SACRAMENTO — California and its state-funded programs are heading into a period of volatile fiscal uncertainty, driven largely by events in Washington and on Wall Street.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget chief warned Friday that surging revenues tied to the artificial intelligence boom are being offset by rising costs and federal funding cuts. The result: a projected $3-billion state deficit for the next fiscal year despite no major new spending initiatives.
The Newsom administration on Friday released its proposed $348.9-billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, formally launching negotiations with the Legislature over spending priorities and policy goals.
“This budget reflects both confidence and caution,” Newsom said in a statement. “California’s economy is strong, revenues are outperforming expectations, and our fiscal position is stable because of years of prudent fiscal management — but we remain disciplined and focused on sustaining progress, not overextending it.”
Newsom’s proposed budget did not include funding to backfill the massive cuts to Medicaid and other public assistance programs by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress, changes expected to lead to millions of low-income Californians losing healthcare coverage and other benefits.
“If the state doesn’t step up, communities across California will crumble,” California State Assn. of Counties CEO Graham Knaus said in a statement.
The governor is expected to revise the plan in May using updated revenue projections after the income tax filing deadline, with lawmakers required to approve a final budget by June 15.
Newsom did not attend the budget presentation Friday, which was out of the ordinary, instead opting to have California Director of Finance Joe Stephenshaw field questions about the governor’s spending plan.
“Without having significant increases of spending, there also are no significant reductions or cuts to programs in the budget,” Stephenshaw said, noting that the proposal is a work in progress.
California has an unusually volatile revenue system — one that relies heavily on personal income taxes from high-earning residents whose capital gains rise and fall sharply with the stock market.
Entering state budget negotiations, many expected to see significant belt tightening after the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned in November that California faces a nearly $18-billion budget shortfall. The governor’s office and Department of Finance does not always agree, or use, the LAO’s estimates.
On Friday, the Newsom administration said it is projecting a much smaller deficit — about $3 billion — after assuming higher revenues over the next three fiscal years than were forecast last year. The gap between the governor’s estimate and the LAO’s projection largely reflects differing assumptions about risk: The LAO factored in the possibility of a major stock-market downturn.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is running for a second term in the pivotal battleground state after a first term that put him on the Democratic Party’s radar as a potential presidential contender in 2028.
He made the formal announcement Thursday at an event at a carpenters’ union hall in Pittsburgh and, later, at a similar event in Philadelphia. Shapiro’s announcement demonstrated a unified party behind him — including introductions by the state party chair, labor leaders and top local Democratic officials — as he ticked off his accomplishments during a nearly 30-minute speech.
Shapiro warned that his opponents promise “darkness and division and extremism,” and — without mentioning President Trump by name — he slammed the “chaos and toxicity” emanating from Washington, D.C., that he said threatened livelihoods, rights and freedoms.
“Every step of the way, I’ve stood up for my fellow Pennsylvanians, sometimes in a court of law and other times simply refusing to back down, refusing to cast certain Pennsylvanians aside and always by speaking truth to power,” Shapiro said.
He added, “I will not let anyone mess with Pennsylvania and I will always have your backs.”
Although Shapiro hasn’t disclosed any ambitions for higher office, his reelection effort will be closely watched as another test of whether he’s White House material.
Ever since he won the governor’s office in a near-landslide victory in 2022, Shapiro has been mentioned alongside Democratic contemporaries like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and others as someone who could lead a national ticket.
Shapiro, 52, has already made rounds outside Pennsylvania. Last year, he campaigned for Democrats running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, and he’s a frequent guest on Sunday talk shows that can shape the country’s political conversation.
He was also considered as a potential running mate for Kamala Harris in 2024. She chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz instead.
A pivotal first term as governor
Shapiro’s first term repeatedly put him in the spotlight.
He was governor when Pennsylvania was the site of the first attempted assassination of Trump; the capture of Luigi Mangione in the killing of United Healthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson; and the murder of three police officers in the state’s deadliest day for law enforcement since 2009.
Last year, an arsonist tried to kill Shapiro by setting the governor’s official residence on fire in the middle of the night. Shapiro had to flee with his wife, children and members of his extended family, and the attack made him a sought-out voice on the nation’s recent spate of political violence.
As Shapiro settled into the governor’s office, he shed his buttoned-down public demeanor and became more plain-spoken.
He pushed to quickly reopen a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, debuting his new and profane governing slogan — “get s— done” — at a ceremony for the completed project.
He crossed the partisan divide over school choice to support a Republican-backed voucher program, causing friction with Democratic lawmakers and allies in the state.
Shapiro regularly plays up the need for bipartisanship in a state with a politically divided Legislature, and positions himself as a moderate on energy issues in a state that produces the most natural gas after Texas.
He’s rubbed elbows with corporate executives who are interested in Pennsylvania as a data center destination and thrust Pennsylvania into competition for billions of dollars being spent on energy, manufacturing and artificial intelligence.
A repeat winner in competitive territory
Shapiro has enjoyed robust public approval ratings and carries a reputation as a disciplined messenger and powerhouse fundraiser. For 2026, Pennsylvania’s Republican Party endorsed Stacy Garrity, the twice-elected state treasurer, to challenge Shapiro.
Garrity has campaigned around Pennsylvania and spoken at numerous Trump rallies in the battleground state, but she is untested as a fundraiser and will have to contend with her relatively low profile as compared with Shapiro.
Shapiro, meanwhile, keeps a busy public schedule and has gone out of his way to appear at high-profile, nonpolitical events like football games, a NASCAR race and onstage at a Roots concert in Philadelphia.
He is a regular on TV political shows, podcasts and local sports radio shows, and became a leading pro-Israel voice among Democrats and Jewish politicians amid the Israel-Hamas war, confronting divisions within the Democratic Party over the war.
He has tempered it with calls for more aid for Gaza’s residents and criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war, but some activists argued against him being the party’s nominee for vice president in 2024.
Harris, in her recent book, wrote that she passed on Shapiro after determining that he wouldn’t be a good fit for the role.
Shapiro, she wrote, “mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision,” and she “had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership.” Shapiro disputed the characterization.
An audition on the 2026 campaign trail
In a September appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” the host, Kristen Welker, asked him whether he’d commit to serving a full second term as governor and whether he’d rule out running for president in 2028.
“I’m focused on doing my work here,” he said, sidestepping the questions.
His supposed White House aspirations — which he’s never actually admitted to in public — are also mentioned frequently by Garrity.
“We need somebody that is more interested in Pennsylvania and not on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Garrity said recently on a radio show in Philadelphia. On Thursday, the Republican Governors Assocn. accused Shapiro of being “more focused on his political ambitions” than leading Pennsylvania.
For his part, Shapiro criticizes Garrity as too eager to get Trump’s endorsement to be an effective advocate for Pennsylvania.
In any case, the campaign trail could afford Shapiro an opportunity to audition for a White House run.
For one thing, Shapiro has been unafraid to criticize Trump, even in a swing state won by Trump in 2024. As governor, Shapiro has joined or filed more than a dozen lawsuits against Trump’s administration, primarily for holding up funding to states.
He has lambasted Trump’s tariffs as “reckless” and “dangerous,” Trump’s threats to revoke TV broadcast licenses as an “attempt to stifle dissent” and Trump’s equivocation on political violence as failing the “leadership test” and “making everyone less safe.”
