supreme court

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court announced Friday it will rule on President Trump’s ban on asylum claims at the southern border, testing a key part of his hard-line policy on immigration.

At issue is a clash between the promise of asylum for those fleeing persecution and the reality of a border overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands who arrived seeking to apply.

Trump’s lawyers said his ban on asylum claims in January 2025 was his “single most effective policy” in ending the chaos along the border.

“Over preceding four years, at least eight million illegal aliens were encountered along the southern border,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the court, “and countless millions more evaded detection and illegally entered the United States.”

The sheer numbers of people coming to the border had “overwhelmed the system,” making it impossible for U.S. officials to screen and interview asylum seekers, he said. Lacking facilities to detain applicants, most were released into the country.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration rights advocates said the right of individuals to seek asylum was recognized in U.S. law and could not be abolished.

The law authorizes asylum for people who can demonstrate they are fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality or belonging to a particular social or political group.

Federal judges in Washington agreed that asylum must be preserved. They said immigration officials were free to reject claims for asylum but they could not eliminate the right for the entire category of potential applicants.

However, their ruling was put on hold while the administration appealed to the Supreme Court.

“The president does not have the right to unilaterally override the protections Congress has afforded those fleeing danger,” said Lee Gelernt, lead counsel and deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The courts are right to reject this unprecedented power grab that would put countless lives in danger. We look forward to making our case before the Supreme Court.”

Keren Zwick, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, said the plaintiffs in the case “fled persecution and torture, including political imprisonment and threats from the Taliban. Yet, the Trump administration refused to honor its obligation to consider them for asylum.”

Instead, some of them “were removed to third countries and then pushed back to the very place they fled. This vicious attack on due process and human rights has put thousands of lives in danger.”

Federal immigration law gives the president broad authority to close the border to most migrants.

It says he “may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

The court said it would hear the case of Mullin vs. Refugee and Immigrant Center early next year and rule by June.

President Trump fancies himself a farsighted man of destiny and if his vision has often proved lacking — witness the Iranian quagmire — he was right about one thing: 2026 was going to be a rough year for Republicans.

That’s typically how midterm elections work for the party in the White House.

And so Trump, knowing the GOP’s House majority was hanging by the slenderest of threads, strong-armed Texas into redrawing its congressional map to boost Republican chances of keeping control by nabbing up to five extra seats.

The move was stunningly brazen — redistricting usually takes place once, early in a decade after the census — and it was a terrible thing to do.

Lest there’s any doubt how your friendly political columnist feels, let us repeat: It was a very, very, very, very, very bad thing. And provocative, at that.

In response, California — egged on by its White House-hankering governor — passed a ballot measure to gerrymander five of its House seats to give a big advantage to Democrats. With that, the battle was joined. More than half a dozen Republican-led states ultimately ended up redrawing their congressional districts in an effort to bypass voters and predetermine the outcome of the November election.

It didn’t work. (Yay, voters! Way to show who’s in charge!)

But that’s not nearly the end of it.

A mind-blowing election

Last week’s Republican wipeout was beyond anything that anyone, save the most hopium-addled Democrat, could have imagined. The party needed a gain of three seats to flip the House. Democrats are on track to pick up more than 40, despite all that Republican gerrymandering.

And what of those five rigged seats in California? Democrats captured them all.

“We fought fire with fire,” Gov. Gavin Newsom crowed on social media. “And won.”

At least, Newsom did. His headlining role as champion of Proposition 50, his Trump-trolling and online towel-snapping antics have turned the gallivanting governor into one of the party’s most talked-about 2028 presidential prospects.

But the body politic that he yields to incoming-Gov. Xavier Becerra didn’t fare nearly as well.

Registered Republicans make up 25% of California’s electorate and many more regularly support the GOP. In Garden Grove, supporters await GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s arrival at his election night event on Nov. 3, 2026.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The map drafted to bolster Democrats has resulted in the near-extinction of California Republicans on Capitol Hill. When the next session of Congress convenes in January, the state’s four remaining House members can caucus inside a Toyota Camry, with room to spare.

Consider: Registered Republicans make up 25% of California’s electorate and many more regularly support the GOP. The party’s share of the 52-member House delegation will be less than 8%.

If you’re a fiercely partisan Democrat, a give-no-quarter lefty or someone who’s animating political impulse is to drive your fist into the other guy’s face, this is all lip-smackingly delicious.

For everyone else, not so much.

Especially if you’re one who believes in the representative part of representative democracy and thinks that if our government and political system are to function properly, it’s important that citizens of all stripes and all political persuasions feel as though they’re invested and have a stake. In short, they need to feel as though their voice and their votes matter.

Millions of Californians now have good reason to doubt that.

Anger and agita

We’ve just witnessed an election that amounted to a primal scream. Much, if not most, of the distemper was aimed at the would-be authoritarian in the White House. But a goodly amount of anger was directed at politicians of both parties and a sense they’re focused more on power and their own interests — such as holding on to power — than the needs of those they’re supposed to represent.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that gerrymandering those five California House seats was unnecessary for Democrats to seize the majority. Given the magnitude of the blue wave, it’s quite possible they might have flipped a few of those seats even without partisan tinkering.

But that’s not just assessing the results with a 20-20 rearview.

On the day that voters approved Proposition 50 last November, Trump’s approval rating was already heading south. More than half a century of history shows a strong correlation between a president’s standing in polls and his party’s performance in the midterm election; on average, the opposition party gained more than two dozen seats. So even then it appeared highly likely that Democrats would take control of the House, even if the Texas gerrymander worked as planned.

(It didn’t. Democrats ended up winning four of the five seats the GOP intended to flip.)

Proposition 50, which undid the lines carefully drawn by the state’s nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission, was billed as a one-time, break-glass solution to a political emergency. However, the new map will stay in effect through 2030.

So much for a temporary fix.

Voters should hold Democrats to their word and see to it that the nonpartisan commission resumes its map-making role after the next census. (With California projected to lose anywhere from two to four House seats, Democrats will be sorely tempted to again hijack the process to protect their interests.)

With their new majority in Congress, Democrats should act to ban gerrymandering nationwide. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group, has put forth a proposal to begin that process, demonstrating that support exists on both sides of the aisle.

Gerrymandering is a dirty business, notwithstanding its practice dating to the Colonial era. It needs to stop.

Once and for all.

What else you should be reading

Get smart: In search of post-midterm message, Trump waffles on trusting election, immigration policy
The deep dive:Empowered congressional Democrats gear up for battles over immigration and ICE oversight
The L.A. Times Special:As Stephen Miller rises, California hopes it can blunt his force with Democratic gains
Until next time,
mzb
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WASHINGTON  — The Constitution protects the rights of Americans but normally does not allow them to sue federal agents for violating those rights.

This rights vs. remedies dispute has divided the Supreme Court for nearly 50 years.

It did so again Monday when the justices heard arguments on whether to throw out a lawsuit brought by a federal prison inmate in Hawaii who suffered a broken tailbone in a gang fight.

Kekai Watanabe said he told prison nurse Francis Nielsen he was in intense pain. He was given only an over-the-counter pain medication. Seven months later, an X-ray finally revealed the damage from the fracture and the source of his continuing agony.

Acting on his own, Watanabe sued Nielsen for cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.

A federal judge dismissed his suit, citing the Supreme Court’s decades of skepticism over such lawsuits. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived his claim and pointed to a 1980 ruling that allowed a similar suit brought by a mother whose son died of an asthma attack in a federal prison.

It was the last time the high court had upheld a lawsuit for money damages against a federal agent for violating a constitutional right.

But the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in Nielsen vs. Watanabe. And during Monday’s arguments, the justices debated whether to further narrow such lawsuits or to reject them entirely.

The court’s conservatives say only Congress can authorize lawsuits for money damages against federal agents and employees. And they noted that in the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress authorized damage suits against the United States for such claims.

“The power to create damages remedies belongs to Congress, not federal courts,” said Lucas Walker, an attorney for the prison nurse. “It’s time to end the Bivens experiment.”

