Monday, October 30, 2023

WHAT IS NEWSOM AIMING FOR?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2023, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “WHAT IS NEWSOM AIMING FOR?”

 

        Bet on this: when Gavin Newsom is termed out of the governor’s office at the end of 2026, he will not go quietly into retirement, as Jerry Brown did when his fourth term as governor ended almost five years ago.

 

        But what does Newsom want next? That’s an open question, one that’s difficult to answer as he looks to his next big media event, a planned debate with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, currently a flailing candidate for his party’s presidential nomination.

 

        For sure, Newsom has not neglected his current job, even though after next year he will be the lamest of lame ducks, staring at a term limit with no set agenda for his future – unless he has already figured one out but is keeping it a deep secret.

 

        Anyone who looked at the detail in his scores of veto messages during September and October, as he killed one fatuous idea after another, would realize Newsom has not neglected his duties.

 

        But the moment he cleared his desk of bills passed by the Legislature, his attention turned elsewhere – overseas.

 

        It wasn’t enough for Newsom to make a weeklong trip to China, where he discussed economic growth with academics in Hong Kong and converting to electric vehicles with the Chinese president, plus city and provincial officials in Guongdong. saw an offshore wind power farm in Jiangsu province and took a ride on high-speed rail between Beijing and Shanghai and a tour of a Tesla factory.

 

        Newsom could have flown the usual direct route to China, crossing the Pacific Ocean. Instead, he added thousands of miles and a lot more greenhouse gases to his trip by stopping in Israel en route. That meant transcontinental and trans-Atlantic flying, plus a long trip across all of Asia.

 

        The Israel stop allowed him photo-opportunities with local leaders, the chance to express sympathy to parents of Hamas-held hostages and visits to wounded who had California connections.

 

        It did nothing to advance peace or any other cause, except perhaps establishing some foreign affairs credentials for the governor.

 

        All of this was precisely the kind of thing folks do when prepping a run for President. It’s easy to schedule these kinds of things, easy to get access to foreign leaders when you’re governor of a big state like California or New York or Florida or Texas.

 

        But just try getting in to see prime ministers when you’re an ex-governor. That may be a reason Brown hasn’t done much foreign travel since 2018.

 

        Newsom is stymied for now in his likely quest for the White House, acting as one of President Biden’s leading surrogates, and having pledged to support his longtime stablemate (they’ve shared campaign consultants), Vice President Kamala Harris, for president if anything happens to knock Biden out of his announced reelection campaign next year.

 

        So he’s plainly trying to set himself up for 2028, a presidential year for which he could start campaigning openly the moment he’s termed out of Sacramento.

 

        There’s plenty of precedent for this: One example is Ronald Reagan, another ex-California governor who traveled the nation extensively between leaving office in 1974 and winning the presidency in 1980.

 

        Reagan campaigned indefatigably for Republicans during those years, doing political favors and piling up political credits. He also ventured abroad, but not very much or very visibly.

 

        Newsom figures to do even more traveling in 2027, no matter who is president then. If it’s Biden, Newsom would be displaying no disloyalty by doing this; if it’s Donald Trump, Newsom would have the chance to establish himself as a major anti-Trumper.

 

        It’s the same with his DeSantis debate. There has been some bitter rhetoric between the two over the last year or so, making this planned 90-minute exercise with Fox News host Sean Hannity as moderator a sure-fire ratings hit.

 

        The show could set both men up for highly credible runs in 2028, by which time each would have been out of office awhile.

 

        So that’s it: He may occasionally deny it, but Newsom is traveling and debating now to set himself up for his dream job, the top political one in America. Only time will tell if it works.

 

       

   -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net


CAN A CELEBRITY WOMANIZER AGAIN HELP STATE GOP?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2023, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “CAN A CELEBRITY WOMANIZER AGAIN HELP STATE GOP?”

 

        Often, when California’s Republican Party lacks depth and a record of achievement among its elected politicians, the state GOP turns to celebrity candidates.

 

        So it was in 1966, when Republican movie star  Ronald Reagan defeated two-term Democratic Gov. Edmund (Pat) Brown. Soon after, onetime actor George Murphy knocked off the appointed Democratic Sen. Pierre Salinger, once President Kennedy’s press secretary.

 

It happened again when the party used noted linguist and former San Francisco State University President S.I. Hayakawa to defeat incumbent Sen. John Tunney (himself the son of celebrity boxer Gene Tunney). It happened a fourth time in 2003, when muscleman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger ousted second-term Gov. Gray Davis in a recall election.

