The claws are popping out in California — not as a result of it was simply Halloween, however as a result of voters have just one week left to forged their ballots for the Nov. 8 election.
As campaigns enter the ultimate countdown, fights over hotly contested seats in the state Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives have gotten more and more nasty — with candidates or impartial committees sending out political assault ads blasted by their opponents as false or deceptive.
In Los Angeles, for instance, U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez’ marketing campaign despatched out three mailers in October depicting his challenger, immigration lawyer David Kim, as a MAGA Republican supported by QAnon extremists, the New York Times reports. The catch: Both males are progressive Democrats.
- Longtime Democratic strategist Garry South told the Times: “It’s a race to the bottom. … I just don’t think these runoffs between Democrats should turn into a derby about who can accuse the other of being the most extreme. That’s not a healthy debate to have.”
The same dynamic is at play in the more and more heated race between Democrats Angelique Ashby and Dave Jones to represent Sacramento in the state Senate, which has already seen legal battles and massive amounts of special interest spending.
The newest controversy: A Jones campaign flyer that accuses Ashby of “lying to Republican voters,” noting that she acquired endorsements from Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Fem Dems of Sacramento, a chartered Democratic membership.
That earned a Twitter clapback from Jim DeBoo, Newsom’s government secretary, who questioned why the California Democratic Party would endorse Jones if his marketing campaign “sent a piece of mail to Republicans denouncing Democrats.” The Fem Dems also slammed Jones for his “decision to use us as pawns for political gain with Republican voters, whose values run afoul of our club’s progressive principles.”
- Michael Soneff, a guide for Jones’ marketing campaign, tweeted: “Dave Jones didn’t denounce Democrats. We’re setting the record straight. … Ashby has been telling Republicans that she’s a Republican. … We’re telling voters the truth.”
But accusations of deceptive mailers aren’t restricted to Dem-on-Dem races.
- NARAL Pro-Choice California is slamming the California Medical Association and California Apartment Association for sending a “misleading mail piece” in an intense race for a state Assembly seat anchored around Santa Clarita that claims incumbent Republican Assemblymember Suzette Valladares “supports reproductive freedom.” NARAL Pro-Choice California, which helps Valladares’ Democratic challenger, Pilar Schiavo, described Valladares as an “anti-choice Republican” who “time and again … has voted against reproductive freedom.”
- Allegations of racism are flying in the fierce contest to represent Orange County in the U.S. House, with state Sen. Dave Min of Costa Mesa calling on GOP Rep. Michelle Steel to right away retract “despicable campaign ads” that “falsely slander” her Democratic opponent Jay Chen as “a Communist Chinese sympathizer.” Those ads, Min mentioned in a press release, “will further stoke the flames of anti-Asian hate and result in more violence against Asian Americans.” Newsom’s marketing campaign despatched out a fundraising electronic mail in help of Chen on Monday, the identical day Steel’s campaign sent out a press release titled: “Who’s the racist? Jay Chen’s longstanding support of affirmative action hurts Asian Americans.”
In lighter election news: Calling all crossword fans! If you’re seeking to bone up on the statewide ballot measures — or are simply determined to make the topic of kidney dialysis regulation enjoyable — CalMatters’ Ben Christopher and Jeremia Kimelman packed some prop-themed clues, election tidbits and different assorted trivia into this 86-clue crossword puzzle, which we’re difficult you to complete in lower than quarter-hour. Getting some assist is okay when you use the CalMatters Voter Guide.
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Other Stories You Should Know
1
What may affirmative motion ruling imply for California schools?
It seems as if the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to take the identical stance as California voters did in 2020, when they rejected a ballot measure to revive affirmative motion in the state’s public universities and businesses. In oral arguments Monday, a majority of justices on the nation’s highest courtroom sounded skeptical about persevering with to permit universities to think about using race as an element in admissions selections: “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times, and I don’t have a clue what it means,” Justice Clarence Thomas said because the courtroom thought of two instances searching for to overturn race-conscious admissions insurance policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Tell me what the educational benefits are.”