Many of Shapiro’s would-be competitors in a Democratic primary won’t have to run for office before then.
Newsom is term-limited, for instance. Others — like ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — aren’t in public office. A couple of other governors in the 2028 conversation — Moore and Pritzker — are running for reelection this year.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday unveiled a sweeping proposal to overhaul how California’s education system is governed, calling for structural changes that he said would shift oversight of the Department of Education and redefine the role of the state’s elected schools chief.
The proposal, which is part of Newsom’s state budget plan that will be released Friday, would unify the policymaking State Board of Education with the department, which is responsible for carrying out those policies. The governor said the change would better align education efforts from early childhood through college.
“California can no longer postpone reforms that have been recommended regularly for a century,” Newsom said in a statement. “These critical reforms will bring greater accountability, clarity, and coherence to how we serve our students and schools.”
Few details were provided about how the role of the state superintendent of public instruction would change, beyond a greater focus on fostering coordination and aligning education policy.
The changes would require approval from state lawmakers, who will be in the state Capitol on Thursday for Newsom’s last State of the State speech in his final year as governor.
The proposal would implement recommendations from a 2002 report by the state Legislature, titled “California’s Master Plan for Education,” which described the state’s K-12 governance as fragmented and “with overlapping roles that sometimes operate in conflict with one another, to the detriment of the educational services offered to students.” Newsom’s office said similar concerns have been raised repeatedly since 1920 and were echoed again in a December 2025 report by research center Policy Analysis for California Education.
“The sobering reality of California’s education system is that too few schools can now provide the conditions in which the State can fairly ask students to learn to the highest standards, let alone prepare themselves to meet their future learning needs,” the Legislature’s 2002 report stated. Those most harmed are often low-income students and students of color, the report added.
“California’s education governance system is complex and too often creates challenges for school leaders,” Edgar Zazueta, executive director of the Assn. of California School Administrators, said in a statement provided by Newsom’s office. “As responsibilities and demands on schools continue to increase, educators need governance systems that are designed to better support positive student outcomes.”
The current budget allocated $137.6 billion for education from transitional kindergarten through the 12th grade — the highest per-pupil funding level in state history — and Newsom’s office said his proposal is intended to ensure those investments translate into more consistent support and improved outcomes statewide.
“For decades the fragmented and inefficient structure overseeing our public education system has hindered our students’ ability to succeed and thrive,” Ted Lempert, president of advocacy group Children Now, said in a statement provided by the governor’s office. “Major reform is essential, and we’re thrilled that the Governor is tackling this issue to improve our kids’ education.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom used his final State of the State address to underscore California’s jaw-dropping crime figures — stats that he said refute the president’s claims about widespread murder and mayhem.
To put in perspective some of the numbers cited by the governor on Thursday:
The last time homicides were this low in Oakland, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was visiting Joan Baez at Santa Rita Jail to commend her on her recent arrest in protest of the Vietnam draft.
Killings haven’t been so rare in San Francisco since superstar Marilyn Monroe wed baseball legend Joe DiMaggio at City Hall.
And violent deaths in the city of Los Angeles fell to rates not seen since the Beatles played Dodgers Stadium, their penultimate public show.
“We have seen double-digit decreases in crime overall in the state of California,” Newsom said. “We’ve got more work to do, but to those with that California derangement syndrome, I’ll repeat — it’s time to update your talking points.”
The governor’s remarks follow reporting by The Times that showed L.A.’s homicide rate is nearing a record low, mirroring trends in other cities nationwide.
With the counts based on data from the LAPD and other law enforcement agencies, President Trump’s insistence that crime in California is out of control has come to seem increasingly bombastic. Recently, the president has modified his message to warn of a possible crime resurgence.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again,” Trump said on Truth Social in a post announcing an end to his legal battle to maintain National Guard troops in L.A., Portland and Chicago. “Only a question of time!”
In his speech Thursday, Newsom credited the stark drop in violence to a flood of crime-fighting cash unleashed by the California Legislature.
“No one’s walked away from public safety,” Newsom said. “We didn’t turn a blind eye to this, we invested in it. We didn’t talk about it, we leaned in.”
But experts said the reality is more complicated. Those who study the root causes of crime say that it may take years, if not decades, to disentangle the causes of the pandemic-era surge in violence and the precipitous drop that has followed.
Trump hammered lawlessness in California’s streets during the 2024 presidential campaign and throughout his first year back in the White House. He rarely names Newsom without invoking crime and chaos, and regularly threatens to surge armed soldiers back into into the streets.
At the same time, the Trump administration has slashed hundreds of millions in federal funding from school safety grants, youth mentoring programs and gang intervention networks that experts say have been instrumental in improving public safety.
Proponents worry those cuts could threaten L.A.’s patchwork of alternative crisis response programs aimed at easing the city’s reliance on law enforcement. In recent years, scores of groups have sprung up to assist people dealing with homelessness, drug addiction and the symptoms of untreated mental health disorders — all of which can heighten the perception of crime, even when actual numbers go down.
Looming cuts in federal spending could hinder efforts to scale up these initiatives, some warned.
“I just don’t know how we can continue to trend in the right direction without continuing to invest in things that work,” said Thurman Barnes, assistant director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.
According to data published by the Major Cities Chiefs Assn., homicides were down in San Francisco, San José, Sacramento and Oakland. Other violent crimes, including rape, aggravated assault and robbery, also dropped, with a handful of exceptions.
Property crime was also down, the governor said Thursday.
Street-level disorder and perceptions of widespread lawlessness helped topple progressive administrations across California in 2024 and earned Trump an unexpected windfall in some of the state’s bluest cities.
Those concerns are “at the core” of California voters’ frustrations, Newsom acknowledged Thursday.
“We’re seeing results, making streets safer for everyone,” the governor said.
Jeff Asher, a leading expert in the field of criminology, said it’s hard to say whether the perception gap is closing “because we don’t necessarily track it super systematically.”
But he pointed to a Gallup poll from late last year that showed less than half of Americans believed that crime had gone up — the first time in two decades that that number had dipped below 50%.
“The pandemic broke us in a lot of ways, and we’re starting to not feel as broken,” he said.
Newsom also touted sharp declines in the number of people living on the streets.
Unsheltered homelessness dropped 9% in California and more than 10% in Los Angeles, the governor announced — data he sought to contrast with an 18% rise in homelessness nationwide.
The sight of encampments and people in the throes of psychosis in the streets drives perceptions of lawlessness and danger, studies show. Lowering it soothes those fears.
But California’s overall homeless population remains stubbornly high, with only modest reductions. Federal funding cuts could hamper efforts to further reduce those numbers, experts warned.
Rather than dig into the complexities of crime, Newsom sought to portray the president himself as the driver of lawlessness, calling the first year of his second term a “carnival of chaos.”
“We face an assault on our values unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime,” the governor said. “Secret police. Businesses being raided. Windows smashed, citizens detained, citizens shot. Masked men snatching people in broad daylight, people disappearing. Using American cities as training grounds for the United States military.”
“It’s time for the president of the United States to do his job, not turn his back on Americans that happen to live in the great state of California,” Newsom said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday previewed a major education system overhaul that would give the next governor more authority over state school policies and redefine — and almost certainly diminish — the role of the elected state superintendent of public instruction.
