The Brief

Under the blistering Sacramento sun outside the Capitol last week, advocates for Black, Latino and Asian communities spoke about the importance of diversifying California’s voters.

That’s why they’re part of a coalition of dozens of organizations backing a bill to automatically register people to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles. “We must ensure that every eligible citizen … can exercise our rights to vote with as few barriers as possible,” said Sydney Fang, policy director at the advocacy group AAPI-Force.

The bill aims to capture the state’s 4.7 million residents who are unregistered but eligible to vote — and who are predominantly Black, Latino, Asian or younger.

“That is 4.7 million Californians whose voices are not being heard,” Sen. Monique Limón, the bill’s author, said at the small rally at the Capitol.

“It is unacceptable that working-class communities of color continue to be systematically left out of access to political power,” the Santa Barbara Democrat added in a statement after the rally. “We must take the necessary steps to ensure that California’s diverse population becomes a diverse electorate that truly represents the power of our state.”

In the 2022 general election, close to 27 million people were eligible to vote in California. About 22 million were registered, and about half voted.

The proposal is the latest effort to try to expand California’s “motor voter law,” which directed the DMV beginning in 2018 to register people to vote when they apply for a license or ID or change their address — if they indicate they’re eligible and unless they opt out. The bill proposes registering everyone who is eligible without prompting, and informing them later with a postcard.

But the bill, revived from last year, has drawn concern from groups that support expanding voter access, including the League of Women Voters of California, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Cal Action political committee and NALEO, a nonprofit group focused on Latino civic engagement.

They say registering to vote should be voluntary — and they don’t see the bill as an effective way to increase voter diversity.

“This is a solution looking for a problem,” said Rosalind Gold, chief public policy officer for NALEO Educational Fund. “Right now, California should not be spending its scarce resources on something that is not going to have any kind of negligible impact on strengthening our democracy, and in fact, could have some harmful consequences.”

The proposal is scheduled to be heard in the Assembly’s elections committee on June 26.

The bill would take effect for the 2026 election for governor and other statewide offices — or when the Secretary of State certifies a system to make sure the DMV can sort out who isn’t eligible to register, including those who are undocumented but get special licenses.

The Secretary of State, despite commenting on previous election-related legislation, declined comment on the bill to CalMatters.

Eric McGhee, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said lawmakers should consider whether their goals are to get people’s names into the system and worry later about turning them into regular voters, or whether they want to focus on registering those who are most ready to vote.

“It doesn’t do anything, by itself, to turn them into voters and make sure that they vote,” he said. “It just removes registration as a hurdle.”

How past registration changes fared

Twenty-five states have a form of “automatic” voter registration at state agencies. California is one of 14 states with a system that prompts you to choose, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, while another 11 have the kind of system Limón is proposing.

Since California’s “motor voter” law rolled out, registration among the state’s eligible voters has gone up from 75% to 83% in January 2024. Researchers attribute more than half of that increase to the new system.

But making voting easier doesn’t necessarily lead to higher voter turnout, according to Charles Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

And California’s current system didn’t boost registration among all the underrepresented groups the current bill aims to help, according to a March analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California. While new registrations increased among Asian voters and those under 35, it didn’t for Latino and Black Californians.

The system has been effective at allowing existing voters to update their addresses rather than adding new voters, according to the report — though that wasn’t the goal of easier registration.

“While all groups have seen gains, registration policy changes have not always improved equity in the way that might have been expected,” the report concluded. “Given that Latino and Black residents and young people participate in elections at lower rates, gains in registration needed to be larger than those of older or white Californians in order to correct these past imbalances.”

California’s likely voters are older, include more white residents and are more likely to own homes and have a college degree than the state’s overall population, according to an analysis last August by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

But Neal Ubriani, policy and research director for the Institute for Responsive Government, argues that automatically registering people will increase political participation, building on California mailing ballots to all registered voters. Limon’s office confirmed the bill was based on research from the institute, which has pushed for what it calls the “SAVR” bill (Secure Automatic Voter Registration) in 11 other states.

Ubriani is also a member of California’s Motor Voter Task Force, though it has not discussed the bill or automatic voter registration.

“If somebody’s not registered to vote, they’re kind of invisible to grassroots groups, to campaigns, to election officials,” he said. “They can’t reach out to them … They can’t teach them about the issues that are on the ballot. They can’t give them the kind of outreach that might get them excited about maybe a local candidate, or a state Senate race, or even president.”

