Posts Tagged: orange

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PPIC survey: Dems hold edge in key House districts, Prop 30 slips

The California Capitol in Sacramento, surrounded by Capitol Park. (Photo: Merge Digital Media LLC, via Shutterstock)

 In the final weeks before Election Day on Nov. 8, support for Proposition 30, the state ballot measure on funding to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has slid to less than a majority. On the congressional front, Democrats hold an overall edge across the 10 competitive districts that could determine which party controls the US House of Representatives.

News

Really folks, redistricting isn’t all that confusing

A map illustration of some cities, counties in California. (Photo: Kent Weakley, via Shutterstock)

“Why is this so hard?” That’s what Matt Rexroad, owner of Redistricting Insights, tweeted repeatedly when he saw news that downtown Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela faced a recall from residents of the uptown neighborhoods in East Sacramento. The problem: It wouldn’t be a legal recall.  But confusion over that fact seemed to drag on for weeks.

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CA120: California’s Voters Choice Act and the 2020 elections

Voters in their booths casting ballots in a Los Angeles election. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)

One constant in California elections is change. In the past 20 years, we’ve seen changes to when the primary is held, then changed back, then back again. We’ve seen an open primary, then another version of the open primary. We shook up the Legislature with term limits, then imposed different term limits. We have moved increasingly to vote by mail, shifting the timeline of our elections.

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

Some locals profit off of ICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrest an undocumented immigrant in California. (Photo: ICE, 2017)

Two California counties profit from a loophole in the “sanctuary state” law, while most others have canceled their ICE contracts under public pressure or let them expire. When California’s sanctuary state law, Senate Bill 54, was approved, the public assumed that local law enforcement would be prevented from cooperating with ICE agents except when dealing with people “convicted of a serious or violent felony,” such as murder, rape, child abuse or battery.

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.

Analysis

Californians, economics and environmental protection

View of downtown San Diego and central rail yards. (Photo: welcomia, via Shutterstock)

ANALYSIS: Something that isn’t too surprising for legislators or Gov. Brown as California continues to be on the forefront of environmental policies: A major survey shows strong majority (62 percent) of Californians believe air pollution is a problem in their part of California. Two-thirds (66 percent) believe the effects of global warming have already begun, while 58 percent believe it is a serious threat to California’s economy and quality of life.

News

Feds raised repeated concerns about O.C. jail security

Officials at the Orange County Central Men's Jail investigate the area where three inmates escaped.(Photo: Associated Press/ Nick Ut.)

Federal officials warned for years of “poor supervision” at a Southern California jail where three inmates — all charged with violent felonies — recently escaped, documents obtained by The Marshall Project show. The men’s elaborate route to freedom seemed made for the movies: They cut through layers of metal and navigated plumbing tunnels to reach the roof. They then rappelled down four stories with makeshift ropes, perhaps strung together from bedsheets or jail clothing.

News

GOP to take control of powerful SoCal air board

A smog-tinged view in black and white of Century City, Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles. (Photo: Trekandshoot, via Shutterstock)

Last year, the high point of the GOP’s Election Day was the Democrats’ loss of their supermajorities in the Legislature, even though Democrats retained control of every statewide elected office. But in early November, Republicans scored a major victory: a seat on the South Coast Air Quality Management District. For the first time in years, GOP members will control the powerful board that has jurisdiction over four counties and 17 million people.

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Public pension bill eyes ‘excess earnings’

Calpensions.com: The bill said to represent three years of talks mainly between the IRS and the Orange County system, the informal leader in the negotiations, moved out of the Assembly public employees retirement committee with no discussion.

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