The Brief

Manuel Valle, 84, jumped on his bike and rode through his Boyle Heights neighborhood despite the protests from his worried children. The air was smoky, for the fifth day in a row; he pushed through fits of coughing to pass out 50 N95 masks to his neighbors.

The same day, officials told residents the air was not dangerous and the smoke was clearing out. Valle didn’t agree.

“This is a state emergency,” he said. “Treat it like a state emergency.”

Fire had ignited at a facility, operated by the company Lineage, which stores food before it’s shipped off to restaurants and grocery stores. Lineage uses the toxic refrigerant anhydrous ammonia, which posed a health risk in the early hours of the fire.

Weeks earlier and miles away, the Orange County Fire Authority issued an evacuation order affecting 50,000 Garden Grove residents when fire officials realized a tank at an aerospace manufacturing facility could either explode or leak large amounts of a toxic chemical into the air.

In both cases, records show state and local regulators knew the facilities; they had inspected them, approved plans and resolved violations. How they used their authority is now a central question for neighbors in the surrounding areas seeking accountability.

A lawmaker has proposed some reforms to chemical policy. But prosecuting companies for failing to follow environmental laws is difficult, and how far cities may go to protect residents isn’t clear.

“I don’t know what the local government is waiting for — for a tragedy to occur or something more serious or what … on top of what is already going on,” said Miguel Ocegueda Castillo, who lives near the Lineage warehouse.

A young boy watches firefighters battle a blaze at a cold storage facility in the Boyle Heights neighborhood June 22.

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Years of oversight, unresolved risks

Companies face layers of federal and state oversight designed to help prevent hazardous chemicals from escaping into surrounding neighborhoods. But records show that these two facilities, one in Orange County and one in Los Angeles County, had accumulated violations over years and continued operating.

In 2021 the South Coast Air Quality Management District issued GKN Aerospace multiple notices of violation, including for failing to maintain the required emissions records and operating some equipment without proper permits. The company later signed a settlement with air regulators and paid more than $900,000 — without admitting liability.

During the emergency, authorities gave residents conflicting information about whether the chemical methyl methacrylate had leaked.

“When you go home, you can feel safe. There was no contamination. … There was no leak,” Regina Chinsio-Kwong, Orange County Public Health Officer told residents during one press briefing, even though early reports characterized the incident as a leak.

Days later, Orange County health officials walked back that statement.

In Boyle Heights, the Lineage facility stores more than 12,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The chemical is a refrigerant that if inhaled, can cause severe eye and respiratory irritation, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting and, at high concentrations, death.

In the early hours of the fire June 17, the Los Angeles Fire Department told residents to shelter in place because of the risk of the chemical being released into the air. The order was lifted, and then imposed again.

Lineage said in a statement that it “proactively took steps to pump out the ammonia and transport it offsite” and that no measurable ammonia concentrations had been recorded in the community since the fire began.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told residents the air was not dangerous. But on the sixth day of the fire, an air monitor detected a hazardous spike of air pollutants.

Federal records show that the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health inspected Lineage in Boyle Heights the day the fire started. It wasn’t their first visit.

In 2020, Cal OSHA opened an investigation into the facility for violations of multiple safety standards. After Lineage lodged an administrative appeal, regulators fined the company $2,250 for violations related to process safety and respiratory protection.

Rebecca Liu Morales, a spokesperson for Lineage, said the company stores food, not hazardous materials, and said it was not responsible for the fire. She said the fire started when a contractor was working on the rooftop solar array, which provided power to the city.

“The health and safety of our employees and the communities we serve is our top priority,” she added. “Our industry is heavily regulated and inspected, with over 200 routine regulatory inspections by various agencies conducted of our North American operations alone between 2024 and 2025.”

The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating the cause of the June 17 fire. The city department of Building and Safety is also investigating, and the workplace safety investigation remains open.

Luck, rather than strong protections, has saved residents from catastrophe in both Orange and Los Angeles counties, said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics.

Industrial infrastructure has grown near residential communities, Williams said. But state and local oversight of hazardous substances has not kept up.

“I don’t think anybody really thought: Wait, we have these warehouses, a warehouse here, a warehouse there, and what happens if there’s an earthquake and we lose containment at four anhydrous ammonia tanks in one square mile at the same time?” Williams said.