He was referring to a 1971 decision in which the Supreme Court for the first time authorized such a constitutional claim for money damages against federal agent. In that case, known as Bivens, the suit was against several FBI agents for an unreasonable search during a drug raid in violation of the 4th Amendment.

Walker argued the court should overturn the Bivens case as well as the later ruling allowing a suit involving gross medical negligence.

But Joshua Wesneski, an attorney for Watanabe, said the prospect of being sued for wrongdoing “has a powerful deterrent effect.”

This issue has taken on new significance because of the aggressive and sometimes violent actions of federal immigration agents. They may be charged with a crime but they are not subject to being sued for damages by victims or their families.

After the Civil War, Congress passed an enforcement law that authorized suits against state and local officials acting under color of law who violated constitutional rights. But there is no comparably broad law for federal officers and agents.

That’s why a Los Angeles police officer who uses excessive force can be sued in a federal court, but the same is not true of a federal immigration agent.

Democrats in the Senate may try to change that in the year ahead.

Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have proposed an “Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act” to allow victims to sue for “damages for constitutional and civil rights violations committed by federal law enforcement agents.”

They said Congress needs to extend the same legal accountability to federal agents that has long applied to police and other state and local officials.

“Recent incidents — from violent ICE and CBP raids to abuses by federal task forces — have underscored this gap in accountability,” Padilla said. “These events have eroded public trust and shown how federal officers can act with impunity even when their conduct clearly violates constitutional protections.”

SACRAMENTO — Billions of words have been regurgitated analyzing how Democrats flipped so many Republican seats last week. But all that’s really needed are five: Americans flipped off the president.

My quick in-depth elaboration:

Sure, voters were fed up with a botched war that raised gas prices to an intolerable level. And they were stung financially by nonsense tariffs that jacked up costs for farming, food, manufacturing and household necessities, including Halloween candy. But there was much more.

Americans were disgusted by the bullying, vindictiveness, ICE thuggery, self-enrichment and the president’s vain focus on monuments to himself, including a silly medieval ballroom, a hideous arch and an algae-laden reflecting pool.

Beyond that, they’d lost respect for the Republican lemmings in Congress who were too cowardly to back away from President Trump and chart their own path instead of sheepishly trailing him to the fatal cliff.

OK, enough of that.

These are other observations from the election:

First, as it turns out, one additional proposition should have been placed on the California ballot: a referendum on the death penalty.

Gov. Gavin Newsom should have shown respect for voters and asked them whether they wanted to abolish capital punishment. Especially since he promised while initially running for governor to “be accountable to the will of the voters. … I would not [put] my personal opinions in the way of the public’s right to make a determination [on] the death penalty.”

Voters rejected death penalty repeals in 2012 and 2016. In fact, they voted to expedite executions in 2016.

But soon after taking office in 2019, Newsom declared a moratorium on capital punishment. And his successor-elect, Xavier Becerra, has promised to maintain the policy. OK.

But last week, Newsom took an unprecedented extra step by announcing he will commute the death sentences of all 548 convicted murderers awaiting execution, reducing their punishments to life in prison without parole.

“I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California values,” Newsom declared. That’s his opinion. But he should have asked Californians about their values.

Back to the actual election:

Trump’s and the GOP’s self-immolation was sparked in Texas and that’s where they ultimately perished so dramatically.

The president last year strong-armed Gov. Greg Abbott into gerrymandering Texas’ U.S. House seats so Republicans could pick up five. And that triggered a national gerrymandering war that the GOP lost spectacularly.

Newsom and California smartly countered Trump and Texas by gerrymandering our House districts. Voters agreed by approving Proposition 50. Last week, Democrats gained five redrawn seats in California, while Republicans were losing many in Texas and all over America. Abbott was ousted as governor, and Texas even elected its first Democratic U.S. senator since 1988.

Not even Sam Houston could have saved Texas Republicans on Nov. 3.

Another observation:

Look at the vote count in any California statewide race where a Democrat and Republican competed — whether it was Becerra versus Steve Hilton or some other partisan constitutional office. The voting percentages are the same: roughly 65% Democrat, 35% Republican — landslide numbers in all six races mimicking each other.

What does that tell us? The campaigns and the candidates didn’t matter. All that mattered was whether the candidate was a “D” or an “R.” This is how polarized we’ve become.

Most of us are voting a straight party ticket — a far cry from my parents’ proud boast in the 1950s that they voted “for the candidate, not the party.” That was healthy. This is not, although last week’s blowout in congressional elections was certainly justified.

The blue wave also swept over state elections like an El Niño storm washing away an entire beach front.

Democrats increased their supermajorities in both California legislative chambers, very likely leaving Republicans with their fewest Senate and Assembly seats since the 1880s, according to veteran political analyst Tony Quinn.

Another watershed, of course, was California’s first election of a Latino governor.

There wasn’t even one Latino legislator when I first began covering the state Capitol as a twirp reporter in 1961. Now, the governor-elect and the top leader of each legislative chamber are Latinos. And California’s senior U.S. senator is a Latino.

For decades, California was a purple state that alternately elected Democrats and Republicans to high office. That changed after 1994 when the GOP aggressively backed the infamous Proposition 187 to deny public services, including education, to undocumented immigrants. The measure was ruled unconstitutional. But 187 awakened Latinos politically in California. And the GOP slid into the abyss.

Proposition “187 is where it started. And the party really has never gotten out from under it,” says Quinn, a former Republican redistricting guru.

Trump failed to learn from the California GOP’s fatal attraction to immigration politics. Instead, he angered Latino voters everywhere by brutally corralling brown-skinned people for deportation without cause.

Mike Madrid, a former Republican strategist who wrote a book on Latino politics, says Trump’s “ICE raids terror” was “no question a big part” of what turned Latinos against the GOP after they moved toward the party in 2024.

And in California and Texas, Madrid notes, Latinos jumped at the chance to “elect one of their own” as governor.

“Let me make something crystal clear,” Becerra said in his election night victory speech, “I didn’t run to make history. I ran to make a difference. … California is exceptional, but it is far from perfect. We have a lot of work to do.”

He’ll have no excuse not to make a substantial difference with a record legislative supermajority to help, a friendly Congress and a weakened White House enemy.

In America, we rebel against tyrants. Reread the Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary we’re fittingly celebrating this historic election year.

Across the country, voters chose to rebel against the despot president and Make America Great Again.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: With death sentence clemency, Newsom takes another big political risk
California vs. Trump: Feds move to dismiss case over 20,000 ballots after Supreme Court denied appeal
The L.A. Times Special: What Becerra’s historic win says about Latino political power in California

Until next week,
George Skelton

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The U.S. Justice Department moved Friday to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit challenging the counting of 20,000 ballots in California, arguing the relief it sought is now impossible given Tuesday’s midterm election has concluded.

The Justice Department had sought a court order requiring state and Los Angeles County election officials to set aside the ballots, which it alleged could be from noncitizen voters. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter and a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had both rejected that request, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a Trump administration appeal to those lower court rulings — with no noted dissents.

Carter had ruled that the government’s request was probably unconstitutional, given the Constitution gives states and Congress power over elections, not the executive, and probably ran afoul of federal law barring sweeping vetting of voter rolls in the immediate run-up to an election.

However, he had set a schedule moving forward for additional fact-finding in the case — including by appointing a special master to dig into the data the federal government was relying on to assert the 20,000 voters were potentially noncitizens.

In a filing before Carter on Friday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Julie Hamill in Los Angeles wrote that that court process was no longer necessary, as it would not provide the relief that the federal government was seeking by filing its lawsuit.

“In light of the Supreme Court’s denial, the United States is evaluating how to best ensure that American votes are protected, including by preventing vote dilution by noncitizens. In addition, by the time of this Court’s hearing on Nov. 13 in this matter, California will have already commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones,” Hamill wrote. “There is then no way to get the challenged ballots segregated. As a result, the relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available — rendering voluntary dismissal necessary.”

