L.A. to decide whether to stay the course with Mayor Bass or vote for change with Raman

November 2, 2026 By David Zahniser 4 Comments
  • The battle between Bass and Raman ends Tuesday, concluding a bitter nine-month contest between two candidates who were once political allies.
  • Analysts say Bass represents the establishment, while Raman comes from a younger generation of Democrats seeking change.

It started with the February surprise.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a wonkish technocrat aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, upended the race for mayor by launching a last-minute bid to unseat incumbent Karen Bass.

Bass, politically weakened over her handling of the devastating Palisades fire, has been on the defensive ever since. Yet she has remained in the fight, promoting her accomplishments on crime and affordable housing while amplifying the missteps made by Raman during the campaign’s final weeks.

The two candidates are in a dead heat, according to the latest Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll, with a fifth of those surveyed still undecided.

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“The question that the race comes down to, especially for undecided voters, is whether to stick with an unsatisfying status quo, or take the risk with a relatively unknown quantity who could make things better or worse,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley.

The battle between Bass and Raman ends Tuesday, concluding a bitter nine-month contest between two candidates who were once political allies. Bass, 73, backed Raman during a tough reelection bid in 2024. Raman, 45, publicly endorsed Bass in January, only to renege weeks later.

Now, in the campaign’s final days, both have been telling voters in vivid detail about the other’s shortcomings, spreading their messages in hard-hitting ads and at bluntly worded news conferences.

Raman has portrayed Bass as a weak and ineffective leader, pointing to her handling of the Palisades fire, the homelessness crisis and the city’s ongoing struggle to deliver basic services. She highlighted the city’s battered streets and sidewalks, pinning the problem on poor management and bad financial choices.

“From the biggest projects to the most basic services, the hallmark of this mayor’s administration is Angelenos pay more and get less, and you get a lot of mismanagement and lies along the way,” Raman said at a news conference Thursday near the unfinished SkyLink people mover at Los Angeles International Airport, which is years behind schedule and $1.4 billion over budget.

Bass, for her part, has hammered Raman for frequently changing her positions, shifting her views on police hiring, the city’s so-called mansion tax and other issues. Every one of her 14 council colleagues, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, has lined up behind Bass, with some openly saying they don’t trust Raman.

Bass has also accused Raman of freezing out people in her own Hollywood Hills council district who disagree with her.

Click here to read the full article at the LA Times

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Newsom admits democratic socialist ideas ‘mainstream’ in Democrat party: ‘Pretty aligned’

September 10, 2026 By Peter Pinedo 2 Comments

In an interview discussing his rumored 2028 presidential run, California Gov. Gavin Newsom asserted that the Democratic Party is “pretty aligned” with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), especially when it comes to universal healthcare, climate change and moving away from fossil fuel usage.

During an interview with “PBS NewsHour,” Newsom was questioned about what recent democratic socialist victories across the country mean for the Democratic Party.

“If you have these candidates and this platform that is clearly animating the base, energizing turnout, should more of those ideas be worked into the broader Democratic platform?” Newsom was asked.

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“I think they are,” Newsom shot back. “I mean, we want money out of politics. I’ve been supporting clean money campaigns for decades.”

NEWSOM TELLS DEMOCRATS TO BE IN THE ‘ADDITION NOT SUBTRACTION’ BUSINESS WITH SOCIALISTS

The interviewer pressed Newsom further, saying, “There seems to be some distance between [Democratic] leadership and those DSA candidates.”

“But, not the ideas,” Newsom responded.

“I believe in universal healthcare, and I believe in Medicare for All, the party does overwhelmingly,” he said. “And so, if it’s about more money in your pocket, lowering costs, getting money out of politics, if it’s about Medicare for All, I think we’re pretty aligned.”

He added, “It’s about recognizing that we’ve got a planet that is getting hotter and drier and that we’ve got to address the issue of climate change, we want energy security, and we want to move off fossil fuels. That’s a DSA position, that’s a mainstream position within the Democratic Party.”

Newsom dismissed worry about democratic socialist influence in American politics, saying, “I think in many ways, it’s just a label … it’s just such a familiar label to me, we call them progressives.”