Filling in regulatory gaps 

Federal and California laws are designed to protect communities from accidental releases, when a spill or an explosion or a leak releases hazardous chemicals into air, soil or waterways.

The federal Clean Air Act’s Risk Management Program requires companies handling dangerous chemicals in significant amounts to develop preventive and emergency plans for just these situations — and file those plans with regulators. California goes even further: Its risk management program sets stricter thresholds and more demanding requirements than federal law — meaning California law holds facilities to a higher standard, and state regulators have more tools and more authority to act than their federal counterparts.

But critics say even California’s stronger standards have significant gaps that state officials have allowed to persist.

Reactive chemicals, such as the methyl methacrylate stored at GKN, often fall outside of both the federal and state accidental release programs. In Garden Grove, regulators required no risk management plan.

Anhydrous ammonia is a different story. It’s a listed chemical, one of the core hazards state and federal programs aim to regulate. Federal and state environmental protection officials confirmed Lineage in Boyle Heights is part of both programs.

Local agencies called Certified Unified Program Agencies are the layer of oversight closest to the ground. In California, they’re responsible for knowing what hazardous chemicals companies store where, and in what quantities. Local agencies must inspect those facilities regularly and keep emergency plans on file, so that a fire department showing up to a warehouse blaze should already know what’s inside.

Neither local agency has fully disclosed its oversight of these facilities. In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Fire Department did not answer questions about its oversight of Lineage Logistics, despite repeated requests by CalMatters.

In Garden Grove, records obtained by CalMatters reveal that the Orange County Healthcare Agency has inspected GKN more than a dozen times over the last decade and issued violations related to hazardous waste regulations that were later corrected. The facility had emergency plans that were approved in May, weeks before the incident, records show.

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat whose district includes Garden Grove, introduced Senate Bill 883 in the weeks after the GKN episode. It would require the state Office of Emergency Services to maintain a statewide inventory of facilities storing reactive chemicals, add methyl methacrylate to the state’s risk management program, require CalEnviroScreen tool to track facilities that pose an explosion risk and update current environmental review law to ensure that storage sites that have a risk of explosion aren’t exempt from review.

“We must learn from this incident, address the gaps it exposed, and take steps to ensure it never happens again,” Umberg said, in a statement announcing the legislation.

The bill is moving through Assembly policy committees.

The GKN emergency prompted a federal response. The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the facility on June 10 — but experts say determining whether anyone committed a crime is often difficult after an industrial accident.

An aerial view of downtown Los Angeles with smoke from the smoldering storage facility in Boyle Heights on June 22.

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Legal remedies are a challenge

Residents want accountability, but the legal bar to hold companies for environmental crimes is high.

Criminal prosecution requires more than proving a rule was broken. Prosecutors need evidence of deliberate deceptions — falsifying reports, hiding violations, deceiving regulators.

The federal government goes after “those that are lying, cheating and stealing,” said Ethan Ware, an attorney who represents companies investigated for environmental crimes. “There’s more to it than just the environmental violation. There’s some effort to deceive, or to hide, or to get enriched by lying on documents.”

That bar gets even higher when no specific rule is broken — when prosecutors argue a company has a general duty to keep people safe. “What the government is saying is you have complied with all of these hundreds and thousands of regulatory requirements, but we still think you pose a risk to the community,” Ware said. “That’s a hard sell to a jury, to a judge, to anybody.”

A federal criminal investigation into an industrial accident is unusual — and the Garden Grove investigation may not lead to charges. The broader federal enforcement landscape has also changed.

A 2026 report by the Environmental Integrity Project found that the number of civil lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in cases referred by the EPA dropped to just 16 in President Donald Trump’s first year in office — 76% less than in the first year of the Biden administration. Only 12% of facilities with air pollution violations received any kind of enforcement action from EPA or state agencies in the last year.

That federal shift matters for Lineage, which has faced at least three civil enforcement actions in recent years, but none that resulted in criminal charges.

Last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company $37,500 for three violations at a Riverside facility, two related to its handling of hazardous materials and emergency plans.

Also last year, the company paid $3,420 to settle alleged violations at a Vernon facility, including that the company didn’t correct a critical safety system deficiency it identified during a 2021 audit.