But the ACLU says people should have the right to decide whether to register, or not.

While the organization is committed to reducing barriers to voting, specifically for underrepresented groups, “we’re also concerned about other issues like privacy, and First Amendment rights, and associational rights — and so we have to consider all of those together,” said Brittany Stonesifer, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California’s Democracy & Civic Engagement Program.

Stonesifer also said it’s important for people to actively engage in the voting process — “to make meaningful choices that represent their decisions on the ballot.”

Voters cast their ballots on Super Tuesday at City Hall in San Francisco on March 5, 2024.

(

CalMatters

/

Juliana Yamada

)

The groups who oppose the bill also say automatic registration could make it more difficult for voters if they want to change their political party, especially to vote in presidential primaries, or if they want voting materials in a language different from what they use at the DMV.

Ubriani took issue with the idea that the system deprives people of a choice.

“This process is just turning voting as much as possible into a one-step process to say, we know you’re eligible, we’ve made voter registration as easy as possible for you, if you want to participate, that’s up to you,” he said.

Will ineligible voters get registered?

Both supporters and opponents of the bill say that it’s extremely rare for ineligible people to get on the voter list.

Still, state government’s track record on technology is spotty at best: When California’s current system started at DMV offices in 2018, about 23,000 people were registered with errors — including 1,600 people who hadn’t intended to register, including some non-citizens. Others had incorrect information added to their registrations, such as party preferences. The registrations were canceled by the Secretary of State, the Associated Press reported.

It’s a crime to register to vote, or to vote, when you’re not eligible, such as not having citizenship. Proponents of the bill say that shifting the burden of erroneous registrations to the state would protect people who might accidentally register under the current system and thus unintentionally break the law.

But opponents say there isn’t enough evidence of that problem. And, according to Stonesifer, the bill could put noncitizens at risk of being deported, losing their legal status or being denied citizenship.

Under current law, if someone registers and they’re not eligible, there are some legal protections in place.

But if someone gets a ballot in the mail because they were registered automatically and sends it back, that person will have voted illegally, she said.

Carol Jasmine Varro votes with her son, Lance Robin Chavez, by her side at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in National City on March 5, 2024.

(

CalMatters

/

Adriana Heldiz

)

And while the motor voter system had a bumpy roll-out, it now works effectively, the ACLU says.

The DMV is already overhauling its software system, a project that is scheduled to finish in 2027. That, along with the lack of clear roadmap on how the DMV would sort out those who are eligible, could set the agency up for failure if the state adopted automatic registration, Stonesifer said.

“It creates a much more complicated system than we currently have and puts the responsibility in the hands of the DMV, which doesn’t have the best track record for getting that right,” she said.

Limón, however, said the current bill learns from the 2018 rollout at the DMV. “We know where the technology and where the challenges were,” she said.

How much would automatic registration cost?

It’s unclear how much the bill will cost the state or counties, but Limón acknowledges that with the projected state budget deficit, any bill with additional cost is going to have an uphill battle.

The bill’s opponents say there are more effective ways to increase political participation among underrepresented communities, such as permanent funding into voter outreach.

Gold said a worthwhile investment to engage more Latino voters would be to fund community-based organizations as “trusted messengers” who can explain how to vote, what the issues are and why they matter.

NALEO supports expanding the current program to allow people to register to vote when they apply for benefit programs such as Covered California or CalWORKS, which might better target people from underrepresented communities. Seven states have passed laws since 2019 to allow registration at Medicaid offices, but they’re on hold as officials await guidance from the Biden administration, which has expressed concerns about confidentiality, NPR reports.

Limón said that while some have suggested waiting before making more changes to voter registration, others — including labor organizer Dolores Huerta, who spoke at last week’s rally — have been trying to expand voter rights for decades and say the time to act is now.

“You’ve got to begin this work, and you’ve got to do it so that eventually we get to a place where everybody that is eligible has that opportunity,” Limón said.

The two candidates for Los Angeles mayor, incumbent Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman, traded sharp jabs Wednesday night over homelessness, housing and police hiring in the first debate of the general election season.

The debate, hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, came as both campaigns began ramping up door-to-door canvassing in a race that’s expected to be close.

Bass, who was elected mayor in 2022, finished five points ahead of Raman in June but is considered vulnerable with unfavorable ratings at 57% in a poll taken before the primary.