 

        Now the GOP hopes yet another celebrity can come to its rescue. That’s one meaning of the mid-October entry of former Dodgers and Padres first baseman Steve Garvey into the race for the U.S. Senate seat long held by the late Dianne Feinstein.

 

        If Garvey is most similar to any of the prior successful Republican celebrity politicians, it is Schwarzenegger, whose campaign was rocked shortly before Election Day 2003 by widespread allegations of marital infidelity and womanizing, some turning out to be accurate.

 

        Garvey, a Donald Trump supporter running in the state which twice provided Trump’s opponents with their margins of victory in the national popular vote, hopes to become the first California Republican since Schwarzenegger in 2008 to win statewide office.

 

        At 74, he becomes the second-oldest candidate in a race that so far has been dominated by three Democratic members of Congress – Adam Schiff of Burbank, Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland.

 

        Unlike the others, who announced campaigns around the time in 2022 that Feinstein said she would not seek reelection, Garvey took his time getting in.

 

        He first hinted he would run, then pulled back into an observer stance. When Garvey declared formally in early October, he took few controversial stances. He said he opposes abortion (pleasing many Republicans) but insisted he would not vote for federal laws to restrict the practice.

 

     This amounts to a non-position. On most other issues, he refused to endorse national and state Republican stances, saying “This is a Steve Garvey campaign for all the people and building a consensus.” But he’s made it hard to see so far what he means by a consensus.

 

        That vague hesitation to jump onto Republican positions like opposing new gun controls and “outing” transgender schoolchildren to their parents differs from Schwarzenegger, who simply rejected many GOP positions and came to be reviled by some party activists as a RINO – Republican in name only.

 

        Another big difference between Garvey and Schwarzenegger, the two major athlete celebrities who have run here, is that Garvey’s history of womanizing has had far more formal confirmation than Schwarzenegger’s did until after he left office.

 

        Even though it’s been many years since any woman he was involved with sued him, it seems fair to bring up the subject because Garvey’s entire positive reputation and campaign stem from his even longer-ago athletic achievements as the only player to star on pennant-winning teams with both major league franchises in Southern California.

 

        Court documents filed in one action against him cited DNA testing that proved he was the biological father of at least one child of a former sex partner.

 

        That lawsuit portrayed Garvey as beginning and continuing relationships with several women at the same time he asked one of them to marry him.

 

        He admitted that he impregnated at least two women he never married, saying “in both cases, I was led to believe that I wasn’t responsible for birth control.”

 

        He told NBC News in the late 20th Century that “I’ll live up to the moral obligations which I feel strongly about because I am a Christian.”

 

        Sexual infidelity did not harm Schwarzenegger at the polls and has not hurt current Gov. Gavin Newsom there, either, perhaps because he has abjectly apologized for his affair with the wife of a top aide.

 

        So womanizing also may not harm Garvey, as he clearly hopes memories of his slugging exploits will carry him into the November runoff election.

       

   -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

Monday, October 23, 2023

ARE CITIES BECOMING LAST RESORT AGAINST STATE DOMINANCE?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY,
NOVEMBER 10, 2023, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “ARE CITIES BECOMING LAST RESORT AGAINST STATE DOMINANCE?”

 

        Increasingly, city governments are becoming the last resort for resistance to policies adopted by both elected state officials and appointed functionaries who assume authority normally reserved for votes of the people.

 

        The latest prominent example is no-cash bail, a system in which persons arrested for nonviolent or legally non-serious crimes (which can range up to some assaults) can be released quickly with a mere citation telling them to appear in court at a later date.

 

        It’s a policy first adopted in 2020 by state legislators and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But voters in 2022 cancelled that law via a referendum that passed by a resounding 2 million votes, a margin of 56-44 percent.

 

        That should have ended no-cash bail. But a couple of so-called “progressive” district attorneys informally re-instituted the rejected rule, ordering their deputies not to participate in setting bail for any but the most serious criminals.

 

        Then the nation’s largest local court system – Los Angeles County’s Superior Court – took it a step further, deciding on its own that no-cash bail would apply in virtually all cases starting Oct. 1. That’s actually begun.

 

        Now 12 of the county’s 88 cities have filed court papers saying zero bail threatens public safety by loosing accused criminals onto the streets without considering whether they constitute a threat.

 

        It’s unclear whether the cities will get the injunction they seek against this. If not, they’ll have to carry their case to the appellate level.

 

        But they are adamant that a zero bail policy “fails to support local leaders in their pledge to protect their residents, and that is unacceptable,” as Glendora Mayor Gary Boyer said in a statement.

 

        Other cities joining Glendora include Whittier, Artesia, Covina, Downey, Lakewood, Santa Fe Springs, Palmdale, Arcadia, Industry, Vernon and La Verne.