The governor’s office indicated Thursday that major portions of the proposal, to be included in the state budget plan Friday, are based on a December 2025 report from Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a nonpartisan center that brings together researchers from Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis and USC.
The central aspect of the PACE plan calls for removing the state superintendent as the head of the California Department of Education. Instead, that department would be run by an appointee of the state Board of Education. Members of the state board are appointed by the governor to fixed four-year terms.
The PACE report envisions the “governor as the chief architect and steward responsible for aligning and advancing California’s education system.” According to the report, the “governor could develop long-term plans and use the budget as a strategic lever to advance them.”
A release from the governor’s office asserted that the state’s education system operates as “a fragmented set of entities with overlapping roles that sometimes operate in conflict with one another, to the detriment of educational services offered to students.”
This education initiative, if approved by the Legislature, could prove a defining element of Newsom’s education agenda for his last year in office. He would not get to exercise these new powers, which would fall to his successor.
State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond immediately raised concerns, while also praising Newsom’s record on education.
“Gov. Newsom has done an incredible job on education, one of the best governors we’ve had on education … and I think we have been more aligned than any state superintendent and governor in recent times,” said Thurmond, who is running to succeed Newsom as governor. “On this one issue, I don’t think we could be more misaligned.”
Here are the details and why Newsom wants to move forward with this plan.
Who controls what happens in California’s schools?
Authority over education is distributed among different officeholders.
The Legislature passes laws related to education. The governor chooses which to sign. The governor also proposes what to pay for in education through his budget plan. The Legislature can amend the plan and has the responsibility to approve it.
The elected state superintendent runs the state Department of Education and serves as the administrative lead for the state Board of Education. The superintendent does not have a vote on the board. In some areas, he answers to the authority of the state board; in others, he does not.
The governor appoints the state board, which approves the wording of state education policies. The board also approves curriculum and grants waivers to school districts seeking exemptions from state rules.
What is the problem Newsom says he is trying to fix?
The PACE report says the system is too complicated. It’s not clear who is in charge of what and who is accountable for results.
This has not stopped state officials from taking credit for positive developments or favored policies. Both Newsom and Thurmond take credit for creating the new grade of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds and for providing two meals at school each day for all students.
Both had a role in supporting and executing that policy, although neither would have happened without Newsom’s favor.
Some parts of the education system are not faring so well. Statewide student test scores and absenteeism rates — although improving — are worse than in 2018-19, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Fewer than half of California students meet state standards in English language arts and math.
As part of its work, the PACE research team conducted interviews with 16 former and current policymakers, researchers and education leaders. Collectively they rated the performance of the state’s education system somewhere between fair and poor when it comes to strategic thinking, accountability, capacity, knowledge governance, stakeholder involvement and systemwide perspective.
What would the state superintendent do under the Newsom plan?
A news release from the governor said his plan would “expand and strengthen the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s ability to foster coordination and alignment of state education policies from early childhood through post-secondary education.”
Thurmond is not persuaded, based on his review of the PACE report, which would take the Department of Education away from the superintendent.
That report reimagines that state superintendent as a student “champion” who would analyze and report on the effectiveness of the state education system and also take on an advocacy role.
The PACE analysts noted that the Legislature would need to provide funding and staffing for the superintendent, in this new role, to be effective. Thurmond said that even under the current structure, underfunding of the state Education Department limits its effectiveness.
Thurmond said it would make more sense to give the elected state schools leader more authority over education spending and more resources, given that individual’s specific focus on education.
Why not just eliminate the elected state superintendent?
The state’s voters have rejected that option in the past. So have the powerful teachers unions, which have seen the office as a check on the governor’s power and an outpost in which they could campaign to install an ally.
How does this play out politically?
Newsom has taken credit for much in education, including career and mentoring programs, funding for teacher training and expanded community schools, which serve the broader needs of an entire family.
“Just this year, we’ve seen improved academic achievement in every subject area, in every grade level, in every student group,” Newsom said in his prepared State of the State remarks, “with greater gains in test scores for Black and Latino kids.”
He also took credit for state education spending per student at the highest level to date.
But he or his representatives have, at times, distanced himself from Department of Education guidelines that have expanded the rights of transgender students, including, for example, the right of transgender students to play on girls’ sports teams.
California Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has concerns about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to change how the state’s schools are managed.
(Josh Edelson/For The Times)
Under the proposed system, a future governor would be more accountable for these and other policies.
Thurmond said that Newsom’s positive record proves that the governor already is the most powerful official in the state when it comes to education — and that more power does not need to be concentrated in that office.
What is the governance model in other states?
If California were to adopt a model in which the state board appoints the head of the Education Department, “it would align with the plurality of states that follow this governance approach,” the PACE report states.
In 20 states, including Massachusetts, New York, Florida and Mississippi, state boards of education directly appoint their chief state school officers. Twelve states, including California, select their chief state school officer through direct election.
Thurmond countered that even in some states with an appointed superintendent, the role has more authority than the elected superintendent in California.
SACRAMENTO — In his final State of the State address, Gov. Gavin Newsom will look to define his legacy by touting California’s economic and policy achievements while casting the state as a counterweight to dysfunction in Washington.
The speech, which he will deliver Thursday morning to lawmakers in the Capitol, highlights economic strength, falling homelessness and expanded education funding, while also offering a glimpse of how Newsom is positioning himself beyond his final year in office.
In a summary of the speech provided Thursday morning, Newsom portrayed California as a financial powerhouse that strives to help those in need and works diligently to address its own shortcomings, including high housing costs, unlike the chaotic Trump administration. Newsom, who has acknowleged that he is considered a 2028 bid for president, argues that the state is positioned not just to endure the moment but to help shape what comes next nationally.
Newsom is expected to announce an estimated 9% drop statewide in unsheltered homelessness last year, addressing a topic that has been a persistent political vulnerability for the two-term governor and former San Francisco mayor. Despite some improvements, California has been home to nearly a quarter of the nation’s homeless population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Newsom also said two of his top priorities — the mental health program known as CARE Court and Proposition 1, the statewide bond measure he championed to provide funding for mental health and homelessness — are achieving results ahead of schedule, with counties now equipped with funding, authority and tools to combat the crisis.
Calling affordability a multi-layered crisis, Newsom is expected to signal a tougher stance toward the buying spree of homes by private equity and institutional investors in California. That message is a rare point of rhetorical overlap with Trump, who has said the United States should bar such practices because they push prices beyond the reach of many Americans.
Newsom offered a few previews of select budget priorities, with his office set to unveil the full proposed budget on Friday. The governor will announce that the state would set a record on per-student funding in public schools and fully fund universal transitional kindergarten under his budget proposal. He is also expected to announce a major shift in how the state oversees education, unifying the policymaking State Board of Education with the California Department of Education, which is responsible for carrying out those policies.
The address will mark the first time in five years that Newsom delivers a State of the State from the Assembly rostrum. His last in-person address came shortly before COVID-19 shut down the Capitol in early 2020.
Last year, he delivered his written remarks unusually late, in September, during which he said the state was under siege by the Trump administration — which he accused of dismantling public services, flouting the rule of law and using extortion to bully businesses and universities — all while California grappled with the aftermath of the devastating Los Angeles County fires, spiraling housing costs and an uneven economic recovery.
