!”

Someone else said: “The BOOK.”

MAEBE NOT

Mysterious reason Molly-Mae Hague has not revealed gender of her new baby

deja vu

Pregnant Molly-Mae reveals huge parenting fear ahead of birth of second child

And a third added: “Peppa’s little SISTER.”

Opening up recently about deciding not to share the gender, Molly confessed she’d been enjoying seeing her fans guess what she is having. 

She said: “A baby is coming in a few weeks, so I really need to sort out my hospital bag… 

“I thought I would just show you a couple of bits that I’ve started packing for me.

“Because everything for baby is quite gender obvious and we’ve kind of kept it to ourselves up till I’m basically giving birth so we might as well keep it until the end now.”

Molly continued: “It happened so accidentally. We’ve actually got a full-blown gender reveal video. We did a balloon with Bambi.

“I was planning to post it but we just never did. And then I don’t know, seeing everyone guess has just kind of been funny.”

SACRAMENTO —  Here’s what the Democratic candidates for governor aren’t telling us: While promising the moon, they’ve avoided saying how they would keep paying for all of Sacramento’s current costly programs.

Termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature have dug the state into a deep financial hole, and it faces severe deficit spending through the next governor’s first term.

The only honest solution is an unpopular mix of program cuts and tax increases, plus a focused, earnest and unlikely effort at making government more cost-effective and efficient.

The worst option would be the easy one that got Sacramento into its current mess: gimmicky budgeting that includes excessive borrowing, program delays rather than outright eliminations and fudged numbers.

Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek recently estimated “the state faces structural deficits running from $20 billion to $35 billion annually.”

He warned the state’s financial commitments funded by its revenue “[are] not sustainable” and added that mopping up the red ink “will likely require at least some — if not significant — spending reductions.”

The analyst pointed out that since 2019, under Newsom, state general fund spending has risen by $100 billion to $248 billion in the governor’s latest budget proposal in January. About 70% of the growth went to maintaining existing services and 30% was for expanding or creating new programs.

“In retrospect,” Petek continued, “the state could not afford to sustain its existing services while funding … expansions and new programs.”

Last week, the analyst reported some good news coupled with bad. He estimated a $25-billion boost in unanticipated revenue, driven by artificial intelligence enthusiasm and “the related stock market boom.” But, he added, “these surging revenues likely are not sustainable.”

The analyst said the stock market appears to be “in a speculative bubble, rivaled only by the dot-com boom” (that led to the Great Recession) “and the Roaring ‘20s” (that ushered in the Great Depression).

“The state should be prepared for revenues to be tens of billions lower within one or two years.”

Newsom will get another crack at legitimately balancing a budget on Thursday when he revises his spending proposal for the next fiscal year.

You can’t really blame the governor’s wannabe Democratic successors for dodging this fiscal thicket. Program cuts and higher taxes don’t attract voters. Moreover, the subject is weedy and boring. For that reason, I suspect, moderators didn’t even delve into it during three recent televised gubernatorial debates.

Regardless, budget-crafting is a governor’s most sacred duty and the source of much of their power. It would help voters to know where the candidates stand. Right now, they’re in hiding.

Former state Senate leader Don Perata, a Democrat, posted this last week about the chronic deficits:

“Apparently, candidates find this untroubling or maybe someone else’s worry. None … even mentioned it during those juvenile television ‘debates’ and the hundreds of millions spent on campaign commercials.”

Instead, various contenders have been promising voters a Santa’s sleigh of goodies: state-run single-payer healthcare, free childcare, partial no-tuition college, suspension of the gas tax, no state income tax for people earning under $100,000 and generous subsidies for Hollywood filmmaking.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer and former Orange County congresswoman Katie Porter have been touting single-payer healthcare, an idea pushed by politically potent nurses unions and Democratic progressives. Private insurance would be eliminated and, under most proposals, so would the popular Medicare. The state would manage all medical insurance — more efficiently and at less consumer expense, advocates insist.

But this concept seems far beyond the state’s financial reach and operational capability. Its cost could exceed twice the current state budget. And I shudder to think of our state bureaucracy trying to handle healthcare for 39 million people. First, get the DMV working right and the botched bullet train rolling.

For many years, underdog gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa — a former Los Angeles mayor — has called the single-payer notion “snake oil.” In a CNN debate last week, he termed it “pie in the sky.”

Centrist San José Mayor Matt Mahan chimed in, asserting: “The candidates who are fighting for single-payer don’t know how to pay for it, and they’re not being honest about it.”

Practically everyone jumped on new Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra — former state attorney general and U.S. health secretary — for seemingly being unable to specify whether he’s for or against single-payer.

“I’ve been consistent for over 30 years,” he said, trying to explain that he favors Medicare-for-all as “the most efficient way that we can do healthcare.”

It was a silly waste of debate time. They were arguing over oranges and lemons — both citrus, but different. Becerra should have just made clear that he’s opposed to single-payer and supports a separate version of universal healthcare: Medicare-type coverage with a supplemental private insurance option for all Californians. If that’s indeed what he favors.

Mahan bragged that he’s “the only candidate in this race who is calling for a suspension of the gas tax.” It’s a highlighted Republican talking point. But no other Democratic candidate advocates suspending the tax because it’s a screwy idea.

The roughly 60-cent-per-gallon state gas tax pays for filling potholes and more serious road repairs and improvements. Moreover, the next governor won’t take office until January. Suspending the tax then — even if the Legislature approved — wouldn’t reduce today’s soaring pump prices.

My take on the debates:

Becerra survived. He’s refreshingly calm but needs to be more crisp.

Steyer was articulate and may have attracted Bernie Sanders fans.

Porter is a talented debater, but seemed overly defensive about her past hot temper.

Mahan was fine, but he just got off the bench and it’s late in the game.

Villaraigosa was straightforward as usual, and finally had a broad audience.

All should bone up on budget-balancing and tell us their thinking.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: How MAGA Sheriff Chad Bianco is shaking up the 2026 California gubernatorial primary
The other must-read: Tom Steyer tries to sell voters on his own personal change
The L.A. Times Special: Abortion access just took another blow. California wasn’t spared

Until next week,
George Skelton

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