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      A Stinging Setback in California Is a Warning for Democrats in 2022

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      A Discussion About the Electoral College and Voting Rights

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCalifornia TodayA Discussion About the Electoral College and Voting RightsThursday: Assemblywoman Shirley Weber says, “I continue to be amazed at being able to participate in the process at this level.” Also: A pandemic update.Shawn Hubler and Dec. 17, 2020, 8:56 a.m. ETAssemblywoman Shirley Weber, the head of California’s Legislative Black Caucus. Credit…Rich Pedroncelli/Associated PressGood morning.This week, the Electoral College voted, officially making Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris the next president and vice president of the United States.If you were watching the news, you might have caught California’s electors bursting into applause in the green-carpeted Assembly as they cast the 55 votes that put the Biden-Harris ticket over the 270-vote threshold. Or you may have noticed the legislator dressed in red who was heading the proceedings.That was Shirley Weber, a retired San Diego State University professor who is now a Democratic assemblywoman and the head of California’s Legislative Black Caucus.Shawn Hubler caught up with her on Tuesday and asked her about the experience. Her answer, lightly edited here, was a surprise:It’s not every day that the Electoral College gets gavel-to-gavel TV coverage. Watching you after the events of the past year, just as a Californian, I wondered what must be going through your mind.It was an amazing experience. I’ve been on the Electoral College once before, and it doesn’t seem like a lot. But once you’re in that room, you realize what we were doing. And how important it was. I continue to be amazed at being able to participate in the process at this level.I come from a father and grandfather who were sharecroppers in Arkansas, and my father never got a chance to vote until he was in his mid to late 30s because he lived in Arkansas. And my grandfather never got to vote at all because he died before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Wow. I had no idea. So the back story for you was much deeper than just California and its role in the Trump resistance.My dad could barely read. He was never allowed to go to school very much in Arkansas, because they were sharecroppers and he was a male, so he had to work.Well, they were trying to cheat him out of his years of labor, and one day he fought back. And they were going to make an example of him — it was known in the community they were going to kill him. My mother’s mother had come to California years before, so he came here, fleeing for his life.My God.They had put him in the back of a wagon, in the middle of the night like in a movie, and took him to Texarkana and he got on the train and came to my mother’s mother in California.When the men came to our house that night, my dad was gone. We remained in Arkansas for three months, until my dad earned enough money to bring his wife and six children by train to California. Later two more were born in California.Where in Arkansas was this?We lived in Hope, Ark. Bill Clinton’s grandfather lived right down the road from my grandparents. They all knew his grandfather and knew him.And your family settled in Los Angeles then?Yes. We lived in the projects. Eventually my father on a fluke was able to buy a house at 45th and Broadway. His company had changed owners and when they changed the retirement system, they had to pay what was in it to the employees, so he got $2,000 and put it down on a house.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Republicans are winning over Asian immigrants like my father. Here's why | Geoffrey Mak