Like past speeches, Newsom will tout the successes of California, now the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Spencer Pratt, a reality television star who lost his home in the Palisades fire and then emerged as a sharp critic of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced Wednesday that he will run for mayor.
The former star of “The Hills” has spent much of the last year firing off social media posts blaming the mayor and governor for the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and burned more than 6,800 homes.
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Pratt made his announcement at the “They Let Us Burn” event in Pacific Palisades on the one-year anniversary of the fire.
“We’re going to expose the system. We’re going into every dark corner of L.A. politics and disinfecting the city with our light,” he said to a crowd of hundreds, many of whom cheered.
Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass, has also attacked the mayor’s performance on the fire, saying she has not accepted responsibility for the city’s failures.
Community organizer Rae Huang, who is running from Bass’ left, has offered her own critique, saying the mayor has engaged in too much finger-pointing.
Still unclear is whether real estate developer Rick Caruso — another outspoken critic of Bass on the fire — will launch a second mayoral bid. Bass defeated him in 2022 by a comfortable margin.
L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents the areas that burned in the Palisades fire and who has also criticized the city’s response to the fire, said Monday night that she is still considering her own run for L.A. mayor.
Speaking with CNN’s Elex Michaelson, Horvath said she is “listening to a lot of the people who are encouraging me to get into this race, people who are looking for a different kind of leadership.”
“You know, there are a lot of people who are asking me about running for mayor,” Horvath said. “And I think it’s because they see that we are setting up in the county a different structure of accountability, and that’s long overdue for the region.”
The Palisades fire has become a serious political liability for Bass as the mayoral race gains momentum. She was out of the country on a diplomatic mission to Ghana when the fire ignited.
Since then, she has faced criticism over a series of issues surrounding the city’s emergency response, including LAFD deployment, the fact that the Santa Ynez reservoir was empty, and the Fire Department’s failure to put out a New Year’s Day fire that eventually rekindled into the Palisades fire.
Bass, for her part, said Tuesday that she is using the full extent of her mayoral powers to “restore the Palisades community and return families home as quickly and safely as possible.”
Bass’ campaign team did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Pratt’s announcement. But earlier this week, they took direct aim at Pratt and other critics, accusing them of using the disaster for their personal benefit.
“For the first time ever we saw a major wildfire politicized by MAGA leaders and monetized by social influencers making tens of thousands of dollars per month and hawking books on the backs of a devastated community,” said Bass campaign spokesperson Doug Herman. “While some may choose to divide people and tear down the progress that’s being made, Mayor Bass will continue to work to unite people and focus on doing everything that she can to get everyone in the Palisades back in homes, business re-opened, and beloved community spaces up and running again so that the Palisades can once again thrive.
Pratt and his wife, reality television personality Heidi Montag, sued the city in January after their Palisades house burned down, arguing that the Santa Ynez reservoir should not have been offline and empty when the fire erupted.
As recently as Tuesday, Pratt posted on X saying he was “shocked that 7% of Angelenos have ‘a great deal of confidence’ in their city and state government.”
“Have they looked around?” he wrote.
In the past, Pratt has also hinted at a run for governor. On his website, he still advertises “Spencer for Governor” shirts for $20, at a more than a 50% discount.
Pratt became famous in the aughts for his role on “The Hills,” where he was known as Montag’s boyfriend-turned-husband. He has also appeared on “Celebrity Big Brother” and “The Hills: New Beginnings.”
Former vice presidential contender and current aw-shucks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced this week that he won’t run for a third term, dogged by a scandal over child care funds that may or may not be going to fraudsters.
It’s a politically driven mess that not coincidentally focuses on a Black immigrant community, tying the real problem of scammers stealing government funds to the growing MAGA frenzy around an imaginary version of America that thrives on whiteness and Christianity.
Despite the ugliness of current racial politics in America, the fraud remains real, and not just in Minnesota. California has lost billions to cheats in the last few years, leaving our own governor, who also harbors D.C. dreams, vulnerable to the same sort of attack that has taken down Walz.
As we edge closer to the 2028 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats alike will probably come at Gavin Newsom with critiques of the state’s handling of COVID-19 funds, unemployment insurance and community college financial aid to name a few of the honeypots that have been successfully swiped by thieves during his tenure.
In fact, President Trump said as much on his social media barf-fest this week.
“California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible??? The Fraud Investigation of California has begun,” he wrote.
Just to bring home that this vulnerability is serious and bipartisan, Rep. Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressman rumored to have his own interest in the Oval Office, is also circling the fraud feast like a vulture eyeing his next meal.
“I want to hear from residents in my district and across the state about waste, mismanagement, inefficiencies, or fraud that we must tackle,” Khanna wrote on social media.
Newsom’s spokesman Izzy Gardon questioned the validity of many fraud claims.
“In the actual world where adults govern,” Gardon said, “Gavin Newsom has been cleaning house. Since taking office, he’s blocked over $125 BILLION in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”
What exactly are we talking about here? Well, it’s a pick-your-scandal type of thing. Even before the federal government dumped billions in aid into the states during the pandemic, California’s unemployment system was plagued by inefficiencies and yes, scammers. But when the world shut down and folks needed that government cash to survive, malfeasance skyrocketed.
Every thief with a half-baked plan — including CEOs, prisoners behind bars and overseas organized crime rackets — came for California’s cash, and seemingly got it. The sad part is these weren’t criminal geniuses. More often than not, they were low-level swindlers looking at a system full of holes because it was trying to do too much too fast.
In a matter of months, billions had been siphoned away. A state audit in 2021 found that at least $10 billion had been paid out on suspicious unemployment claims — never mind small business loans or other types of aid. An investigation by CalMatters in 2023 suggested the final figure may be up to triple that amount for unemployment. In truth, no one knows exactly how much was stolen — in California, or across the country.
It hasn’t entirely stopped. California is still paying out fraudulent unemployment claims at too high a rate, totaling up to $1.5 billion over the last few years — more than $500 million in 2024 alone, according to the state auditor.
But that’s not all. Enterprising thieves looked elsewhere when COVID-19 money largely dried up. Recently, that has been our community colleges, where millions in federal student aid has been lost to grifters who use bots to sign up for classes, receive government money to help with school, then disappear. Another CalMatters investigation using data obtained from a public records request found that up to 34% of community college applications in 2024 may have been false — though that number represents fraudulent admissions that were flagged and blocked, Gardon points out.
Still, community college fraud will probably be a bigger issue for Newsom because it’s fresher, and can be tied (albeit disingenuously) to immigrants and progressive policies.
California allows undocumented residents to enroll in community colleges, and it made those classes free — two terrific policies that have been exploited by the unscrupulous. For a while, community colleges didn’t do enough to ensure that students were real people, because they didn’t require enough proof of identity. This was in part to accommodate vulnerable students such as foster kids, homeless people and undocumented folks who lacked papers.
With no up-front costs for attempting to enroll, phonies threw thousands of identities at the system’s 116 schools, which were technologically unprepared for the assaults. These “ghost” students were often accepted and given grants and loans.
My former colleague Kaitlyn Huamanireported that in 2024, scammers stole roughly $8.4 million in federal financial aid and more than $2.7 million in state aid from our community colleges. That‘s a pittance compared with the tens of billions that was handed out in state and federal financial aid, but more than enough for a political fiasco.