Hamill wrote that the Trump administration had sought to “protect American voters and to prevent the irreparable harm of state and local election officials including illegally cast votes in the final vote tabulation,” but had “exhausted its appeals to obtain timely relief” by going to — and being denied by — the Supreme Court.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli’s office in Los Angeles — where Hamill works — referred questions about the filing to the Justice Department.

Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the litigation at issue was “moot” but that the Trump administration “is not backing down” in its targeting of alleged noncitizen voters, including in a separate case in which it is still demanding that California “conduct proper list maintenance, including removing noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls — which will be crucial to ensure fair elections in the future.”

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a defendant in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan, another defendant, said he was “pleased that the administration has accepted the clarity of the court findings” against it and ended its lawsuit.

“At each stage of this election, and in response to the Department of Justice, we have been clear that state and federal law sets well-defined standards for verifying and challenging voter eligibility,” Logan said. “Our commitment and focus remain on the fair, secure, accurate, and legal processes we are engaged in to complete and certify the election.”

California Atty. Gen Rob Bonta, in a statement, said that after losing in every court it tried, including the Supreme Court, “the Trump Administration has given up its latest unlawful effort to interfere with California’s elections and disenfranchise eligible voters.”

Bonta added: “Rest assured: California has and always will defend your fundamental right to vote.”

Tricia Webber, president of the California Assn. of Clerks and Election Officials, said state election officials “are very pleased” with the voluntary dismissal of the case — which she said “affirms that our elections are administered with the utmost integrity and care.”

“At the same time, we are under no illusions. We recognize that this issue is unlikely to go away permanently, and we remain fully prepared to continue defending California’s election administration against future challenges,” she said. “We will always stand ready to protect every eligible voter’s right to participate in a fair and secure election process.”

The administration’s filing — three days after President Trump’s party took a drubbing in the midterms — marks a sudden and unremarkable conclusion to an unprecedented court battle in the days leading up to the election, when the federal government sought permission from the courts to force state and local elections officials to set aside votes during an ongoing election.

Carter had rejected the administration’s request for immediate intervention in a blistering Oct. 28 ruling, calling its allegations about the ineligible voters “not credible” and warning that the proposed action could disenfranchise eligible voters and sow chaos in the ongoing midterm election.

“This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections,” Carter wrote. “If [the Trump administration’s] last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process.”

While Justice Department officials characterized the relief it had requested from the court as “targeted and modest,” Carter had reached a sharply different conclusion — writing that the administration’s demands would “wreak havoc” on an ongoing election and “create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.”

The reliability of the government’s list became a central issue in the litigation. Logan’s office said its review of about 200 flagged voters found that a substantial portion appeared to have been born in the United States, a finding Homeland Security officials disputed.

Election officials elsewhere in California also reported problems with the lists, including names of people who did not appear to live in their counties or to be registered voters. Justice Department officials sent letters to election officials across the state, demanding that they sequester flagged ballots and warning of potential criminal penalties if they failed to comply.

The three-judge 9th Circuit panel that heard the federal government’s appeal to Carter’s ruling — composed of two appointees of President Trump and one of President Biden — came to some of the same conclusions Carter did in a 2-1 ruling. One of the Trump appointees dissented, writing that he would have ruled for the administration.

Carter ordered an expedited hearing on the state’s and county’s motions to dismiss the case and the government’s motion for a preliminary injunction. He ordered all parties by Nov. 6 to submit witness lists, including experts, regarding the reliability of the list of voters and the methodology behind it. He ordered both sides to appear at the Nov. 13 hearing, with submitted witnesses prepared to take the stand.

Ending the litigation now will forestall that process to detail the origins of the administration’s list — which is still being used by federal prosecutors in California to target individual voters for criminal prosecution.

WASHINGTON  — In its latest chapter on religion in schools, the Supreme Court debated Tuesday whether Colorado may fund private preschools for 4-year-olds but exclude Catholic schools that refuse to serve same-sex parents and their children.

The court’s six conservatives, all of whom were raised Catholic, leaned in favor of ruling the state was discriminating based on religion.

The state offered funding to all preschools but said they must abide by an “equal opportunity” rule that forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett said state officials “chose to impose a condition” they knew those Catholic schools “will be unable to agree to.”

In contrast, the court’s three liberals said the Catholic schools were not seeking equal treatment but a new right to discriminate.

“You are asking for a special rule for religious schools,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the state opened the funding program to all schools, including church-related schools. “The Catholic schools are not being excluded. They’re choosing not to participate because they won’t get an exemption,” she said.

In the last decade, the court’s conservative majority has strengthened the 1st Amendment’s protection for the “free exercise of religion.”

States and local governments need not offer public funds to private groups and entities, the justices said. But if they do so, they may not single out religious schools or people and deny them public funding that is open to all.

They struck down laws in Minnesota and Maine that denied scholarships or school funds to students who enrolled in a religious school. And they ruled the city of Philadelphia could not bar Catholic social services from providing foster care because they did not work with same-sex couples.

Despite that history, Colorado adopted a strong “equal opportunity” law in 2022 to go with its new state funding for preschools.

The state voters had approved a ballot measure in 2020 to provide public funding for a year of preschool prior to kindergarten. Both public and private schools were encouraged to participate.

The state pays for 15 hours per week and provides parents about $6,000 in tuition.

Lawmakers said eligible schools must provide children “an equal opportunity to enroll regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level or disability.”

The Archdiocese of Denver oversees 34 Catholic preschools. Parents were told they must support and affirm the teachings of the church, including on matters of gender and marriage.

In light of the new funding law, the church asked for an accommodation that would allow “faith based providers to participate in the program without compromising their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The state refused. It said “no provider may discriminate against children or families in violation of the state statute.”

St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton, Colo., and two of its parents sued, alleging a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Their attorneys — the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty — argued that no LGBTQ+ family has been harmed or claimed discrimination under the preschool funding law, while “thousands of Catholic families have zero Catholic preschools available to them.”

They lost before a federal judge and the 10th Circuit Court. Those judges said the state did not target the Catholic schools or treat them differently from others because of their religious beliefs.

The Supreme Court agreed in April to hear the case of St. Mary Catholic Parish vs. Roy.

During Tuesday’s argument, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh voiced dismay over how this case arose.

“This seems like a would-be solution in search of a problem. Why are we here?” he asked a state attorney.

He and Barrett said same-sex couples did not seek to have their children enrolled in Catholic preschools. Meanwhile, other parents were denied state funds because of the marriage and family policies of the Catholic parishes.

The court is likely to hand down a decision in several months.

The Justice Department sent a last-minute surge of election monitors into Los Angeles Tuesday morning, hours after losing the latest legal tug-of-war over California’s 20,000 contested ballots.

In a pair of decisions late Monday night, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published and then quickly rescinded a decision that would have allowed the Trump administration to prosecute election workers who processed contested ballots, even after their demands to segregate them were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Then, as dawn broke on Election Day, the Justice Department announced it was sending out “1,000 election monitors and observers” across the U.S. in what it called “the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history.”

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Detroit were among the dozens of jurisdictions where monitors were sent under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — legislation the President Trump has worked tirelessly to gut across both his administrations.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the federal monitors “will be at polling locations,” but that the department is not “giving out precinct details.”

The move was widely seen as an intimidation tactic.

“They’re not doing this to make sure that there are free and fair elections,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the Supreme Court. “They’re doing this for nakedly partisan reasons, and the federal government shouldn’t be allowed do that.”

California officials were quick to hit back.

“We’ll have our observers on site keeping an eye on your monitors to ensure the integrity of California’s free, fair, safe, secure, accurate, and reliable elections,” Bonta vowed on social media as the spat escalated early Tuesday morning.

The Justice Department said it would also send monitors to San Diego, Sacramento and Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sudden influx of election monitors and the dramatic about-face in appellate court are the latest wild swings in the Golden State’s protracted midterm brawl with the federal government — a fight that has captured national attention amid growing concerns of election interference by the Trump administration.

“On the eve of Election Day, Defendants insist they must be free to use their prosecutorial powers to do what they could not through their applications for injunctions in this court and the Supreme Court,” 9th Circuit Chief Judge Mary Helen Murguia wrote in her dissent to the initial 2-1 ruling, which appeared just after 8 p.m. Monday night.

