Topline:
Containment of the massive Palisades Fire increased to 63% Tuesday as red flag conditions are expected to return.
Where things stand: The fire continues to spread across the Santa Monica Mountains, growing to more than 23,700 acres, according to CalFire.
This is a developing story and will be updated. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:
Containment of the massive Palisades Fire increased to 63% Tuesday as red flag conditions are expected to return.
The death toll in the fire that devastated whole neighborhoods rose Tuesday to 11 people. Authorities continue to search the ruins with cadaver dogs.
As of Wednesday morning, sheriff's officials said in areas they patrol they are still investigating six missing people reports in the Palisades Fire.
LAPD officials said they've investigated 38 reports of missing people in the Palisades Fire, and 30 have been found safe. Authorities said they believe that of the eight still missing, three are "most likely" among the dead who have not yet been positively identified and five remain missing.
Roughly 5,000 structures are estimated to have been destroyed, about 700 damaged.
The Sheriff's Department said Thursday afternoon that some evacuation zones will be reopened to residents effective noon on Thursday, Jan. 16.
The following zones will be reopened to residents:
"Resident access will be through the intersections of Mulholland Highway/Old Topanga Canyon Road, Civic Center Way/Malibu Canyon Road, and Mulholland Drive/Topanga Canyon Road," according to the LASD update.
On Friday, some areas under evacuation orders were open for residents.
Orders reduced to warnings:
Areas reopened to only residents:
The sheriff's department said evacuees should have proof of residency when they try to re-enter and that only residents are currently allowed back in.
Here's what to know about returning home after a fire evacuation.
We have some respite from fire weather conditions through Saturday.
This week, L.A. Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the area, told LAist 89.3's AirTalk program that officials will be asking "some very hard questions about what happens and what we are going to do to ensure that something like this never happens again."
"Because frankly," she added, "much of what occurred — even though this was an unusual weather event — what's predictable? The Pacific Palisades is in the very high fire severity zone."
Firefighters have been injured, as have a significant number of residents who didn't evacuate in time, according to authorities. That's in addition to at least 11 reported deaths.
After days of 0% containment, that number moved to 6% a week ago. Last Friday, it was at 22%.
We should note that the estimate of more than 5,000 structures damaged or destroyed is still preliminary and could change. The case is the same for the number of deaths — it takes time to identify remains and L.A. County Fire Department noted there have been more than a dozen missing person reports in their jurisdictions in both the Eaton and Palisades fires.
CalFire also cautioned against believing inaccurate social media posts. One claimed that people can come to California to join clean up efforts, but authorities warned this is false.
L.A. County's medical examiner has confirmed 11 deaths in the Palisades Fire. One victim, Charles Mortimer, 84, died at a hospital.
Officials are mapping where homes and businesses have been lost.
Curfews are now in place for fire areas from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice.
The L.A. County Sheriff's department said they have made at least 22 arrests for people violating those curfews in the Palisades and Eaton fire areas, mostly on suspicion of looting.
Authorities warn that anyone who violates the curfew is subject to arrest for a misdemeanor offense, and may face jail time, fines, or both, officials said.
" All these individuals were not supposed to be there, meaning they had no business being there ," said LA County Sheriff Robert Luna at a press conference Saturday morning. "You go out there and you violate this curfew, you are going to spend time in jail. You're not going to get cited and released."
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency Tuesday night. Newsom also proclaimed a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties on Tuesday after meeting with fire officials in Pacific Palisades.
President Joe Biden approved a Presidential Major Emergency Declaration on Wednesday to support the response to the wildfires. He said on social media that he’s directed the Department of Defense to provide additional personnel, and ten Navy helicopters with water buckets are on the way.
Driven by strong winds, it turned into a nightmare scenario that many hoped would never come to pass: an unstoppable fire tearing through densely packed coastal neighborhoods positioned between steep mountains and the Pacific Ocean, with few ways in and out.
While the full extent of the damage is not yet known, it's clear that the storied coastal stretch of Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Monica and Malibu will never be the same. Long standing businesses, including the Reel Inn, a seafood restaurant located across the street from Topanga State Beach, have been destroyed.
The fire was reported around 10:20 a.m. on Tuesday and immediately began heading toward the community of Pacific Palisades, driven by 70 mph wind gusts. The fire grew from 10 acres to 200 acres in just minutes.
During the early hours of evacuations, some residents fleeing the fire were told by officers to abandon their cars and walk to safety.
Many were seen holding bags and pets as they made their way towards the ocean. Abandoned vehicles were then bulldozed to make room for emergency vehicles.