In 2023, the EPA fined Lineage more than $172,000 for alleged violations of the federal Risk Management Program at an Iowa facility. The EPA said in a news release that the company “failed to correctly document the worst-case scenario in its risk analysis, failed to comply with accidental release prevention requirements, and failed to document emergency response coordination with local authorities.”

In 2024, a Lineage warehouse in Washington burned for 60 days. Hundreds of neighbors to the warehouse reported health problems, and some residents filed civil claims. But the company has not faced criminal charges.

The limits of local power  

Weeks after an evacuation sent tens of thousands of people from their homes in Garden Grove, GKN Aerospace came to a City Council meeting. The company had not spoken publicly since the evacuation.

Resident Rodrigo Garay held up a thin red cross blanket.

“This is what I used for the whole week to sleep on,” he said/ “And I’m sure that you slept on really nice beds with your $260,000-a-year salary.”

He and other residents wanted to know why the city wasn’t doing more to ban GKN and other facilities like it from their city.

Miles away in Boyle Heights, Lineage neighbors are also raising concerns about their schools, homes and playgrounds being so close to warehouses and other industrial facilities.

“We shouldn’t wait until after this disaster for Boyle Heights residents to know what was in the facility in their backyard,” said local City Council member Ysabel Jurado.

The frustration in both cities points to a hard truth. The people with the most immediate stake, both residents and city officials, may have the least power after a facility is already operating.

Water is sprayed on a tank that overheated at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove on May 22.

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City officials can update their general plans and rezone property to keep facilities they consider a threat to public health and safety away from their residents.

But the Constitution limits how far that authority extends to facilities that are already there. Businesses have a general right to not be over-regulated out of existence, said David Waite, an attorney who specializes in local land use law.

“Where it gets tricky is we have existing uses — such as the GKN facility — that were duly permitted and duly authorized under the existing zoning on that property,” Waite said. “That rezoning effort cannot just simply bar that existing use without running afoul of constitutional takings arguments.”

Cities can try revoking a facility’s permit by proving it is a public nuisance. But that requires showing an ongoing threat, not a one-time event, Waite said.

Garden Grove and Boyle Heights are largely communities of color. Garden Grove ranks among the top 20% of the state’s most environmentally burdened communities, according to CalEnviroScreen; Boyle Heights is in the top 10%.

In Garden Grove, the city’s response has been cautious.

Garden Grove spokesperson Johnathan Garcia said the city is “exploring with its attorneys and engaging in the deliberative process regarding its options in consideration of its authority under the constitution, federal and state laws.”

“What is the point of bemoaning that you don’t have more local control if you don’t use the authority you do have in times like this?” Mai Nguyen Do, a research and policy manager for the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, asked the council.

In Los Angeles, Jurado is calling for an investigation into what went wrong at the Lineage facility and introduced a package of motions, including calls for a public report on the cause of the fire and the facility’s compliance history, increased public transportation service in the area to reduce the amount of time residents are outdoors and funding for neighborhood councils to distribute air purifiers and other protective equipment.

“When a major industrial fire happens here, it’s not viewed as an isolated incident. Residents see it as part of a larger pattern,” Jurado said. “That’s why I have said from the beginning that this is not just a fire response issue. It’s a public health issue, it’s an accountability issue, and it’s an environmental justice issue.”

This story was produced in collaboration with Boyle Heights Beat, a founding community newsroom of The LA Local, a nonprofit covering Los Angeles communities.

Laura Anaya-Morga, Isaac Ceja, Claudia Koerner, Alejandra Molina, Isaiah Murtaugh, Jessica Perez, Steve Saldivar and Nathan Solis contributed to this story.

Alejandro Lazo contributed to this story.

Midterms coverage: Live results | Takeaways | Stories around the country
Democrats won big in the midterm elections, but with President Trump still in the White House, the next Congress is unlikely to see much major legislation signed into law.

Instead, expect to see a lot more oversight. With public corruption and failing leadership as two of the top issues concerning voters, congressional Democrats have an ambitious agenda of investigations planned for their return to power in the House and Senate.

