Category: California

Another influential politician has come out against the 22-story so-called “Pencil Tower” being proposed for Pacific Beach. This time, Senator Catherine Blakespear of the California 38th District — a Democrat — has written a letter coming out in “strong opposition” to the proposal, called “Project Vela”, for 970 Turquoise Street.

The 38th Senate District encompasses coastal North County south through PB.

Blakespear wrote the public letter to Gustavo Velasquez, Director of the California Department of Housing & Community Development and agreed with other electeds that “this project undermines state law by permitting a project that includes only 10 affordable homes alongside 139 visitor accommodation units and 74 other market rate residential units.”

By Paige Austin / Patch Staff / Wed, Nov 13, 2024

Republicans are one win away from taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives, giving the party control of all branches of government, and liberal California may very well be the state that delivers it to the GOP this week.

Though NBC News declared Republican victory in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday and Data provider Decision Desk HQ projected Republicans to win the house, the Associated Press and other major outlets have not called it yet. That’s because a handful of races, including three in California, remain too close to call.

The Republican chances of victory in the House depends on still uncalled races in Arizona’s District 6 in the Tuscon area, Iowa’s District 1, Alaska’s District 1, and California’s Districts 13, 45, and 47.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press had not declared a victory in Orange County District 47, but on Tuesday night, Republican Scott Baugh conceded the race to Democrat Dave Min.

Striking mental health care workers at Kaiser Permanente were back on the picket lines this week, beginning Monday, November 11 at one site in San Diego as well as others at multiple Southern California medical centers in a continuing dispute with management.

Union officials said workers would be picketing be at the San Diego location all week – Monday through Friday at San Diego Medical Center, located at 9455 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Picket lines will begin at 8 a.m. and run through 2 p.m.

The union’s contract with Kaiser expired Sept. 30. No bargaining sessions are scheduled for this week.

According to the union, the key issues remain “Kaiser’s unwillingness to provide its nearly 2,400 mental health professionals in Southern California the same amount of time for critical patient care duties that can’t be done during appointments as their counterparts in Northern California — as well as the same wage levels and retirement benefits as comparable workers throughout the Kaiser system.”

by Joe Mathews / Times of San Diego  Zócalo / November 9, 2024

California, let’s go Coastal. Let’s put the California Coastal Commission in charge of the entire state.

Why? Because, in this land of weak governments and cowardly corporations, the Coastal Commission is the rare California institution with a spine.

Elon Musk’s new fight against the commission is merely the latest testament to its extraordinary effectiveness.

The California Coastal Commission was created not by politicians but by the people of California, via a 1972 ballot initiative.

On November 8th members of a raft of locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) voted to ratify a new three-year contract with CVS Pharmacy.

The 8 locals — Locals 5, 135, 324, 648, 770, 1167, 1428 and 1442 — representing CVS pharmacists, clerks, and technicians  — reached the agreement after months of negotiations, a 3-day unlawful labor practices strike in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and active participation from thousands of California pharmacists, pharmacy clerks, and technicians.

By Laura Meckler and Andrew Jeong / Washington Post / November 9, 2024

For most of the country, predictions that Election Day would morph into election week or election month did not come to pass.
Then there’s California, where millions of ballots remain uncounted.

The most populous state in the union has one of the longest vote-counting processes. That’s partly because California has so many ballots to count and partly because the state makes it easy for its citizens to vote, which means election officials have to work harder to certify that ballots are valid.

The result is — it may take a while for results. As of midday Saturday, 10 House races in California had yet to be called, with control of the House on the line. Also uncalled were a few closely fought ballot initiatives, including one that would gradually raise the minimum wage to $18 per hour.

As of Saturday, there were nearly 5 million uncounted ballots, including more than 950,000 in Los Angeles County alone. County officials have 30 days to count their ballots and report them to the secretary of state, which then certifies the results.