 

        The court system’s new policy quickly found most arrestees getting cited and released in the field, never even seeing a police station.

 

        Law enforcement was not pleased. “It’s frustrating,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, who notes the policy is one reason many citizens who witness crimes no longer bother reporting them because they don’t think it will lead anywhere. “I’m very concerned,” Luna said.

 

        The no-cash-bail system is born of a widespread conviction among progressives that cash bail favors the rich, allowing well-heeled suspects to win pre-trial release even after serious crimes. People who violate release conditions under no-cash bail are subject to arrest if they violate release terms, just as those out on bail always have been.

 

        The cities' effort to beat back public policy that has either been rejected by voters or is based solely on beliefs, and not statistics, is similar to an effort by some cities – led by Orange County’s Huntington Beach – to resist one-size-fits-all housing mandates imposed by the state.

 

        They see California’s Department of Housing and Community Development imposing construction quotas on every city and county in California, whether or not there is demand or public desire for that housing.

 

        One result of this policy has been construction of many high-rise buildings loaded with “affordable” apartments (available to families with incomes at or below 80 percent of any area’s median). But even affordable housing is often priced above what many who would like to buy California real estate can pay, so vacancy signs abound on most of the state’s new buildings.

 

 

        Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed lawsuits against several cities, threatening their state grants for items like police, sewers and roads if they don’t cave in and permit whatever levels of new housing they’re told.

 

        Judges have not yet ruled definitively in these cases, so it remains to be seen if the many housing laws passed in the last five years will stand up against charter cities, normally entitled by the state Constitution to exercise great independence.

 

        Similarly, no one knows if things like no-cash bail can ultimately stand up legally even after voters resoundingly rejected the concept.

 

        The bottom line: Thanks to some cities, folks who favor local control with citizens having a strong influence on their surroundings still have hope, but it may be growing slimmer by the day.

       

-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

CALIFORNIA MAY DECIDE WHO TAKES THE HOUSE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2023, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “CALIFORNIA MAY DECIDE WHO TAKES THE HOUSE”

 

        Never has it been more clear than today that a majority of just a few, even one or two, votes in the House of Representatives can have massive effects on national policy and priorities.

 

        Republicans, with help from a few California districts, took over the House last year and essentially retired former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who remains in Congress but as a mere rank-and-filer.

 

        Does anyone, for example, believe that President Biden’s possible impeachment would be the subject of hearings in the House today if Republicans were not in charge? That is, they're in charge when they can choose a leader. If Democrats were still running the House, there would have been no dispute about expanding the federal debt ceiling, or preventing a government shutdown, and so on.

 

        A swing of just five votes toward the Democrats would change the status quo quickly, giving them a one-vote margin.

 

        The results almost exactly one year from today might hinge on a few seats won by narrow margins last year by candidates in California.

 

        For example, the GOP scored key wins in two Central Valley districts that some expected to go Democratic. Without those victories by John Duarte of Modesto and David Valadao of Hanford, today’s GOP margin would be far slimmer.

 

        Both those Republican wins were mild surprises, as the two districts involved, the 13th and 22nd, feature pluralities of Latino voters. Their failure to turn out in numbers comparable to 2018, when Democrats easily won the House, was one key to today’s Republican majority.

 

        In the 13th, Duarte won by just 600 votes out of 133,000, far less than 1 percent. He will again face former Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray of Merced, who will try to make up those 600 votes not only among Latinos, but from students at the burgeoning UC Merced campus.

 

        Just down Highway 99, Valadao won in the 22nd district by 3 percent over another former Democratic state legislator, Rudy Salas. Like the 13th, this district voted for Biden, but here too, the Latino turnout cost the Democrats.

 

        Elsewhere, some count Democrat Dave Min, an Orange County state senator under fire since his May arrest for drunk driving, as a sure loser. Min, a labor union ally in the Legislature, admitted to his violation. Said Min, “... To my family, constituents and supporters, I am so deeply sorry. (But) I will not let this…distract from our work…”

 

        It’s unknown whether voters in the very tight 47th District, won in the last three elections by Democrat Katie Porter, will forgive Min. Porter, running for the seat long held by the late Democrat Diane Feinstein in the U.S. Senate, has not withdrawn her endorsement of Min.

 

        If Min wins the primary, he will likely face Scott Baugh, 61, who once represented a coastal Orange County Assembly district. This could be one of California’s tightest races.

 

        The difference in outcomes in the Central Valley districts and the 47th demonstrates why Democrats must turn out Latino voters. Porter did this in 2022;  Gray and Salas did not.