Their new majorities mean that they will have at their disposal the full investigatory powers of the Congress, which include the ability to subpoena records for review and compel individuals to testify before lawmakers.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the California Democrat who is expected to become chair of the House Oversight committee, put it bluntly in a statement: "LAWYER UP."

The Democratic Party has a long list of investigative targets. According to conversations with Democratic House and Senate committee staffers, here are some areas the party is likely to prioritize in its oversight work.

Jeffrey Epstein

Among Democrats' primary targets: the administration's handling of — and connections to — the scandals of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bipartisan congressional action forced the Trump administration to release extensive documents tied to federal investigations of Epstein's crimes and other alleged offenses, though Democrats maintain that many of the records were improperly redacted or withheld from the public. They also say that the Justice Department has worked to shield Trump from damaging allegations — claims that the department's leadership has denied.

In the new Congress, lawmakers are expected to probe ties between Epstein and other powerful figures, including the president himself, which they say is part of an effort to secure accountability for victims of Epstein's crimes.

In connection with an October report, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, "Donald Trump says he knew Jeffrey Epstein 'just like everybody in Palm Beach knew him.' Not exactly."

"Evidence involving 11 women tells a completely different and far more damning story about their relationship and the abuse of young women and girls that took place in their network," Raskin said.

The president, for his part, has long denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein and has maintained that their relationship ended before the disgraced financier was indicted for soliciting prostitution in 2016.

Public corruption

Democrats also plan to continue their own investigations into what they describe as efforts by administration officials to advance the financial interests of the president, his family, themselves and close allies.

In particular, Democrats highlight the president's continued business interests, including Truth Social, a number of cryptocurrency projects and overseas projects involving his sons and powerful foreign investors.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., speaks to the press on Capitol Hill on June 10, 2026. Garcia is expected to become chair of the House Oversight Committee in the new Congress.

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Garcia on the House Oversight Committee, has gone further, linking the high cost of living to politicians on both sides of the aisle acting in their own self-interest rather than the interest of the American public.

"Millions of dollars in dark money are flowing throughout our political system. Some members of Congress may be trading stocks based on information the public doesn't have. The revolving door between the government and lobbying for large corporations keeps spinning," he wrote last month in an MS Now opinion piece. "Americans are dealing with a cost-of-living crisis, and these abuses of power are making it worse. All the while, the wealthiest people in our country are richer than ever."

Immigration

Trump returned to office promising a stricter approach to immigration in the United States. But public support for his deportation agenda has cratered in the wake of a number of high-profile incidents involving federal immigration enforcement personnel, including the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota this year.

While in the minority, Democrats have publicly documented hundreds of incidents of alleged abuse and misconduct by immigration agents and will continue that work in the new term. They are expected to hold hearings on incidents of violence, which have largely gone without congressional oversight in the first two years of the president's second term.

Democrats held a field hearing in Austin, Texas, in October on shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said following the hearing that "ICE is a lawless, rogue agency that is causing generational trauma in communities across the country. House Democrats today are doing the oversight work that Republicans refuse to do — and we will continue to do everything possible to protect our communities from Trump's mass deportation agenda."

Public health

In June, Democrats released a report documenting how they believe that the Trump administration has undermined public health infrastructure and U.S. scientific research into chronic and deadly diseases. That work will continue in the new year, with a particular focus on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Executive power

Trump's muscular use of executive power has been unrestrained by the Republican congressional majority. That is expected to change.

Committee staffers indicate that the president's pet projects — remodeling the White House's East Wing, building a monumental arch, renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, shuttering the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, paving the White House's Rose Garden, among others — will face robust congressional oversight.

President Trump departs after delivering remarks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Nov. 2, 2026.

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The projects are entwined in a larger constitutional fight over the appropriations process: Congress has the sole authority to decide how taxpayer dollars are spent, and the White House has repeatedly disregarded its declarations and rescinded billions of dollars in congressionally approved spending.

Iran war

Constitutional authorities delegated to Congress will also take center stage in Democrats' U.S.-Iran war oversight. The legislature has the sole authority to declare war, and presidents are required to seek authorization for the use of military force, something that has not happened for any of the Trump administration's military campaigns this term. Democrats also plan to press Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on the war's cost to the American public.

