It’s by no means certain that California voters will pass Proposition 15, but if they do, it would be the largest tax increase in the state’s history. That said, it would provide a relatively small down payment on the long-standing desire of the state’s educational establishment for a massive increase...
Why President Trump’s Attacks on Voting by Mail Could Backfire for California GOP
Republican political operatives aren’t accustomed to chasing down last-minute voters this close to Election Day. But, in yet another reflection of what a strange year 2020 has been, they are. And they aren’t happy about it. According to figures collected by the electoral information firm, Political Data Inc., a surprising...
An Election Day Role for National Guard? Maybe, but Limited
WASHINGTON — Federal laws and long-standing custom generally leave the U.S. military out of the election process. But President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated warnings about widespread voting irregularities have raised questions about a possible military role. If any element of the military were to get involved, it would likely be the...
Trump Paints Apocalyptic Portrait of Life in US Under Biden
WASHINGTON — The suburbs wouldn't be the suburbs anymore, the economy would sink into its worst depression ever and police departments would cease to exist. Even America's older adults would be left to figure out how to get by without heat, air conditioning or electricity. This is the apocalyptic version...
Cash Blitz: Who’s Spending the Most to Influence Your Vote for California’s Legislature?
By Ben Christopher and Laurel Rosenhall State law caps the amount donors can give to a legislator’s campaign — but these special interests can spend as much as they like mounting their own campaigns to praise or trash candidates. And the money interest groups are pouring into these “independent expenditure committees”...
Is It Too Late to Mail in Your Ballot? Here’s Why You Don’t Need to Panic
A week before Election Day and anxiety over the postal service’s ability to ferry voters’ ballots to county election administrators on time has ratcheted up yet again. Here are the reasons the alarm bells are ringing anew: Back in May, the United States Postal Service’s top lawyer advised voters across the country to put...
‘We Need You’: GOP Hunts for New Voters in Trump Territory
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. — President Donald Trump’s campaign has a bold theory for how he will win reelection: It can tap a universe of millions of supporters who did not vote for him in 2016 but will do so this time. Supposedly, these voters are overlooked by polls that show Trump consistently...
Early Polling Places in California Quiet Now, but Lines Expected Ahead
SACRAMENTO — Californians are voting in record numbers, with more than a third of the state's 22.3 million ballots already returned to county election offices one week before Election Day. Yet at the Oak Park Community Center in Sacramento on Sunday, it was so slow that poll worker Tom Martinez...
20 Republican Former US Attorneys Endorse Biden, Call Trump "A Threat to the Rule of Law"
[aggregation-styles] Axios Twenty Republican former U.S. attorneys on Tuesday endorsed Joe Biden while saying that "President Trump's leadership is a threat to the rule of law" in the U.S., the Washington Post reports. What they're saying: In the letter, the former prosecutors criticize Trump's use of the Department of Justice,...
Is Texas on Its Way to Becoming a Dem State?
[aggregation-styles] Financial Times Subscription The first time Sima Ladjevardian experienced a political revolution, she was 12 years old and sitting in a classroom in Tehran in the middle of what felt like an earthquake. “Everything was shaking,” she says, recalling the uprising that engulfed Iran four decades ago and led...