 

        Another threatened Democrat is Josh Harder of Tracy, challenged by Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln. But Harder has beaten opponents seemingly stronger than Lincoln.

 

        Some have expressed doubts about the political survival of first-termer Kevin Kiley in the 3rd District and two-termer Mike Garcia in the 27th.

 

        But Kiley, who won by more than 6 percent last time after running poorly as a potential replacement candidate in the 2021 recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom, now looks safe in this district centered on the GOP stronghold of Placer County. Garcia, meanwhile, easily beat a challenge from former Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith last time out. But voter registration in his 27th district, centered on Santa Clarita, grows steadily more Democratic.

 

        Republicans, as usual, think they can beat three-term Democrat Mike Levin in the 49th District, mainly in north San Diego County. But the GOP has run stronger-seeming candidates against Levin in other years than those now opposing him.

 

        If all goes according to form elsewhere, it could take just one or two Democratic takeaways here to swing the House back to their side. But nothing is certain in any of these swing districts.

       

-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

Monday, October 16, 2023

CAN CASH PAYMENTS DENT DRUG ADDICTION AND HOMELESSNESS?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
     1720 OAK STREET, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90405
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2023 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
        “CAN CASH PAYMENTS DENT DRUG ADDICTION AND HOMELESSNESS?”

 

        “The business of America is business,” President Calvin Coolidge famously observed in 1925.

 

        Plenty of other American cliches support his view: “Money talks, (other stuff) walks,” goes one. “Show me the money,” says another.

 

        California authorities have now begun testing this principle on drug addiction, one of the state’s most obdurate problems. If it works there, they also ought to try it on homelessness, where high percentages of the unhoused either refuse temporary shelter or end up back on the streets after getting thrown out of housing for various types of misbehavior.

 

        The ongoing trial is a response to the failure of drug addiction to respond to the many millions of state and federal dollars that have been thrown at it. The idea is to toss some of that money toward documented addicts of substances from heroin to cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl and other opiates and stimulants.

 

        Deaths from these and related drugs quadrupled between 2011 and 2020, reports the California Health Care Foundation. Emergency room visits caused by amphetamine use rose 50 percent in just two years, from 2018 to 2020.

 

If addicts get highs from the drugs, one still unproven theory goes, perhaps they’ll be even more thrilled by receiving cash. Well, not exactly cash, but gift cards from a variety of retail and grocery stores.

 

These start with a $10 reward from Medi-Cal for the first clean urine test, rising steadily over 24 weeks to a total of $599, just below the $600 level where income sources must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service and the state Franchise Tax Board.

 

        This is definitely throwing money at a big problem, about $50 million in mostly federal funds, but in a much more direct way than via psychotherapy and other current tactics.

 

        Today’s main treatment methods will not be going away, nor will prescribed medications and counseling.

 

        The idea of the money is to provide positive reinforcement, with material results from constructive behavior and exercise of will power.

 

        Authorities see this as a tool that might somehow “rewire” addicts’ brains to make them more interested in material well-being than immediate highs.

 

        No one thinks cash-for-clean-tests can end drug addiction problems for everyone who suffers them. But if it works on a significant percentage, letting them sober up and stay that way for as long as 24 weeks, that would be progress and more than cover its costs by saving far more money in the costs of street crime and treatment.

 

        And here’s that other idea: If cash can work for addicts, could it help the homeless?

 

        Many of them refuse to enter shelters because they want to remain free of rules and are not interested in counseling opportunities usually provided in temporary shelters like hotels now being rented or bought by cities and counties around the state.

 

        But how about giving them a no-strings attached stipend for each week they spend seven nights in temporary shelter? Maybe raise rewards a bit if they seek counseling and are observed to be taking treatment seriously.

 

        If their acquaintances still on the streets see some of the unhoused getting food, shelter and money, some who now reject moving in may become motivated to accept a temporary hotel room of their own, even if it means controlling their behavior at least enough not to get kicked out.

 

        If this works and some of those involved move on to permanent housing or get jobs in today’s wide-open employment market, it would cost far less than the hundreds of millions of tax dollars now being spent for hotels and other temporary shelter.

 

        There’s also the fact that drug addiction and homelessness often involve the same individuals. Helping them through one problem might contribute to solving the other.

 

        The peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association has reported that 80 percent of studies of cash rewards for giving up use of stimulants showed they reduced drug usage, at least somewhat.

 

        In a way, this could be the ultimate test of the Coolidge observation about America. For if money can’t dry out a significant portion of drug addicts and move major numbers of the homeless to inside spaces, it’s hard to see what else might.