Even before the Democrats take control, a House impeachment vote on Hegseth could come during the lame-duck session.

More war powers votes — efforts to force the president to end the conflict, some of which have attracted limited bipartisan support — are also expected. While previous war powers votes have passed, the votes are largely symbolic and do not carry the weight of law.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk appears alongside President Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Feb. 11, 2025.

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Technology titan Elon Musk has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican politics but has lately drawn the ire of Democrats after interruptions to his satellite internet service provider stymied Ukraine's military operations against Russia.

"We will ensure that the 120th Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk's businesses, including whether these companies meet their contractual obligations, and whether adequate safeguards exist against political interference, arbitrary service restrictions, and misuse of federal resources," a group of Silicon Valley House Democrats wrote in a letter to the White House in October.

There could also be investigations into the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency effort that decimated the government workforce in the first year of Trump's second term but failed to deliver on the promised trillion dollars in cost savings. It has remained a focus of House Oversight Committee Democrats during their time in the minority.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Midterms coverage: Live results | Takeaways | Stories around the country
Voters in 10 states made history on Tuesday with their choices for governor.

Nationwide firsts

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, who won her race to be Georgia's next governor, will be the country's first Black woman elected governor of any state. The 56-year-old served as mayor of Atlanta from 2018-2022 and then as an adviser to former President Joe Biden. Her defeat of Republican billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson makes Lance Bottoms the first Democrat to win a governor's race in the state in more than two decades.

Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms hugs a family member during an election night watch party at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on Nov. 3, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia.

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New Mexico's Deb Haaland, who is of Pueblo Indian descent, will be the first Native American woman governor. The Democrat, who defeated Republican Gregg Hull, served in Congress before becoming Interior secretary under Biden. She made history in each of those roles, too — as one of the first Native American women elected to Congress and the first Native American cabinet secretary.

Latino representation

Democrat Xavier Becerra will be the first elected Latino governor of California when he takes office, while Democrat Gina Hinojosa will be the first Latina governor of Texas. Becerra, a former California attorney general and former member of Congress who served as U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration, will succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom after handily defeating Republican Steve Hilton, a political outsider.

Texas Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa speaks during her election night watch party at Assembly Hall on Nov. 3, 2026 in Austin, Texas.

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Hinojosa, a Texas state representative, defeated incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, one of the country's most influential governors and an ally of President Trump. Hinojosa's win follows a demographic shift in the state, which has seen a surge in its Latino population. Hinojosa will be Texas' first Democratic governor in more than 30 years.

Black representation

Voters in Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin elected the first Black governors in their states — Republican Byron Donalds in the Sunshine State, Democrat Aaron Ford in the Silver State and Democrat David Crowley in the Badger State.

President Donald Trump listens as Republican Rep. Byron Donalds speaks at a campaign rally in Daytona Beach, Fla. Donalds won his election and is set to become Florida's first Black governor.

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Donalds, who had the backing of President Trump and a hefty election war chest, beat Democrat David Jolly by campaigning on affordability and promising to continue the conservative politics of outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Donalds has been in Congress since 2021 and served two terms in the state legislature.

Ford, Nevada's attorney general, unseated Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. The Democrat will be the first Black governor of a state west of the Mississippi River. He was previously Nevada's first Black Senate majority leader and attorney general. He was first elected to the state legislature in 2012, and before that practiced law privately and taught math.

Crowley, a Milwaukee County executive, defeated Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, whose campaign massively outspent Crowley's. Crowley actually suspended his campaign during the primary, but reentered it — with the support of outgoing Gov. Tony Evers — after the candidate Crowley backed dropped out. Crowley campaigned on his record as a "deal maker" who can work across the political aisle.

Breaking the glass ceiling

Other women gubernatorial candidates notched historic wins in three states.

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn is the first woman to win a gubernatorial race in Tennessee. Although Blackburn, who defeated Democrat Jerri Green and multiple independent candidates, had long been a favorite for this race, her victory was narrower than expected. Her campaign focused on curtailing immigration, confronting China and cutting wasteful government spending.

Amy Acton waves to supporters during a campaign rally with former President Barack Obama at Cleveland Public Auditorium on Oct. 24, 2026, in Cleveland, Ohio.