As Walz would probably explain if nuanced policy conversations were still a thing, it’s both a fair and unfair criticism to blame these robberies on a governor alone — state government should be careful of its cash and aggressive in protecting it, and the buck stops with the governor, but crises and technology have collided to create opportunities for swindlers that frankly few governmental leaders, from the feds on down, have handled with any skill or luck.
The crooks have simply been smarter and faster than the rest of us to capitalize first on the pandemic, then on evolving technology including AI that makes scamming easier and scalable to levels our institutions were unprepared to handle.
Since being so roundly fleeced during the pandemic, multiple state and federal agencies have taken steps in combating fraud — including community colleges using their own AI tools to stop fake students before they get in.
And the state is holding thieves accountable. Newsom hired a former Trump-appointed federal prosecutor, McGregor Scott, to go after scam artists on unemployment. And other county, state and federal prosecutors have also dedicated resources to clawing back some of the lost money.
With the slow pace of our courts (burdened by their own aging technology), many of those cases are still ongoing or just winding up. For example, 24 L.A. County employees were charged in recent months with allegedly stealing more than $740,000 in unemployment benefits, which really is chump change in this whole mess.
Another California man recently pleaded guilty to allegedly cheating his way into $15.9 million in federal loans through the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs.
There are literally hundreds of cases across the country of pandemic fraud. And these schemes are just the tip of the cash-berg. Fraudsters are also targeting fire relief funds, food benefits — really, any pot of public money is fair game to them. And the truth is, the majority of that stolen money is gone for good.
So it’s hard to hear the numbers and not be shocked and angry, especially as the Golden State is faced with a budget shortfall that may be as much as $18 billion.
Whether you blame Newsom personally or not for all this fraud, it’s hard to be forgiving of so much public money being handed to scoundrels when our schools are in need, our healthcare in jeopardy and our bills on an upward trajectory.
The failure is going to stick to somebody, and it doesn’t take a criminal mastermind to figure out who it’s going to be.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, one of the top Republican candidates running for California governor, met a woman sprawled on the sidewalk as he walked around Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
“I’m waiting for the sun to come out from the clouds. I’m sunbathing,” the woman said Tuesday morning, lying on her jacket on the cold concrete, denying that any drug use was taking place in the roughly 50-block swath of downtown Los Angeles. “This is what we do here in California.”
Bianco and Kate Monroe, chief executive of VetComm, talks with a woman on the sidewalk as they walk around of Skid Row.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Bianco shook his head, and as he walked away said there was zero chance the woman was not high on methamphetamines or something else. He said it was immoral for the state’s leaders to allow people to live in such conditions, and pledged to clean up Skid Row within four years if he is elected governor in November.
“Why on God’s green earth, why would we allow this to happen?” Bianco later said. “And why would you have something that you call Skid Row, that you just accept, instead of doing something to fix … these people’s lives.”
Bianco squarely blamed the problem on waste, fraud and mismanagement under Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and prior elected leaders, who he argued failed to effectively tackle the issue. He is among the critics who points to a 2024 state audit that found the state had spent $24 billion to combat homelessness over the prior five years without tracking the results.
A spokesman for Newsom disputed such characterizations of the spending.
“There is no ‘lost’ $24 billion for homelessness. All the money is accounted for,” Newsom spokesman Izzy Gardon said. “What the report found was that not all state programs required locals to report, at the time, how those dollars improved homelessness outcomes. Gov. Newsom has since changed the law to fix this longstanding issue.”
Bianco also pledged to use existing laws against drug dealing, human trafficking, prostitution and other crimes to clean up these blocks, while offering addicts and the mentally ill who are breaking the law the option of going to jail or being placed in treatment programs.
Democrats shot back that Bianco was not offering realistic approaches to an intractable problem.
Bianco talks with Antonio Fuller, left, and John Shepar.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“Chad Bianco is the best example of an all-hat, no-cattle politician with tough talk and no solutions,” state Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said. “That is not what California voters want in our next governor.”
Throughout his campaign, Bianco has leaned into his role as a law enforcement leader. On Tuesday, as his allies shot video after his visit to Skid Row, he pulled up the edge of his T-shirt to reveal his Riverside County sheriff badge.
Amid scenes of desperation, chaos and squalor, Bianco was surrounded by a gaggle of invited media.
Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars were frequently seen nearby as the group sidestepped feces, used condoms, sidewalk fires, open-air drug use and drug dealing, barely clothed women, and people screaming and cursing.
People make their way around Skid Row on Tuesday.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Monroe talks with Emilio Marroquin.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Bianco was accompanied by veteran and homeless advocate Kate Monroe, who handed the homeless envelopes containing $5 bills and cigarettes as encouragement to talk. Some did not take kindly to the offer.
“Get out of my face. Get out of my face. You’re offering me cigarettes,” the woman said. Monroe replied, ‘I’ll give you five bucks.” The woman repeated, “Get out of my face.”
But others were more receptive, including Emilio Marroquin.
The 42-year-old said he had started drinking as a teenager as he struggled with being gay in a Christian home. He didn’t come out until his father, a pastor, passed away. His drinking spiraled out of control, he said, leading friends and family to abandon him. After Marroquin ended up on the streets eight years ago, he said, he started using crystal meth and crack, and explained the splotchy wounds on his hand were the result of being beaten up for failing to pay drug debts.
After learning that Marroquin briefly lived in sober housing, Bianco asked him about the difficulties of transitioning from living on the streets to structured housing, and then spoke with a passing community service provider who identified herself as S.R.
“We need a new change. We need something other than what we’ve been hearing for the past, I don’t know, 20 years or longer,” she said, to which Bianco replied that she had “more courage, passion and commitment and a big heart than probably anyone to be able to come down here and do this over.”
Bianco greets a man who goes by Cigaretteman.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
The Riverside County sheriff’s appearance on Skid Row comes as the 2026 governor’s race is finally starting to see some energy.
A crowded field of prominent though little-known Democrats is competing to finish in the top two spots in the June primary. If they all remain in the race, the Democrats could splinter the vote and allow one of the far smaller number of top Republican candidates to win one of the spots.
Saying that Newsom has turned the state into “Califraudia,” Hilton and GOP controller candidate Herb Morgan called on the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal officials to investigate waste and fraud in state spending.
“This gets to that question that every Californian is asking: How is it that we have the highest taxes in the country? They’ve doubled the budget of the state of California nearly in the last five years, and everything is worse,” Hilton said. “We have the worst outcomes in America. How is that possible, that they spend so much and we get so little? … We are going to get to the bottom of this when we are elected.”
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, is ending his bid for a third term as governor amid President Trump’s relentless focus on a fraud investigation into child care programs in the state.
Less than four months after announcing his reelection campaign, Walz said Monday that negative attention and Republican attacks have contributed to an “extraordinarily difficult year for our state,” making it impossible for him to serve full time as governor while also being a candidate to keep his job.
“Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences,” Walz said at the state capitol. “So I’ve decided to step out of this race, and I’ll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year.”
Walz did not take questions from reporters after speaking for about seven minutes, much of which involved repeating his earlier written statement announcing his decision.
“Donald Trump and his allies — in Washington, in St. Paul, and online — want to make our state a colder, meaner place,” Walz said, referring to the Trump administration withholding funds for the programs and the president’s attacks on Somali immigrants in Minnesota. “They want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors. And, ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in America to raise a family.”