The Washington Post reports :

As of Saturday, there were nearly 5 million uncounted ballots in California, including more than 950,000 in Los Angeles County alone. County officials have 30 days to count their ballots and report them to the secretary of state, which then certifies the results.

Days after Republicans won the presidency and control of the Senate, the exact makeup of the 119th Congress remained unclear, with control of the House uncertain and one Senate seat left to be called.

Early Saturday, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) was projected to win Nevada’s Senate race, according to the Associated Press, marking a victory for Democrats in one of the last Senate seats to be called.

On election night, Republicans secured enough seats to attain the Senate majority. Arizona’s Senate race remains the last one without a projected winner. There, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) leads Republican Kari Lake. If Gallego wins, Republicans will have a 53-seat majority.

The current balance of power in the House is 212 Republicans and 203 Democrats, with 20 races remaining uncalled. Republicans need to win six of them to secure a majority; Democrats need to win 15.

What’s left to be called

What another Trump presidency will mean for California

by Alexei Koseff / CalMatters / November 5, 2024

Former President Donald Trump won a second term after four years out of the White House, likely thrusting California back into leading the resistance against him.

The Associated Press made its call at 3 a.m., declaring that the Republican defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who would have become the first woman president and the most powerful Californian in four decades.

Instead, Californians now face a repeat of Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021 — another four years of governance consumed by combative showdowns between the state’s Democratic leadership and Washington, D.C., possibly distracting from or even setting back progress on addressing California’s own problems.

Californians Send Anti-Trumpist Adam Schiff to the Senate; Rent Control, Prison Slavery Blocked, Prop 36 Passes

 by Ryan Sabalow and Sameea Kamal / CalMatters / Nov. 6, 2024

While Republicans celebrated a red wave nationally, California voters affirmed the state’s solid blue politics with Democratic candidates seeing strong returns for state and federal office.

As the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency loomed large over California, the state elected a new U.S. senator in Adam Schiff. A Burbank Democrat, Schiff made a national name for himself in the U.S. House by leading the prosecution of Trump’s first impeachment and for his key role investigating the Jan. 6th storming of the Capitol.

While Republicans are also leading most of the key contested races to represent California in Congress, Democrats are ahead in races that would expand their supermajority in the state Legislature, making the state well positioned to lead the resistance to a second Trump presidency.

California’s voters were hesitant to fully embrace a progressive agenda.

Kat Schuster /San Diego Patch / Nov. 4, 2024

In California, 8,058,584 vote-by-mail ballots have been returned and 98% of them were already accepted, according to data posted by California’s Secretary of State the day before the election.

Counties were required to mail out ballots by Oct. 7 — all active, registered voters should have received a vote-by-mail ballot for the general election.

Nationwide, more than 76.5 Americans have already cast their ballots in Tuesday’s 2024 presidential election.

According to a Monday analysis by NBC News of data from election officials across the country, 49% percent of early votes in California were cast by Democrats, 30% were by Republicans and 21% were by people who haven’t declared a party.

Not all California residents who received an early-vote ballot had returned them by Monday. The returned ballots represent 47% of those sent to Democrats, 25% sent to Republicans and 28% sent to no-party voters.

Here we are finally! Election Day 2024, Tuesday November 5th.

About 83% of the nearly 27 million adults in California who are eligible to vote are registered. And millions of Californians have already voted.

In her latest report on California’s voter registration, Secretary of State Shirley Weber — a local girl! — said a record 22.6 million Californians are registered to vote, which is 548,211 more than four years ago.

With nearly 2 million ballots sent out across San Diego, it will take some time to get the votes tallied.

The Registrar has released a timeline of when San Diegans can expect the unofficial results to roll in and how long it will take them to fully certify the election. Here’s what you should know:

8 p.m. on Election Day

The first dump of results will come just after the polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Night. No results will be available before that time. This dump will include mail ballots received before Election Day and results from people who voted at vote centers before Nov. 5.