Homelessness

During the debate, Raman, who represents Council District 4, said Bass had not made enough progress on the No. 1 issue facing Los Angeles: homelessness.

“You’ve been the mayor for four years and the results have not changed — the results are visible on our streets,” Raman said.

The latest homeless count showed unsheltered homelessness rose 8% from January 2025 to January 2026. The increase followed a two-year drop of 17.5%.

Bass countered that her Inside Safe program has brought thousands of people off of the streets and pointed out Raman was head of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee until recently and therefore shared responsibility for the city’s progress on the issue.

“She has been the point person for homelessness — a very powerful position that she declared as powerful when she lost it,” Bass said.

Raman touted a 49% drop in unsheltered homelessness in her council district, which stretches from Silver Lake to Sherman Oaks.

Bass claimed Inside Safe was largely responsible for the drop.

If elected, Raman promised to conduct an audit of homelessness spending in her first six months of office and said she would fully staff a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight to hold the city accountable for its spending on the issue.

Auditors have also flagged major problems with the handling of tax dollars by the regional L.A. Homeless Services Authority. The failures stem from poor bookkeeping and accounting of taxpayer money at the agency, which spent over $800 million in public funds last fiscal year.

Raman also promised to lobby L.A. County more forcefully than Bass for mental health, drug abuse and other social services for the unhoused.

Housing

The two also sparred over housing policy, with Raman saying the city needed more density in housing to address a severe shortage.

“This is a massive problem for the future of Los Angeles,” Raman said. “Let’s have a Planning Department that does the work to build these units, zone for these units.”

Raman said the city is “not zoned for more housing,” adding that’s why the state has stepped in with mandates for more dense housing in cities and counties across California.

Raman supported the law.

Bass opposed it.

“I do not support Sacramento telling us what to do,” Bass said. “The best way to build is to reach agreement with communities.”

Bass has billed herself as someone who would do more to preserve residential neighborhoods in the city and protect them from density. She added that 42,000 units of affordable housing were in the pipeline.

Policing

The two tangled over the hiring of police officers, too.

Bass pointed to a 2020 social media post by Raman that declared “defund the police.”

“She’s irresponsible in what she talks about,” Bass said.

Raman returned the verbal jab, arguing that Bass was irresponsible for backing a big raise for police officers in 2023.

“This is about fiscal management of public tax dollars,” Raman said. "This contract gave raises to the [Police Department] that our city couldn't afford and we suffered as a result.

”We cut street lighting, we cut pothole repair — we have more potholes on our streets than we did before," she continued. “We do less graffiti removal than we did before.”

Bass has said the raises were necessary to recruit new officers and keep current officers from leaving the department.

Raman also criticized Police Chief Jim McDonnell’s response to federal immigration raids, noting he refused to enforce a state law that largely prohibited federal agents from wearing masks. The council member said she didn’t believe the chief’s response to ICE raids “met the moment,” stopping short of saying whether she would seek to remove him.

Supporting business

Bass and Raman also fought over whether the city had sufficiently supported the entertainment industry.

“We need a tax credit and advocacy in Sacramento for the kind of tax credit that Georgia has, that’s the same as New Jersey has that’s taking jobs away from here,” Raman said.

Bass said she appointed a film czar to fight for such policies and criticized Raman for doing nothing on the issue.

“You have been on the City Council for six years,” Bass said. “You’ve been at City Hall twice as long as I have. I realize you want to pitch yourself as somebody from the outside. But where were you? You’ve introduced no motion for the entertainment industry.”

Bass said Raman would not be a good mayor because she lacks support from any of her colleagues on the City Council.

“She has no support from the council members because nobody can work with her,” Bass said.

Raman said she works well with colleagues and that Bass had locked up their endorsements before she made her last-minute entry into the race.

Five news reporters and two members of the military who were invited to an event at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California were briefly detained at gunpoint by security officers who thought they were gate crashers, according to local news reports.

The incident happened Monday ahead of an invitation-only groundbreaking for a new training facility for missile operators at the federal airfield near Santa Barbara, Calif. Reporters from Noozhawk and KEYT were among those detained, and both outlets published articles detailing the detainment.

In a statement to Noozhawk, a Space Launch Delta 30 Public Affairs spokesperson called the incident a breakdown in communication.

