Category: California

Neighbors for a Better San Diego (NFABSD) continues its leadership of community empowerment with this “Update on 2026 State Legislation.”

The California Legislature introduces thousands of bills every year, and 2026 was no exception.

Working with a statewide coalition of policy analysts, NFABSD tracked more than 100 bills relating to land use and housing development, which were boiled down to the ones that we predict will have the greatest impact on the lives of Californians.

Click here to review the list of bills and see how your state legislators voted.

Judge: Feds Using “Flawed” Data; Likely Violating Voting Rights Act

By Jude Joffe-Block / npr / October 22, 2026

A federal judge in California is putting limits on pre-election field operations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security that the agency says is aimed at trying to find noncitizens who have illegally voted in nine states.

In recent weeks, armed Homeland Security Investigations officers have carried out field operations and visited homes to interview people suspected of illegally voting as noncitizens. The targets can include people who became citizens but voted before they naturalized.

In a 19-page order late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that the federal government was using “flawed” data in the initiative and that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act, which bars voter intimidation.

Martínez-Olguín referenced a disclosure last month from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whistleblower that alleged rushed efforts to match data to create a target list of potential noncitizens on voter rolls, and that the list includes U.S. citizens. She also pointed to HSI’s social media posts, including one that showed agents handcuffing a California man accused of unlawfully registering to vote.

The judge wrote that the government’s use of unreliable and incomplete data along with highly publicized arrests “lead to an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote.”

HSI field operations were planned in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, according to documents produced in the case and CNN reporting.

By Andrew Childers / Democracy Docket / October 19, 2026

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a federal court to immediately prevent California from counting the ballots of 20,000 people the Trump administration has accused of being noncitizens who illegally registered to vote.

The request for a temporary restraining order is the latest escalation between California and the Trump administration over the midterms. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) over the weekend accused President Donald Trump of attempting to rig the election.

“California not just refused to act; it made clear that it is committed to treating ballots from those likely noncitizens equal to ballots from American citizens, prompting this suit and motion that seeks commonplace election relief when ballots are called into question,” DOJ said in its filing in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The standoff began last week when the DOJ sent California a thumb drive with a hand-scrawled password on a sticky note that it claimed contained the names of 20,000 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in the state. The Justice Department gave California only 48 hours to validate those names and demanded that California not count the ballots of anyone on the list. State officials declined, calling the request “outrageous.”

We’re asking this outrageous question: could this month — October of 2026 — actually be the very last month of American democracy?

This is preposterous! How hyperbolic you yell back! What are you thinking!?

How could any intelligent American in our present day country even consider that after 250 years of democracy this particular month is the last one? This headline is just click-bait and whatever follows is really not worthy of my time and energy to even consider.

Um, okay. If you’re still here, perhaps curiosity has forced you to remain. Or maybe you are looking for a laugh, or another example of TDS — Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Yet, there is a growing gnawing in your conscience. You have enough of an understanding of what’s going on in America to know that this is not normal, this whole Trump affair has taken all of us down a dark tunnel and maybe, just maybe there is a kernel of truth in this question — whether this Halloween month is our last one where democracy still exists. And whether it will still exist after the dust and dirt from the mid-terms settle. Can we even consider what this means?

How could a country with such an experiment in democracy begun by our founding fathers and mothers a quarter of a millennium ago — bogged down with slavery and the mass extinction of native peoples — tested by our bloodiest war ever, the Civil War, tossed about by world wars and the wars of imperialism, by recessions and depressions, floods, earthquakes and wildfires, now still standing by all the reforms of the 20th century, be currently and fatally challenged by the worst and most corrupt and authoritarian president in our history?

How could we be in this place? How could this have happened despite all of our better angels guiding us out of the promise and morass of our history?

But that’s the whole point! This is where we’re at.

Due to all the threats and actions taken by Trump and all his allies they have brought us here.

And just where is that exactly?

We’re on the precipice of the one of the most dangerous moments in modern American history.

by Nadia Lathan / Cal-Matters / October 7, 2026

Want to know who’s who in Republican politics? Look no further than the megadonors bankrolling California’s voter ID initiative.

Illinois billionaire packing supply magnate Richard Uihlein, who has poured tens of millions of dollars into conservative causes, has contributed $17 million to the campaign for Proposition 39, a GOP-backed ballot measure to require voters to show a driver’s license or other government ID to vote.

Uihlein’s involvement and that of other deep-pocketed Republican donors is a signal that conservatives view Prop. 39 as a test of support for future battleground states in the broader push by President Donald Trump to tighten voter restrictions.

Uihlein is joined by Airbnb co-founder and current White House official Joe Gebbia, who on Wednesday gave $8 million to the campaign. Southern California businessman Steven Bray is another top donor, having loaned the campaign more than $3 million and given $50,000 outright. The right-wing political group Reform California, tech entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan are also major donors. Combined, they have helped the campaign rake in more than $36 million —  $13 million more than their opponents a month from Election Day.

By Kathryn Burton

Proposition 45, on the ballot for the November 3 general election, would weaken critical environmental and public health protections currently in place by fast tracking development projects.

It would severely limit public participation in the process while making it easier for high polluting, corporate backed developers to poison our environment with no mechanism to fund cleanup. That would be left to the taxpayers. The nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that fast tracking polluting projects could cost taxpayers $100 million or more annually due to environmental harm and cleanup.