“The district court properly attempted to put a stop to Defendants’ efforts to intimidate election workers into abandoning lawful state election procedures through spurious threats of prosecution,” Murguia wrote.

By 11 p.m. the decision had been reversed, with the court setting aside its previous ruling while it reviewed the case with a larger en banc panel.

It was the latest legal blow for the administration in what had been a months long effort to claw back ballots it claims may have been issued to noncitizens, while publicly threatening to prosecute election workers who process them when its efforts were rebuffed in court.

Last week, the Justice Department sent criminal grand jury subpoenas to election workers in Los Angeles seeking reams of data related to efforts to comply with its demands.

Unions and voting rights groups sued in federal court, saying the efforts amounted to “a coordinated campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce” civil servants into holding back legitimate ballots.

On Friday, after the 9th Circuit had ruled for California in the ballot claw-back case, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco issued a blistering order blocking the Justice Department from dangling criminal liability over elections workers or demanding voters be stripped from the rolls.

“In the lead-up to the election, high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in administering the ongoing midterm 2026 election,” Thompson wrote.

“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” the judge wrote.

Then, on Monday afternoon, mere minutes after it was asked to consider the question, the Supreme Court returned an unsigned decision in California’s favor, appearing, at least briefly, to foreclose further efforts to stop those ballots being counted.

“This latest decision should put an end to the Administration’s attempt to disrupt California’s elections through emergency court orders,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in response to the Supreme Court decision Monday.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the late-breaking 9th Circuit decision spurred a flurry of confusion and conjecture just hours before polls were set to open in the country’s most populous state.

In the wake of the court rulings, Segall and others said the Trump administration’s move to deploy election monitors was part of a troubling pattern. The law professor worried the Supreme Court could weaponize what remains of the Voting Rights Act to benefit the president and his party.

“So far they’ve said we’re going to cut the legs off [the Act] so as not to help Democrats, but the next iteration of this will be to use the Voting Rights Act to help the Republican Party,” he said.

WASHINGTON  — On the day before the midterm election, Trump administration lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene and set aside ballots from 20,000 California voters who the administration says may not be citizens.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer filed an emergency appeal on Monday.

“The Court should issue a limited injunction directing California to stop commingling suspected illegal ballots with legal ones,” he wrote, “pending completion of the United States’ appeal to the 9th Circuit and further review in this Court.”

He said the court should require “California to segregate mail ballots from persons whom the United States has identified as likely non-citizens. The court should also enter an administrative injunction to that effect while it considers this application.”

It’s not clear whether the court will see this as an emergency.

The appeal goes first to Justice Elena Kagan. She could ask for a response from California, which would take days.

So far, the administration has lost before a federal judge in Los Angeles and twice at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Those judges said that Trump’s lawyers were wrong on the Constitution and that their complaint came too late for this election.

In May, more than 23 million Californians were registered to vote, and the majority lean in favor of Democrats. But Trump claimed again last week “there are hundreds of thousands of bad ballots, bad votes, in California. Millions, in my opinion.”

In mid-October, the Trump administration sued and said federal courts should require California and Los Angeles County to “set aside vote-by-mail ballots from persons identified by the federal government likely to be non-citizens.”

Federal law says that within 90 days of an election, officials may not “systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”

Separately, the Supreme Court also has repeatedly frowned on “late-breaking, court-ordered rule changes” involving elections.

The California court cases have also put a spotlight on the state vs. federal divide in election law.

Usually, federal laws are deemed to be the “supreme law” and override state laws that are in conflict. No one disputes U.S. prosecutors may bring criminal fraud charges against noncitizens who violate a federal law by registering with a state to vote and casting an illegal ballot.

But election rules and procedures are different. The Constitution says “the Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state,” unless Congress acts by law to “alter” its regulations.

The 9th Circuit judges in Friday’s opinion said that “this clause expressly dictates which sovereign has the authority to prescribe the manner in which congressional elections are conducted.”

“If the United States believes different procedures are necessary for vote-by-mail ballots, we believe it should take that suggestion to Congress, not the courts,” said Judges Mark J. Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel P. Sanchez, a Biden appointee.

Dissenting Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, a Trump appointee, called the administration’s proposal to separate the 20,000 ballots a “reasonable request” and a “modest remedy” for the problem of illegal voting.

The majority cited a 2013 opinion written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“The Elections Clause functions as a default provision,” he wrote. “It invests the states with responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections,” unless Congress adopts a different rule.

Scalia spoke for a 7-2 majority that rejected an Arizona law that required voters to show documentary proof of their citizenship when registering to vote. In the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, Congress said voters may register to vote by filling out a form and attesting under oath they are citizens.

California does the same under state law.

Scalia said the federal voter registration law did not allow Arizona to adopt new and stricter rules.

In dissent, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito said they would go farther to protect the states from federal interference in elections.

“Given states’ exclusive authority to set voter qualifications and to determine whether those qualifications are met,” Thomas said the Arizona restriction should have been upheld.
“The Constitution reserves for the States the power to decide who is qualified to vote in federal elections,” Alito added.

Last month, Trump’s prosecutors brought fraud charges against 28 lawful immigrants in California who are alleged to have registered or voted in the past even though they are not citizens. They did so under a 1996 immigration law which made it “unlawful for any alien” to vote in a federal election.

The notion of segregating potentially suspect ballots is not a new issue for the Supreme Court.

In November 2020, Alito agreed with Pennsylvania state officials and said they should set aside late-arriving mail ballots to be counted separately.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state election officials and the state Supreme Court agreed to waive part of the state’s law and allow for counting mail ballots that arrived up to three days late.

Republicans strongly objected. That led to Alito’s order. But in the end, the small number of late votes made no difference because the Democratic candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, decisively won Pennsylvania’s votes and defeated Trump.

The California dispute is different because the state has not changed its voting rules or election procedures. Instead, it is the Trump administration that sought a late change in California’s voting rules and election procedures.

SACRAMENTO —  Xavier Becerra hasn’t even been elected yet — officially, anyway — and I am already bored.

The Democrat merely seemed to be going through the motions in a plodding gubernatorial campaign he couldn’t possibly lose.

That said, it isn’t a governor’s job to excite any journalist or to entertain the public.

It’s OK for a governor to be boring — Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, for example — if they can produce results that improve the state and lives of its residents.

California needs a governor who gets stuff done. Boring is acceptable, even in this fast-paced polarized world. But a do-nothing governor who’s just moseying along is intolerable.

We’ve had a showboat governor for nearly eight years. Gavin Newsom and Californians would have been better off if he’d spent more time governing hands-on and less chasing national media and the presidency.

We can’t know yet what kind of governor Becerra will be — except rather boring, most likely. No Jerry Brown or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Will this 68-year-old career politician with the yardlong resume have the resolve and courage to stand up to special interests — labor as well as business, immigration rights activists and rich techies alike — and make timely decisions they won’t like?

Decisions such as whether the state should continue rolling back Medi-Cal healthcare benefits for undocumented immigrants.

Newsom and the Democrat-dominated Legislature began providing free Medi-Cal for all low-income Californians regardless of their immigration status. But reality quickly smacked them in the face. The state couldn’t afford the generosity. So the governor and lawmakers began retreating.

Becerra, who will be California’s first elected Latino governor, is the proud son of Mexican immigrants. Will he make the prudent decision to chop more Medi-Cal benefits for undocumented noncitizens, especially in the wake of President Trump’s huge cutbacks in federal healthcare funds?

The new governor will need to act fast on all things involving money. He must send his first state budget proposal to the Legislature by Jan. 10, six days after taking office. For practical reasons, he has to decide by mid-December.

He could kick the can down the road until the annual May budget revision, using the excuse of revenue uncertainty and needing more time for study. But that would be seen by many as a sign of indecisiveness and weakness. Not a good start.

During the campaign, Becerra talked vaguely about the lofty goal of universal healthcare coverage, but never was specific about how he’d achieve it.

