WE’RE NO. 4! WE’RE NO. 4! WHAT DOES THIS RANKING MEAN?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WE’RE NO. 4! WE’RE NO. 4! WHAT DOES THIS RANKING MEAN?”

 

There were large headlines around California (but not in many Republican-led “red” states) in late spring, when the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis simultaneously found that this state’s economy had surpassed Japan’s to become the world’s fourth-largest, with a gross state product exceeding $4.1 trillion, about $800 billion better than Japan.

 

This had different meanings for different folks. For Gov. Gavin Newsom, it meant new ammunition for his putative 2028 presidential campaign, where he has been challenged lately by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Pritzker has taken a page from Newsom’s 2024 manual, when the California governor blasted his Democratic Party mates for being too passive, before lapsing into months of his own political passivity after ex-President Biden handed the party’s 2024 nomination to Kamala Harris and not him.

 

But Newsom is going again on his effort to extend his political life beyond the early 2027 term-out he faces after eight years in office. His first new move was to become a named plaintiff on California’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s unilaterally imposed tariffs, which vary greatly by country.

 

Now two big economic arbiters have given him some more juice. For sure, Pritzker cannot claim Illinois is even among the world’s top ten economies, let alone No. 4, behind only the rest of the USA, China and Germany.

 

It’s true that the IMF speculates India’s economy might ramp up enough to pass California sometime late next year, but that seems unlikely when California had the world’s highest economic growth rate last year at 6 percent, well above India’s.

 

It all means that Californians are not only more productive than residents of the United Kingdom or any other American state, but also that no matter what opposing politicians might say, Newsom has not mismanaged the economy. Yes, some businesses moved headquarters out of California, like Chevron, Toyota USA and Tesla, but other companies arose to eclipse the effect of those departures. One example might be Open AI, a leader in artificial intelligence and maker of ChatGPT.

 

Bragged Newsom, “California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace. Our economy is thriving because we invest in people, prioritize sustainability and believe in the power of innovation.”

 

Not even California’s relatively high sales and income taxes could stymie the state’s economic growth, as California seems to spawn one pioneering new industry after another.

 

But Newsom warned both in his lawsuit and otherwise that Trump’s tariffs could throw a monkey wrench into what California achieves.

 

“While we celebrate this success,” he said, “we recognize that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration.”

 

In short, California’s more than $675 billion in two-way trade with other countries last year could be brought up very short this year, allowing countries like India, France and Italy to surpass this state in a seesaw race for high ranking, prestige and bragging rights.

 

For the state’s high economic ranking, which far surpasses other states’ performances along with those of prosperous foreign provinces like Canada’s Ontario and the UK’s Wales and Scotland, is not static or guaranteed. It depends on trade and cooperation with other nations, states and provinces.

 

And it depends on California’s own responses to its admitted problems, things like high taxes, a sometimes questionable business climate, earthquakes, wildfires, expensive insurance and much more.

 

But those things can bring advantages, too. An example is residential construction, which will be a huge element in California’s gross state product once reconstruction from last January’s Los Angeles County firestorms ramps up.

 

All of which means the new No. 4 ranking confers little upon California except very ephemeral bragging rights, which can disappear quickly if economic conditions change a lot, something Trump appears determined to make happen.

 

So Newsom and anyone backing him would be wise not to become too smug – for today’s super-high rating is not necessarily a promise of things to come.

 

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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

POLITICAL IRONY: CALIFORNIA COULD BE KEY FOR TRUMP, DESANTIS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2023 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
      “POLITICAL IRONY: CALIFORNIA COULD BE KEY FOR TRUMP, DESANTIS”

 

At this early date, about nine months before next spring’s California primary election and seven months before Republicans in Iowa caucuses begin the only polling that actually counts, there appears a decent chance Californians will have a key role in choosing the next GOP presidential nominee.

 

Barring a disabling felony conviction, it now seems

the contest here will essentially pit the twice indicted former President Donald Trump against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by far the early leader among other Republicans.

 

For both men, it’s highly ironic that California could be decisive. Trump has never won a general election in this state. Both times he ran for President, California provided the votes to inflict national popular vote defeats upon him. While in office, he did all he could to exact revenge on California, from trying to skew Census results to minimize the state’s population to acting slowly on getting relief funding for wildfire victims, and more.

 

      DeSantis, meanwhile, publicly feuds with California Gov. Gavin Newsom over everything from tactics for dealing with the coronavirus to sending undocumented immigrants from Texas to California. He also seeks to harm the Walt Disney Co., one of California’s largest corporations and Florida’s biggest private employer, with huge operations near Orlando.

 

But reality says California could be key to the outcome. Republicans changed their primary election rules to give three delegates to whichever Republican does best in every congressional district, and California has 52. So 156 of this state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention will be known after Primary Day next March, more than 12 percent of the 1,276 needed to win the GOP presidential nomination.

 

The vast majority of those delegates will come from the 40 California districts represented by Democrats in Congress. So Republican voters living in liberal California districts might decide the GOP nomination.