Despite the opaque references, Walz did not explicitly acknowledge the effect of a viral video from a right-wing influencer who claimed he’d found rampant fraud at day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis. But the Trump administration has cited the video in its decision to cut off certain federal funding streams, and the video’s creator, Nick Shirley, was happy to take credit for the governor’s decision.
“I ENDED TIM WALZ,” Shirley posted Monday on social media.
Walz’s exit scrambles the contest in a Democratic-leaning state that Republicans have insisted they can win. Democrats currently hold 24 out of 50 governor’s seats nationwide, with 36 seats, including Minnesota’s, on the ballot in 2026.
The candidates to replace Walz
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is considering entering the Minnesota race, according to a person close to her. The person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the senator, who ran for president in 2020, has not made a final decision.
Around a dozen Republicans are already running. They include MyPillow founder and Chief Executive Mike Lindell, an election denier who is close to Trump. They also include Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth; Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator who was the party’s 2022 candidate; state Rep. Kristin Robbins; defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor Chris Madel; former executive Kendall Qualls; and former Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann.
A military veteran, union supporter and former high school educator and coach, Walz helped enact an ambitious Democratic agenda for his state, including sweeping protections for abortion rights and generous aid to families.
Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election after his attack line against Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance — “These guys are just weird” — spread widely.
Walz continued building his national profile since his and Harris’ defeat in November. He was a sharp critic of Trump as he toured early caucus and primary states. In May, he called on Democrats in South Carolina to stand up to the Republican president, saying, “Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner.”
There were partisan reactions to Walz’s announcement
Reactions to Walz’s decision reflected the intense partisanship certain to spill into the campaign to pick his successor.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin, who led Minnesota Democrats when Walz was first elected governor in 2018, said Walz “entered public life for the right reasons and never lost sight of them.” Walz’s guiding principle, Martin added, “has always been showing up and doing the work that actually makes their lives better.”
Klobuchar, posting on X, praised Walz as “a true public servant” who made a “difficult decision” but said nothing about her own pending choice.
Another Minnesotan of national prominence, Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer was more succinct, issuing a statement that said in its entirety: “Good riddance.”
Democratic Governors Assn. Chair Andy Beshear, the second-term Kentucky governor, praised Walz as a “a national leader in fighting for the middle class” and said his organization “remains very confident Minnesotans will elect another strong Democratic governor this November.”
At the Republican Governors Assn., spokeswoman Courtney Alexander blasted Walz for “failed leadership” and argued that the eventual Democratic nominee “will need to defend years of mismanagement and misplaced priorities.”
Walz, for his part, stood by his administration’s stewardship.
“We should be concerned about fraud in our state government,” he said, adding that “a single taxpayer dollar wasted on fraud should be intolerable.” But Walz said his administration has worked diligently to address fraud and manage the state’s operations.
A look at Walz’s time as governor
Through nearly two terms as governor, Walz navigated a closely divided legislature. In his first term, he served alongside a Democratic-led House and Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, healthcare and roads. But he helped broker compromises.
He used the office’s emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools, prompting Republican pushback.
Republicans also were critical of Walz over what they saw as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Walz pleaded for calm after Floyd’s death but also stood out as a white political leader who expressed empathy toward Black Americans and their experiences with police violence.
In his second term, Walz worked with Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers to chart a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus. Minnesota eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Walz and his fellow Democrats also enacted free school meals for all students and a paid family and medical leave program that went live on Jan. 1.
That record, combined with Walz’s rural background and experience representing southern Minnesota in Congress, landed him on Harris’ radar as she considered potential running mates in 2024 after replacing Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. After a whirlwind search, she opted for Walz over other candidates including North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Walz received a warm welcome from Democratic voters but drew mixed reviews for his lone debate against Vance.
More recently, Walz has been frustrated in his efforts to enact new gun control measures following a mass shooting in August at Annunciation School in Minneapolis, which left two children dead and injured dozens. He had hoped to call a special session to consider a list of gun safety proposals.
Karnowski and Barrow write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta.
California has tried all manner of design in choosing its governor.
Democrat Gray Davis, to name a recent example, had an extensive background in government and politics and a bland demeanor that suggested his first name was also a fitting adjective.
In the end, however, their political fates were the same. Both left office humbled, burdened with lousy poll numbers and facing a well of deep voter discontent.
There are roughly a dozen major candidates for California governor in 2026 and, taken together, they lack even a small fraction of Schwarzenegger’s celebrity wattage.
Nor do any have the extensive Sacramento experience of Davis, who was a gubernatorial chief of staff under Jerry Brown before serving in the Legislature, then winning election as state controller and lieutenant governor.
That’s not, however, to disparage those running.
The contestants include a former Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa; two candidates who’ve won statewide office, schools Supt. Tony Thurmond and former Controller Betty Yee; two others who gained national recognition during their time in Congress, Katie Porter and Eric Swalwell; and Riverside County’s elected sheriff, Chad Bianco.
The large field offers an ample buffet from which to choose.
The rap on this particular batch of hopefuls is they’re a collective bore, which, honestly, seems a greater concern to those writing and spitballing about the race than a reflection of some great upwelling of citizens clamoring for bread and circuses.
With a governor seemingly more focused on his personal agenda, a 2028 bid for president, than the people who put him in office, many said they’d like to replace Gavin Newsom with someone who will prioritize California and their needs above his own.
“Why does it take so long to do simple things?” asked one of those voters, the Bay Area’s Michael Duncan, as he lamented his pothole-ridden, 120-mile round-trip commute between Fairfield and an environmental analyst job in Livermore.
The answer is not a simple one.
Politics are messy, like any human endeavor. Governing is a long and laborious process, requiring study, deliberation and the weighing of competing forces. Frankly, it can be rather dull.
Certainly the humdrum of legislation or bureaucratic rule-marking is nothing like the gossipy speculation about who may or may not bid to lead California as its 41st governor.
Why else was so much coverage devoted to whether Sen. Alex Padilla would jump into the gubernatorial race — he chose not to — and the possible impact his entry would have on the contest, as opposed to, say, his thinking on CEQA or FMAP?
(The former is California’s much-contested Environmental Quality Act; the latter is the formula that determines federal reimbursement for Medi-Cal, the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents.)
Just between us, political reporters tend to be like children in front of a toy shop window. Their bedroom may be cluttered with all manner of diversion and playthings, but what they really want is that shiny, as-yet unattained object — Rick Caruso! — beckoning from behind glass.
Soon enough, once a candidate has entered the race, boredom sets in and the speculation and desire for someone fresh and different starts anew. (Will Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta change his mind and run for governor?)
For their part, many voters always seem to be searching for some idealized candidate who exists only in their imagination.
Someone strong, but not dug in. Willing to compromise, but never caving to the other side. Someone with the virginal purity of a political outsider and the intrinsic capability of an insider who’s spent decades cutting deals and keeping the government wheels spinning.
They look over their choices and ask, in the words of an old song, is that all there is? (Spoiler alert: There are no white knights out there.)
His freewheeling political rallies and frothy social media presence were, and continue to be, a source of great glee to his fans and followers.
His performance as president has been altogether different, and far less amusing.
If the candidates for California governor fail to light up a room, that’s not such a bad thing. Fix the roads. Make housing more affordable. Help keep the place from burning to the ground.
