Politics

Although he has served as governor longer than anyone else in California history, Jerry Brown has never been forced to make one of the weightiest decisions governors face: whether to spare a convicted criminal from execution. California has executed more than 500 people, but the death penalty has been on hold pending legal challenges during […]

It’s tough for California voters to say no to more money for school construction. They almost always approve state bond requests, and this month they passed a $9 billion package that backers promised would help pay for repairs and upgrades needed to preserve students’ access to safe, modern classrooms. Unlike previous bonds, however, Prop. 51 […]

As a state bluer than Lake Tahoe in sunlight, California has adopted a slew of progressive policies that drive Donald Trump nuts. They combat climate change, protect undocumented immigrants, evangelize for Obamacare and more. So this week—as candidate Trump morphed into President-elect Trump—uncertainty swept the state. While protesters hit the streets and the hashtag #Calexit […]

On a night many believed would be a milestone for women in politics, Cristina Garcia donned a Hillary Clinton T-shirt and a gray pantsuit and left her house in southeast Los Angeles. “Buenas noches,” the Democratic assemblywoman from Bell Gardens greeted her neighbors as she walked to an election-night party. Garcia was hopeful not only […]

Money changes everything, it is said, and that adage hovers conspicuously over two clashing death penalty proposals that Californians will weigh in next week’s election. Proposition 62 asks voters to abolish the state’s death penalty after 38 years. The other measure, Proposition 66, promotes a streamlining of legal proceedings so the term “capital punishment” means […]

For rapper Jay Z, the war on drugs is personal: “Young men like me who hustle became the sole villain.” That’s why the hip-hop mogul— who once dealt drugs in his New York public housing project and recently made a video denouncing current drug policy as an “epic fail”—is now endorsing a California ballot proposition […]

In a turbulent election year full of surprises, this much is certain: When it’s all over next week, broad swaths of California will still be represented by Democrats. The pressing question in many parts of the state: What kind of Democrat will voters send to Sacramento?Sixteen legislative races—from Northern California’s Wine Country to SoCal’s Inland […]

The scene that greeted Raymond Aguilar in his old Stockton neighborhood on his release from prison four months ago was too familiar: boarded-up windows, liquor stores, prostitutes and gang members walking the streets. Twenty-five years had passed since his conviction for second-degree murder, and nothing had changed.   “Not a lot of money is being spent on the community,” […]

In Florida, it’s Cuban Americans. Within one generation, the children of a loyally conservative immigrant group don’t feel the same attachment to the Republican Party that their parents did. In California, it’s Vietnamese Americans. And the flight from the GOP among younger Vietnamese voters appears to be happening at very rapid pace. The generational change […]

The upcoming ballot is so stuffed with complicated propositions that someone had to explain them in haiku. And song. And cartoon and emoji. The surge of creations speaks to a wave of younger, first-time and time-pressed voters who might not study the record 224-page tome that is the official California Voter Information Guide. That doesn’t […]