A ultimate choice isn’t anticipated for months, but when the Supreme Court had been to declare affirmative motion unconstitutional, it might have an instantaneous impact on admissions practices at California’s personal faculties, which enrolled more than 356,000 students in 2020. The University of California, which together with different public larger schooling techniques has been barred from using affirmative action since 1996, supplied a glimpse of what that might appear to be in a brief urging the court to uphold the practice: Despite launching new packages to spice up the variety of underrepresented college students on campus and ending the use of SAT and ACT scores in admissions considerations, “UC struggles to enroll a student body that is sufficiently racially diverse to attain the educational benefits of diversity,” the system’s president and chancellors wrote.
- Femi Ogundele, UC Berkeley’s affiliate vice chancellor of enrollment administration, told the Los Angeles Times: “What I’m learning in this environment is that there is no alternative. There is no race-neutral alternative to being able to consider race.”
2
How are new state bail guidelines holding up?
Let’s bounce over to the California Supreme Court: You might do not forget that final 12 months, the state’s highest courtroom issued a landmark decision banning the apply of holding defendants in jail solely as a result of they’ll’t afford to make bail. But, though advocates of legal justice reform applauded the ruling, they acknowledged it left many questions unanswered and was unlikely to shortly throw open the jailhouse doorways for most of the 44,000 people across California behind bars on a given day regardless of not being convicted or sentenced for a criminal offense.
Indeed, in accordance with a new report from the UCLA School of Law Bail Practicum and the UC Berkeley School of Law Policy Advocacy Clinic, there isn’t a proof that the state’s bail quantities, pretrial jail inhabitants or common size of pretrial detention have decreased for the reason that ruling.
- Rachel Wallace, medical supervisor on the Berkeley Law Policy Advocacy Clinic, said in a statement: “All of the records and data we received point to the alarming conclusion that many judges are not following the mandates of the (state Supreme Court) decision. Greater transparency around judicial decision-making and increased efforts towards judicial training are key to ensure judges are following” requirements outlined in the ruling.
- The report discovered that many judges throughout the state have interpreted the choice as rising their authority to carry defendants with out bail and infrequently ignore the requirement that they take into account much less restrictive alternate options to pretrial jail detention.
- Alicia Virani, director of UCLA Law’s legal justice program, said in a statement: “Many thought that we would finally see relief for Californians, particularly Black, brown and Indigenous people who are subject to targeted policing and more likely to be held pretrial. Instead, we found that many judges are finding new ways to justify holding people pretrial and expanding the reach of the system.”
3
Inside state efforts to decrease prescription drug prices
As California seeks to rein in future growth in health care costs — together with by advancing a plan to manufacture and distribute more affordable versions of insulin — a Monday report from the California State Library’s Research Bureau takes a better have a look at whether or not state insurance policies have restricted unjustified will increase in prescription drug costs.
The report’s backside line: It’s “unclear how effective (Senate Bill) 17” — a 2017 state legislation requiring pharmaceutical corporations to publicly share and clarify sure value will increase for some prescribed drugs — “is at deterring unjustified price increases,” in half as a result of it doesn’t outline a suitable enhance. But the legislation, by offering “transparency to a portion of the supply chain that was previously either not available or easily accessible,” has armed the general public and state lawmakers with essential information “they can use to advance the public debate on how to curb or manage drug price increases in California.”
Just a few different key findings:
- California fined 49 prescription drug producers greater than $72.1 million between January 2019 and December 2021 for failing to report required value will increase.
- However, 37 producers appealed greater than $71.8 million of these fines, and 79% of the appeals resulted in lowered penalties.
- To date, the state Department of Health Care Access and Information has collected about $6.7 million in penalties from 41 producers.
- One key problem for the division’s enforcement efforts: figuring out the entire drug producers topic to reporting.
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