Click here to read the full article in FoxNews

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Newsom and California Democrats Scheme To Defang State Schools Chief, Anticipating Republican Win

July 5, 2026 By Katy Grimes 4 Comments

The real losers in their crass blatant power play will be California’s children’

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats slipped a gut-and-amend bill into the budget to strip power from the elected State Schools Superintendent and instead create a new commissioner position for a Governor appointed politician, taking all power away from the voters. They know Sonja Shaw will win, and are preparing to circumvent it.

Newsom is plotting a major restructuring of California’s K-12 education governance that significantly diminishes the powers of the elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, a constitutional office, because a Republican is leading following California’s primary election.

Think about that. This is what a monarchy does.

The California Constitution (Article IX, Section 2) requires that a Superintendent of Public Instruction “shall be elected by the qualified electors of the State at each gubernatorial election.” But that won’t matter if Newsom successfully removes powers from the Schools Superintendent.

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“Once again, Governor Newsom and the Democrat legislative supermajority have thumbed their noses at parents,” Lance Izumi, Senior Director of Education for the Pacific Research Institute, told the Globe. “Sonja Shaw, a school board president who galvanized grassroots parent support across California to finish first in the June primary for state superintendent of public instruction, threatens the leftist public education status quo. She came in ahead of the CTA-endorsed candidate and is poised to become the first Republican state superintendent since the 1960s. Newsom and the Democrats can’t let that happen so they steal the power of the state superintendent in order to give it to Xavier Becerra, their gubernatorial candidate who they believe will be elected in November. They are willing to torpedo democracy—the ability of people to put a parent champion like Sonja Shaw in charge of the California Department of Education—in order to preserve their oligarchic stranglehold on the state’s public schools. As usual, the real losers in their crass blatant power play will be California’s children.”

“The same progressive education oligarchy that has given California bottom-of-the-barrel student achievement will continue to rule for the benefit of the special interests and to the detriment of families,” Izumi added.

A new Education Commissioner, appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, will handle executive and administrative functions, run the department, and report to the Governor and the State Board of Education, most of who are appointed by the Governor. The Superintendent’s role shifts toward policy advocacy, coordination across education levels, K-12 through higher ed, and independent evaluation, according to EdSource.

This is a clear case of changing the rules amid an election where a reform-minded outsider like Sonja Shaw has momentum. The November race will still matter for the advocacy role and any remaining powers, but day-to-day control of the department will shift to the appointee, because Democrats in control can never let anyone else win, ever. Not when they have a supermajority.

Sonja Shaw, candidate for Superintendent of Schools in the California Primary Election, won the top spot, against 9 other candidates. Shaw won 22.6% of the vote, and 1,737,360 votes.

Her response to Gov. Newsom’s and Democrats’ scheme:

“CA families said NO to failing schools and insider politics. So Sacramento’s answer? A gut-and-amend bill to strip power from the elected Superintendent and hand it to a Governor-appointed bureaucrat. They know change is coming, and they’re trying to stop voters before November.”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Shelley: Racketeering or politics? For Attorney General Rob Bonta, it’s all fine.

December 1, 2025 By Susan Shelley Leave a Comment

Here’s a riddle for you: What’s the difference between racketeering and politics?

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Take your time.

Federal law, 18 U.S. Code Section 1861, defines racketeering activity to include “any act or threat” involving a long list of state and federal crimes. These may include obstruction of justice, obstruction of criminal investigations, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, straw purchasers, extortion and certain false statements. 

It’s stunningly similar to what’s needed for a long and successful career in California politics.

 There is absolutely nothing to suggest that California Attorney General Rob Bonta is guilty of any crime. The fact that he recently paid $468,228 from his re-election campaign account to a law firm with a practice area in “government investigations” is absolutely not indicative of any activity by the attorney general that is in any way illegal. Everything’s fine.

The website for the law firm of Wilson Sonsini states that its “experienced team” of attorneys “have assisted clients facing all types of inquiries,” including “responding to letters of inquiry or subpoenas” in both “informal” and “large-scale, formal investigations, including parallel criminal and civil proceedings involving potentially significant financial penalties or other severe consequences.”

These are not the lawyers you call for a car accident. Bonta was contacted by federal law enforcement authorities as part of an investigation into bribery. Former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao was indicted in January, as were her partner Andre Jones and two longtime Bonta donors, Oakland business owners Andy and David Duong. The FBI raided Thao’s home and some of the Duongs’ properties in June 2024.

