The two candidates who receive the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, will progress to the general election in November.
Archiv: Kalifornien / California
Marcia Lucas, Oscar-Winning Editor Behind ‘Star Wars,’ Dies at 80
A California native, Lucas (née Griffin) got her start in editing via the Motion Picture Editors Guild apprenticeship program and eventually became the assistant to lauded female film editor Verna Fields (Jaws, Paper Moon). It was while working with Fields that she met her future husband, then a student in the film school at the University of Southern California, who had also been hired to assist Fields.
The Case for California’s Billionaire Wealth Tax
(May 26, 2026)
A California ballot initiative that will be put to voters in November would tax just 5 percent of billionaires’ fortunes over five years. This trailblazing wealth tax would be a small (for the ultrawealthy) but important (for everyone else) step toward raising needed tax revenue and curbing the state’s runaway inequality.
The billionaire class in California includes roughly 250 households, a mere 0.001 percent of the state’s families. Yet its wealth now amounts to more than half of California’s entire annual economic output.
This means that if these billionaires spent all of their wealth, they could buy more than half of the goods and services produced in a year in the entire state.
Record-setting outside money pouring into California governor’s race
(May 26, 2026)
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen IEs [or independent expenditures] have this kind of an impact on a governor’s race,” said veteran GOP strategist Martin Wilson, who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and worked on an outside effort backing San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s 2026 bid for governor. “It’s totally unprecedented.”
Nonpartisan primary
A nonpartisan primary, top-two primary,[1] or jungle primary[2] is a primary election in which all candidates for the same elected office run against each other at once, regardless of political party.
Many Dems are stuck: Becerra, Steyer or someone else? Here’s what to know
(May 24, 2026)
Meanwhile, others not enamored by either candidate might fear throwing away their vote by backing one of the lower-polling Democrats. If I vote with my heart for a lower-polling candidate, the thinking goes, will that risk sending one or two Republicans to the general election?
Join Our Movement – For A Better California
Tony knows that working families across California are facing so many challenges that require our entire state government, working together, to solve.
Growing up in poverty as a Black and Latino kid without his parents, Tony lived the struggles that so many Californians face every day – that‘s why he dedicated his career to fighting for a brighter future for California‘s children.
California gubernatorial candidate Tony Thurmond endorses California Billionaire Tax
(February 20, 2026)
Thurmond, a longtime champion of programs to counter food insecurity, sponsored a state law that currently funds universal school meals for every California student. Today, Thurmond praised the Billionaire Tax for helping children and families when they need it most, by funding food, supporting K-14 public education, and protecting healthcare for all Californians.
“Billionaires have a unique opportunity to save healthcare for Californians, feed hungry families, and reinvest in our public schools,” Thurmond said. “Growing up in poverty, having access to healthcare and food aid kept me and my brother alive, and public education offered us a ladder to the middle class. At a time of unprecedented wealth and income inequality, now is the time to strengthen that ladder for the next generation, not pull it up behind us.”
Tax billionaires. Stop the healthcare collapse.
How it Works
Paid only by Californians worth more than $1 billion—about 200 people who together hold $2 trillion in wealth, most of which will never be taxed in their lifetimes due to loopholes in state and federal tax laws.
Raises about $100 billion to replace lost federal dollars and protect essential services. Directs 90% of funds to healthcare and 10% to public K-14 education and state food assistance programs.
No new taxes on the middle class, small businesses, or homeowners.
What it does for Californians
Keeps hospital ERs, clinics, nursing homes, and home care open and staffed in every community.
Stabilizes premiums and coverage, so families can see a doctor when they need one.
Protects healthcare jobs and the middle-class economy they support.
Funds public K-14 education to keep classrooms staffed, protect programs, and ensure every child gets a quality education.
Funds state food assistance programs to keep millions of Californians from losing access to food and support school nutrition programs.
What we want is simple
Protect our fragile healthcare system from collapse so our families can get the care we need.