SACRAMENTO — I’ve got a wish list for Santa and it’s topped by this urgent request: a remodeled president with at least an ounce of humanity and humility.
Maybe a Ronald Reagan type. I’m not referring here to ideology or policies. Just common decency, someone who acts presidential.
I know, forget it. That’s beyond Santa’s reach. It would require a miracle. And that’s not likely to happen with President Trump, who seems increasingly to be auditioning for the devil’s disciple.
But you’d think as we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, America could be led by a president who at minimum doesn’t publicly trash the newly deceased.
Someone who follows the basic rules of good behavior and respect for others that our mothers taught us.
For Trump, the Golden Rule seems to be only about cheapening the historic Oval Office with tasteless gilded garnishments, turning it into an extension of his Mar-a-Lago resort. That’s what you’d expect from someone who would pave over the lovely Rose Garden.
But I’ve gotten off the point: the despicable way our unhinged president treats people he deems the enemy because they’ve criticized him, as we’ve got a right and often a duty to do in a democratic America.
What our president said about Rob Reiner after the actor-director-producer and his wife Michele were brutally stabbed to death in their Brentwood home, allegedly by their son Nick, should not have shocked us coming from Trump.
He also once mocked a disabled New York Times reporter at a campaign rally, saying: “The poor guy, you ought to see this guy.” Then Trump jerked his arms around imitating someone with palsy.
Recently, he called all Somali immigrants “garbage. … We don’t want them in our country.” As for Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a onetime Somalian refugee, “she’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
But even with Trump’s sordid history of insults and insensitivity, what he disrespectfully said about Reiner was stunning. He implied that the Hollywood legend was killed by someone angered by Reiner’s criticism of Trump. Again, everything’s all about him, in this egotistical president’s mind.
Trump said the Reiners died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
Then the next day, he doubled down, telling reporters that Reiner “was a deranged person. … I thought he was very bad for our country.”
Topping off the holiday season for Trump, he orchestrated the renaming of Washington’s classy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after himself. From now on, it’s to be called the Trump Kennedy Center.
What’s next? The Washington National Cathedral?
OK, next on my Santa’s wish list is a governor who spends his last year in office trying to improve California rather than his presidential prospects. Actually, he could do the latter by doing the former: making this state a better place to live and proving his ability to sensibly govern.
Too many of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s projects fall flat, collapse or are a waste of energy and dollars.
One recently announced Newsom venture particularly is questionable. He seems to be using state resources and tax money to expand his overdone war with Trump rather than helping Californians with their everyday lives.
Yeah, well, so what? I suppose some people may be interested in that. But at taxpayers’ expense? Will the information lower gas prices? Make it easier to buy a home? Pay for childcare?
Here’s just one example of a Newsom program that failed miserably:
Early in his administration the governor announced with great fanfare that he was increasing fees on telephone service to pay for upgrading California’s 911 emergency communication system. The state spent $450 million, couldn’t make the new stuff work and abandoned the project, the Sacramento Bee reported after a lengthy investigation. Now they’re apparently going to start all over.
A little hands-on supervision by the governor next time could help.
Also on my wish list: A Legislature that doesn’t hibernate through the winter and wait until late spring before starting to push bills.
They’d need to change legislative rules. But Democrats with their supermajorities could do practically anything they wanted — even work earnestly during the cold months.
Either that or just stay home.
Included in the gift package: Legislation focused more on quality and less on quantity. This year, the Legislature passed 917 bills. My guess is that 100 meaty measures would have sufficed.
There’s one more item on my Santa list that all of America needs: A new casual greeting to replace “How ya doing?”
Nobody really wants to hear how most people are doing and they probably don’t want to candidly say anyway — not in an elevator, on the sidewalk or in a restaurant.
“Bad stomach flu,” I might honestly answer. You really want to hear that while chomping on a hamburger.
DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis accused President Trump of playing “political games” Sunday after the federal government denied disaster declaration requests after wildfires and flooding in the state earlier this year.
Polis’ office said he received two denial letters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency late Saturday. The letters are in response to requests for major disaster declarations following wildfires and mudslides in August and what Polis had described as “historic flooding” across southwestern Colorado in October.
Polis and Colorado’s U.S. senators, fellow Democrats Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, decried the denials. Polis said the state would appeal.
“Coloradans impacted by the Elk and Lee fires and the flooding in Southwestern Colorado deserve better than the political games President Trump is playing,” he said in a statement.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said Trump responds to each request for federal disaster assistance “with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute — their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”
Jackson said there is “no politicization” in Trump’s decisions on disaster aid.
The Trump administration has also yet to act on California’s request for $33.9 million in long-term disaster assistance nearly a year after the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles. Gov. Gavin Newsom said FEMA officials refused his request for a meeting when he visited Washington a few weeks ago.
Trump has raised the idea of “phasing out” FEMA, saying he wants states to take more responsibility. States already take the lead in disasters, but federal assistance comes into play when the needs exceed what they can manage on their own.
Journalist and author Lou Cannon, who was widely considered the nation’s leading authority on the life and career of President Reagan, died Friday in a Santa Barbara hospice. He was 92.
His death was caused by complications from a stroke, his son Carl M. Cannon told the Washington Post, where his father served for years as a White House correspondent.
The elder Cannon covered Reagan’s two-term presidency in the 1980s, but his relationship with the enigmatic Republican leader went back to the 1960s, when Reagan moved from acting to politics.
Cannon interviewed Reagan more than 50 times and wrote five books about him, but still struggled to understand what made Reagan who he was.
“The more I wrote,” Cannon told the Reno Gazette-Journal in 2001, “the more I felt I didn’t know.”
Cannon was born in New York City and raised in Reno, Nev., where he attended the University of Nevada in Reno and later San Francisco State College.
After service in the U.S. Army, he became a reporter covering Reagan’s first years as governor of California for the San Jose Mercury News. In 1972, Cannon began working for the Washington Post as a political reporter.
Cannon recalled first encountering Reagan in 1965 while assigned to cover a lunch event for reporters and lobbyists and being surprised by Reagan’s command of the room when he spoke.
Reagan was beginning his campaign for governor by proving he could answer questions and “was not just an actor reading a script.” At the time, the word actor was “a synonym for airhead. Well, Reagan was no airhead,” Cannon said in a 2008 interview at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.
To Cannon’s surprise, the reporters and lobbyists mobbed Reagan after the event was over to get his autograph. Cannon introduced himself.
“I remember those steely eyes of his. I thought he had this great face, but his eyes are tough,” Cannon said. “His eyes are really something.”
On the phone later, Cannon’s editor asked him what he thought of Reagan. He replied, “I don’t know anything, but if I were running this thing, why would anybody want to run against somebody that everybody knows and everybody likes? Why would you want him to be your opponent?
“I predicted that Reagan was going to be president, but I didn’t have any idea he was going to be governor,” Cannon said. “I was just so struck by the fact that he impacted on people as, not like he was a politician, but like he was this celebrity, force of nature that people wanted to rub up against. It was like seeing Kennedy again. They wanted the aura, the sun.”
In 1966, Reagan was elected governor by a margin of nearly 1 million votes and Cannon found himself “writing about Ronald Reagan every day.”