He has long advocated “Medicare for all.” But that’s not the same as government-run “single payer,” the dream of Democratic progressives. Medicare for all is, well, just that. And Medicare is not single-payer because it allows for supplemental private insurance. The issue of universal coverage is horrendously complicated and the goal is massively expensive.

Another contentious budget decision Becerra must make soon is what to do about the sputtering bullet train. Scrap it or keep throwing tax money at the failed project that’s decades behind schedule and $100 billion over budget. No tracks have even been laid.

One immediate problem: High-speed rail’s anticipated $1-billion annual funding source from the state’s Cap-and-Invest program is drying up. That’s because industrial polluters aren’t buying permits to emit greenhouse gas like they were. It’s a long story that means short revenue for rail construction.

“We’re going to build the bullet train, but not this bullet train,” Becerra told me in April. “It’s too expensive. Sit everybody down and come out with a position.”

Lately, he has been promising to “clean shop” at the High-Speed Rail Authority and “get this done the right way. We’re not gonna have this overspending.”

OK, but based on his campaigning, Becerra still doesn’t know “the right way.” That’s understandable. No one else seems to either. Take your time, Xavier, but not a lot — or you’ll be seen as part of the problem, like Newsom is.

There’s a long list of nagging state dilemmas we didn’t hear specific solutions for during Becerra’s sleepwalk campaign. He spoke mostly in generalities. Did he not know the fixes? Or was he too risk-averse to speak out? Probably both.

Becerra adhered to the old playbook taught to young political consultants in campaign management 101:

If you’re ahead, hide. When you do emerge from under the bed, avoid risky provocation. It could cost you poll points and potentially the election.

Becerra did get out and jog round the track — never a sprint and always stepping cautiously.

He missed a golden opportunity.

Becerra had nothing to lose. He was a Democrat running against a Trump-embraced Republican in a deep blue state angry at the GOP president. He could have created some excitement by making bold pronouncements about, for example, what he’d do “first thing on Day One.”

He certainly should have participated in more than one general election debate, especially after initially declaring that he would. He performed well in his one debate — coming across as calm, likable and capable.

Becerra should have held more — and more meaty — news conferences with reporters. The few he engaged in were relatively brief and unenlightening, I’m told by colleagues.

He missed a chance to build a solid statewide support base that could help when the postinaugural honeymoon quickly ends.

But that‘s not his natural style. And, anyway, when all the votes are counted, he’ll be a landslide winner.

One smart move at the end: helping Democratic candidates in hot House races by campaigning with them.

Becerra could be just the governor California needs: an experienced pol knowledgeable on most issues — a longtime U.S. House member, state attorney general and U.S. Health secretary.

Importantly, he’s not someone who craves national attention. He’ll be focused on the job he was elected to.

He’ll just need to be bolder, more decisive and move faster than what we saw during the campaign — while having the guts to tell allies “no.”

That wouldn’t be boring. It could be exciting.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Support dwindles for wealth tax, voter ID ballot measures, new poll shows
CA vs. Trump: Justice Dept. sent subpoenas to L.A. election officials. What that means and what happens next
The L.A. Times Special: Voter guide to the 2026 California general election

Until next week,
George Skelton

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Today we discuss board games, snacks and boomerangs.

So where do things stand less than a week from election day?

With the usual caveats, about no certainties in life or politics …

Of course …

…. it seems pretty darned certain that Democrats are going to take control of the House next week, notwithstanding the delusions (or professed confidence) of Speaker Mike Johnson and his Republican allies. The only question is the margin.

Democrats need to flip just three seats, and even the most conservative handicappers (in terms of circumspection, not political views) see them netting more than half a dozen, at a minimum. From there, forecasts climb into the double digits.

“In the best-case scenario,” Erin Covey wrote in a recent analysis for the Cook Political Report, Democrats “could enter the new Congress with more seats than they had after successfully flipping control of the House in 2006 and 2018.”

Didn’t Republicans gerrymander several states to boost their chances?

They did, starting in Texas. Then California moved to gerrymander its political map, to boost Democratic chances.

That helped precipitate a nationwide redistricting war which, once the haze cleared, resulted in a third of the nation’s 435 House districts being redrawn to at least some extent. But that only marginally increased Republicans’ advantage. And there are signs the rejiggering of political lines may have backfired, or boomeranged, on the GOP.

How so?

By spreading their reliable voters thin and counting on support from 2024 Trump backers who’ve since soured on the president. In particular Latinos. In doing so, Republicans have put several House seats into play, most notably in Texas and Florida.

That’s what’s known in the business as a “dummymander.”

A knife’s edge

What about the Senate?

That remains a toss-up, which few would have imagined at the start of this election season.

Virtually all the contests that will decide control of the Senate are being fought in states that President Trump carried — several by landslide margins — making them not exactly friendly Democratic territory. But war, inflation and Trump’s wretched approval rating have dragged GOP candidates down in states such as Kansas, Mississippi and Texas, which, a year ago, would have required hallucinogens to appear remotely competitive.

So what’s the math?

Democrats need to hold on to all of their seats and gain four to flip the Senate.

While incumbent Jon Ossoff seems certain to win in Georgia, Democratic-held seats in Minnesota, New Hampshire and, especially, Michigan are more problematic. In terms of pickup opportunities, the aforementioned Kansas and Texas are toss-ups, along with Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Maine. North Carolina seems ready to flip Democrats’ way.

And, who knows, there might be a surprise or two — which, obviously, wouldn’t be a surprise if we’re talking about it here.

One thing to bear in mind: Close races all tend to break in favor of one party or the other. Think of dominoes falling, not checkers hopscotching across the board.

Polls look good for Democrats.

They do. But as both of my faithful readers know, your friendly political columnist can’t stand the constant chattering about polls.

It’s not just how surveys understated Trump’s support the two times he won the White House. (In their defense, pollsters did pretty well in the last two midterm elections, in 2018 and 2022.)

It’s that too many people — including folks who should know better — ascribe a false precision to polls, which at best offer nothing more than an educated guess.

Are the polls again overstating Democratic support?

Could be.

In a recent analysis, the Economist found that polls tend to underestimate a party’s strength in states they dominate. That could mean surveys showing toss-up races in red states such as Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas could be overstating Democratic strength.

(Research also has shown that dispirited voters are less likely to participate in a poll, which could mean an oversampling of Democratic sentiments despite quite conscious attempts to adjust and weight the data.)

All of which is to say, ignore the polls and don’t let your hopes get too high, or your mood too low. We’ll have election results soon enough.

What does the early voting tell us?

Nothing dispositive. (That’s a fancy way of saying, again, don’t read too much into those numbers.)

Democrats are evidently way more enthused about voting this election than Republicans. And there have been some eye-popping turnout numbers among Black and Latino voters. But maybe Republicans are holding back to cast their ballots closer to or on election day.

Things will be abundantly clear after the fact, as they always are.

Table stakes

How about all the money Republicans — and Elon Musk — are pouring into the election?

It’s gross. But money alone is not determinative.

Just ask Tom Steyer, who spent the GDP of a small country on his failed run for California governor. Or Trump, who was outspent by Hillary Clinton nearly 2-to-1 when he was elected in 2016.

A certain amount of money is necessary to compete; it’s like the table stakes required for a serious competitor to get into the race. Beyond that, factors like candidate performance, external events and, especially, the overall political climate matter a good deal more.

The big Republican money advantage can help drive turnout, which is no small thing, especially if it helps coax reluctant GOP voters to the polls. But elections aren’t like vending machines, where the more money you put in, the more you take out.

Thankfully, we haven’t reached a point where public office can be purchased automatically like soda or a candy bar. At least not yet.

So get out and vote, or make a plan to, if you haven’t already.

What else you should be reading

Get smart: Many Latinos are done with Trump. The shift is especially striking in Texas
The deep dive: “A butter knife against a nuclear arsenal:” Tech billionaires vastly outspend wealth tax supporters
The L.A. Times Special: Skelton: Need help deciding on the state ballot measures? Here are my recommendations
Until next time,
mzb
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SACRAMENTO — You haven’t voted yet because the state propositions are too bewildering? I’m with you. There are too many for normal human consumption. But I’ve figured them all out at last.