Bonta told KCRA’s Ashley Zavala, who broke the story of the massive legal bills, that he was a “witness who provided information that may be helpful to their investigation of other people.” He said the federal government first reached out to him because they thought he was “a victim of potential extortion or blackmail.” 

Everything’s fine. The attorney general of California may have been blackmailed. Over what? We don’t know, and perhaps the $468,228 he spent on lawyers will keep it that way.

How does a legal bill get that high? Bonta said he had attorneys “working around the clock to be responsive” starting in the “late summer or early fall of 2024.” He said he provided documents to the government from “multiple devices, multiple computers and laptops; there’s a lot of places where information is stored, and every one of us has a very significant data footprint.”

Sounds like this fell under the category of “responding to letters of inquiry or subpoenas” on the law firm’s list of services. Bonta told Zavala he is “1,000% not a target” of the investigation. 

Everything’s fine.

The Fair Political Practices Commission, which regulates and enforces laws on campaign finance in California, confirmed to Zavala that it received a complaint over Bonta’s use of campaign funds to pay these legal bills and would decide within 14 days whether to open an investigation. Don’t hold your breath. Even if it’s an illegal use of campaign funds, what are they supposed to do, refer the case to the attorney general? 

So everything’s fine, but Bonta would like you to know that he has given away the $155,100 in campaign contributions from the Duongs and their associates “out of an abundance of caution.” 

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

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With L.A.’s latest budget, has the political pendulum firmly swung at City Hall?

May 26, 2025 By David Zahniser 1 Comment

When tenant rights attorney Ysabel Jurado ran for Los Angeles City Council last year, she positioned herself as a potential fourth vote against Mayor Karen Bass’ plan to hire more police officers.

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While she was waging her campaign, the council’s three-member super progressive bloc — Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto–Martínez — voted against the mayor’s budget, decrying the amount of money allocated for the Los Angeles Police Department. Jurado, who went on to unseat Councilmember Kevin de León, said she would have joined them, turning the 12-3 budget vote into an 11-4.

Turns out it none of that was necessary.

On Thursday, the council approved a $14-billion annual budget that would cut police hiring in half, while sparing hundreds of other city workers from layoffs. Jurado, now on the council, praised the spending plan, then voted for it.

And this time around, the council members on the losing end of a 12-3 vote were those who occupy the body’s more moderate wing: Monica Rodriguez, Traci Park and John Lee.

The shift in budget votes from last year to now offers perhaps the strongest evidence of the political pendulum swing under way at City Hall. When other recent votes are added to the equation, the council chamber might even be undergoing a permanent realignment.

The council also voted 12-3 last week to hike the city’s minimum wage for hotel employees and private-sector tourism workers, boosting it to $30 per hour by 2028. Park, Rodriguez and Lee were in the minority on that issue as well, arguing that hotel and airport wages were rising too much and too quickly, jeopardizing the financial health of L.A.’s tourism industry.

The three ultra moderates also voiced alarm at their colleagues’ decision to scale back the mayor’s plan for increasing hiring at the fire department. Rodriguez, who gave a long and passionate speech against the budget, said in an interview she thinks “there’s clearly a shift in the politics of the council.”

“We have different ideology with respect to how we need to be making sure that the city is safe,” she said.

Soto-Martínez, who represents an Echo Park-to-Hollywood district, wouldn’t pin the political shift on any one vote, arguing instead that “the realignment has been happening for quite some years now.” The move to the left at City Hall, he said, has been driven by the election of candidates — including himself — who have sworn off contributions from corporations and real estate interests.

Because this year’s financial situation was so dire, and the list of proposed cuts so large, the council had no sacred cows when preparing the 2025-26 spending plan, he said. That paved the way for the council to scale back the recruitment of new police officers, he said.

“For many years, including the first two years that I was here, that issue was untouchable. No one would touch it or go near it,” said Soto-Martínez, who was elected in 2022. “And this year, we were realistic about police hiring.”

The realignment is in part of the product of years of campaigning and grassroots advocacy from the hotel workers’ union, LA Forward, Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles and many other organizations. But it also reflects the choices of Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is still in his first year in his leadership role.

