The Brief

Californians are choosing a new insurance commissioner after almost a decade of deadly wildfires that threw the state’s property insurance market into a crisis from which it is still trying to recover.

Two Democrats are competing for the position for the first time. Jane Kim, the former San Francisco supervisor, wants to create a public disaster insurance program. State Sen. Ben Allen says a comprehensive wildfire-mitigation plan is the way to fix what ails insurance in California: availability, especially in areas of high fire risk; and affordability, as insurers raise premiums, citing increasing disaster risk and rising replacement costs.

Almost half of the state’s residents report paying more for home or renters’ insurance than last year, according to a new poll by the Insurance Fairness Project, a national insurance information hub, and Data for Progress.

The commissioner also regulates auto, life, pet and some types of health insurance, as well as workers’ compensation. It’s a wide-ranging position that some experts say requires a “brutal” balancing act.

Allen, whose constituents include Palisades Fire survivors, would bring recent legislative experience in insurance and other related topics, such as utility liability for wildfires.

Kim last held office in 2019, with experience that includes passing the state’s first $15 minimum wage and free community college for San Francisco residents.

An Allen victory would also be a win for the California Democratic Party, which endorsed him, and the varied labor and business advocacy groups that supported him. Business interests also spent millions of dollars supporting him and opposing Kim, including outside political action committees funded by investor-owned utility companies such as Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, as well as tech companies and billionaires.

Kim said at a debate last month between the two candidates that she is running “against the status quo.”

A win by Kim would be the latest triumph in the progressive wave and proof of the enduring popularity of the populist message of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her most famous endorser. Her top direct donors are labor unions. The California Labor Federation endorsed her, and the Working Families Party, the group she used to lead, provided the bulk of outside funding to her campaign.

Kim has acknowledged that launching public disaster insurance would be hard, and could take years. Her plan involves diverting insurance premiums homeowners pay to their insurance companies to a public program that guarantees wildfire coverage. The idea has many critics, including not only the insurance industry but also consumer groups with insurance expertise, which warn of tremendous risk to the state.

Allen said at the debate that Kim’s public insurance plan would not work in California, calling it “unmoored and unresearched.” Kim called his plans more of the same.

Whoever voters choose to replace Commissioner Ricardo Lara will face plenty of challenges in dealing with past disasters as well as preparing for future ones.

The new commissioner will have to hold insurers accountable for paying claims quickly and fairly, as survivors of last year’s Los Angeles County fires continue to deal with insurance delays and denials. Lara’s department has pending actions against State Farm, the biggest individual insurer in the state, and the last-resort FAIR Plan over their handling of claims from the Eaton and Palisades fires.

As California braces for El Niño, insurance will play an important role. The current commissioner, the insurance industry and other experts are urging the state’s residents to protect their properties against flooding and wind damage, and to consider flood insurance.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

To prepare for this year’s election, young people on L.A.’s Eastside have been working with local nonprofit InnerCity Struggle to encourage their neighbors to make their voices heard, educate them about their rights and push for stronger civic participation — at a time when some community members are facing the consequences of immigration enforcement, housing insecurity and other issues. 

The nonprofit, which was founded in 1994, is aiming to restore faith in democracy by hosting voter registration drives at high schools and voter protection workshops, as well as educating local residents on their rights and where and when to cast their ballots. Local teens told Boyle Heights Beat that it’s important to them that Eastsiders get a chance to weigh in on issues affecting their lives.  

“I am tired of seeing our communities get attacked,” said Aholiabama Beltran, a senior at Lincoln High School, who also volunteers for the organization through its youth program. 

She expressed frustration at the immigration enforcement raids happening in Los Angeles in addition to the rising costs of living and the gentrification of her community. “We are living in a time where young people worry about their parents not coming back home after work,” Beltran said. 

Beltran, who is voting for the first time in this election, said voting is one way community members can push back against these challenges and advocate for change.