Total destruction in Malibu. These were beachfront homes on Pacific Coast Highway. #palisadesfire pic.twitter.com/DhQnJMmoUW
— Liz Kreutz (@LizKreutzNews) January 8, 2025
Evacuation zones are changing fast, so check out the most up to date, interactive map here.
Authorities on Tuesday announced certain areas would open for repopulation:
LA County Sheriff's Eaton Fire Update for Tuesday, January 21st, 2025: Repopulation and Safety Guidelines
— LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) January 21, 2025
LASD announced evacuation warnings have been lifted for the following evacuation zone communities impacted by the Eaton Fire, effective 12:00 P.M. on Tuesday, January 21st,… pic.twitter.com/ArKB0lIkfh
Officials are pleading with people to avoid the wildfire areas, especially if you don’t live there.
Van Nuys Sherman Oaks Rec Center, 14201 Huston St., Sherman Oaks
Lanark Recreation Center, 21816 Lanark St, Canoga Park
Westwood Recreation Center: 1350 S. Sepulveda Blvd. (accepts small animals)
Pasadena Convention Center: 300 E Green St, Pasadena, CA 91101
El Camino Real Charter High School: 5440 Valley Circle Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Pierce College: 6201 Winnetka Ave. Woodland Hills, CA 91371 (accepts large animals)
Los Angeles Equestrian Center: 480 Riverside Dr, Burbank, CA 91506 (accepts large animals)
Agoura Animal Shelter: 29525 Agoura Rd, Agoura Hills, CA 91301 (accepts small animals)
Santa Monica-Malibu USD has been closed since Thursday.
"We watch with all of you in disbelief the devastation and displacement caused by the Palisades fire, which continues to grow and evade containment," Superintendent Antonio Shelton wrote in a statement.
Nearly two dozen school districts are totally closed due to the wildfires — you can find a full list here.
The Los Angeles Unified School District also closed Thursday.
Palisades Charter Elementary School and Marquez Charter Elementary School were destroyed by the fire, an LAUSD spokesperson confirmed Wednesday afternoon.
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said that Palisades High suffered significant damage due to the fire.
Many roads in the area are closed or restricted, including long stretched of Pacific Coast Highway and Topanga Canyon Road. For the most recent information, check out Sigalert.com or this Los Angeles County Public Works map.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power replaced its boil water notice with a "Do Not Drink Notice" for the Palisades-area 90272 ZIP code and the area north of San Vicente Blvd. That means people in those areas should not drink or cook with tap water until the notice is lifted. Residents are still advised to limit water use to assist with firefighting efforts.
L.A. County Water Works District 29 has also issued a boil water advisory, according to L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. This includes the Sunset Mesa community from Topanga Beach and Coastline Drive, to Shore Heights Drive, and from Topanga Canyon Road to Carbon Canyon Road in Malibu. You can call (800) 475-4357 for more information.
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If you have to evacuate
If you have more time:
Things to consider
Navigating fire conditions
How to help yourself and others
Understanding how it got this bad
Topline:
A stretch of residential streets between Koreatown and Pico Union is slated for changes to slow down traffic aimed at making it safer to walk and bike, as Los Angeles moves forward with street redesigns ahead of the Summer Olympic Games.
More details: The project — currently referred to as Koreatown Pico Union Neighborhood Connect — would create a nearly two-mile, pedestrian-friendly route along New Hampshire Avenue, Berendo Street, and Washington Boulevard, connecting residential blocks with schools and Metro’s Wilshire/Vermont Station.
Why it matters: It’s designed as a lower-stress alternative to Vermont Avenue, a major corridor that carries heavy traffic through the area.
Read on... for more on the project.
The story first appeared on The LA Local.
A stretch of residential streets between Koreatown and Pico Union is slated for changes to slow down traffic aimed at making it safer to walk and bike, as Los Angeles moves forward with street redesigns ahead of the Summer Olympic Games.
The project — currently referred to as Koreatown Pico Union Neighborhood Connect — would create a nearly two-mile, pedestrian-friendly route along New Hampshire Avenue, Berendo Street, and Washington Boulevard, connecting residential blocks with schools and Metro’s Wilshire/Vermont Station.
It’s designed as a lower-stress alternative to Vermont Avenue, a major corridor that carries heavy traffic through the area.
On a recent weekday afternoon near Berendo Middle School — one of the schools along the route — pedestrians were out and about, including students walking home, residents on a leisurely stroll with their dogs, and people biking through the streets.
Sol Mendoza, who walks down the street from the school with her 5-year-old son every day, said she generally feels safe in the neighborhood but has concerns about how some drivers behave at crossings.