Harris-Dawson reshuffled the council’s committee assignments last year, offering plum spots to the newest arrivals. Hernandez, who promised during her 2022 campaign not to hire any additional police officers, landed a coveted spot on the budget committee. She then forged a strong working relationship with Councilmember Heather Hutt, another new appointee to the budget committee, who broke into tears on Thursday as she described Hernandez’ contributions to their deliberations.

Over the course of the budget committee’s nine meetings, Hernandez worked with her colleagues to restore funding for programs that help day laborers, an LGBTQ+ liaison in the city’s civil rights department and $1 million for the legal defense of immigrants facing deportation. She also fought for core services, such as street light repairs, graffiti removal and crews that address illegal dumping.

By contrast, Rodriguez, Park and Lee made clear they felt excluded from key decisions, particularly the budget committee’s vote to shift management over certain homelessness initiatives out of the office of City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo and into the Los Angeles Housing Department.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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The Dangers of Lawfare: A Threat to Democracy – A Local Example

March 28, 2025 By Jon Fleishman Leave a Comment

Filing politically motivated lawsuits against opponents is a troubling trend that undermines our democratic processes. Whether you support President-Donald Trump or not, the use of our courts to discredit, distract, and obstruct a political figure is unprecedented in modern U.S. history. This weaponization of the legal system, commonly referred to as “lawfare,” is now being mirrored at the local level here in Orange County in California, where retired federal bankruptcy Judge Lynn Riddle, a liberal Democrat, has taken aim at elected County Board of Education Member Mari Barke, a conservative Republican, by filing a civil lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court asking Barke comply with California’s political financial disclosure laws and seeking monetary damages that Riddle herself will collect if she prevails.

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Riddle’s lawsuit is a glaring example of lawfare—a strategic abuse of the legal system to settle political scores. As a former judge, Riddle should understand the importance of preserving the courts for legitimate grievances, not personal or political vendettas. Her actions are not just disappointing, they’re dangerous. 

In this case, justice has already been served. The allegations against Barke center on her failure to report certain income on financial disclosure forms, a requirement of her office. After initially disputing the reporting requirement, Barke amended her filings and reached a settlement with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), including paying a fine. The matter should have ended there. 

Instead, Riddle continues to pursue a civil lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court, seeking damages even after the FPPC resolved the issue. This escalation raises serious questions about her motivations. Is the goal to financially bleed Barke? To dig up political dirt through legal discovery? Or to create an election-year scandal? Or personal financial gain? 

This is a weaponization of the Courts. This lawsuit is not just unusual, it is dangerous. Courts should not be tools for political revenge. Riddle’s refusal to drop the case after the FPPC took action undermines the principle of fairness. It sets a precedent for both Democrats and Republicans to escalate and weaponize the legal system against their opponents. 

This case also erodes public trust in our institutions. When legal processes are used as political cudgels, they lose their legitimacy. The fallout of normalizing lawfare is profound: a fractured democracy, heightened partisanship, and a justice system seen as a battleground rather than a protector of fairness. 

Riddle’s political bias is clear. She has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Barkes’ political rivals, leaving little doubt about Riddle’s motives. This is not about justice—it is about discrediting a political adversary. Her financial entanglements and history of donations expose her lawsuit as a calculated attempt to harm the Barke, both politically and personally. 

The personal gain Riddle may achieve from this lawsuit—be it financial, political clout, or influence within her ideological circles—further discredits her actions. Allowing personal motives to cloud the pursuit of justice is unethical and undermines the very system she once served. 

But the consequences of lawfare go beyond this individual case. If weaponizing the courts becomes the norm, it creates an arms race of retaliatory lawsuits. Today, it’s a Democratic operative targeting a Republican official; tomorrow, it could be the reverse. This endless cycle benefits no one and chips away at the foundations of our democracy. 

Click here to read the full article in Flashreport.org

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Shawn Steel: Congress Must Prioritize National Voter ID Law

March 14, 2025 By Shawn Steel 1 Comment

Republicans in Congress must act now to mandate a national voter ID law.

You need it to buy cold medicine, donate blood, or attend a Kamala Harris rally. 

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Just don’t ask for ID when deciding who has control over the nuclear codes. At least, not in California. 

