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EXIT POLL: What a year it has been for polling-related news in California – please try to contain your excitement. The venerable Field Poll went online (shades of Dylan Goes Electric). Meanwhile, USC and the LA Times combined to produce the most, um, “noteworthy” poll of the cycle (shades of Dewey Defeats Truman), which polling Director Dan Schnur posted on twitter “is wrong, but still gives us important info…”
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This story is really about two populations that we have known could, someday, dominate California elections: Millennials and Latinos. The Latino vote has been repeatedly spoken of as a political “sleeping giant,” evoking the sense that this population could awaken and shake the foundations of our elections.
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California’s plan to create an ambitious, $150 million public/private partnership to commercialize state-funded stem cell research edged forward this week as the deadline for applications closed on Monday afternoon. Little is known about the nature of the applications — not even the number received.
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Asked about the prospect of a Democratic supermajority in the California Legislature after Nov. 8, leaders of both parties are being, well, supercautious. With a Democratic supermajority, which means majorities of two-thirds or greater in each house, Republicans could go from marginalized to irrelevant.
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Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, long viewed in the Capitol as a potential Democratic candidate for governor in 2018, said Tuesday that he will announce his political plans “within a few days” of the Nov. 8 election. He stopped short of making a formal announcement, but left little doubt about his plans. “I think everybody knows where it’s headed,” he said.
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CA120: The 2016 General Absentee Vote Tracker is up, and over two million California voters have already returned their ballots. This year, a great deal of national attention is being paid to the rate of early voting, and politicos on both sides of the aisle are using this data to make predictions in the presidential, congressional and state contests.
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Proposition 58, titled the “English Proficiency, Multilingual Education” initiative, would repeal key provisions of Proposition 227 approved by voters in 1998. For instance, parents would no longer need to sign waivers to get into bilingual education programs. Schools could more easily institute bilingual programs.
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The Public Policy Institute of California released a survey Wednesday night that, in addition to its examination of the U.S. Senate and presidential races, reported on the level of support for key ballot measures. The propositions require simple majorities to pass.
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California’s 143,000 miles of local streets and roads are deteriorating rapidly, and the average local thoroughfare across the state is rated “at risk” because of its poor physical condition, according to a study commissioned by a coalition of local governments and their allies. A mix of state, local and federal funds – about $1.98 billion annually – is provided for California’s streets and roads, but the minimal amount needed to maintain the existing quality is $3.5 billion.
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You might say it is a case of “self-control” involving the test of a stem cell therapy for an infamous and terrible disease. Not self-control in the usual sense, but in the sense of controls during a clinical trial for a treatment prior to its release to the general public.
Doug Applegate, left, and Darrell Issa. (Photo illustration by Tim Foster, Capitol Weekly)