“Sometimes the cars passing don’t stop or forget to stop,” she said, gesturing to the curb where her son was playing with his mini kick scooter. “They fail to see people walking and go really fast.”
The plan aims to slow vehicle traffic and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists through measures including traffic circles, speed humps, crosswalk signals, traffic diverters, bike boxes and wayfinding signage, though final decisions will depend on community feedback, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
Construction is expected to be completed by spring 2028, according to city documents, with final designs anticipated this fall. The project has been awarded about $5.4 million in funding from Metro through its Active Transportation grant program, according to city documents.
According to LADOT, the corridor would make it easier and safer to get to schools, including Berendo Middle School, Loyola High School, and Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. The proposal is part of the city’s Mobility Plan 2035, which identifies streets for improvements aimed at walking and biking.
A LADOT survey of 729 respondents last fall found that 68% want safer, quieter streets and 43% would consider biking along the route if safety improved. Top concerns included speeding traffic, dangerous intersections and limited visibility at crossings.
Mary Lee, who lives near the route, supports creating an alternative and safer path to Vermont Avenue for pedestrians.
“I feel pretty safe here but when I’m walking along Vermont to go to the bank or a restaurant with my friends, I’m on edge because people on scooters whiz past me sometimes and they’re really fast. It’s also very loud,” she said.
Lee, who does not drive, said residential streets can also feel unsafe depending on how certain drivers behave.
“There are people who go really fast and don’t slow down when they turn,” she said. “You don’t know if they’ve actually seen you or not, and it doesn’t always feel safe.”
She’s skeptical about how well the pedestrian-focused changes will work.
“It sounds promising, but who knows, it’s L.A., and a lot of people just ignore signs and break the rules,” she said.
Scooter riders in the area also see room for improvement.
Alfredo Hernandez, a delivery driver who frequents Koreatown, feels generally comfortable navigating the area on a scooter as an experienced rider but sees gaps in infrastructure.
“I’d like to see more dedicated paths for people who are on scooters or walking,” he said. “I don’t think there’s enough of that.”
Topline:
Emails obtained by CalMatters trace the development of a years-long case that ultimately led to Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco’s unprecedented seizure of 650,000 ballots in March.
More details: They reveal that his sprawling investigation was based on the thinnest of evidence and raise alarms over how the November elections could be disrupted by the unproven claims of fringe groups and ideologically aligned officials.
Why it matters: That scenario is particularly troubling in Riverside County, which is home to one of a few dozen congressional districts in the country that could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections.
Read on... for more on the emails.
In the spring of 2022, a woman named Shelby Bunch began appearing at government hearings in Riverside County, demanding that officials there address what she believed was an epidemic of fraud in local elections.
Bunch often introduced herself as a representative of New California, a secessionist movement that seeks to break away from what it describes as the tyranny of a Democratic-controlled state.
She accused Riverside officials of colluding in criminal activity and warned that they would soon “be answering to law enforcement.” She once closed her comments by telling the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to “have a crappy day.”
The supervisors didn’t seem to take Bunch seriously, but she found a powerful ally in Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco.
Based on her various claims, including that the county’s electronic voting machines had been remotely manipulated, the sheriff put one of his senior investigators in charge of a criminal probe into the registrar of voters.
The investigator, Christopher Poznanski, quickly came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of a crime. On July 20, 2022, he sent Bunch an email letting her know he was closing the case.
“I understand this may not be the desired outcome,” he wrote. “But know that I did not take this case lightly and considered all of the information.”
Bunch was furious. She demanded that Poznanski investigate the “corrupt machines.”
But Poznanski was unmoved. “I respect your passion for this cause, but I will conduct no further investigation into the matter,” he wrote.
Bunch continued to write Bianco directly, urging him to reopen the case. Then, in early September, she got some help.
A figure in the “constitutional sheriff” movement, which asserts that elected sheriffs are more powerful than anyone — including the president and the courts — sent Bianco an email.
“I just heard this past week that a group of your constituents requested that you investigate election fraud in Riverside County and that your investigator was unable to find anything and you closed your investigation,” Steve Tuminello wrote to Bianco. “I know that as a Constitutional Sheriff you realize how extremely important Election Integrity is, and that you would welcome any assistance in these investigations.”
Bianco, whose career has been guided by the movement, wrote back to say he had launched another, more ambitious investigation.
Emails obtained by CalMatters trace the development of a years-long case that ultimately led to Bianco’s unprecedented seizure of 650,000 ballots in March. They reveal that his sprawling investigation was based on the thinnest of evidence and raise alarms over how the November elections could be disrupted by the unproven claims of fringe groups and ideologically aligned officials.
