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      in US Politics

      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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      in US Politics

      '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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      in US Politics

      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

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      in US Politics

      Los Angeles: progressive challenger ousts top prosecutor Jackie Lacey

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      Jackie Lacey, the Los Angeles district attorney, was ousted by her progressive challenger in one of the most closely watched criminal justice races in the US this year.
      George Gascón, the former police chief and district attorney of San Francisco, won the race to lead the Los Angeles prosecutors’ office with more than 53% of the vote, as of Friday morning. Black Lives Matter LA and other activist groups played a major role in the heated contest, having protested against Lacey’s policies for years.
      An emotional Lacey conceded the race on Friday, saying that while 791,000 ballots remained to be counted in Los Angeles county, her consultants advised her that she would not be able to close the gap enough to claim victory. She suggested that unprecedented amounts of money poured into the race contributed to her defeat, as well as the nationwide protests that erupted over the summer following the high-profile police killings of Black civilians.
      “The circumstances surrounding the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery gave breath to an in-progress discussion around racism, policing and criminal justice reform,” she said. “These incidents were painful and exposed an issue that existed in this country for years: racism. Our nation is going through a reckoning and what happened in my election may one day be listed as a consequence of that. It may be said that the results of this election may be the result of our season of discontent and our demand to see a tsunami of change.”
      Lacey was the first woman and first African American to serve as the Los Angeles DA. In her second term, Lacey faced intensifying scrutiny over her refusal to prosecute police officers who kill, her close ties with law enforcement unions and her continued use of the death penalty.
      Gascón, who was endorsed by political heavyweights such as Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders, is part of a wave of liberal, reform-minded DA candidates across the US who have pledged to undo some of the harms and racial inequities of policing and prisons.
      BLM and other activist groups have increasingly put pressure on elected district attorneys, who are some of the most influential and least accountable players in the US criminal justice system.
      Los Angeles’ prosecutorial office is the largest local prosecutor’s office in the country. The Los Angeles DA’s office oversees 1,000 lawyers, funnels defendants into the world’s largest jail system and reviews police violence cases in a county that has some of the highest number of police killings in the nation. LA prosecutors are also responsible for investigating misconduct in the LA sheriff’s department, which has been plagued by recent scandals, including controversial killings and alleged gangs of deputies engaged in criminal behavior.
      Gascón gained traction and celebrity support amid national protests against police killings and racial inequality following the death of George Floyd in May. He has pledged to hold police accountable for brutality, promising to reopen specific cases of killings by police that Lacey had previously cleared.
      In an interview with the Guardian last month, Gascón said he would stop using a number of “tough-on-crime” laws that have contributed to mass incarceration and California’s prison overcrowding crisis: “We can see incarceration and safety are not necessarily synonymous, and the fact that this is becoming more obvious to many, it’s very, very energizing to me.”
      As DA, he said he would not fight to keep people in prison when they are up for parole, not transfer teens to adult court, won’t pursue the death penalty and won’t use “gang enhancements”, which have long been used in racially discriminatory ways.
      Lacey disappointed progressive groups during her tenure, including by sending 23 people to death row, more than any other county in the US in recent years. All but one sentenced to death were people of color. Despite hundreds of killings by police, she only brought charges in one case.
      Gascón also faced progressive protests when he was San Francisco DA, stemming from his refusal to prosecute police in a number of high-profile killings. Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter LA, who has long rallied against Lacey, noted that she would probably end up protesting Gascón, too, once he is DA, given the nature of the prosecutor’s office.
      Gascón is expected to make his first public remarks on Friday afternoon. More

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      in Elections

      Voting proceeds smoothly across US despite fears of unrest

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      Across America millions of people went to the polls amid an election campaign fraught with anxiety over the prospect of voter intimidation and the chance of civil unrest after a historically divisive election.But as polls started to close on the east coast of the US, reports from across the country reflected a day of peaceful voting with only sporadic reports of incidents of intimidation or misinformation or technological problems with voting machines.The leader of a group of 42,000 legal volunteers deployed for the election said so far there had not been “major, systemic problems or attempts to obstruct voting”.Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said early voting, voter education efforts and earlier litigation had made for “a relatively smooth election day across the country”.The committee operates the Election Protection hotline, which provides information and assistance to Americans who encounter problems while voting. Clarke said there was an increase in complaints about voter intimidation and electioneering compared to past elections, but those problems were at a smaller, less intense scale than had been expected.“While we have seen these complaints, in many instances they are lone wolfs, individuals, maybe two people, but not large groups that would otherwise have a stark chilling effect on the electorate,” Clarke said. “And I think many voters this season have come out determined.”Clarke cautioned that this could be the “calm before the storm,” and that the committee was bracing for issues over whether absentee ballots were properly handled and counted in the coming days. More

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      'We couldn't stand it any more': why disaffection with Devin Nunes is growing among his constituents

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      Paul Buxman remembers how excited he was to meet his new congressman, Devin Nunes, when Nunes showed up at his organic fruit farm in California’s central valley in the early 2000s.
      Buxman assumed that Nunes, who comes from Portuguese dairy farming stock, was actually interested in sustainable land use. Maybe they’d talk about pesticides, or water, or farm labor issues in one of the world’s largest food producing regions. Maybe Nunes would ask Buxman to address the crowd he’d brought along.
      None of it happened. “I thought, this is the first farmer we’ve had as a congressman who’s come out to visit a farm,” Buxman. “But all it was was a photo op.”
      Buxman never was able to arrange a meeting with Nunes, despite making multiple overtures. Pretty soon, he stopped voting for him. Then, after Donald Trump became president and Nunes, as chair of the House intelligence committee until 2019 emerged as one of Trump’s staunchest defenders, Buxman started leaving messages with the congressman’s staffers. “You have to remember, you don’t only represent people who you agree with. At least, sit quietly and put up with us,” he’d tell them.
      Nunes paid no attention until Buxman signed a petition demanding that Nunes stop describing himself as a farmer on the electoral ballot. Nunes’s parents had long ago moved the family dairy farm to Iowa and Nunes himself had no apparent farming connection left other than a small investment in a friend’s Napa valley winery, the petition argued.
      Now, Nunes did respond – with a lawsuit, accusing Buxman of being part of a dark-money plot that threatened his good name and the integrity of the electoral process. It was one of a flurry of suits the congressman filed against critics and media organizations after facing heavy criticism for his role in Trump’s various Russia scandals.
      Lashing out at his critics in this way has not been without a political cost. Two years ago, after 16 years in Congress, Nunes faced his first significant re-election battle when a local prosecutor, Andrew Janz, came within five percentage points of unseating him. This year, small business owner and civic activist Phil Arballo could come closer still with a campaign that has focused predominantly on the local issues that many constituents accuse Nunes of ignoring. More