 

 This process may matter more than the results of the Democratic primary, because Democratic Party rules mean the “winner” will only get some of California’s Democratic convention delegates. In 2000, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders “won” the state’s primary with 35 percent of the vote but got far less than a majority of its delegates, helping Joe Biden become President.

 

The GOP rules also mean any big winner in the party’s primary here could pick up vast momentum by doing well in most districts, plus picking up 13 more votes from party officials who get automatic delegate slots.

 

 In 2016, the last time a GOP primary here was seriously contested, Trump polled 74 percent and won all the state’s delegates. John Kasich, the former Ohio governor and congressman who finished second with 11 percent, got none, because no one polling under 20 percent wins anything.

 

California would have far more GOP delegates if the party performed more strongly here than it has; the GOP gives “bonus delegates” to states where its candidates fare best electorally.

 

     But there may be great significance to the 12 percent of delegates needed to win the nomination that will be decided in districts here. That prospect has been enough to bring DeSantis to California more than once, even if he’s held his nose because he so disdains this place.

 

        Early polling performed prior to the latest Trump indictment suggests DeSantis might get a fair number of those California delegates. Recent polls on the primary showed only DeSantis and Trump over the 20 percent level needed to win any delegates at all.

 

        DeSantis figures to raise more money here than Trump, as one survey – from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies – found DeSantis leading among college graduates by 39-23 percent.

 

        Generally, college graduates provide more campaign dollars than others. The Berkeley poll surveyed more than 7,500 likely voters, one of the largest samplings in recent years.

 

        Yet, neither Trump nor DeSantis has much chance of carrying California in November of next year, no matter how the primary turns out. No Republican presidential candidate has won here since George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by 51-48 percent in 1988.

 

        All of which means, very ironically, that the most strongly Democratic state in America just might be among the most influential in Republican politics next year. Go figure.

 

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    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

VIOLENT CRIMES: WHAT PRICE LEGAL DEFINITIONS?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2017, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “VIOLENT CRIMES: WHAT PRICE LEGAL DEFINITIONS?”

          Words matter, we often hear in these days of a President notorious for loose verbiage.

          They also matter in the California Penal Code, where the label “violent” is not applied to many crimes most people with common sense would unquestionably define as violent. Some examples: assault with a deadly weapon, soliciting murder, elder and child abuse, arson, human trafficking, plus some forms of rape and forced sodomy.

          That word “violent,” or in this case “non-violent” matters more than ever since the last year’s passage of Proposition 57, a pet project of Gov. Jerry Brown.

Under this law, convicts with crimes not legally defined as violent can win early paroles in exchange for certain achievements (like earning college degrees) and good behavior. Brown spent tens of millions of his own campaign dollars to pass this measure by a strong 64-36 percent margin.

          Part of the campaign for passage was a pledge by state legislators to push through changes in the definitions of many crimes.

          Some of those lawmakers did follow through and attempt this during the spring. But the last in a series of bills aiming to expand the list of crimes labeled violent died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee in late May. That one, a bipartisan measure sponsored by Democratic committee chair Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego and Republican Melissa Melendez of Lake Elsinore, aimed to classify all rapes and human trafficking as violent crimes.

          But its price tag proved too heavy for the Democratic majority of the committee, even if it looks puny next to many other appropriations: Keeping in custody the approximately 120 current prisoners who could have been affected by this bill would have cost $1 million a year, not much in a budget where billions often seem to be tossed around willy-nilly.

          No one knows how defeat of efforts to expand the legal list of violent offenses will affect actual crime in the streets.

          Brown contended during the campaign that “non-violent prisoners…can change their thinking,” but offered no clue how state parole panels might be able to tell when that has genuinely happened.

          What is known is that when prison realignment became official state policy in 2011, there was an immediate 41 percent drop in new prison admissions over the first eight months, with more than 24,000 inmates moved from overcrowded state prisons to county jails during the first 15 months.

          The claim from Brown’s administration and other advocates of eased parole is that violent crimes like murder and rape have not risen under this program, and therefore are not likely to jump under Proposition 57.

          One report presented to Orange County supervisors last year claimed that one-fourth of the first 8,000 felons released into the county under realignment had been convicted of another crime in the year after their discharge. That rate just about matched prior recidivism, which some took to mean that realignment and the 2014 Proposition’s 47’s reclassification of many crimes from felonies to misdemeanors did not increase crime.

          But at the same time, property crimes in big cities rose sharply. In San Francisco, car burglaries, theft and other property crimes rose by 667 cases per 100,000 population from the previous year. There were similar increases in Long Beach and Los Angeles.

          That was one reason expanding the Penal Code’s list of violent crimes was so important to many in law enforcement.

          Because so many plainly violent crimes are not legally classified that way, the state’s Association of Deputy District Attorneys has called Proposition 57 “a full-fledged assault on public safety,” claiming it will allow parole boards to ignore sentencing enhancements for prior offenses like some forms of rape and soliciting killings.

          It’s too early to know whether that prediction is coming true, but there’s little doubt changes in the list of formally violent crimes are vitally needed. The fact that lawmakers so far refuse to make those changes marks just one more set of short-sighted choices by a Legislature where such decisions happen frequently.

                  

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     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, go to www.californiafocus.net