With a turnout that smashed all records, millions of votes remain to be counted in California, but tallies so far are providing some strong themes, to wit: —The disdain of President Donald Trump as Californians gave challenger Joe Biden a victory in the state of historic proportions. Voters favored Biden by a...
GOP Hopes for California House Comeback Rest on Tight Races
LOS ANGELES — A handful of U.S. House contests in California appeared headed for close finishes as Republicans sought to gain ground after losing a string of seats to Democrats in a 2018 rout. In a sign of the uphill fight for Republicans, President Donald Trump lost the heavily Democratic...
Walters: Incompetence Could Be GOP’s Opportunity
California’s ever-shrinking Republican Party will receive little, if any, good news from this year’s elections. The inevitable question will once again rise: Could the GOP, which once dominated the state, ever regain relevance? Probably not, but if there is any chance for revival, it wouldn’t be an ideological reversion but...
Ziplocked: Last Look at California’s Presidential Money Race, by Zip Code
Vertiginous blue spires on the urban coast and crimson plateaus stretching from the Central Valley to suburban SoCal — this is the presidential race for California cash, in 3D. In the map below, each zip code is colored according to the candidate who amassed more individual contributions from its residents. That’s blue...
Avenal Inmate Becomes State’s 79th Prisoner to Die of COVID Complications
An inmate at Avenal State Prison died of complications from the coronavirus Saturday, authorities said, becoming the state's 79th person to have a fatal case of COVID-19 while they were incarcerated. The inmate died at a hospital, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a news release. The...
Walters: Does More Money Mean Better Schools?
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...
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...
Walters: It’s Déjà Vu for Affirmative Action Proponents
It is, as the inimitable Yogi Berra once observed, “déjà vu all over again” for the proponents of affirmative action in college admissions, contracts and other governmental decisions. Twenty-four years ago today, they were trailing badly in trying to defeat Proposition 209, a California ballot measure that would prohibit using...
Fierce Winds Drive New SoCal Wildfires. Santa Ana Conditions Expected Today.
LOS ANGELES — Crews tried to beat back two out-of-control wildfires in Southern California on Tuesday that have kept tens of thousands of people out of their homes even as another round of dangerous fire weather raises the risk for flames erupting across the state. Fierce winds that drove twin...
Here’s the Challenge of Implementing Historic Groundwater Law
California celebrated the passage of historic legislation six years ago when Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, written to achieve sustainable groundwater management for basins throughout the state. The groundwater law requires governments and water agencies to halt overdraft and bring groundwater basins into balanced...