The California Environmental Quality Act currently requires state and local public agencies to identify, disclose, and minimize the potential negative environmental damage from proposed projects before approving them. It encourages public input on projects effecting the local community by exposing negative impacts. (For example, increased pollution, increased traffic, destruction of wildlife habitat.)

by Amie Parnes and Julia Manchester / The Hill / October 6, 2026

President Trump is stoking outrage among California Democrats and at least one House GOP candidate after he suggested at a midterm rally that he would allow Iran to “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) led the charge, telling The Hill on Tuesday that Trump is “mentally ill.”

“TIME FOR THE 25TH!” the governor said in a statement.

The sentiment follows a social media post from Newsom on Monday where he called Trump “deranged and dangerous.”

Newsom is widely seen as a prospective presidential contender for Democrats in 2028.

“Gavin Newscum is the worst governor in America, and he also may be the dumbest,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in response to the remarks.

Newsom was far from the only California politician lashing out at Trump, however.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) said Trump’s remarks are “dangerous and could potentially compromise our safety,” while San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria (D) told Trump in his own statement to “keep our city out of your reckless war talk.”

Meanwhile, Republican Jim Desmond, who is running for a San Diego-area House district, said he “vehemently” disagrees with the president.

At a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, while discussing the war with Iran and its economic effects, Trump suggested that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles or San Diego as a “small price to pay.”

“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump said. “They can take out a city, let ’em take out Los Angeles, let ’em take out San Diego.”

The comments drew cheers, laughter and applause from the relatively small sized rally. But they laughed and cheered anyhow at the thought that Iran could bomb and wipe out up to 10 million people who live in the two cities. Because they’re only blue — they / we don’t matter.

They laughed in Nebraska, but no one in California was smiling. Here’s some of the reaction, as compiled by Patch San Diego.

Gov. Gavin Newsom responded on social media, pointing to Trump’s previous deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to California before criticizing the president’s latest remarks.

“Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego,” Newsom wrote. “He is deranged and dangerous.”

Newsom’s press office also condemned the remarks, noting that more than 10 million people live in the two metropolitan areas.

“Let’s be clear: The President is advocating for an attack on 10+ million U.S. residents in two of America’s largest cities,” the governor’s press office wrote on social media. “This is not normal. None of this is. And we will continue to remind folks of that every day.”

By Tammy Murga / kpbs / Oct. 2, 2026

A bright yellow circle slowly formed in the water at Glorietta Bay Park in Coronado on Thursday afternoon.

They were surfers, clean water advocates and community members on surfboards, paddleboards and kayaks. Except they weren’t wearing wetsuits. They donned hazmat suits.

“The hazmat suit is a visual cue that we’re in a crisis,” said Corey Cleary-Stoner, one of the community members. “The most essential natural resource is under attack, and it’s under attack by us.”

He was referring to what’s been happening for years on the other side of the San Diego Bay, about eight miles south of the park: beaches closed for swimming because of sewage contamination that makes its way from Tijuana.

The pollution has forced lifeguards to adapt by limiting their time in the water and using mobile showers attached to their vehicles; children in local summer camps are bussed to beaches outside of their communities, and residents have become sick from exposure to the sewage contamination.

Public Gets Kicked in the Gut- Part 3

By Donna Frye

Here is Part 1- and here is Part 2–

On Tuesday, September 30, 2026, Governor Newsom signed SB 344, a gut-and-amend bill that eliminated the public’s ability to file a civil lawsuit and challenge in court any unmitigated environmental impacts that may be caused by the Midway Rising project. Specifically, SB 344 “Declares the City of San Diego’s Midway Rising Specific Plan Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SPSEIR), which is pending certification by the City, fully complies with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).”

That means the San Diego City Council will be the final deciders of whether the environmental analysis for the project is adequate and what mitigation measures will be required.

To say that this gut-and-amend legislation reached the governor’s desk in record time is a gross understatement.  Here’s a condensed history of the approximate six week “public process” for SB 344.

On February 12, 2025, SB 344 was introduced as legislation related to the disposition of human remains and the scattering of the ashes at sea. For some reason, on July 17, 2025, SB 344 was placed in the inactive file where it remained for over a year.

By Paul Krueger

I take serious issue with the Union-Tribune’s latest story on Midway Rising, (see image above) and the paper’s  failure to include a response from any of the numerous, very credible opponents of two new “special interest” state laws that allow the city and Midway Rising’s developers to ignore established environmental review.

It’s also beyond my comprehension that the UT’s reporting lacks any response from the equally well-informed critics of the Midway Rising project, as currently proposed.

Sen. Weber-Pierson’s introduction of her special interest legislation (Senate Bills 344 and 958) was immediately met with a well-documented backlash from San Diegans who objected to what they saw as a blatant attempt to thwart legitimate legal challenges to Midway’s Rising negative and irreversible environmental impacts.

Both of the reporters who wrote this story cover housing issues as part of their important and influential work at the Union-Tribune. I must assume they’ve followed the very public debate about the merits and drawbacks of special state legislation that allows developers of a specific project to skirt established environmental reviews.

In San Diego, the sources for an informed, intelligent, and credible criticism of SB 344 and 958 are obvious, starting with attorney Everett DeLano, who successfully challenged the city’s failure to complete an adequate environmental impact study

Latest UC Berkeley survey: Democratic candidate has 58% support among likely voters, while Republican Steve Hilton receives 33%.

Por SanDiegoRed / September 26, 2026 

Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor with roots in Tijuana, is holding a wider lead over Steve Hilton in the race, according to the latest survey from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

The poll puts Becerra at 58% among likely voters, compared with 33% for Hilton. That gives the Democratic candidate a 25-point margin and marks a seven-point increase from the difference recorded in Berkeley’s August survey.

The new numbers also come as another California poll released in September showed a similar gap between the two candidates.