I’ve concocted my own personal voter information guide that I’ll share here. Heads up: I’m negative on most measures, including some expected to pass.

Anyway, here’s my thinking:

Proposition 1: Affordable housing bond

The state would borrow $11.25 billion for affordable housing programs, mainly to provide below-market rentals for poor people. Students and farmworkers also would benefit minimally. So would military veterans through the CalVet program. The proposal is packed with goodies aimed at drawing broad political support. Which it has.

But it’s an expensive item — costing the state at least $500 million annually for 25 years. Taxpayers already are paying about $6 billion annually to retire $80 billion in bond debt.

This measure is too costly given our fragile, chaotic state budget. There should have been more prioritizing. I’m a “no” vote.

Proposition 2: Doubles the state’s ‘rainy day’ fund

It requires the Legislature to pour money into the state savings account until it reaches 20% of general fund tax revenue, rather than the current 10%. The fund can be tapped when the economy sours and revenue falls.

Sure, save away if you can. Yes.

Proposition 3: Makes high tax rates permanent

This would cement the nation’s highest state income tax rates into the California Constitution — up to 12.3%, affecting the top 2% of earners with incomes above $371,000 for single filers and $743,000 for married couples. (Million-dollar earners pay an added 1%.) The money helps fund schools, healthcare and other state programs.

The high rates were sold to voters as temporary in 2012. Later, voters extended them until 2031.

My hesitancy: Tax rates should not be embedded in the constitution where they can only be altered by voters. The governor and legislators should do their jobs and update our volatile state tax system. Moreover, “temporary” shouldn’t be translated into “permanent.” And there’s no rush. The rates don’t expire for five years. No.

Proposition 4: Repeals ban on public financing of election campaigns

This would allow the state and local governments to create partial public financing systems for political candidates. “Charter” cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco already can.

Look, either wealthy donors and special interests buy the politicians or the public does. Anyway, if a few major cities are permitted to enact public financing, all cities should be. Yes.

Proposition 5: Changes recall elections

Currently, voters decide two questions in a state recall election: 1. Should the official be recalled? 2. Who should be the replacement? Under this proposal, only the first question would be asked. Any replacement would be determined by the normal non-recall process. Depending on the office, that usually ends up in a special election.

This makes lots of sense. Too many shabby games have been played with the present bifurcated system. Yes

Proposition 37: Down payment loans for home buyers

Middle-income buyers could take out a second mortgage to cover most of their 20% down payment on a newly constructed home. They’d need to dig up only 3% in cash. The program would be financed by a $25-billion state revenue bond, repaid by home buyers. Lending institutions would qualify the borrowers and take the risk, costing the state zilch.

This makes sense. Easy yes.

Proposition 38: Medical research bond

The state would borrow $8.4 billion to fund research into cures for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other ailments. The state cost: at least $500 million annually for 20 years.

My hang-up is that the measure was crafted to assure that half the money goes to one institute, whose billionaire founder is the proposition’s chief backer. State money should be available to all potential bidders. No.

Proposition 39: Voter ID

This would force everyone to show a government ID before being allowed to vote. Those casting mail ballots would need to write a four-digit PIN on the back of the return envelope.

There’s simply no evidence of widespread voter cheating anywhere. This measure is unneeded and would just hassle voters and slow the vote count. Flat no.

Proposition 40: The billionaire tax

It would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ worth, probably raising tens of billions of dollars. Ninety percent would go to healthcare to replace federal funding cutbacks.

This is nutty. There’s no such thing as a temporary tax. Proposition 3 is an example. We shouldn’t have a one-time tax anyway. It’s like a sugar high that quickly wears off. Then what? Who’s next to have their wealth taxed? Want a wealth tax? Make it national to keep billionaires from fleeing California with their riches for more friendly states. No way.

Proposition 41 and Proposition 42: Twin poison pills

Ignore their superficial intents, the sole purpose of both measures is to invalidate the billionaires tax.

I don’t like Proposition 40, but I also detest deceptive games-playing with ballot initiatives. They should be discouraged. No.

Proposition 43: Raises vote requirement for local tax hikes

Currently, special tax increases placed on a local ballot by citizen signature-collecting require only a simple majority vote. This measure would increase the threshold to two-thirds, the same as if proposed by a city council or county supervisors board.

It’s ridiculously confusing. But I don’t like two-thirds requirements for taxes because a minority of voters can overrule the majority. That’s undemocratic. No.

The low-profile measure would require local nonprofit clinics caring for poor people to spend 90% of their funds on health services.

This smacks of a failed negotiating tactic by the union sponsor of the billionaires tax. Many clinics say they’d need to close shop. No.

Proposition 45: Regulatory streamlining for building projects

This would substantially overhaul the environmental protection act that has kept California less polluted from development projects. The act also has been sorely abused and used as a tool to stop projects, particularly housing. This measure would make it easier to build, not just housing but many things, such as water facilities, clean energy, giant warehouses and freeway expansions.

It goes too far, enabling sprawl and leaving citizens with fewer weapons to fight projects. The Legislature has been trimming home building regulations and should continue. No on 45.

Happy voting. I’m glad I didn’t vote early so there’d be time to bone up on this hodgepodge.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: “A butter knife against a nuclear arsenal”: Tech billionaires vastly outspend wealth-tax supporters
Against the wind: Hope and despair simmer among California Republicans ahead of election day
CA vs. Trump: ‘This is not normal’: Feds demand California counties set aside ‘likely’ noncitizen ballots

Until next week,
George Skelton

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SAN FRANCISCO — Nancy Pelosi is, beyond doubt, a figure who will long endure, her name forever pressed into the pages of the nation’s history books.

She is the first — and, so far, only — woman to wield the gavel as speaker of the House. She was indispensable to passage of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Working with presidents of both parties, she twice helped keep the American economy from tanking.

She played political field marshal through numerous election cycles, raising astronomical sums to help push Democrats into the majority. When a doddering Joe Biden threatened the party’s hold on the White House and foreshadowed a 2024 congressional wipeout, Pelosi used her considerable influence to not so gently ease the president aside as Democrats’ nominee for the White House.

Why, then, with so much at stake in November, would one of Pelosi‘s last acts before retirement be mucking about in the elbow-throwing, bone-crunching race between the two San Francisco Democrats vying to succeed her in January?

Is it a grudge she holds against Scott Wiener, the prolific and prolifically ambitious state senator, who boldly launched his candidacy last fall before Pelosi had even announced her plans to retire?

Is it resentment that Wiener’s years-long maneuvering blocked the ascension of Pelosi’s daughter, Christine, who’d been widely talked about as her mom’s name-brand successor? (Instead, she’s running for Wiener’s seat in 2028, or sooner if he makes it to Congress.)

Is it Pelosi once more leaning into her long-standing role as a champion of women and women in politics, which drew her to support Supervisor Connie Chan?

Perhaps it’s a bit of all three.

Pelosi, for her part, told reporters that “nobody knows Congress better than I do” and she believes, simply enough, that Chan “would be the best member of Congress.”

But maybe there’s something more elemental.

“Pelosi is the daughter of a machine politician,” said Eric Jaye, a strategist who’s spent decades working in and around San Francisco politics. “She moves from Baltimore” — where her father was a congressman and mayor — “and becomes initially a lieutenant in the political machine here and, ultimately, the general of it.

“She’s playing by the classic rules of machine politics,” Jaye said, “which is the machine has the prerogative of choosing the line of succession…. Nancy Pelosi wanted to be able to make that choice.”

Peas in a pod

Chan, a leader of the city’s progressive wing and a favorite of organized labor, was languishing until Pelosi delivered her endorsement in the final stretch of the primary campaign. Her imprimatur sent Chan surging past tech millionaire Saikat Chakrabarti to place second behind Wiener.

With less than two weeks until election day, the November runoff appears too close to call, though many give Wiener the edge.

There is little that substantively divides the two candidates, both liberals in good standing. Wiener is considered the more moderate of the two, graded on San Francisco’s very-left curve.