That would be racist. So says Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. 

In her 2012 speech to the Democratic National Convention, “Karen Bass spoke out against voter ID laws that have been criticized for disenfranchising minorities.” 

“Today, one of the darkest shadows of the past century is creeping into this one: one of our most basic rights—the right to vote, a right that we fought for and won—is under attack,” Bass, then a member of Congress, said of efforts to require voter ID. 

Voter ID laws aren’t about racism. They’re about preserving Democrats’ power in solidly blue states like California. According to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states require some form of identification at the polls. If states are just too provincial, how about international data? At least 170 countries have voter ID laws. 

Take one example that Mayor Bass can appreciate: Ghana.

In West Africa’s second-most populous country (and the country where L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was junketing while L.A. burned), before you can cast your ballot, you must go through a 4-step voter registration process. Step 1, according to the Ghana Electoral Commission’s website: Present a valid ID.

“For you to register as a voter, you must present a  valid National ID Card to the registration center in your electoral area,” explains the Electoral Commission of Ghana on its information page of where and how to vote. 

Republicans in Congress would be wise to follow the lead of Ghana and the rest of the world by adopting a national voter ID law as part of a comprehensive election integrity law. A law that requires voters to show some form of ID is so commonsense that most people in red states – and around the world – are shocked to discover that not every U.S. state requires voter ID. 

It’s a winning issue with broad support among Democrats, Republicans and independents that is desperately needed to restore the American people’s faith and trust in the electoral process. 

First, let’s correct the record on a racist trope that originated with the Democrat Party: states’ rights to control federal elections. Although the time, place, and manner of elections is prescribed to the states, the U.S. Constitution explicitly protects Congress’ right to “at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” 

Congress has the authority to regulate federal elections. It’s exercised this power repeatedly with the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

About the Voting Rights Act of 1965. None other than 17 racist Democrats pushed the states’ right argument when Democrats opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Check the Senate roll call vote for yourself. On May 26, 1965, 17 Senate Democrats opposed the landmark civil rights law compared to just 2 Republicans. In the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, a national voter ID law would restore the integrity of elections. 

Click here to read the full article in Breitbart CA

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New Allegation of Sexual Misconduct Swirls Around CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp

February 21, 2025 By Neil Vigdor 1 Comment

Several people have accused Mr. Schlapp, the Conservative Political Action Conference chairman, of sexual assault. One of his previous accusers received a six-figure settlement.

It’s the political equivalent of homecoming week for conservatives, a chance to revel over President Trump’s return to power and the dismantling of government institutions despised by the MAGA movement.

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But as the Conservative Political Action Conference got underway outside Washington on Thursday, the group’s influential chairman, Matt Schlapp, was embroiled in another scandal involving allegations of sexual assault against him.

The convention comes a week after new accusations emerged in an article by the journalist Yashar Ali that Mr. Schlapp, a confidant of Mr. Trump, had groped a man at a bar in Virginia a few days earlier during a gathering of conservatives.

Several people have accused Mr. Schlapp of sexual assault in the past, allegations that he has denied and his allies have dismissed as an “attempt at character assassination.” Mr. Schlapp has not been charged with any crimes related to the accusations. The details of the latest episode were also documented in a report by the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office that was obtained by The New York Times. A previous accuser received a $480,000 settlement after dropping his lawsuit against Mr. Schlapp, 57, who opened Thursday’s session with his usual conservative bombast.

“Are you glad that America is back on track?” Mr. Schlapp said. “Has it been a long, tedious four years? Are you ready to tell the whole world that America is ready to be America again?”

Mr. Schlapp appeared onstage with his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, who was Mr. Trump’s White House director of strategic communications during his first term, and has also played an outsize role at CPAC events. The next part of Thursday’s program featured Ms. Schlapp moderating a discussion with Vice President JD Vance, the first headliner at the showcase, which was expected to include speeches by Mr. Trump and the president’s billionaire ally, Elon Musk.

Mr. Schlapp has not publicly addressed the latest allegations against him. A lawyer who represented him in a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault, one that resulted in the settlement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Neither did CPAC.

At CPAC, attendees said they had not heard about the allegations against Mr. Schlapp and were instead focused on celebrating Mr. Trump.