“My parents always encouraged me to go out and vote, especially since I have a brother who’s unable to go vote due to having a disability. I am not just voting for myself, but for my family, my brother, and the people who might not be able to vote due to their immigration status,” Beltran said.

For InnerCity Struggle, encouraging voter participation is a way to rebuild trust in the political process among residents who feel their communities and concerns have been overlooked by elected officials.

Steven Ortega, the director of youth organizing, said immigration raids, family separations, housing insecurity and challenges facing public education have contributed to a sense of hopelessness among some Eastside residents.

“I feel that people are losing hope because they’re seeing that there’s no point at this moment,” Ortega said.

He said he believes young people can help change that outlook by learning about their rights, understanding what’s on the ballot and encouraging others to participate.

Although U.S. citizens must be at least 18 to vote, California allows eligible 16 and 17-year-olds to preregister, which, Ortega said, gives students an opportunity to get involved before they reach voting age.

In October, InnerCity Struggle held a voter registration drive for students at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, where students were encouraged to either preregister or, if they are 18 or older, register to vote.

Volunteers work at an InnerCity Struggle voter registration information booth at Roosevelt High School.

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Alyssa Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Ortega said the hope is to get teenagers activated and ready to accept the “power and privilege” of voting.

“Young people play a really deep role in this,” he said.

According to Ortega, students involved in InnerCity Struggle’s fellowship program received training on voter registration and then led outreach efforts at their schools.

One of the students helping encourage civic participation is Kelly Woo, a junior at Woodrow Wilson High School and president of the school’s United Students Club, a student-led group affiliated with InnerCity Struggle that focuses on civil rights and community advocacy. 

“I realized that if I want to create change … I have to go out of my way to, like, seek it out. It won’t just come to you naturally,” Woo said.

Although she is not yet 18, Woo said she has preregistered to vote and is encouraging her peers to do the same. 

However, Woo said some of her peers question whether their individual votes can really make a difference.

“They feel like … their voice doesn’t matter,” Woo explained. “They’re like … I’m just one person.”

Woo hopes to change that mindset by showing other students that their voices play a role in decisions affecting their neighborhoods. She said she often has conversations with her peers about voting and elections in a democracy, emphasizing that young people need to understand the democratic process now to participate meaningfully in the future. 

A student at Roosevelt High School urges students to preregister to vote by scanning a QR code to the online form.

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Alyssa Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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InnerCity Struggle has also worked to educate older residents about their voting rights.

On Oct. 16, the nonprofit brought together teenagers, adults and older residents for a voter protection workshop, where information was provided in English and Spanish. At the workshop, California attorney Buddy Norton joined virtually to explain voters’ rights and answer questions from residents. 

Norton discussed laws prohibiting voter intimidation and interference at polling locations, and he shared information about how residents can protect their rights and those of others.

An InnerCity Struggle staff member facilitates a voter registration and voter protection workshop for the local community at the nonprofit’s headquarters.

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Alyssa Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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At InnerCity Struggle’s Lucha Carnival event on Oct. 26, Woo delivered a speech on the Mariachi Plaza stage, sharing why it is important for the community to go out and vote. 

“As a resident of El Sereno, I have noticed an increase in our local prices, homelessness and a lack of resources for our community,” Woo said. 

She also spoke about watching her immigrant parents struggle and how their experiences have motivated her to advocate for change at school and in her community.

Together, these events have brought students and older residents into conversations about voting, giving young people opportunities to take leadership roles while helping their neighbors better understand their rights.

A student member of InnerCity Struggle’s youth program, the United Students Club.

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Alyssa Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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As Beltran explained, she wants her peers to recognize the issues facing their community.

“Some students say it doesn’t affect me, so why should I care? But…it affects everyone, even if it doesn’t happen to you, it still affects your neighbor, your mom’s friend, or your friend’s friend,” Beltran said.

This story was produced under The LA Local’s Youth Journalism Program. To learn more or to get involved, click here.

Californians are choosing their next governor: a longtime liberal politician pitching his government experience or a Republican first-time candidate vowing to dramatically upend Democratic power structures.

