Image by Jacob LundOPINION – By December, 73 out of 120 state legislators will have left the building in just two years. As term limit reform kicks in, some critics have grumbled that this turnover is damaging, because we’re losing established leaders and decades of accumulated experience. What’s being overlooked is the leadership and experience we’re gaining.
Image by retrorocket via shutterstockWomen have never achieved parity with their male colleagues in the California Legislature. Many advocates believe that could change before the end of the decade, but getting there is hardly a given.
An illustration of a voter making choices online, as opposed to a traditional ballot or petition. (Image: Marko Aliaksandr, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Most everyone has had the experience of being approached by someone outside a library, grocery store or entertainment venue carrying a clipboard, asking you to sign their petition for some issue they want on the ballot. Many of us have had someone come to our door asking us to sign a petition to get their favorite candidate on the ballot.
A woman casts an early ballot in the recall election at L.A.'s Union Station. (Photo: Ringo Chiu, via Shutterstock)The word “recall” dominated California politics this year, but it’s not over: The recall may go before voters again, this time in the form of a reform measure placed on the statewide ballot by lawmakers. The proposed reform stems, in part, from complaints — mostly, but not entirely from Democrats — that California’s recall process is deeply flawed, allowing a replacement candidate with scant voter support to become governor.
A sign in Yorba Linda advocating Gov. Gavin Newsom's recall. (Photo: Matt Gush.)Deeply divided California voters will go to the polls on Sept. 14 — earlier, if they vote by mail — to decide whether Gov. Gavin Newsom should be recalled and who should replace him. The polls are tight. A July 24-27 poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies has 47 percent of those most likely to vote wanting to boot Newsom out of office, while 50 percent want to retain him. So what helps Newsom and what doesn’t?
The state Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Cassionhabib, via Shutterstock)On March 23, about 80 people gathered on a Zoom call to launch Daybreak PAC, a political action committee aimed at moving the California Legislature to the left by supporting progressive candidates and policies. The PAC is headed by activist Jackie Fielder, an unsuccessful state Senate candidate who challenged incumbent Democrat Scott Wiener last year in San Francisco.
A photo illustration of whisper campaigns and conspiracies. (Image: Valery Sidelnykov, via Shutterstock)In our culture, conspiracy theories are running rampant, and elections seem to be particularly prone to the craziest among them. Republicans, led by the president, have claimed that vote-by-mail is unsafe, non-citizens are registered to vote and casting ballots. Ballot “harvesting” is causing rampant voter fraud, President Trump says, and the system is being rigged against him. Even Attorney General Bill Barr claimed, incorrectly, that vote-by-mail eliminates the secret nature of voting in the US.
A Sacramento political rally for presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, who has since dropped from the race. (Photo: Chris Allan, via Shutterstock)For the past year, we’ve been conducting tracking polling of the dozens of candidates for the Democratic nomination. A consistent thread in those surveys was change: The front runners shifted from former Vice President Joe Biden to Massachusetts Sen.Elizabeth Warren to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Yet, everything has changed in the last 36 hours, and we are now set for one of the most tumultuous California election nights in recent history.
Emanuel Gonzales, a progressive candidate, campaigns in the 32nd Congressional District. (Photo: Gonzales campaign)There are a growing number of candidates who describe themselves as progressives. They have varied backgrounds but have one thing in common — their chances of actually winning are very, very small. Across California, more and more people are opting to run for higher office, seizing onto the theories of change spearheaded by progressives like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Presidential contender Elizabeth Warren at a 2019 rally in San Diego. (Photo: John Hancock, via Shutterstock) For the past year, Capitol Weekly has conducted over 10,000 surveys of likely Democratic primary election voters. These surveys have emailed Democratic and nonpartisan voters each month, asking them to complete a survey, and tracked their responses back to their voter registration to allow us to analyze candidate support by ethnicity, age, partisanship, and other factors.