A voter casts a ballot in the 2016 election in Ventura County. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)The chatter online and in the media is all about the June 5 Primary Election. But, for those of us working in these races, the election has been ongoing for weeks. In fact, as of Memorial Day weekend, 1.25 million California voters have cast ballots, approximately 20% of the expected total turnout of by-mail and poll voters.
Photo of candidate Steve Poizner from his official websiteThe first person to hold statewide office in California without aligning with a political party could be Steve Poizner. He is vying for the seat left open by Dave Jones, who is running for state attorney general. Poizner’s main opponents are Democrats Sen. Ricardo Lara and physician Asif Mahmood. The Department of Insurance has more than 1,300 employees and a $250 million budget. It oversees the state’s $300 billion insurance market, the largest in the country.
Jodi Hicks at her office in Sacramento in November 2017. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)Sacramento lobbyist Jodi Hicks, a specialist in health care issues and a partner in DiMare, Brown Hicks and Kessler, is leaving DBHK to take a ranking position at Mercury Public Affairs. Hicks will become a national co-chair of Mercury, the first woman to hold that position.
A California political rally during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)Democrat Gavin Newsom remains the top choice among likely voters in the state’s gubernatorial primary, and Republican John Cox is in a close race with Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa to gain the second spot on November’s general election ballot. Senator Dianne Feinstein holds a double-digit lead over fellow Democrat Kevin de León.
Tom McClintock takes question at a raucous townhall meeting in March 2017. (Photo: Randall Benton, Sacramento Bee, via Associated Press) Placer County is seen as a bastion of red in a largely blue state — and Republican Congressman Tom McClintock has carried the district easily for the past decade. But this election year, amid the deepening anti-Trump sentiment in California, will things be different for the veteran lawmaker?
Photo illustration by Quentin Lueninghoener, FairWarning.Early on Feb. 2, 2016, a van carrying members of the California Conservation Corps paused at a stop sign on a country road near the Central Valley town of Reedley. Then the van rolled into the intersection, where it was broadsided by a 40-ton gravel truck and trailer, killing three corps members and leaving another with catastrophic brain and spinal injuries. The victims, 18 to 21 years old, all were recent recruits – two of them so new that they had yet to collect their first paycheck.
The California Aqueduct, part of the State Water Project, flows by an almond orchard in the Central Valley. (Photo: Alabn, via Shutterstock)The State Water Project comprises 700 miles of tunnels, pipelines, aqueducts and siphons that transport water from California’s north to its more arid south, serving 26 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland along the way. It’s a huge project with a lot of infrastructure, and it’s most of what DWR does. But more than 60 years later, there is a move under way to take control of the project out of the hands of DWR and place it in an independent commission.
A dead body in a county morgue. (Photo: John Gomez)Can law enforcement be trusted to fairly review law enforcement-involved shootings? Some state senators think not, citing the example of San Joaquin County, which saw two forensic pathologists resign after claiming that Sheriff Steve Moore pressured them to change their findings in officer-involved deaths. The pathologists claimed the sheriff pressured them to classify the deaths as accidents.
With California voters turning increasingly to the mail box to cast their ballots, five counties have set up an expanded vote-by-mail system for this year’s elections. Sacramento, Madera, Napa, Nevada and San Mateo are swapping out more than 500 neighborhood polling places and replacing them with nearly 80 high-tech “vote centers.”
Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association. (Photo: Tim Foster)Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, sat down with Capitol Weekly’s John Howard and Tim Foster to talk about ways to cut health care costs, including a new experiment in Maryland that seeks to replace per-patient payments with a single annual payment designed to focus on keeping patients healthier.