The race between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom is one of the most consequential on the ballot. Polls for months have put Becerra ahead of Hilton by double digits, a predictable lead in a state with nearly twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans and where a Republican hasn’t won a statewide office in nearly two decades.

Hilton, a former Fox News host who has urged voters to end “16 years of one-party rule,” is banking on frustration with the state’s high cost of living to drive undecided voters, independents and even some Democrats to support a Republican for a change.

He represents the best hope in years for a GOP victory. He has raised more than $33 million to Becerra’s $38 million and is running hard on a series of ambitious promises to lower costs by slashing regulations and taxes. He portrayed Becerra as the embodiment of the California political status quo, someone who would make decisions that benefit influential special interest groups like organized labor.

“It’s the people against the machine,” he said of his campaign in a virtual town hall last week.

His message of change, promises to slash gas prices and frequent invocations of Californians moving out-of-state resonated with Brad Gerig, who voted in Roseville last week. It was the first time Gerig, 34, could recall voting for a Republican, he said. The EMT and firefighter said he wants to be able to afford to stay and raise a family in California, so he was willing to “try something different.”

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Gerig said. “I think for everybody living in this area there’s an inherent angst for a little bit better. There’s no reason it should be as expensive as it is.”

But Hilton has struggled to rid himself of the baggage from President Donald Trump’s endorsement in a state Trump lost by 20 percentage points in 2024.

Becerra has reminded voters of Hilton’s link to Trump at every turn, and cast himself as a fighter who would, like Newsom, challenge decisions in Washington such as Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign.

He has dismissed Hilton as unserious and primarily campaigned on his longtime experience representing Los Angeles in Congress and serving as state attorney general and as U.S. health secretary. Those roles have earned him a wide swath of influential liberal allies.

“Xavier Becerra has stood with us for more than 30 years,” said Tony Hoang, executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights organization Equality California, at an event in San Francisco last week.

He highlighted Becerra’s role as one of the small minority of congressmembers who voted against the anti-gay marriage Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

At the same event, Becerra touted his opposition to Trump.

“Donald Trump is on this ballot,” he said, without naming his opponent once. “We see right through you, Donald Trump. And we see through all those MAGA friends and relatives who are trying to push that agenda on us.”

Becerra’s comfortable standing is reflected in the relatively muted nature of his campaign: Becerra agreed to meet for only one debate with Hilton this fall. He has spent much of his time campaigning not for himself but against a Republican-backed voter ID measure and on behalf of other California Democrats.

The election comes at a particularly delicate time for California.

Street homelessness rose for years and only began to decline again in 2025. Wildfires have made it harder to buy homeowners insurance. Inflation, much of it attributable to Trump’s warin Iran, tariffs and immigration crackdown, have added to the already-high cost of living.

The state budget, always subject to the boom and bust of the stock market, has become particularly dependent on the fortunes of the artificial intelligence industry. Under Newsom, the state has made aggressive regulatory moves to curb the use of climate-warming fossil fuels. But despite recent polling that shows a majority of Californians support the green transition, fewer are willing to pay higher prices for energy than were a decade ago.

And the state’s liberal politics have often put it in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which has withheld federal funds, challenged California’s environmental policies and attempted to intervene in this election.

Both candidates agree the state has become unaffordable for working families. That’s about all they agree on.

Becerra has proposed mostly incremental changes to existing state policies, such as continuing recent efforts by Newsom and lawmakers to reduce the bureaucratic hurdles to approving new housing construction.

He wants to expand state mortgage assistance programs and said he’s committed to the clean energy transition, but open to delays or tweaks to trim costs. He has not endorsed any new taxes on residents, but wants the state to assess a fee on corporations whose employees make so little they qualify for public healthcare.

Hilton, a British American who was once a close adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, ran on a deregulatory agenda, promising to slash environmental rules and the gas tax and allow more home construction on exurban, undeveloped land.