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      My father is a Chinese immigrant, middle-class. Growing up, he and his family were often on the move, escaping conflict in Vietnam, then the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution in China. During the reign of Chairman Mao, my father remembers schoolmates in Shanghai who were disappeared by the government. He had heard of dissidents who swam from mainland China to Hong Kong by night. Politically, he considered evangelicalism, anti-communism and democracy to be radical: the west. America captivated his imagination by way of Woodstock – Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary – and pictures of the magical big houses that sprawled the suburbs.After he immigrated to the States in the 1970s, he eventually did get his big house in the suburbs, which today stands at the heart of California’s 39th congressional district, comprising parts of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange county. It’s where the rapidly growing Asian American population was, in the last decade, heralded as the future of the Republican party. In November, the district flipped a House seat from Democrat to Republican. My father voted for Trump.He is just one of many Chinese American immigrants who increasingly find sympathy and belonging in the Republican party. They appear undeterred by Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric, with slurs like the “Chinese virus” and “kung-flu”. More pressingly, they vehemently hate the Chinese Communist party and support Trump’s hawkish stance against China in the trade wars. Chinese voters make up the largest group within Asian Americans, who are collectively the fastest-growing demographic category in the country. While Asian Americans supported Biden overall, Trump gained seven percentage points with Asian Americans this election. (Among Asians, only Japanese Americans shifted toward the Democrats.)This might be cause for alarm for Democrats, who like to see themselves as the bearer of a nationwide multiracial coalition. Is this a myth? In California, a Democratic stronghold, Asian Americans appear increasingly nonplussed about campaigns touting multicultural ideals. For instance, many Asian American families oppose affirmative action, fearing that their children would suffer in elite university admissions if merit were given less weight than race. So when Proposition 16 – which would have ended a 24-year-old ban on affirmative action in education, employment and contracting – appeared on the ballot, Asian Americans played a pivotal role in voting it down. They were not taking it for the team. But should they be expected to?I voted for Proposition 16 in support of affirmative action, but I represent a segment of the liberal elite: a photogenic if not misleading face of the Asian American constituency. For people like my father, Democrats’ messages of inclusion and multiculturalism are leaving them cold.When Kamala Harris identified as the first Asian American vice-presidential candidate, my father did not particularly “feel seen”. When he read that Black Lives Matter protests turned violent, he bought an American flag from Amazon and hoisted it above his front door. Some of his views and choices mystify me, but I see how, for instance, a term like “Bipoc” – which stands for Black and Indigenous people of color, and stakes authority based on relative disadvantage – risks leaving many Asian Americans feeling squeezed out of the minority coalition, like an expendable casualty. This breeds the kind of resentment that the writer Wesley Yang identified when describing Asian Americans as “a nominal minority whose claim to be a ‘person of color’ deserving of the special regard reserved for victims is taken seriously by no one”.While the Biden campaign heavily courted the suburban vote, it still missed demographics like my father’s. In California’s 39th district, where my parents live, Democrat Gil Cisneros launched a much-lauded campaign where Chinese-speaking staffers reached out to voters on apps like WeChat and Line (popular with Chinese), and Korean speakers to voters on KakaoTalk (popular with Koreans). This diversified approach helped secure his victory in 2018. Yet this year he still lost to the Republican candidate Young Kim.The Republican campaign to Asian Americans was narrower in scope than the Democrats’, but Republicans still won the hearts and minds of California’s 39th district. That so many swing congressional districts pivoted Republican seems to indicate that Biden’s victory is more indicative of a general impatience to vote Trump out of office, rather than a long-term persuasion towards Democratic interests. While Democrats still hold the majority of Asian American voters, they can hardly take them for granted.Today, Asian Americans are the only major demographic category in which naturalized citizens make up the majority, and the immigrant population is increasing. While the multiracial coalition is certainly an ideal worth fighting for, the Democrats need to find ways of reaching immigrant voters that go beyond an identity politics that treats Asian Americans as a consolidated monolith, and listen more to the grievances and enthusiasms immigrants feel today. Asian Americans will be ignorable up until they’re not. More

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      'People got involved': how Los Angeles progressives swept the election

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      [embedded content]
      Voters in Los Angeles have approved new limits to police power, elected a prosecutor who promised to reopen police shooting cases and mandated that 10% of the local budget be spent on prevention programs rather than incarceration.
      The slate of progressive victories in Los Angeles, which counts 10m residents and is home to the largest jail system in the United States, show the potential impact of local wins for criminal justice reform, as well as the growing electoral influence of Black Lives Matter.
      “So many people got involved and wanted to vote,” said Leah Garcia, an East Los Angeles resident whose 18-year-old son Paul Rea was shot to death by a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy in 2019. “A lot of the families I talk to – we’re tired of living in fear.”
      Los Angeles elected a new district attorney, George Gascón, who has pledged not to keep people in prison when they are up for parole, not transfer teens to adult court, not pursue the death penalty and won’t use “gang enhancements”, which have long been used in racially discriminatory ways.
      Though Gascón faced protests in his former job as San Francisco district attorney for refusing to prosecute officers in several high-profile police killing cases, he vowed during the campaign in LA to reopen some police shooting cases, and has said that incarcerating people for low-level offenses during the coronavirus pandemic is “unconscionable”.
      Law enforcement unions had contributed millions of dollars in political spending to backing Gascón’s opponent, the incumbent prosecutor Jackie Lacey.
      For the past three years, Lacey had refused to meet with Black Lives Matter activists protesting against what they say are more than 600 police killings and in-custody deaths of prisoners since she took office in 2013 and Lacey’s refusal to prosecute the officers responsible. More

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      Uber bought itself a law. Here's why that's dangerous for struggling drivers like me | Cherri Murphy

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      Last week, Uber bought itself a law.Along with Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates, app companies spent more than $200m – the most spent on any ballot campaign in US history – to bankroll Proposition 22 in California. With its passage, the law will now exempt drivers like me from basic protections afforded to most other workers in the state.And in the aftermath of their bought-and-paid-for victory, these companies are promising to roll out this model nationwide, foretelling a grim future for gig workers across the US.But let’s be absolutely clear: Prop 22 is a dangerous law. Voters in California, inundated with ads promising drivers a “living wage”, flexibility and greater benefits, believed they were ensuring drivers a better future in the middle of a pandemic and recession.But voters were hoodwinked. Drivers are now neither employees, guaranteed rights and benefits such as healthcare, nor true independent contractors, since we can’t set our own rates, choose our own clients, or build wealth on the apps.Instead, Prop 22 promises substandard healthcare, a death sentence to many in the middle of a pandemic. We’re promised a sub-minimum wage in the middle of a recession that an independent study showed would be as low as $5.64 an hour – not the eventual $15 state minimum. We’re given no family leave, no paid sick days and no access to state unemployment compensation. Most importantly, while we’re already prevented from unionizing under federal law, the measure also makes it nearly impossible for California to pass laws protecting drivers who organize collectively, a fundamental right that companies undermine to silence worker power. More