       
     -30-       
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com

 

MASSACRE BOOSTS ANTI-SEMITISM ON CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2023, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “MASSACRE BOOSTS ANTI-SEMITISM ON CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES”

 

        Everyone in academe knows anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest bigotry. But at colleges across California and the nation, this prejudice has become increasingly acceptable and visible in the days since the Oct. 7 massacre of hundreds of Israeli Jews by the terror group Hamas.

 

        In many campus demonstrations, students have screamed that the mass slaying of more than 1,200 men, women, children, babies, the elderly and unarmed concert goers was purely the fault of Israel. But it was not Israel that put maps showing the locations of baby nurseries and schools in the hands of killers from the Hamas terror organization.

 

Meanwhile, college administrators were exposing their own weakness and timidity.

 

        None of this is new in California, where members of a group called Students for Justice in Palestine (SPJ) have a long history of harassing Jewish students who express sympathy or support for Israel, the world’s only country that is expressly a Jewish homeland.

 

        Most such on-campus episodes have been conducted or supported by SPJ, whose first chapter, at UC Berkeley, was founded by “financial patrons…connected to Islamist terror organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Listed among the founders is UC Berkeley Prof. Hatem Bazian.

 

SPJ has long claimed it is not anti-Semitic; merely anti-Israel. But applauding the murder of dozens of babies slain solely because they were born Jewish is a pure form of anti-Semitism.

 

        Among other episodes, SPJ once set up a fake checkpoint near Berkeley’s Sather Gate campus entrance, using cardboard guns to stop and frisk anyone they believed to be Jewish. No one was expelled or even reprimanded for this.

 

        At Stanford University, according to a federal discrimination lawsuit, a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program in the student counseling service “advanced anti-Semitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control, and endorsed the narrative that (most) Jews support white supremacy.” In fact, Jews were leading supporters of civil rights in America long before the Freedom Riders of the 1960s, where they made up about half of all white participants.

 

        After the Hamas massacre, SPJ members and supporters at Stanford hung banners on campus saying, among other things, that “The illusion of Israel is burning.” SPJ published a column in the Stanford Daily calling Hamas’ actions, including butchering of babies, “part of the ongoing struggle…”

 

        As on other campuses, there were also graffiti claiming “Israel was solely responsible.” This essentially accused the victims of responsibility for their own murders.

 

        Perhaps the most infamous October campus incident occurred in a Stanford freshman class where an instructor ordered Jewish students into a corner reserved for “colonialists.” The same instructor trivialized the murder of Jews, reportedly asking Jewish students how many died in the Holocaust. When one replied “6 million,” the instructor reportedly responded, “Oh, is that all?”

 

        Stanford quickly pulled the instructor from classes while it “investigates.”

 

What’s been the overall response of university leaders at the most sought-after California campuses, people charged with maintaining safety for all students, including Jews and Palestinians?

 

        Stanford’s top officials made a brief statement saying they were “deeply saddened by the death and human suffering.” They also said pro-Hamas banners were OK, but should be relocated elsewhere on campus.

 

        Lambasted for this response, Stanford’s acting president and provost later ate a Sabbath dinner in the Hillel Jewish student center to demonstrate their sympathy. Even so, the response amounted to little.

 

        UC officials were equally tepid. Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said “…We decry any calls for violence in any form or support for terrorism as we continue to mourn the loss of innocent life…”

 

        And UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said “…We must be vigilant that we do not allow anguish over what is occurring internationally to turn into resentment or mistreatment of our fellow Bruins…”

 

        None mentioned possible action against perpetrators of anti-Semitic actions. This was consistent with UCLA’s never acting against students who once hounded a Jewish student into resigning an elected campus government post she had won.

 

        And so, as is common around the nation, there is no sign yet that any major California campus will even try slightly to prevent the further spread of anti-Semitism. 

 

-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

Monday, October 9, 2023

HOUSING ‘SOLUTIONS’ NOT WORKING

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2023 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “HOUSING ‘SOLUTIONS’ NOT WORKING”

 

        Rarely has California seen so concerted and unified a campaign by its elected officials as the drive for housing density conducted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and allied state legislators over the past five years.

 

        All along, as legislators passed law after law easing the path to development of high-rise apartments and condominiums, there have been three major goals: One is to ease a housing shortage, another is to drive down the price of housing and a third seeks somehow to ease the obdurate problem of homelessness.

 

        In the eyes of state officials, these things are linked. By creating new housing and easing the existing shortage, real estate prices and rents were supposed to come down, thus relieving pressure on many folks having trouble paying their rent and allowing them to avoid eviction and homelessness.