“I think a lot of times, you find allegations, you dig them up against people because you don’t like them,” said Antonio Chaves, 66, who said he was unaware of the claims against Mr. Schlapp. “So those things can be politically motivated, I don’t know.”

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In the Feb. 13 report on Mr. Ali’s Substack site, The Reset, seven people who were at the bar with Mr. Schlapp on the night of Feb. 8 said that they saw him standing uncomfortably close to a group of men. The sources, whose names were withheld because they said that they feared retaliation, told Mr. Ali that Mr. Schlapp had followed some of the men and stood so close to them that it allowed his body to graze theirs.

The people who were interviewed said that one man’s girlfriend confronted Mr. Schlapp, who was accused by the man and several witnesses of grabbing and gripping the man’s genitals while looking directly in the man’s eyes, before Mr. Schlapp was briefly escorted out of the bar by a manager. According to the article, Mr. Schlapp returned to the bar, which led to a heated confrontation.

Click here to read the full article in the New York Times

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Walters: Harris vs. Trump competition tests California’s image among swing state voters

October 18, 2024 By Dan Walters 3 Comments

Not surprisingly, this year’s presidential campaign pitting Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump includes a sharp conflict over whether California is a shining model of prosperity and inclusiveness to be emulated or a dystopian hellhole of crime, squalor and oppressive politics.

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While deeply blue California has long been a rhetorical punching bag for Trump and other Republicans, it’s even more so this year because it’s Harris’ home state.

“We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California,” Trump trumpeted during a weekend rally in Coachella, referring to the state as “Paradise Lost.”

Trump ticked off the well-worn list of California’s supposed sins — its embrace of undocumented immigrants, its huge population of homeless people and its regulatory thicket that makes doing business difficult.

Trump was especially scornful of illegal immigration, an issue that resonates in other states. “Your children are in danger,” Trump told the rally. “You can’t go to school with these people; these people are from a different planet.”

In reality, Harris had almost nothing to do with any of those issues while holding office in California, or the others that Trump and other Republicans often cite, such as crime. Even though she was a local prosecutor before becoming attorney general in 2011, she shunned public involvement in the sharp battles over criminal justice reform a decade ago that fuel this year’s Proposition 36.

Nevertheless California’s size, uniqueness and global cultural impact make it a lightning rod for political, media and academic attention. In singling it out, Trump is hoping that it will help him with swing state voters who hold dark thoughts about California.

By default, Gov. Gavin Newsom, rather than Harris, is California’s defender when Trump issues his periodic denunciations — a bit ironic, given that Newsom is widely viewed in political circles as a Harris rival rather than an enthusiastic supporter. Indeed, if Newsom harbors presidential ambitions himself after his governorship ends two years hence — which he denies — they could only succeed if Trump defeats Harris this year.

During his Coachella rally, Trump referred to Newsom as “New-scum” and repeated his threat to deny firefighting aid if the state doesn’t side with farmers in the decades-long conflict over flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

A few days before the rally, Newsom predicted that Trump would tee off on California and to counter it repeated his own mantra about California having the world’s fifth-largest economy and more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.

The nation is politically polarized over seemingly countless issues and California’s image is obviously one of them, although the reality about the state is much more nuanced than the versions either its critics such as Trump or its advocates such as Newsom peddle to the public.

Click here to read the full article in the Cal Matters

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The Stars Are About to Come Out for Politics: Why Hollywood political donations are due to spike

November 15, 2023 By Seema Mehta Leave a Comment

Hollywood political donations, sharply stymied by this year’s drawn-out entertainment-industry strikes, are expected to spike now that the Screen Actors Guild has reached a tentative deal with the studios.

President Biden is widely expected to raise moneyin Los Angeles in the coming weeks, along with a slew of Senate and congressional candidates who have largely avoided the region because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, a Californian with longtime relationships with entertainment-industry leaders, have been largely unable to publicly tap these donors this year. Harris in May even pulled out of her first public appearance in her home state after she and Biden announced their reelection campaign — an MTV mental health awareness event in Carson — because of the Writers Guild of America strike.

Attending a glitzy industry fundraiser would have been even more fraught — Biden or Harris would have almost certainly had to cross a union picket line — an anathema in Democratic politics, where support from organized labor is essential. Additionally, studio executives didn’t want to host fancy donor gatherings or write big checks while they were pleading poverty during bargaining with actors and writers.