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      'The most misunderstood state': why California's not as liberal as you think

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      It took mere minutes after California polls closed on election night for networks to call the state for Joe Biden. Millions of votes in America’s most populous state were still to be counted, but Biden’s wide victory in California was guaranteed – the state is, after all, seen as a liberal bastion.But zoom in on its sprawling 58 counties, and the solid-blue picture of California is blurred. Even with a rousing race for the White House luring new voters to the ballot box this year, congressional conservatives held on to their seats and Republicans are poised to pick up more in close races they lost in the last cycle. Californians sided with corporations on the future of gig work, decided against affirmative action, and nixed both stronger rent control and a new business tax that benefits schools and local governments. “California is the most misunderstood state in the country,” said the political scientist Bruce Cain, who teaches on the American west at Stanford University. “It has always been that way.”California continues to produce some of the most influential and oppositional politicians on both sides. The Golden state is home to some of the most prominent conservative voices, including the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the Trump-allied congressman Devin Nunes. It is also home to the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff – all of whom secured new terms this election.It still has large swaths of red territory hidden behind a Democratic super-majority in the state house. Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, who hails from the Bay Area, is the only California Democrat who has made it to the White House. Before the 1990s, a largely Republican-held California sent Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the national stage.That’s why, Cain said, it shouldn’t be surprising to see some hard-fought congressional seats slipping from Democrats this year. “These were in many instances Republican seats that were held for a decade or two, sometimes longer,” he said. “It didn’t take much to tip it away – those seats were really on loan.”The sharp ideological divide, embodied by the big battle at the top of the ticket, also encouraged Californians across the political spectrum to weigh in. They said they saw this election as the most consequential of their lifetime and, according to surveys done by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), roughly three-quarters of respondents said they were more enthusiastic about voting than ever before. They were not just Democrats.“The enthusiasm about voting was similar among Democrats and Republicans,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC’s President. “We are a blue state, but it meant that Republicans were going to turn out in California even if the presidential election was a foregone conclusion.” The election brought roughly 22 million people to the polls, according to statistics from the California secretary of state – the most in the state’s history – and roughly 88% of eligible residents were registered.“In what everybody was expecting was going to be a blue wave election, it looks like a few of the seats will turn Republican again,” Baldassare said, adding that focus on the presidential election and representatives also could have clouded concentration and understanding of California’s complicated 12 state propositions. More

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      Who will fill Kamala Harris's Senate seat in California?

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      With Kamala Harris officially headed to the White House, a fresh political battle in her home state of California looms: who will fill her US Senate seat?California law allows the governor to appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of Harris’s term, and speculation over whom Gavin Newsom will nominate has been swirling for months.A range of politicians have been pitching themselves for the position – Newsom this summer joked with a reporter who asked if candidates had approached him: “You may be the only one who hasn’t – unless you just did.”Top contenders include Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, and Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general, either of whom would be the first Latino senator from California if appointed. Representatives Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who was a contender for the vice-presidential nomination, and Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley area, have also been singled out as strong candidates by political strategists.“This is going to be a huge, huge challenge for the governor because he’s got an embarrassment of riches,” said Nathan Barankin, Harris’s former chief of staff.Newsom’s decision could shape the US Senate for years, as whoever fills the seat would face re-election with the huge advantage of incumbency. And California senators can wield an outsize influence in Washington, said Aimee Allison, who heads She the People, a national network seeking to elevate women of color to political leadership.“If there’s one thing that was clarified during the Trump years it is that the policy and political leadership coming from California have been key in providing resistance,” said Allison.As a freshman senator from the nation’s most populous state, Harris played a key role in the hearings of two supreme court justices, and brought her sharp, prosecutorial style to interrogations of several Trump administration officials.Whoever takes her place in the Senate next could help shape how the US legislates on “reparations, the housing crisis, immigration”, Allison said.Newsom will probably seek to appoint an ally in Washington, Barankin said. However, it is unlikely he will find a candidate with whom he shares the same bond he has with Harris.Newsom and Harris came up together in California politics – he was the mayor of San Francisco while she was district attorney, and he served as lieutenant governor while she was the state’s attorney general. “Going through this common political and public life experience at the exact same time binds them together,” Barankin said. More