 

        But three new reports make it clear this is not working. The more homeless who arrive in housing newly provided for them in many cities and counties, the higher the number of individuals living on the streets has risen. The more folks who migrate out of California, presumably vacating their previous homes, the more homeless numbers rise. And the greater the supply of housing, it’s now becoming apparent, the more it will cost to use it.


        These improbable results are not only the result of folks like Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, who openly advocates sending his city’s homeless to cities with warmer climates, like Los Angeles and San Francisco, before the Alaskan winter hits in earnest. Bronson is transparent about this, unlike officials in Texas and Florida who have used state money to send busload upon busload of recently arrived immigrants to California cities.

 

         But the number of Californians who now are housed but unable to buy homes far exceeds the unhoused populace.

 

        The latest official count showed California with about 170,000 homeless on any given night, while the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development now estimates the housing shortage at 2.5 million units. Those government estimates of housing need have varied over the last five years between 1.8 million and 3.5 million, but fewer than 10 percent of any of thosd amounts have been built in any one year.

 

        One reason may be that folks living in single-family residences have not seized upon the 2021 laws known as SB 9 and 10 to build either high-rise housing or dense apartment units on existing lots. Around the state, officials report only tepid results from those laws, which allow high-rises to be built on or near almost all “major transportation corridors” and give virtually automatic approval to construction of as many as six homes on almost all current single-family lots.

 

        For cities that do not get new plans for dense housing approved by bureaucrats at HCD, a 2017 law known as SB35 (or the “builder’s remedy”) denies local governments and their constituents the right to protest almost any building plan that includes significant amounts of “affordable housing” that would be made available to buyers with incomes at 80 percent or below an area’s median level.

 

        The UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation reports this law has so far caused construction of 18,215 units, a drop in the bucket of what HCD claims is needed to satisfy demand.

 

        Meanwhile, median home prices did not abate their rise. In Los Angeles County, prices are now up 30 percent over the last five years, according to a Zillow survey, with the median price just shy of $1 million. Several California cities have already crossed the million-dollar median mark (half the homes sold go for above and half sell for below that level), including San Jose, Santa Maria, Santa Cruz and San Francisco. The overall California median is second highest in America, behind only Hawaii, fueled only in part by inflation.

 

        The Zillow average home value index for California was $743,361 at the end of June, about five times the level in West Virginia, the nation’s lowest at $155,773.

 

        All of which demonstrates the need for far more conversions of vacant office, store and parking lot space to housing. An alternative would be to build far out into deserts and other ex-urban areas, a tactic that could contribute to climate change as it would force ever longer commutes for those who still work in offices.

       

         

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

WHAT IF LAPHONZA BUTLER RUNS? (WHAT BUTLER SPARED HER FELLOW DEMOCRATS)

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2023 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “WHAT IF LAPHONZA BUTLER RUNS?”

 

        The pipe dream of some Black women in California for the last three years has been getting one of their number into the United States Senate.

 

        Black women have been there before, in the persons of Carole Moseley Braun of Illinois, who served from 1993 to 1999, and California’s own Kamala Harris from 2016 until elected vice president in 2020. But for almost four years after Harris’ accession to the nation’s nominal No. 2 political job, there were none.

 

        That left a void Gov. Gavin Newsom three years ago vowed to fill if another vacancy arose in a California Senate seat – and he named Laphonza Butler quickly after the pioneering Dianne Feinstein’s death in late September.

 

        Butler was sworn in less than five days after Feinstein’s demise.

 

        Newsom thus kept one promise. But by not requiring that Butler commit to being a mere caretaker, a seat filler, he broke another prior commitment.

 

        Newsomleft it to Butler to decide whether or not to seek a full term next year, breaking his commitment to name a mere interim senator.

 

        As of this writing, Butler had not decided what she'll do.

 

        If she entered the race, the former head of the EMILY’s List women’s political funding committee knew, she would be the fourth major Democrat in the race, which was also reported about to be joined by Steve Garvey, political neophyte and former all-star first baseman who won pennants with both the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

 

        Newsom’s stated reason for promising to name a caretaker was to avoid interfering in the ongoing campaign. But a Butler entry into the race held the potential for changing things radically.

 

        Every recent poll on that race showed all three Democratic Congress members running with substantial leads over all Republicans in the field. Those surveys had Burbank’s Adam Schiff, a longtime nemesis of ex-President Donald Trump, leading fellow Democrat Katie Porter of Irvine and Oakland’s Barbara Lee, the only Black person running before the Butler’s appointment.

