Preparing a wish list and goals for the coming year. (Photo: AniKona Ann, via Shutterstock)Due to the journalistic enterprise constantly demonstrated by our army of reporters, we’ve obtained a copy of the list and is deploying it below. Along with a few predictions, here is what Sacramento and Washington notables want more than anything in 2020.
Attendees at a 2018 political rally in Santa Ana. (Photo: Juan Camilo Bernal, via Shutterstock)In the 2016 and 2018 election cycles, Capitol Weekly conducted several surveys for the primary and general elections. We examined voters’ opinions on the contests for president, U.S. Senate, governor, Legislature and Congress, as well as on ballot measureas before California voters. In total, we heard from over 100,000 voters, providing us with a significant dataset of voters and their preferences.
A Department of Motor Vehicles building in Los Gatos. (Photo: Stellamc, via Shutterstock)Errors in the new California Motor Voter registration system may undermine the credibility of elections, some worry. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles announced early in September that it sent 23,000 voter registrations with errors to the secretary of state. This included mistakes in political party selections, vote-by-mail options and 3,000 registrations from people who had opted not to be registered.
Mail boxes all in a row in rural California. (Photo: Ant Clausen)More and more of them are flooding your mailbox. They are usually bright, colorful, and nonsensical. Political mailers. What else? It’s the season, after all. Even in the age of texting and twitter, old-fashioned paper still has its charm for campaign strategists, especially in-down ballot races where a shotgun approach is not useful.
Members of Indivisible at the Women's March in January 2017. (Photo: Melissa Bender) It began with a married pair of Democratic staffers in Congress, outraged at the success of the hard-right Tea Party. That vocal GOP off-shoot showed that a disciplined minority could leverage policy, woo voters and bend the party leadership. So Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, stunned by Donald Trump’s electoral victory, founded a group called Indivisible, which 17 months later has developed into a loose-knit national movement.
Santa's sleigh zips past the state Capitol. The holiday season is now well under way. Christmas carols are taking over every extant means of mass communication and there’s so much goodwill around the squirrels in Capitol Park have quit chasing each other across the lawn. In the spirit of peace and love, then, we bring forth our First Annual Gift List for California political types.
A depressed man alone at sunset, saddened by life. (Photo: songpholt, via Shutterstock)Behavioral health is a touchy subject for many. For some, there is a stigma attached to receiving mental health care. Sometimes, help is hard to find. Understanding the roots of a behavioral problem can be difficult, and there are additional barriers of cost, insurance coverage and the amount of time that must be invested to visit a mental health specialist.
The state Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Adonis Villanueva)Capitol observers often complain about certain procedural aspects of California lawmaking. So I took an informal poll: I asked some of my lobbying colleagues, as well as staff in the Legislature from both houses and both political parties, for suggestions on how to make things more efficient.
Code on a computer screen, window to the web. (Photo: Soulart)OPINION: On July 12, the Electric Frontier Foundation, ACLU and many tech companies and nonprofits mobilized for a day of action in support of net neutrality. At issue: making sure the Internet remains open and accessible. This is in response to the new Federal Communications Commission’s vote to start overturning the last FCC’s net neutrality policy.
RoseAnn DeMoro of the California Nurses ASssociation and National Nurses United, speaks to reporters outside Gov. Brown's office.(File Photo, 2014: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)Amid an increasingly partisan and uncertain political climate, RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, isn’t afraid to call out politicians on both sides of the aisle.“We’re doing the exact opposite agenda of the Democrats who are just about Trump,” DeMoro said.