Posts Tagged: berkeley

Podcast

Paul Mitchell: Changing voter demographics; Plus the Senate Primary

CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: Veteran California political data expert Paul Mitchell joins us to talk about his recent CA120 column examining shifting behavior by California’s Latino and Asian voters. We also look at California’s confusing Presidential Primary ballot, and the recent Berkeley IGS Poll that found Rep. Barbara Lee in fourth place – behind Republican Steve Garvey – in the race to fill Sen. Feinstein’s seat.

News

UC’s academic union workers in week two of strike

Strikers and their allies at a Nov. 16 rally on the campus of UC Davis. (Photo: David Kn, via Shutterstock)

About 48,000 academic union workers at the University of California are in the second week of a strike at UC’s 10 campuses, from San Diego north to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They walked off their jobs on Nov. 14 amid complaints of unfair labor practices, an action that closed some classrooms and research labs.

News

After recent wet spell, thoughts turning anew to storage

A view of the Pacecho Pass Reservoir. (Photo: Santa Clara County Water District)

Is California’s drought coming to an end? Experts say no, not yet, despite the recent historic levels of rain and snow throughout the state. And while 2021 was the driest in California in a century, 2022 is giving people hope that the seemingly interminable drought may finally be over, at least for now.

News

Recall poll: Motivated Democrats flex political muscle

Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at a Sept. 5 anti-recall rally at Culver City High School. (Photo: Max Elram, via Shutterstock)

Institute of Governmental Studies: The tide of likely voter preferences in this year’s gubernatorial recall election has turned. The latest Berkeley IGS Poll, completed earlier this week among a sample of nearly 10,000 registered voters across California, finds just 38.5% of those most likely to participate in the recall election now intending to vote Yes to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, while 60.1% say they will be voting No to support his retention. 

Analysis

CA120: A close look at California’s early vote

Casting a ballot in California. (Photo: Vepar5, via Shutterstock)

Literally minutes after Donald Trump’s election in 2016, political pundits, consultants and prospective candidates started a march toward the mid-term elections. The expectations were set extremely high, with Democratic hopes of taking back the House of Representatives led, in part, by a huge gain in the limited number of remaining Republican-held congressional seats in California.

News

Berkeley vs. wireless industry over safety warnings

Multiple users of wireless devices check their hand-helds. (Photo: Andrey_Popov, via Shutterstock)

Few people know that there are federal safety limits for exposure to the weak radiation emitted by cellphones and other wireless devices. There often is language about this embedded right in our phones, but finding it requires knowing where to look, wading through sometimes five or more steps and then making sense of the technical jargon.

News

California pesticide use high, covers vast acreage

Pesticide warning signs in a California field that is ready for planting. (Photo:Tom Grundy, via Shutterstock)

FairWarning: Farmers in California, the nation’s top agricultural state, are applying near-record levels of pesticides despite the rising popularity of organic produce and concerns about the health of farmworkers and rural schoolchildren. The latest figures, released in April by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and covering 2016, show that 209 million pounds of pesticide active ingredients were used in agriculture.

Analysis

CA120: The changing nature of public polls

An image depicting the varied responses in political polling. (Illustration: Tim Foster/Capitol Weekly),

ANALYSIS: The public opinion polling industry in many ways is at a crossroads. For years public polls were run with live telephone interviews using a system of “random digit dialing” or RDD, which allowed a poll to be based on samples which would be naturally balanced since all potential voters had the same probability to be administered a phone survey.

Opinion

Homeowners: PACE finances green energy upgrades

A California home with solar panels installed on the roof. (Photo: orachonphoto, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: A point of pride for the people of California is our state’s leadership in the clean energy economy. Over the past decade, Californians have had access to a great tool that puts homeowners front and center in the fight against climate change. This tool, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), enables homeowners to conveniently finance renewable energy, energy and water efficiency, and earthquake safety upgrades to their homes.

News

State Library creates Greg Schmidt collection

A tiny sampling of the books on Greg Schmidt's home shelves.

The California State Library is setting up a special collection in honor of Gregory Schmidt, the long-time ranking Senate staffer who died of cancer at the age of 69. State Librarian Greg Lucas said in an email that the Greg Schmidt Collection on Political Leadership will include “any number of books, articles, movies, podcasts, lectures and case studies besides those in Greg’s personal library that inform today’s political leaders.”

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