“Vandenberg Space Force Base is experiencing an increased number of unauthorized entry attempts,” the statement said. “Every potential unauthorized presence must be treated as a legitimate threat until proven otherwise. While we recognize this may have been unsettling, the security of the base and its personnel is our priority.”

The reporters and military members were part of a convoy being escorted onto the base by uniformed public affairs staff in a government minivan when they were suddenly ordered out of their vehicles with their hands up, according to news reports.

Officers pointed guns, sirens were sounded and barricades went up at the gate entrance, KEYT reported.

The two military members assigned to the base — one enlisted and one a junior officer — were handcuffed and placed in base vehicles, while the civilians were ordered to sit on a curb, Noozhawk reported.

The reporters for outlets also including KSBY-TV and the Santa Maria Times/Lompoc Record were held for more than 30 minutes, causing them to miss the event. All were let go without further incident.

“We respect the military’s need to provide security for the base,” Tom Bolton, Noozhawk’s editor in chief, said in a statement Wednesday. “But clearly what occurred was unfortunate and unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, as firearms were drawn.”

Bolton said he hopes to have a conversation with base leadership later this week to review what happened in the hopes of preventing a similar occurrence in the future.

As severe wildfires burn across the Western U.S., California has adopted the toughest rules in the country to help protect communities from burning. Homeowners in wildfire-prone areas will be required to limit plants within five feet of their house, a protective measure that wildfire experts say can help prevent homes from igniting.
Research shows that dry, dense vegetation around buildings can cause wildfires to spread. In extreme conditions, high winds carry a deluge of tiny, burning embers far beyond the fire itself. When those embers get caught in vegetation, they can ignite, spreading flames to nearby buildings and homes.
Wednesday's vote by the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection comes after years of debate and delays. The state originally considered rules that would have restricted all vegetation within five feet of a house, aside from well-maintained trees. That generated pushback from some communities, concerned about losing greenery in their gardens and the cost of yard maintenance.
California regulators ultimately struck a compromise about plants allowed within the five-foot zone, known as Zone Zero. Lawns, flowers and non-woody plants up to 18 inches tall will be allowed, unless they are located directly under the roofline of a house. Trees will be allowed, though branches must be trimmed five feet away from a structure. The rules will apply to new construction right away, but will be phased in for existing structures, affecting almost 2 million homes in high-risk areas.

State regulators say the rules reflect the new reality of more extreme wildfires, driven in part by rising temperatures from climate change. More than 57,000 homes and buildings have been destroyed in California in the last decade, according to state regulators.

"California's faced an existential crisis that has affected our health, that has affected our finances related to our ability to buy and sell homes, to insure homes and has put us in a very precarious place," testified Yana Valachovic of the University of California Cooperative Extension at Wednesday's hearing, who also advised the state on the new rules.

Growing tensions across Western states

California's debate reflects growing tensions across the Western U.S. about how communities should prepare for wildfires. Wildfire experts warn even fires that start in open, wildland areas can quickly become urban fires, destroying thousands of homes in neighborhoods that residents never thought were at risk, like in the 2025 Los Angeles fires. This summer, more than 800 homes were destroyed in Spokane, Wash., by three wildfires that burned through dense neighborhoods.
Across several states, homeowners in public meetings have said wildfire regulations threaten private property rights, reduce urban wildlife habitat and require costly maintenance.
"You are about to approve a set of regulations that will cost millions of California homeowners tens of billions of dollars," testified Dave Lefkowitz, president of the Mandeville Canyon Association, a community group in the Los Angeles hills. "The math is insuperable."

Vegetation management rules were recently defeated in both Oregon and Washington after strong public pushback, including misinformation that spread online. Some community groups wanted regulators to wait for more scientific research on wildfire spread.

Research shows plants can increase risk

In experiments, researchers have shown that even green plants can ignite in the dry, windy conditions of an extreme wildfire. Analyses of past California wildfires have also shown that homes with vegetation predominantly within 6 feet of the exterior walls were at higher risk of being lost. Managing vegetation also creates "defensible space" for firefighters, providing better access for defending a structure.

California has long been at the forefront of wildfire policy, pioneering regulations that other states have adopted. For almost 20 years, California's wildfire building codes have required homes to use fire-resistant materials for construction. A handful of other states recently adopted similar codes. Research shows that while there are no guarantees a house will survive a fire, protections are strongest when homeowners address both building materials and vegetation. Even in some of the most severe wildfires in recent years, some homes made it through.
California regulators say the widespread regulations are needed because voluntary measures don't provide enough protection. Communities are safest when all homeowners comply, since one home with dense, dry vegetation can spread fire to its neighbors. Insurance companies in California are also required to provide discounts to homeowners that make their homes more fire-resistant.