Reagan’s political opponents in California and Washington consistently underestimated him, assuming the former actor could be easily beaten at the ballot box, Cannon said. Reagan ran for president unsuccessfully twice, but had the will to keep trying until he won — twice.
“Reagan was tough, and he was determined, and you couldn’t talk him out of doing what he wanted to do,” Cannon said. “Nancy couldn’t talk him out of what he wanted to do, for god’s sakes. And certainly no advisor could or no other candidate. Ronald Reagan wanted to be president of the United States.”
Cannon’s first book on the president, “Reagan,” was published in 1982. In 1991 he published “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime,” which is regarded as a comprehensive biography of the 40th president.
Mr. Cannon’s first marriage, to Virginia Oprian, who helped him research his early books, ended in divorce. In 1985, he wed Mary Shinkwin, the Washington Post said. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Rep. Elise Stefanik announced Friday that she is suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not seek reelection to Congress, bowing out of the race in a surprise statement that said “it is not an effective use of our time” to stay in what was expected to be a bruising Republican primary.
Stefanik, a Republican ally of President Trump, said in a post on X that she was confident of her chances in the primary against Bruce Blakeman, a Republican county official in New York City’s suburbs. But she said she wanted to spend more time with her young son and family.
“I have thought deeply about this and I know that as a mother, I will feel profound regret if I don’t further focus on my young son’s safety, growth, and happiness — particularly at his tender age,” she said.
Stefanik has been an intense critic of incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is also seeking reelection but faces a primary challenge from her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.
The announcement marks an abrupt end, at least for now, for a once-promising career for Stefanik. She was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress when she won her first campaign in 2014 at just 30 years old, representing a new generation of Republicans making inroads in Washington. She ultimately rose to her party’s leadership in the House when she became the chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.
First viewed as a moderate when she came to Washington, Stefanik became far more conservative as Trump began to dominate the party. Once someone who refused to say Trump’s name, she became one of his top defenders during his first impeachment inquiry. She would go on to vote against certifying the 2020 election results, even after a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Stefanik was expected to have a bitter Republican primary against Blakeman, who also counts himself as an ally of Trump. The president had so far seemed keen on avoiding picking a side in the race, telling reporters recently: “He’s great, and she’s great. They’re both great people.”
Stefanik’s decision follows a clash with Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she accused of lying before embarking on a series of media interviews criticizing him. In one with the Wall Street Journal, she called Johnson a “political novice” and said he wouldn’t be reelected speaker if the vote were held today.
The tumultuous early December episode appeared to cool when Johnson said he and Stefanik had a “great talk.”
“I called her and I said, ‘Why wouldn’t you just come to me, you know?’” Johnson said. “So we had some intense fellowship about that.”
Still, Stefanik, the chairwoman of the House Republican leadership, has not fully walked back her criticisms. A Dec. 2 social media post remains online in which, after a provision she championed was omitted from a defense authorization bill, Stefanik accused Johnson of falsely claiming he was unaware of it, calling it “more lies from the Speaker.”
State Republican Chairman Ed Cox said the party respected Stefanik’s decision and thanked her for her efforts.
“Bruce Blakeman has my endorsement and I urge our State Committee and party leaders to join me,” Cox said in a prepared statement. “Bruce is a fighter who has proven he knows how to win in difficult political terrain.”
Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Steven Sloan and Joey Cappelletti contributed from Washington.
Gov. Pete Wilson challenged President Clinton on Thursday to make California a test market for a tamper-proof federal identification card designed to keep illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits or getting jobs in the United States.
Later, a Wilson aide said one option might be a national identification card that would be carried by every legal resident of the United States, including U.S. citizens.
Wilson’s news conference at U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service offices at Los Angeles International Airport was billed as the forum for a “major announcement regarding immigration.” In fact, Wilson’s statement expanded on his Aug. 9 program by only a small step–the proposed California test–while raising even more questions about his plan for the proposed identification card.
The governor acknowledged to a reporter that it probably is impossible to come up with a foolproof card because counterfeiters could fake birth certificates, passports or other documents that would be needed to get the card.
Wilson left unclear just who might have to possess the card: just foreign nationals living in the country legally or all U.S. citizens?
Asked who would have to carry the card, Wilson said: “Those who are applicants for employment and those who are applicants for benefits.”
Later, Wilson aide Dan Schnur said one possibility that arose during policy discussions in the governor’s office was a national identification card issued to all U.S. citizens and legal residents.
“A universal card is one option, but we’re not looking at it as an absolute condition,” Schnur said in telephone calls to reporters.
The form and scope of any card would be worked out in negotiations with the Clinton Administration, he said.
There have been periodic proposals for a national ID card, but they have always run up against strong opposition on civil liberties grounds.
Wilson was quoted by the Santa Monica Outlook while running for the U.S. Senate in 1982 that a proposed national identification card was “a lousy idea” because it would create a massive new bureaucracy. He also said he had some philosophical objections to the concept.
Schnur had no comment on that report, but he said conditions have changed greatly since the passage of immigration reform in the late 1980s and the heavy influx of illegal immigrants into California in recent years.
Thursday’s billing of a major new initiative drew a dozen television cameras and perhaps a score of reporters, a big turnout for any political event in Los Angeles. Although it turned out that Wilson’s statement was more of an expansion on a previous proposal than a major new initiative, the session did give the governor a platform for responding to critics of his Aug. 9 announcement.
Wilson said an identification card is the key to the enforcement of any of the sanctions written into federal law against employers who hire illegal immigrants for jobs in the United States. Without it, such sanctions are unenforceable, he said.
“Until we deal with the problem of document fraud, anyone proposing additional employer sanctions is simply blowing hot air,” Wilson said after examining stacks of phony passports, Social Security cards and other false documents confiscated by the INS.
Critics, including potential Democratic gubernatorial challenger Kathleen Brown, have said Wilson’s plan cracks down on illegal immigrants but not on the employers who also violate the law by hiring them.
Last week, Brown, the state treasurer, endorsed a national tamper-proof Social Security card that would have to be presented to a prospective employer before the cardholder could be hired.
In his lengthy Aug. 9 letter to Clinton, Wilson called on the federal government to compensate California for the cost of services to illegal immigrants, called for stricter enforcement of the California-Mexico border, and said children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants should not automatically become U.S. citizens or be eligible to attend public schools in California.
Wilson made no mention of stronger enforcement against employers. He proposed an identification card as something that foreign nationals in the country legally would present to qualify for state services.
Wilson said California’s modern holographic drivers licenses could be the model for a federal card, but a reporter wondered if even they could be forged, since a photographic blowup of one was among the fake IDs on display.
“You know, I don’t dispute the ingenuity of counterfeiters. . . . I think it is possible to stay technologically ahead of even expert counterfeiters,” Wilson said.
“The question really is not whether you’re going to have an entirely foolproof system, but whether you have one that works to achieve its major goal, which is to screen out the vast majority of counterfeit documents.”
Later in the day, Democratic state Chairman Bill Press chided Wilson for intervening with the INS in 1989 on behalf of a San Diego supporter, Anne Evans, whose hotels were under investigation for hiring illegal immigrants. At the time, Wilson was a U.S. senator.
Evans ultimately was accused of 362 violations of employer sanctions provisions and fined $70,000.
Schnur described Wilson’s letter, which sought a conciliation between the INS and Evans, as a routine constituent service.