Billionaires doing their part to support California and contribute to the social safety nets and public infrastructure that enabled their wealth accumulation.
A state with a strong middle class where everyone can thrive.
California Billionaire Tax Act
California Billionaire Tax Act
A statewide ballot initiative to enact an emergency tax on billionaires to save California’s healthcare system from collapse
Massive cuts to federal healthcare funding are driving California towards a healthcare collapse. The federal funding cuts will strip roughly $100 billion from California healthcare over the next five years, leading to:
Short-staffed shifts: Skeleton crews left on the front lines as 145,000 healthcare jobs disappear
Higher costs and lost coverage: Insurance premiums go up for everyone, and millions of Californians lose coverage altogether.
Facility closures and reduced services: Hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and home care will be forced to reduce services or close down.
Our solution: The California Billionaire Tax Act
Should billionaires pay more? California unions want voters to decide
(October 24, 2025)
The proposed initiative would tax the 2025 net worth of billionaires residing in California, allowing them to pay off the obligation over five years. The revenue would go into a special fund with 90% reserved for health care spending and 10% reserved for K-12 education spending.
It needs 874,641 signatures to be placed before voters on the 2026 ballot, a number that the groups are confident they can reach. Getting voters to ultimately approve the tax, however, could be a hard sell.
Gavin Newsom moves to neutralize tax on billionaires
(January 12, 2026)
The conversations, reported here for the first time, have occurred intermittently for months as SEIU-UHW’s ballot initiative targeting billionaires migrated from the backrooms of California politics to the center of a raging debate about Silicon Valley and income inequality, sparking tech titans’ wrath and vows to move out of state.
“We’ve been at this for four months,” Newsom said in an interview with POLITICO, describing an “all-hands” effort that has included him meeting one-on-one with SEIU-UHW’s leader, Dave Regan.
A compromise does not appear imminent. A union official cast doubt on the possibility of a deal, saying the two sides do not currently have another meeting scheduled and framing a ballot fight as an inevitability.
8 arrested during chaos after protest in downtown LA on Friday, LAPD says
Tensions escalated when protesters started clashing with officers outside the federal detention center following the „ICE Out“ protest in downtown Los Angeles on Friday.
Demonstrators were seen throwing trash and debris at federal officers at the loading dock of the building.
Los Angeles police officers were called in to push the angry crowd back and restore order in the area.
Berkeley businesses close, students protest as city joins ‘ICE Out’ national strike
(January 30, 2026)
Cheese Board Collective, Nabolom Bakery and the climbing gym Berkeley Ironworks were among the businesses closed in solidarity with the “no work, no school, no shopping” protest.
US judge says Trump must end National Guard deployment in Los Angeles
The U.S. Supreme Court could ultimately decide the issue.
Rare solar storm lights up Northern California skies
A surge in solar activity fueled the vibrant display as the sun reached the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, a period marked by a sharp increase in sunspots and geomagnetic storms.
Around 2019–2020, the sun was at its quietest point; however, with more frequent bursts of solar wind erupting from those sunspots, Earth is now experiencing more substantial and more frequent auroral events.
Judge halts National Guard deployment to Portland from any state to perform federal duties
“The court recognized what we’ve said all along: there is no rebellion, no invasion, and no justification for militarizing our communities,“ Rayfield said in response to the ruling. „The President cannot keep playing whack-a-mole with different states’ Guard units to get around court orders and the rule of law.”
Illinois files a lawsuit to block Trump deploying the National Guard, joining Oregon
Oregon and Portland went back to the court — this time with California as an additional party to the lawsuit — and asked U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut for a new temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from sending the California National Guard to Oregon.
In her ruling, Immergut barred any National Guard members from being relocated from any state for service in Oregon. One day earlier, she had temporarily blocked the Trump administration from federalizing the Oregon National Guard.