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Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar will become the first woman to be governor of Minnesota when she assumes office in January. She defeated Republican Lisa Demuth, the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Demuth, like Green in Tennessee, would also have been the first woman governor of her state.

In one of the bigger upsets of Tuesday's election, Democrat Amy Acton is poised to become the first woman elected governor of Ohio and the first Jewish governor of the state. She will be the first Democrat to serve in the office in two decades. Acton, who served as the state's chief public health officer during the pandemic, defeated Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in an election marked in the final weeks by vicious mudslinging and an attack ad that garnered national criticism.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A few hours after polls closed on election night Tuesday, eight L.A. County Sheriff’s Department helicopters took off from the far corners of the county to bring ballots to the processing center in the city of Industry.

The roar of the rotor and rushing wind echoed throughout a parking lot, landing just outside the center where a team of sheriff's officials were waiting.

With the pilot still on board, sealed boxes and bags of ballots were handed off from the helicopters, put on carts and rolled toward waiting cars as the numbers were checked, and checked again.

The partnership with the Los Angeles Sherriff's Department goes back decades.

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Election officials rely on the partnership with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to securely transport ballots to the central ballot processing center where they are ultimately counted and reported.

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Sheriff officials were waiting for the helicopters with carts and cars on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

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Why helicopters?

It comes down to size. L.A. County is massive — more than 4,000 square miles — and the helicopters help get ballots from far-flung places such as Lancaster, Palmdale and Van Nuys to Industry quicker than a car could. Plus, there’s a lot less traffic.

“If you relied on vehicle transportation, the early results will be skewed based on the geographical proximity to the counting center,” Richard Thomsen, a sergeant with the Sheriff’s Department’s air support, told LAist. “This way, we can grab a broad early return from all over the county, bring it in and they can start counting those ballots.”

L.A. County is massive — more than 4,000 square miles — and the helicopters help get ballots from places like Lancaster and Palmdale to the city of Industry quicker than a car could.

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An election official said they take the security of ballots "extremely seriously."

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The backstory on helicopters and elections

The partnership between the department and the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk goes back decades.

Lately, its' become even more important as election officials are asked to move at a “lightning pace,” according to Mike Sanchez, communications manager for the RR/CC.

If the county relied on vehicle transportation only, the early results could be skewed based on the geographical proximity to the processing center, according to officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

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Election workers have chain of custody protocols, including counting ballots and sealing them in containers.

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“That's exactly what the sheriff's department provides is getting ballots back to us quickly, and just as important, getting them back to us securely,” Sanchez told LAist.

The ballots are transported by land, air and sea, he added. Catalina Island, for example, uses a boat to get ballots to the mainland.

Sanchez noted that there is “dual-custody,” meaning one single person isn’t left alone with ballots or voting equipment.

“We have extreme processes and protocols in place to ensure the security of their ballots and their votes,” Sanchez said. “And security really is at the heart of everything that we do.”

The helicopters are used throughout the county into the early hours after election night.

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"We as the sheriff's department, and the employees of the sheriff's department and ultimately employees of the county of Los Angeles, are committed to the process of ensuring that ballots are counted fairly," said Michael VargasMachuca, a sergeant with the department.

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How it works

Once election night rolls around, the helicopters are already waiting at points around the county, including helipads, local airports and even parking lots converted to temporary helipads.

The pilots are greeted by a group of sheriff's officials who know exactly how many sealed containers of ballots are being transported. Sheriff’s and election officials said the numbers are documented and reconfirmed at every handoff.

Michael VargasMachuca, a sergeant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and Richard Thomsen, a sergeant with the department's air support, ahead of Election Day.

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Then, the choppers take off. The numbers and takeoff time are radioed back to the ballot processing center, and when they land, they’re counted again.

“Every step of the way there's confirmation, there's a chain of custody,” Michael VargasMachuca, a sergeant with the department, told LAist. “If you think about it like evidence, there's no break in that continuity.”

California Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra will take the reins during a delicate time for California.

He faces the prospect of deeper federal healthcare cuts, skyrocketing wildfire costs and a persistent cost-of-living crisis. But many of the specifics of his policies are still unknown after he ran a quiet race as a Democrat in a safe blue state, promoting few programs and avoiding making commitments.