 

        This appeared to ensure a Democrat-on-Democrat general election race next fall. But if Butler were to get in, Democratic votes, especially those going to Lee, could be further split, potentially opening a path to the runoff for Garvey, who has more name recognition than anyone in the race not named Schiff.

 

        It may be no accident that Garvey, who has “explored” a run since last spring, appeared ready to get in only after the Butler possibility arose.

 

        No statewide primary race with more than three Democratic contenders has produced an all-Democrat runoff election since California adopted its Top Two, “jungle primary” system via the 2010 Proposition 14. The party's voters have been too splintered for that. There appeared a good chance the pattern would continue if Butler opted to enter the race.

 

        As the former head of the nation’s leading women’s political funding group, Butler knows all this, but still was pondering the race. She also had to know that her fairly recent move to Maryland – one she reversed immediately upon getting Newsom’s nod – would harm her in a California Senate race.

 

        So a Butler entry into this contest was far from assured.

 

        But there was one other possibility, however slim it appeared: Lee could drop out and urge supporters to vote for Butler.

 

        This appeared very unlikely even though Lee has run a distant third in every major poll taken so far, her 7 percent share topping all Republicans, but trailing far behind Schiff’s 20 percent and Porter’s 17 percent.

 

        Lee, 77, adopted a beaming, almost celebratory look when Butler was sworn in as a senator by Harris. Her stated goal in running was to give black women representation in the Senate, and Butler was now there even if Lee was not.

 

        Political and mathematical reality is that if Lee (or Butler) wants to avoid diluting Democratic votes to the point where a Republican like Garvey could make next November’s runoff, this might be about the only open path. But it would require self-sacrifice from either Lee or Butler and no one yet knows whether either is capable of that.

       

-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

Updated version:


CALIFORNIA FOCUS
     1720 OAK STREET, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90405
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2023 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “WHAT LAPHONZA BUTLER SPARED HER FELLOW DEMOCRATS”

 

        The pipe dream of some Black women in California for the last three years has been getting one of their number into the United States Senate.

 

        Black women have been there before, in the persons of Carole Moseley Braun of Illinois, who served from 1993 to 1999, and California’s own Kamala Harris from 2016 until elected vice president in 2020. But for almost four years after Harris’ accession to the nation’s nominal No. 2 political job, there were none.

 

        That left a void Gov. Gavin Newsom three years ago vowed to fill if another vacancy arose in a California Senate seat – and he named Laphonza Butler quickly after the pioneering Dianne Feinstein’s death in late September.

 

        Butler was sworn in less than five days after Feinstein’s demise.

 

        Newsom thus kept one promise. But by not requiring that Butler commit to being a mere caretaker, a seat filler, he broke another prior commitment. Now she has chosen to essentially be the caretaker, seat-filling senator he also promised.

 

        Butler’s decision was a favor not only to Newsom but to all the other Democrats in this Senate race: That includes the three Democratic Congress members running with substantial poll leads over all Republicans in the field.

 

Every survey has had Burbank’s Adam Schiff, a longtime nemesis of ex-President Donald Trump, leading fellow Democrat Katie Porter of Irvine and Oakland’s Barbara Lee, the only Black person running before the Butler’s appointment. Those polls were all taken before former baseball great Steve Garvey entered the race as a Republican and Donald Trump supporter and before Christina Pascucci, a longtime TV news anchor on Los Angeles station KTLA, joined as a Democrat.

 

        Newsom’s stated reason for promising to name a caretaker was to avoid interfering in the ongoing campaign. But a Butler entry into the race held the potential for changing things radically.

 

 

        Joint entries by both Butler and Pascucci might have splintered the Democratic vote even more than it now figures to be. What once appeared sure to be a Democrat-on-Democrat general election race next fall could easily have become any of the Democrats facing Garvey. Butler’s contribution to the splintering could have been to divide both the Black female vote now figuring to be Lee’s property and further fracture “we-want-a-female” voters, who still might be split among Lee, Porter and Pascucci.

 

     It may be no accident that Garvey, who had “explored” a run since last spring, actually got in only after the Butler possibility arose.

 

        No statewide primary race with more than three Democratic contenders has produced an all-Democrat runoff election since California adopted its Top Two, “jungle primary” system via the 2010 Proposition 14. The party's voters have been too divided for that. There appeared a good chance the pattern would continue if Butler opted to enter the race. A Republican/Democrat race remains a strong possibility.

 

        As the former head of the nation’s leading women’s political funding group, Butler knew all this, but still spent weeks pondering the race. She also had to know that her fairly recent move to Maryland – one she reversed immediately upon getting Newsom’s nod – would harm her in a California Senate race.

 

        So a Butler entry into this contest was never extremely likely.