Newsom joins Oregon’s suit after Trump sends California National Guard to Oregon
(October 5, 2025)
President Donald Trump deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland after a federal judge blocked the president’s call-up of Oregon’s National Guard, a workaround that has already drawn a new round of legal challenges.
Late Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom joined Oregon leaders’ pending lawsuit, asking Portland-based U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut to block Trump’s effort to sidestep her initial ruling by deploying California troops.
Appeals court blocks Trump‘s use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans
The ruling barred the use of the act in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, which fall under the Fifth Circuit‘s purview. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department will almost certainly appeal to the wider appeals court or the Supreme Court.
Trump deployment of military troops to Los Angeles was illegal, judge rules in blistering opinion
Experts say the ensuing judicial dust-up it will clarify precedent in a murky corner of the law. But some warn it could also unearth a road map for future deployments in cities across the U.S.
“If Breyer sides with Newsom and the 9th Circuit sides with Trump, we now have a playbook to use the National Guard and maybe the military around the country,” said Mark P. Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University and one of the country’s foremost experts on the law at the heart of the case.
“He’d have a ruling from the most liberal circuit in America giving the legal go-ahead for this deployment,” Nevitt said. “That would make bad law for the country.”
Donald Trump threatens to arrest NYC mayoral Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani
(July 1, 2025)
Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani if as mayor he follows through on pledges not to assist federal officials enforcing immigration laws.
“Well then, we’ll have to arrest him,” Trump told reporters on July 1 while visiting a detention center in Florida. Trump said that he would “be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.”
Trump also said „a lot of people are saying he‘s here illegally,“ which is false. Mamdani is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Uganda, who immigrated to the United States with his parents − film director Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani − at the age of seven.
California hopes law from bloody era of U.S. history can rein in Trump’s use of troops
(Today)
Department of Justice has argued Posse Comitatus does not apply to the military’s current actions in Southern California — and even if it did, the soldiers deployed there haven’t violated the law. It also claimed the 9th Circuit decision endorsing Trump’s authority to call up troops rendered the Posse Comitatus issue moot.
Some experts feel California’s case is strong.
“You literally have military roaming the streets of Los Angeles with civilian law enforcement,” said Shilpi Agarwal, legal director of the ACLU of Northern California, “That’s exactly what the [act] is designed to prevent.”
But Nevitt was more doubtful. Even if Breyer ultimately rules that Trump’s troops are violating the law and grants the injunction California is seeking, the 9th Circuit will almost certainly strike it down, he said.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle,” the attorney said. “And if they find a way to get to the Supreme Court, I see the Supreme Court siding with Trump as well.”
Trump’s case for sending troops to help ICE involves precedent from Fugitive Slave Act
(June 14, 2025)
On the streets of Los Angeles, protesters will continue to be met with platoons of armed soldiers. State and local officials remain in open conflict with the president. And in the courts, Trump administration lawyers are digging deep into case law in search of archaic statutes that can be cited to justify the ongoing federal crackdown — including constitutional maneuvers invented to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Trump Will Go To Supreme Court If Newsom Wins Fight Over LA Troops Deployment Again; Appeals Court Considers Temporary Restraining Order
Thousands of heavily armed Guard troops, as well as 700 U.S. Marines have been deployed in the city’s downtown core for over a week in response to protests over ongoing ICE raids and abductions of the undocumented (and in some cases, the documented).
Trump administration activates 2,000 additional military troops to Los Angeles
Governor Newsom‘s office quickly condemned the announcement, saying the new activation is the second set of 2,000 federalized National Guard members under Trump‘s June 9 order.
“This is clean up from the Pentagon. This isn’t a new deployment — it’s the same group of soldiers who have been diverted from critical wildfire work and work at the border, now twiddling their thumbs for Donald Trump’s political theater, the statement from the governor‘s office said.
Alex Padilla confrontation in LA shocks senators
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it “sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States Senator.” Padilla’s California colleague Adam Schiff called for an immediate investigation.
Several other Democrats were dropping the word “fascism” in conversations as they made their way out of the Capitol.