California Elections

An influential union wants the state to limit profits on privately owned dialysis clinics, where kidney patients receive life-sustaining treatment. Dialysis companies are fighting back.

One measure on the June ballot asks voters to shell out billions to improve the environment. Another could make it more difficult for the state to spend billions on helpful projects.

Why would a group trying to elect Democrats buy ads promoting their Republican opponents to conservative watchers of Fox News? Because California’s election rules have turned normal campaign tactics on their head.

Charter school supporters may be an effective counterbalance to the prevailing influence public-employee unions have long exerted on Democratic politics in California. But the billions in campaign donations by pro-charter tycoons also points to the outsized sway personal wealth can have on elections.

After losing in California courts, three lead paint companies are asking voters to overturn the ruling that says they must pay to clean up toxic lead paint in older homes.

Good Monday morning, California. “He then slowly inhaled the Pineapple Thai. It was the first time he’d had cannabis, he said, since 1979. ‘Somebody said I’m overdue,’ he laughed.” — Leafly, quoting Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer at his West Hollywood fundraiser last week. The Los Angeles Democrat chairs the Assembly Public Safety Committee, which hears bills […]

Good morning, California. “Employers will ignore  it at their peril,” Teamster lobbyist Barry Broad said of Monday’s unanimous California Supreme Court decision in Dynamex Operations West. The ruling could upend the gig economy by requiring that employers treat many more workers as employees, not independent contractors. Broad: “A lot of labor representatives are elated.” A drop-out, […]

Voters won't see the questionnaires candidates answer when they seek endorsements from special interests.

As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrapped up a second day being grilled by Congress about whether the company adequately protects the personal data of its 2 billion users, news broke in California that Facebook will stop spending money to oppose a privacy measure aiming for the state’s November ballot. Facebook is one of five tech […]

This election season five California counties are doing away with hundreds of neighborhood polling places and replacing them with fewer “one-stop vote centers”—an experiment sold by Democrats as a way to save money and boost anemic voter turnout from the last mid-term elections. The 2016 Voter’s Choice Act establishes the vote centers in Madera, Napa, […]