Here’s what to know about what Becerra will tackle and how he’ll govern.

He’s open to new taxes

Becerra opposed the billionaire tax ballot proposition, saying he does not think taxing assets is a stable way to provide state revenues. And while he’s said he believes the wealthy should pay their “fair share” in taxes, he hasn’t explicitly endorsed any new income taxes.

But he has signaled that he supports the idea of taxing corporations whose workers are paid so little they qualify for public benefits, or potentially ending tax credits to those companies. The state Department of Finance is studying what that kind of tax would look like and is expected to deliver recommendations to lawmakers next year.

He has also said he’s considering a controversial proposal for the state to tax drivers based on their miles driven as a way to pay for road and highway repairs. The state collects that funding through gas taxes, but that source is expected to decline by $31 billion over the next decade as more drivers adopt electric vehicles.

“I take no pleasure in telling people taxes are for a purpose,” he told reporters last week. “I believe that users should pay for (roads).”

Big decisions on climate and energy

Becerra has emphasized the need to keep energy affordable while California continues its clean energy transition.

One program he’s pushing would give low-income households two hours of free electricity each day during daytime hours when solar energy is abundant and usage is low. The program, which he’s calling “power hour,” would be limited to utility customers who already qualify for assistance programs.

He’s said he wants to “continue the path toward clean energy, but while we’re on that path we have to make sure we stabilize the prices,” including by drilling more oil in-state and will decide whether to keep California’s 2030 deadline to ban the sale of new gas cars on the state of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

He’ll also face pressure from investor-owned utilities that have been pushing lawmakers and outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom to reduce how much they must pay to insurance companies and fire victims when their equipment sparks destructive wildfires.

If Newsom doesn’t resolve the issue in the next two months, Becerra will have to deal with it when he takes office; so far he’s declined to take a position, calling the debate a “food fight” between insurers and utilities.

Healthcare for undocumented immigrants

As a first-term congressmember from Los Angeles in 1993, Becerra caused a splash on Capitol Hill by arguing with an elder Democratic statesman over a plan to single out legal immigrants for social safety net cuts — he opposed it. He’s said he will seek to reverse restrictions to Medi-Cal that forced tens of thousands of immigrants who are in California illegally off the program.

Immigration has remained a key issue throughout his career. As governor, he’s promised to enforce new state laws that aim to curb immigration agents’ use of force and activities on state property.

Newsom had expanded immigrant health coverage gradually to all income-qualifying adults but he began rolling back some coverage last year amid a budget deficit and unexpectedly high healthcare costs.

“My values and my fiscal beliefs tell me that anyone who works hard in California should have access to the healthcare they need for themselves and for their family and they should be able to afford it, and that includes undocumented,” Becerra told KQED.

Continuing Newsom’s death penalty moratorium

Newsom placed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2019 when he took office, citing his moral opposition to executions, and during his terms he began to dismantle the state’s death row at San Quentin. Prisoners sentenced to death have since been moved to other prisons.

California has not executed any inmate since 2006. Newsom is considering whether to commute the death sentences of more than 560 prisoners to life sentences without parole but even if he doesn’t, don’t expect Becerra to resume executions.

As attorney general, Becerra defended death sentences and said he supported them in principle, but said during the campaign that he would continue California’s moratorium over concerns about racial bias and wrongful convictions.

He calls himself a ‘pragmatic progressive’

In a party undergoing a yearslong identity crisis over how far left to push its policies, Becerra chooses incremental change over progressive moonshots.

In his more than two decades in Congress, he had the ear of both progressive advocates and established Democratic leadership and was a close ally of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, though the pair had a testy moment in 2009 when Becerra wanted her to push harder for a public option in the Affordable Care Act.

This year, he backed away from his longtime support for single-payer healthcare, saying it’s a longshot for California with the Trump administration unlikely to give the state permission to launch.

Even before that, he said he valued experience over grand promises like Medicare for All. As President Joe Biden’s health secretary, for example, he said he focused on expanding coverage.

“When I was helping Hillary Clinton in 2016, my daughters wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders,” he said in an interview. “And I kept saying to them, I get it, I understand. I want Medicare for All … But we got to get (things) done, and I want someone who’s actually been in the thick of things.”

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