Biden and Harris have by no means suffered because of the decline in the number of Los Angeles fundraisers. They have raised more than $70 million in each of the last two fiscal quarters, and their campaign and the Democratic National Committee have $91 million cash on hand, the most ever by a Democratic White House ticket at this point in the electoral cycle.

Still, campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said the president and vice president purposefully avoided Hollywood because of the strikes.

“We have been very respectful [and] mindful of the environment that people in the industry are feeling and facing,” she said in an interview shortly before the actors’ strike was resolved. “I hope we get a chance to get out there before the end of the year, the end of the fourth quarter, because it is a really important base of support for us to be able to connect with before the clock starts over.”

Biden on Thursday lauded the tentative agreement.

“Collective bargaining works,” he said in a statement. “When both sides come to the table to negotiate in earnest they can make businesses stronger and allow workers to secure pay and benefits that help them raise families and retire with dignity.”

The entertainment industry has been a historic treasure trove of political dollars for both parties, but mostly Democrats. In 2020, people who reported working in television, movie and music jobs donated $43.7 million to presidential campaigns and outside groups.

Democrats received nearly three-quarters of the money, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks electoral finances.

Political contributions from donors who work in the television, movie and music industries plummeted this year, according to an analysis by the center conducted for The Times.

In the first nine months of 2023, donors in these industries contributed $5.4 million to federal campaigns, according to the center’s analysis. During the same time period in prior presidential elections, these donors contributed much more: $24.6 million in 2019, $21.1 million in 2015 and $15.5 million in 2011.

One of the most famous Hollywood fundraisers took place in 2012 on the basketball court of actor George Clooney’s house in Studio City, when then-President Obama raised nearly $15 million for his reelection effort, believed to be the largest one-night campaign haul ever at that time. The dinner party, catered by Wolfgang Puck and attended by Robert Downey Jr., Diane von Furstenberg, Barbra Streisand, James Brolin, Tobey Maguire, Billy Crystal and others, took place one day after Obama announced his support for gay marriage.

Such star-spangled events were few and far between in summer. The tempo has started to pick up slightly in recent months, though it’s still slower than the typical slate of political galas, fetes and dinners the year before a presidential election, several people said. In addition to providing an opportunity to publicly tout one’s political views, such events are a cornerstone of the Hollywood social scene.

“Fundraising in Hollywood is the ultimate networking,” said Donna Bojarsky, a longtime Democratic political consultant and co-founder of a nonprofit dedicated to building civic engagement in L.A. “You go to a Hollywood fundraiser and you see everyone you know.”

However, some are skeptical about whether entertainment-industry fundraising will return to its prior apex.

Lara Bergthold, a communications consultant who has long operated at the nexus of Hollywood and politics, identified a wider issue than the labor stalemate and ensuing financial losses.

“Looking at the broader landscape of progressive organizations and candidates, fundraising is down for them compared to this time four years ago — it’s not just Los Angeles, it’s not just the strike, it’s kind of all over the place,” she said, citing donor burnout, exhaustion and wide-ranging economic worries.

Still, there was a class of major donors who’d largely abstained this year because writing five- or six-figure checks “felt flashy and showy at a time when it was really much more appropriate to be holding back,“ she said recently. Bergthold expected that giving to resume in full force soon after the SAG-AFTRA strike ended.

The writers’ strike ended in late September after 148 days, and the actors’ union’s negotiating committee approved a tentative deal with the major studios on Wednesday after a nearly four-month strike that hobbled the industry and left thousands without work. The ratification vote is expected to take place this week.

Speaking last week before the SAG-AFTRA strike ended, Jay Sures, the politically powerful vice chairman of Hollywood’s United Talent Agency, said he was uncertain about how fundraising would play out in coming months.

“I think it’s going to be a mixed bag,” Sures said. “You’ll see super mega donors who are just going to give no matter what, and you’ll see other donors who will say, ‘Maybe it’s time to just hold off for one beat and see where the world takes us.’”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has benefited greatly from Hollywood donors, said he expects it may take a little time for fundraisers to ramp up because of the roller-coaster many have been through recently.

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