“Connie Chan and Scott Wiener are going to vote the same way 99.9% of the time,” said Jim Ross, another longtime San Francisco political strategist. Further, he noted, it’s going to be years before either acquires the clout needed to be a significant force on Capitol Hill. “That’s just the reality of how Congress works.”

Which makes Pelosi’s heavy involvement in their fratricidal fight all the more striking.

She’s put her hefty fundraising muscle behind Chan, helping narrow Wiener’s financial advantage. She’s appeared in pro-Chan advertising — striding in her trademark stilettos — and lent her Washington communications director to the campaign.

She’s also collared Chan a list of glossy endorsements, including Sen. Adam Schiff, former Sen. Barbara Boxer and San José Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the chair of California’s Democratic congressional delegation. Wiener has Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and several Democratic House members in his corner.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor and longtime Pelosi ally, has not endorsed either candidate.

A house divided

San Francisco politics have long been personal, nasty and brutish. The city’s close quarters and intraparty rivalries help make it so, and Pelosi’s intervention has further frayed old ties and strained deep-seated alliances.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a San Francisco philanthropist and one of the Democratic Party’s most influential donors, told Politico she couldn’t understand why Pelosi would use her final months in office to torpedo Wiener’s campaign. She’s spoken to other prominent Democrats, Buell said, who felt pressured to endorse Chan because the speaker emerita hit them up.

“All you do is say, ‘Why, why is this happening?’ ” Buell wondered aloud.

It’s been nearly 40 years — going back to when Pelosi was first elected in 1987 — since San Francisco had an open congressional seat. Winning here is tantamount to a lifetime appointment; since 1964, just three people have held the seat Pelosi is vacating.

Both Wiener, who is gay, and Chan, who immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong, are bidding to write their own bit of history. Wiener, 56, would be the first out LGBTQ+ person to represent San Francisco in Congress. Chan, 48, would be the first Asian American.

As for Pelosi, her aggressive intervention in the contest won’t even merit “a footnote in her biography,” Jaye said.

Her place in posterity is sealed, regardless of who wins or loses Nov. 3.

What else you should be reading

Get smart: Becerra’s muted gubernatorial campaign comes to life in home stretch
The deep dive: In tight Texas Senate race, Trump’s immigration crackdown tests Republicans’ hold on voters
The L.A. Times Special: California residents accused by feds of voter fraud react with shock, confusion and anger

Until next time,
mzb
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WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider outlawing school diversity policies that limit Asian American students at magnet programs and selective high schools.

Three years ago, the court ruled that Harvard and other universities may not discriminate on whom they admit based on the race of their applicants. Evidence in that case showed that Asian applicants with very high test scores were often turned down.

But the justices have been divided over admissions rules for highly selective high schools in Boston, New York and Fairfax County, Va., as well as magnet programs for gifted middle school students.

In most instances, judges have said school officials may use “race-neutral” policies to achieve racial diversity. For example, giving an automatic admission to the top 5% of the students in all of a big city’s high schools or its middle schools could achieve greater racial and ethnic diversity.

But the court’s conservatives, led by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito, have condemned such policies as thinly disguised racial discrimination.

Magnet programs exist across the country, including in California and Los Angeles, and were conceived as a form of voluntary integration — a way to get white students to attend the same schools as nonwhite students, without having to resort to forced busing.

The idea was that a special school program would be attractive enough to serve as a “magnet” for white students to enroll at a school they might not otherwise attend. A mix of white and nonwhite students was seen as a benefit to the nonwhite students, because white students would be sharing the fate of the nonwhite students.

Asian students were frequently part of that original equation on the nonwhite side of the ledger and counted with other students classified as nonwhite, such as Black or Latino students. But in terms of student achievement, Asian students have performed more like white students, frequently surpassing white students academically.

One subset of magnet schools requires a selective admissions process, and these are at the center of the current dispute.

The court agreed to hear an appeal from parents in Montgomery County, Md., who were upset by a sharp drop in Asian students at its four magnet schools for gifted students.

For a decade, the school board had been troubled that fewer than 15% of the students at its magnet schools were Black or Latino, even though they made up about half of the student population.

In contrast, Asian students were less than 15% of the county’s student population but made up about half of the enrolees at the magnet programs.

After several years of debate, school officials dropped the use of a countywide competitive test and chose top performing students at all of its middle schools using a lottery.

That prompted a lawsuit that reached the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Fairfax County in northern Virginia had adopted a somewhat similar policy for the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology. A federal judge ruled for Asian parents and said their students had been deprived of a “level playing field” in competing for admission.

But the 4th Circuit, by a 2-1 vote, disagreed and said Asian American students were still winning more seats than their percentage of the school population.

The Assn. for Education Fairness, the parents group in Montgomery County, lost for the same reason in the 4th Circuit. The number of admitted Asian students had declined, but their percentage remained well above their share of school population.

They appealed and urged the Supreme Court to rule on their case and to clarify the law.

“School districts across the country have overhauled admissions criteria for competitive public schools after concluding that existing systems produced undesirable racial enrollment patterns,” they said.

They said the court should end this type of racial discrimination against Asian students.

However, a longtime champion of admissions policies that rely on social and economic fairness said he hoped the court would side with Montgomery County.

“The Supreme Court has long disfavored racial preferences and pointed to race-neutral programs that look at factors like socioeconomic disadvantage as the right way to do affirmative action,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute.

He said the Maryland school board followed that rule.

“It essentially provided an admissions break to students based not on race, but on the economic disadvantage of the elementary school they attended. The question now opened is whether the court will stand by precedent or move the goal posts. Is the court opposed to racial preferences, or to racial diversity itself?”

Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system, has an extensive magnet system, with 66 whole-school magnets and 268 magnet centers within a larger campus.

At this point, many of the magnets provide no discernible integration benefit and are viewed instead as inducements for any student to enroll. Many magnets are nearly all students of color because few white students apply.

A few schools, however, have more applicants than spaces, and the district relies on “the Magnet Priority Point System and the need to maintain a racially balanced enrollment, and by available space.”

Parents must mark one federally recognized race or ethnicity on the application, or it won’t be processed. A family gets points, for example, if a student applied unsuccessfully for a magnet in the past.

In L.A. Unified, 53 schools are designated for students rated as “gifted,” and there are four campuses with programs for highly gifted students, typically identified by a professional evaluator.

Available recent data for the highly gifted program at North Hollywood High indicated that the largest percentage of students, about 38%, were Asian. Overall, the district’s enrollment is about 3.5% Asian.

The justices will hear arguments in the case early next year.

Savage reported from Washington and Blume from Los Angeles.

SACRAMENTO —  When does positive reform become negative regression? That’s what Californians need to answer before voting on Proposition 45, which would substantially change the state’s landmark environmental protection law.

The business-backed ballot measure would make it much easier and less costly to build loads of projects — not just housing, but also water works, clean energy and transportation facilities.

It also, however, would give citizens much less time and fewer tools to assess and oppose projects they deem unfit for their area — like freeway expansions or giant warehouses.

“It tips the scale from favoring the public and the environment to favoring developers and polluting projects,” asserts state Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

“It’s an overreach.”

“We streamline the building process for billionaires to erect stadiums. Why don’t we do it for middle-class homebuyers?” declares Dan Dunmoyer, president and chief executive of the California Building Industry Assn., a major backer of Proposition 45.

It’s a bitter, high-stakes fight that’s too close to call. Polling has indicated the outcome could be decided in the final days before the Nov. 3 election.

Proposition 45 would be the most significant overhaul of the California Environmental Quality Act since Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it in 1970.

CEQA — as it’s commonly called and used as a four-letter obscenity by developers — is justifiably credited with keeping California air less polluted, water relatively clean, urban traffic from being worse and more outdoors open to the public.

It requires developers — private and public — to undergo a lengthy process of analyzing a project’s environmental effects and reducing their negative impacts.

But over the years CEQA became blatantly abused.

Union blackmailers — ”greenmailers” — threatened frivolous CEQA lawsuits unless developers caved to labor demands. Business rivals drove off potential competitors by filing protracted suits that wore down investors. NIMBYs — ”not in my backyard” — fought local projects that crowded their spaces or blocked views.

