CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: We’re joined today by Democratic Senator Steve Glazer, who represents SD7 in the Bay Area. While Glazer was first elected to the senate in a 2015 Special Election, he has been engaged in politics for four decades, including stints working for Gray Davis, Chief Justice Rose Bird, and two stints – thirty years apart – for Governor Jerry Brown.
CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: Sacramento political communications expert Roger Salazar has deep roots in Democratic politics, but Salazar has even deeper roots in the off-roading/Jeeper community: The earliest known photo of his father shows Salazar senior in front of the family’s 1946 Willys Jeep. We asked him about his experiences, and how he navigates the trickiest terrain on the trail: the largely right-leaning politics of many of his pals in the Jeeper community.
Protesters at Laguna Beach complain about California's rules to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: mikeledray, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The delusional conspiracy theories unleashed on Americans to explain the defeat of former President Donald Trump have done more than raise the threat level to U.S. democracy and to hardworking elections supervisors. They are fracturing the Republican Party in ways its own officials would prefer to overlook while angling to regain control of Congress.
San Francisco, USA. Sept. 14, 2021. California Governor Gavin Newsom, speaks to the press at a labor union event in San Francisco on Election Day, for the 2021 California gubernatorial recall electionOPINION: “Never strike a king unless you are sure you shall kill him,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1843. He couldn’t have foreseen the attempted recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. But it is apropos: The recall not only failed miserably to yank Newsom from office, but actually immeasurably strengthened his political position.
A newspaper's election gives readers information about the Sept. 14, 2021, recall election. (Photo: Matt Gush, via Shutterstock)California’s attention was focused recently on the failed attempt to recall Gov. Newsom as a rare event of historical magnitude. In fact, recall elections happen all the time, and all but a relative handful of these obscure contests disappear into the limbo of history.
We are joined today by Anne Dunsmore, Campaign Manager for Rescue California, the organization that is heading the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Photo by Tim Foster, Capitol WeeklyProminent political consultants Roger Salazar and Hilary McLean worked together in tiny digs in Gov. Gray Davis’ press office before the current crop of Capitol Weekly interns were even born. Those were trying times for the Davis communications team — you may ‘recall’ that Davis’ gig didn’t end well.
The CalPERS headquarters in Sacramento. (Photo: Kit Leong)The annual payment to CalPERS for state worker pensions next fiscal year is expected to be $7 billion, a jump from $6.4 billion this year — and a quantum leap from $160 million when a pension increase, SB 400, was approved 20 years ago.
Sunrise in the Mojave Desert, CAstle Peaks. (Photo: sierralara, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The window of opportunity is rapidly closing for Senate Leader Toni Atkins and the California Legislature to save the Mojave Desert from Cadiz, Inc.’s reckless plan to suck the water out from under one of the Earth’s driest places and sell it to water golf courses and suburban lawns as far away as Orange County. Killed by Barack Obama and revived by Donald Trump, the water mining project would dramatically overdraw the aquifer below the desert and almost certainly stop the flow of water to the springs that preserve the Mojave’s fragile biodiversity.
A political rally in southern California during the 2016 election cycle. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)With the close of the 2018 primary election cycle, we get another chance to see how campaigns have evolved under California’s top-two open primary system. The most noteworthy change appears to be the manner by which campaigns are extending their reach across the partisan aisle. But they are not doing it in the way that the authors of the Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which took effect in 2011, intended.