A stretch of the Klamath River in far northern California near the Oregon line. (Photo: Victoria Ditkovsky, via Shutterstock)The governors of California and Oregon, leaders of the Yurok and Karuk Tribes, PacificCorps and billionaire investor Warren Buffet announced a landmark, $450 million agreement Tuesday to remove four dams on the Klamath river to restore dwindling salmon populations.
A man mails in his ballot in the era of the pandemic. (Photo: Wayne Via, Shutterstock)Over five million California voters – nearly a quarter of the state’s registered electorate — have returned ballots for the General Election, which is less than two weeks away. This milestone, hit yesterday at 13 days until the election, wasn’t achieved in 2016 until the day before the election and exceeds the entire early by-mail vote in 2018.
A woman and her baby boy on the beach in San Diego. (Photo: Sarmiento Photography, via Shutterstock)OPINION: For nearly a quarter of a century, Parent Voices, a partnership of parents throughout California, has led an annual event on the grounds of California’s Capitol called “Stand for Children Day.” Each May, parent and youth leaders march side-by-side before meeting with legislators to advocate for policies that protect the state’s children and their families.
A dead body in a county morgue. (Photo: John Gomez)Can law enforcement be trusted to fairly review law enforcement-involved shootings? Some state senators think not, citing the example of San Joaquin County, which saw two forensic pathologists resign after claiming that Sheriff Steve Moore pressured them to change their findings in officer-involved deaths. The pathologists claimed the sheriff pressured them to classify the deaths as accidents.
A San Francisco street scene. (Photo: Oneinchpunch, via Shutterstock)Part 3: As California grows, the shifts of population within the state can have a dramatic impact on the drawing of future political boundaries. These shifts can be broken into two different types of population counts: The absolute population counts as defined by the 2020 U.S. Census, and the citizen voting age populations, or CVAP.
Latinos at a Los Angeles demonstration on immigration policy. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)This story is really about two populations that we have known could, someday, dominate California elections: Millennials and Latinos. The Latino vote has been repeatedly spoken of as a political “sleeping giant,” evoking the sense that this population could awaken and shake the foundations of our elections.
Latinos protesting Donald Trump at an entrance to the site of the state GOP convention in Burlingame. (Photo: Alex Matthews, Capitol Weekly)For Latino voters in California, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s anti-immigration pronouncements present a dilemma. But for Latino Republicans, the challenge is especially difficult.
ANALYSIS: The Supreme Court is set to announce a decision in an Arizona redistricting case that could upend the California Redistricting Commission’s congressional lines and return to the legislature the responsibility for conducting each decennial redraw. Some prominent leaders in redistricting reform are preparing for this eventuality and urging the Legislature to stand down, allowing the current lines to be carried forward until 2022 and giving reformers a chance to develop a new method for independent redistricting of Congressional lines that wouldn’t conflict with the court’s decision in this case. This, however, may not be possible or even necessary.