One of his signature campaign promises was to eliminate the income tax on residents’ first $150,000 in earnings and make the income tax flat above that — amounting to an expensive tax cut for the highest earners that he’s said he would pay for with spending cuts. It’s one of his many promises that would need legislative approval, and he has not said how he would get Democrats in the Capitol to support them.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California voters are deciding whether the state will levy a first-of-its-kind tax on billionaires.

If it passes, Proposition 40 would assess a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, targeting their stocks, bonds, business holdings and other valuable personal property.

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the union pushing the measure, says it would generate an estimated $100 billion for healthcare and education to be spent over the next five years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the tax would raise “tens of billions of dollars” over several years, well short of the union’s projection, and says billionaires leaving the state could cut income tax revenue by less than $1 billion a year.

The results could also be complicated by two competing ballot measures: Propositions 41 and 42. Proponents of those measures designed them to conflict with Prop. 40, which means if either countermeasure receives more votes than Prop. 40, it nullifies the billionaire tax.

The union and other supporters argue that billionaires should pay their fair share to support social services programs the Trump administration cut last year.

From the outset, Prop. 40 revealed divisions in the Democratic Party and galvanized some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest executives to spend hundreds of millions to defeat it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom became one of its earliest opponents, attempting through backroom negotiations to keep Prop. 40 off the ballot altogether. He endorsed Prop. 42, the billionaire-backed countermeasure designed to ban all wealth taxes in California and kill Prop. 40. Newsom, along with a cadre of Democratic allies such as Planned Parenthood of California and the California Teachers Association, argued a one-time tax would not solve the state’s fiscal woes and would drive wealthy residents out of state.

Despite party and labor divisions, the California Democratic Party and California Federation of Labor Unions supported the initiative and opposed its counter measures, arguing the state needs more revenue to shield workers and everyday Californians from the effects of dramatic federal healthcare cuts expected to kick 2 million residents off health insurance.

Billionaire opponents spend heavily

Billionaire opponents and business interests poured $316.7 million into the campaign to stop Prop. 40 — including support for Props. 41 and 42 — telling voters nearly the same message: Wealthy residents who contribute jobs to the economy and income tax to state coffers have already left, and more will follow if the initiative passes. They also made a largely misleading claim that lawmakers could lower the threshold of the wealth tax to include everyday Californians.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin led the opposition, publicly moving out of state and donating $102 million to Building a Better California, a political committee he founded to oppose the tax. The group has served as a passthrough for other billionaire donors to oppose Prop. 40.

Billionaire tax opponents also placed Props. 41 and 42 on the ballot.

Prop. 41 prohibits the state from collecting taxes that circumvent the state spending limit set in 1979, which Prop. 40 is designed to do. It also requires the state to audit future tax proposals before they reach voters and identify potential spending cuts in the programs they’d fund.

Prop. 42 prohibits the state from taxing financial assets, private businesses, pensions and other forms of wealth. It also prohibits retroactive taxes. These provisions directly conflict with the billionaire tax.

The state constitution dictates that when there are multiple competing ballot measures on the same ballot, the one that receives the most votes wins, nullifying its competitors.

Allegations against healthcare union's leader

Prop. 40 is the brainchild of Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West. He has been mired in scandal in recent months. Some members of SEIU California, the political umbrella organization representing the healthcare workers union, have accused him of threatening and intimidating women over the years and of attempting to “extort” support for the measure, according to an internal investigation commissioned by SEIU California and SEIU, the union’s national parent organization.

Separately, the California Primary Care Association, which represents clinics and opposes Prop. 44, another ballot measure run by Regan’s union, alleged in a recent lawsuit that the health workers union violated anti-racketeering laws in part by asking clinics to support the billionaire tax in exchange for killing the clinic initiative.

The union and Regan have called these allegations “categorically false” and characterized them as a “smear campaign” designed to derail the billionaire tax.

If Prop. 40 survives, billionaires who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026 would be assessed the tax based on their net worth as of Dec. 31, 2026. Payments would be due in one lump sum or in installments over five years.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.