As a CEQA battle dragged on, the developers’ costs soared and many cut their losses by abandoning the project. Home building plummeted in California and the law of supply and demand ruled. Housing costs skyrocketed.

Project opponents legitimately concerned about environmental impacts also filed lawsuits, but they weren’t the developer’s big problem — not like the CEQA abusers.

Finally, prodded by Gov. Gavin Newsom, lawmakers have been responding in recent years to the developers’ frustration. They’ve been pecking away at CEQA with meaningful reforms for most types of housing, especially urban apartment projects near transit hubs.

“You’ve got to just move things,” Newsom exclaimed at an economic summit in Long Beach last week. “I’m just done with the [CEQA] litigation…. Years and years of B.S…. Eight years to develop something? Give me a break.”

But the nearly termed-out governor still hadn’t taken a position on Proposition 45.

Money and power, of course, have always had their privileges in the state Capitol. Billionaire sports team owners have had no trouble securing CEQA exemptions for construction of new stadiums or arenas. The exemptions are handed out like free bobbleheads.

In fact, Newsom recently signed legislation essentially granting a CEQA exemption in San Diego for a 16,000-seat sports arena and housing project led by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

Dunmoyer says that lawmakers “have done quite a bit” to expedite housing, “although not quite enough. It has been limited in scope and size — limited to urban infill and close to transit. It doesn’t address the overwhelming amount of housing needs in California.

“It doesn’t help the first-time middle-class homebuyers or address market rate rentals.”

He pegs the cost of a CEQA battle at $75,000 per new home, noting that’s added to the selling price — if the dwelling ever gets built.

Opponents of Proposition 45 argue that the measure’s backers wish to return California home building to 1960s sprawl when the state’s population was half its current size and there was more usable open space to pave over with roads and subdivisions — more orchards to rip up and wetlands to drain. And that led to longer smog-spewing car commutes to city jobs.

“Sprawl housing is not affordable housing,” Blakespear says. “There are costs to build new infrastructure like utility lines and water facilities, and high insurance costs. Then taxpayers have to clean up the pollution.

“Do we really want new sprawl housing developments in wildfire areas? We need to incentivize [urban] infill housing, instead of in the middle of the forest or the desert.”

Proposition 45 — generated by the state Chamber of Commerce — would streamline the CEQA approval process for several types of construction projects the measure deems “essential.” They include housing, water systems, clean energy, health facilities, jails, fire stations, wildfire reduction, broadband access and transportation.

Two very controversial projects were excluded — the bullet train and delta tunnel —
and so was nuclear power.

Opponents insist that the proposition eases the way for construction of massive data centers. But backers adamantly deny it, and they make sense. The anti-45 campaign is trying to scare voters with a Halloween bogeyman.

But there’s plenty of other ugly and smelly potential projects that could benefit.

If this were solely about housing, it wouldn’t ring so many alarms.

Here’s how I see it: We elect a governor and Legislature to handle such complex issues. Let them — especially the new governor, presumably Xavier Becerra — consider enacting new CEQA reforms, holding months of public hearings and ultimately compromising on a deal.

OK, maybe that’s dreaming. But it beats voters trying to wrap their heads around this in a few days.

Unlike regular legislation, if the ballot measure did pass and flaws emerged, it would be very hard for lawmakers to amend, requiring a two-thirds vote.

Proposition 45 rolls back CEQA protections too far — especially with a dangerous anti-environment California abuser in the Oval Office.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: ‘He’s everywhere’: This California Republican wants to make his party relevant again
CA vs. Trump: Big assertions, sharp exchanges, little clarity define DOJ election battle with California
The L.A. Times Special: Voter guide to the 2026 California general election

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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Oct. 14, 2026 10:49 AM PT

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook’s lawyers say that a committee set up by the White House last week to investigate an accusation against her is “demonstrably biased,” though they did not close the door on the possibility that she would appear before the panel.

Lawyer Abbe Lowell also said in a letter Tuesday that Cook would not be able to participate in a hearing Nov. 5 because she “will be executing her official duties as Governor at financial and monetary policy meetings in Europe.”

The earliest that Cook could appear before a “committee of inquiry” that the White House set up last Friday would be after the Fed’s policy meeting Dec. 8-9, the letter said. The letter was sent to William Scharf, a counsel to President Trump.

Lowell’s comments are the latest turn in the Trump administration’s extended efforts to fire Cook from her position as one of seven members of the Fed’s board of governors. Trump has accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud in 2021, before she joined the board, a claim she has denied. No criminal charges have been filed.

No president has fired a Fed governor before, a reflection of the Fed’s traditional independence from politics. Yet Trump, who has repeatedly demanded that the central bank lower its key interest rate, has taken numerous steps that economists say have threatened that independence. The Justice Department earlier this year sought to investigate then-Chair Jerome Powell over brief testimony he had given about an extensive building renovation, though a judge threw out subpoenas in the case and it was later dropped.

Cook was appointed by former President Biden and is the first Black woman on the Fed’s board.

Trump first tried to fire Cook in August 2025, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year she could remain in her position while litigation continued. The court also suggested, in a footnote to the ruling, that Trump could try again to fire her if the administration provided her adequate notice and an opportunity to respond. The committee of inquiry announced by the White House last Friday is an effort to meet those conditions.

Under the law governing the Fed, the president can only fire a Fed governor “for cause,” but the Supreme Court didn’t address whether Cook’s actions met that standard. The committee of inquiry will ultimately recommend whether there is cause to fire Cook, a White House memo last week said.

Lowell also said in the Tuesday letter that “we have significant concerns regarding the objectivity and fitness of the committee for its assigned purpose.”

One of its three members, Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to Trump, has already said the president has “cause” to fire Cook, the letter noted. The other two members — Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Andrea Rich — are also Trump appointees.

“A hearing with demonstrably biased members, unspecified additional allegations, and an unclear schedule for the disclosure of any additional evidence – with no explanation for why it was not previously produced – is not a process that respects the appearance or history of independence,” Lowell’s letter said.

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

PHOENIX — The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to toss out $122,000 in legal costs that lawyers for former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake were ordered to pay for false and misleading statements they made in a lawsuit that sought to require a hand-count of all ballots in the 2022 midterm elections.

The nation’s highest court on Tuesday denied a request from Andrew D. Parker, an attorney who represented Lake in the lawsuit, to review a lower-court decision over the legal costs arising from the unsuccessful litigation.

The lawsuit by Lake and state lawmaker Mark Finchem sought to ban electronic tabulation devices. It was dismissed by a judge who found Lake and Finchem lacked standing to sue and that their lawsuit was filed too close to the election.

In 2022, Lake lost the governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs and Finchem was defeated in the secretary of state’s race by Democrat Andrian Fontes. Both Republicans had promoted the narrative that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.

Maricopa County had sought sanctions against Lake, Finchem and their lawyers, alleging they broke a court rule by making unfounded allegations and by not conducting the necessary research before filing the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge John Tuchi later concluded the lawsuit’s claims lacked an adequate basis in fact, that the standard inquiry attorneys must make before pressing litigation hadn’t been done and that the lawyers acted recklessly in seeking a court order based on frivolous claims.

The requirement to pay the legal fees applies to the lawyers who pressed the lawsuit, not to Lake and Finchem.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected appeals over the lawsuit’s dismissal and the awarding of the legal fees.

The Associated Press left phone and email messages Tuesday for Parker, whose firm is based in Minneapolis.

Earlier this year, Parker asked the Supreme Court to throw out the requirement to pay Maricopa County’s legal fees in the case, arguing such sanctions would deter attorneys from bringing aggressive or novel legal claims.

Maricopa County said lawyers for Lake and Finchem had disregarded a letter that identified false allegations they had made in their lawsuit and relied on some of those claims in a later court filing. The county’s attorneys said those who brought the lawsuit failed to present evidence to support their allegations and falsely alleged that Arizona didn’t use paper ballots and that its electronic voting systems hadn’t been subjected to expert analysis.

Billeaud writes for the Associated Press.