New rules depend on inspections

While California's new rules provide more flexibility for homeowners, some wildfire experts say they don't go far enough, given that any combustible material next to a house could pose a risk. The new vegetation rules will be enforced by local fire departments and state agencies that do home inspections every year. Those inspectors will bear the brunt of educating homeowners and ensuring compliance.
"I want the board to understand what this compromise asks of local inspection programs," Todd Lando of the Central Marin Fire Department testified at the hearing. "A clean Zone Zero is a five-minute inspection with one question: Is anything combustible within five feet? Easy for the homeowner to understand and take action on." Lando says the new rules will involve more conditional judgements by inspectors, opening up debate with homeowners that could affect compliance.

California regulators say inspectors will focus on educating homeowners at first, before compliance becomes mandatory. For existing homes, the new vegetation rules will go into effect in 2029 at the earliest.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Clemente Larraín, a doctoral student from Chile, chose his program at UCLA because it offered subsidized childcare on campus. His young daughter was enrolled for free, giving him the peace of mind to focus on his studies.

Now, the university has thrown a wrench in those plans.

In an email to families enrolled in UCLA’s Early Care and Education program, Darnell Hunt, executive vice chancellor and provost, announced two university-run childcare centers will close at the end of the 2026-27 academic year because the university has determined “the program is not sustainable.”

“ For international students, this is the worst news because we don't have networks here," Larraín said. "We don't have family. Some of us have some friends, but not too close to just trusting them to our kids.”

He earns around $3,000 a month working on campus, which he said barely covers his rent, forcing the family to dig into savings. Meanwhile, his wife is waiting for a work permit so she can start to bring in additional income.

Having to find full time care for their daughter is causing immense stress.

“ This obviously changed radically the experience of the graduate students with family at UCLA,” Larraín said.

Limited childcare options for parents

The announcement comes as a changing landscape is making it harder for parents to find childcare across California. A new report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley found that the rollout of a new grade for 4-year-olds in the state’s public schools is having unintended consequences for childcare businesses. Those businesses have typically cared for children 5 and under but are now losing more children to transitional kindergarten.

Between 2019 and 2025, about 1,100 preschools have closed across California.

Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, an associate professor of Asian American studies at UCLA, has two children enrolled in a UCLA-run childcare center, which she said costs her around $6,000 a month — and that’s at a subsidized rate.

“Having a high-quality, safe, reliable childcare option for my children just allows me to do my job as a UCLA professor, which includes research and publishing, but also teaching and mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students,” Gandhi said. “I'm really not sure how I'll be able to do that job if I don't have adequate childcare next year.”

Gandhi said the only alternative she has for her daughter is Bright Horizons Westwood, which is part of a large chain of childcare facilities across the U.S.

“ But to be honest it doesn't have as good of a kind of teacher-child ratio as [UCLA's Early Care and Education] does, and it has a super long wait list,” she said.

LAist has reached out to the childcare facility to ask about its waitlist, teacher-child ratio and rates.

Earlier this year, Gandhi said, tuition at UCLA’s Early Care and Education program increased by 4%, Gandhi said. At the time, UCLA also announced it would eliminate “all food program services (which includes all meals, baby formula and food, milk and snacks), discontinuing support for diapers and formula, not backfilling vacant positions, and other cost reducing measures.”

After families protested, the university backed down.

‘Disconnected from its mission’

Yvonne Yang, an assistant clinical professor at UCLA in psychiatry, called it "callous and heartless," even "cruel" that the university decided to close down the childcare centers.

“It means to me that the university has completely become disconnected from its mission and basically lost its soul and is focusing only on profits,” said Yang, who is also a physician and researcher at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.

Yang said she’s now competing with all the families enrolled in the UCLA program for the limited childcare options available on the west side.

 ”When our kids were young and still breastfeeding, moms are welcome to just walk up to the daycare and to feed our kids during the workday, which is so much better than having to pump,” she said. “It's just a way of maintaining that connection with your kids so early in that transition.”

Having the childcare center on campus allowed her to integrate having a family life and being a professor, she said.