 

        But there was one other possibility, however slim it appeared: Lee could have dropped out and urged supporters to vote for Butler.

 

        But that kind of move never materialized, as Lee has hankered for the Senate for many years.

 

        At 77, Lee adopted a beaming, almost celebratory look when Butler was sworn in as a senator by Harris. Lee's stated goal in running was to give black women representation in the Senate, and Butler was now there even if Lee was not.

 

     Perhaps Lee knew all along that if she did not drop out, Butler would. That is, after all, what happened.

  

 

        Political and mathematical reality is that by not running, Butler avoids diluting Democratic votes to the point where a Republican like Garvey would stand a good chance of making next November’s runoff and possibly squeaking into the Senate.

 

    Even if she were self-aggrandizing, which Butler has never been, that could have assured a future Republican Senate majority, something she has fought against for years.

       

-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
     1720 OAK STREET, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90405
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2023 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

        “WHAT LAPHONZA BUTLER SPARED HER FELLOW DEMOCRATS”

 

        The pipe dream of some Black women in California for the last three years has been getting one of their number into the United States Senate.

 

        Black women have been there before, in the persons of Carole Moseley Braun of Illinois, who served from 1993 to 1999, and California’s own Kamala Harris from 2016 until elected vice president in 2020. But for almost four years after Harris’ accession to the nation’s nominal No. 2 political job, there were none.

 

        That left a void Gov. Gavin Newsom three years ago vowed to fill if another vacancy arose in a California Senate seat – and he named Laphonza Butler quickly after the pioneering Dianne Feinstein’s death in late September.

 

        Butler was sworn in less than five days after Feinstein’s demise.

 

        Newsom thus kept one promise. But by not requiring that Butler commit to being a mere caretaker, a seat filler, he broke another prior commitment. Now she has chosen to essentially chosen to be caretaker, seat-filling senator he also promised to name.

 

        Butler’s decision was a favor not only to Newsom but to all the other Democrats in this Senate race: That includes the three Democratic Congress members running with substantial poll leads over all Republicans in the field.

Every survey has had Burbank’s Adam Schiff, a longtime nemesis of ex-President Donald Trump, leading fellow Democrat Katie Porter of Irvine and Oakland’s Barbara Lee, the only Black person running before the Butler’s appointment. Those polls were all taken before former baseball great Steve Harvey entered the race as a Republican and Donald Trump supporter and before Christina Pascucci, a longtime TV news anchor on Los Angeles station KTLA joined as a Democrat.

 

        Newsom’s stated reason for promising to name a caretaker was to avoid interfering in the ongoing campaign. But a Butler entry into the race held the potential for changing things radically.

 

 

        Joint entries by both Butler and Pascucci might have splintered the Democratic vote even more than it now figures to be. What once appeared sure to be a Democrat-on-Democrat general election race next fall could easily have become any of the Democrats facing Garvey. Butler’s contribution to the splintering could have been to divide both the Black female vote now figuring to be Lee’s property and further divide “we-want-a-female” voters, who still might be split among Lee, Porter and Pascucci.

 

     It may be no accident that Garvey, who had “explored” a run since last spring, actually got in only after the Butler possibility arose.

 

        No statewide primary race with more than three Democratic contenders has produced an all-Democrat runoff election since California adopted its Top Two, “jungle primary” system via the 2010 Proposition 14. The party's voters have been too split for that. There appeared a good chance the pattern would continue if Butler opted to enter the race. A Republican/Democrat race remains a strong possibility.

 

        As the former head of the nation’s leading women’s political funding group, Butler knew all this, but still spent weeks pondering the race. She also had to know that her fairly recent move to Maryland – one she reversed immediately upon getting Newsom’s nod – would harm her in a California Senate race.

 

        So a Butler entry into this contest was never extremely likely.

 

        But there was one other possibility, however slim it appeared: Lee could have dropped out and urged supporters to vote for Butler.

 

        But that kind of move never materialized, as Lee has hankered for the Senate for many years.

 

        At 77, Lee adopted a beaming, almost celebratory look when Butler was sworn in as a senator by Harris. Her stated goal in running was to give black women representation in the Senate, and Butler was now there even if Lee was not.

 

     Perhaps Lee new all along that if she did not drop out, Butler would. That is, after all, what happened.

 

 

 

        Political and mathematical reality is that by not running, Butler avoids diluting Democratic votes to the point where a Republican like Garvey could make next November’s runoff and possibly squeak into the Senate. Even if she were self-aggrandizing, which Butler has never been, that could have assured a future Republican Senate majority, something she has fought against for years.

       

-30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.