That scenario is particularly troubling in Riverside County, which is home to one of a few dozen congressional districts in the country that could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections.
Bianco’s emails with Bunch also show that he doubted some of her group’s allegations.
In one exchange in 2023, Bunch suggested the county supervisors were complicit in election fraud and might have ties to drug cartels.
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” Bianco responded. “Just because ‘someone’ convinced themselves of something doesn't mean its reality.”
Bianco told Bunch her group was “acting stupid.”
“I actually cant believe I took the time to respond,” he wrote.
Still, he pushed the investigation forward.
In a 2024 podcast interview, Bunch said the sheriff had been hamstrung by the courts. She told her host that Bianco had “tried to get a search warrant on the machines … but the judge, he just laughed. He said, ‘I’m not giving you anything.’”
Her coalition, she said, needed a judge who was ideologically aligned with Bianco.
“If we can get just one judge,” she said, “the whole dam will break.”
“Who’s gonna be the one judge that steps up?”
In 2026, she would get her answer.
The “constitutional sheriff” movement is rooted in the beliefs of a Southern California-based white supremacist who was active in the 1970s and 1980s and argued that sheriffs were the country’s only legitimate law enforcement officials. Its members cite the 10th Amendment, which says that powers not specifically delegated to the federal government fall to the states. The amendment, however, makes no mention of sheriffs.
The main organization behind the movement, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, is led by a former sheriff named Richard Mack.
Since 2020, Mack has held a series of events alongside prominent election conspiracy theorists, encouraging sheriffs to investigate voter fraud in their own counties. Sheriffs, he said, “don’t have to ask permission from anybody.” As a result, many conspiracy-minded local groups have flocked to their county sheriffs for support when other officials have rejected their theories of election fraud.
Even though claims of widespread voter fraud have been debunked, these sheriffs have used their discretionary power to open investigations, many of them based on allegations that echo President Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 election.
Bianco, who could not be reached for comment for this story, describes himself as a constitutional sheriff and agrees with the movement’s core tenets.
He has maintained power in Riverside even as the county’s shifting demographics have altered its historically conservative political landscape. Today there are more registered Democrats in Riverside than there are Republicans. But that shift to the left has coincided with a religiously fueled radicalization on the right.
One of the key figures of that movement is Tim Thompson, the pastor of a powerful Riverside church and Bianco’s political ally. Thompson has led an effort to stack local school boards with members who have rolled back transgender student rights and rejected textbooks that mention Harvey Milk, one of the nation’s first openly gay elected officials. He recently celebrated a parishioner who was pardoned by Trump after being convicted for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Thompson has also taken an interest in the local judiciary. In 2022, he supported a former prosecutor named Jay Kiel, who was running to fill a seat on Riverside’s Superior Court.
When Kiel joined Thompson on his popular podcast, he promised to “bring a little balance back to the bench” to counteract the state’s liberal Legislature. Kiel also praised Bianco and said Riverside needed “judges that are willing to stand up and say, this is the law, and I’m going to follow it.”
He won the election.
By late 2024, a new group had taken control of the effort to prove voter fraud in Riverside County. The Riverside Election Integrity Team included many of the same people who had been working closely with Bunch, but they had very different tactics.
The group’s leader, Greg Langworthy, had testified alongside Bunch for years. While he was part of the same Christian conservative circles, he rejected her antagonistic approach. Langworthy is soft-spoken and polite. At board hearings, he wears button-down shirts and the occasional pocket protector. If Bunch was the movement’s firebrand, Langworthy is its genial middle school math teacher. He focused his group’s efforts on ballot counting, conducting audits of past elections to prove to local officials that the county’s voting system is rife with error.
Langworthy’s group asked the county registrar for records from the November 2025 election for California’s redistricting measure, Proposition 50, which passed with overwhelming support across the state and by a wide margin in Riverside. The measure redrew California’s congressional maps and gave Democrats a chance to pick up several House seats in the midterms.
Langworthy said he reviewed the data and found that the registrar’s office had counted 45,896 more ballots than it had received. His group demanded meetings with individual supervisors and asked the district attorney and the sheriff to look into the matter.
The alleged discrepancy wasn’t enough to change the election results in Riverside, and Langworthy said he was not interested in overturning the measure. “Prop. 50 just happened to be the next election,” he said.
On Feb. 10, the Riverside supervisors held a special hearing on the issue. Langworthy’s group had met with several officials but wanted to present its findings to the full board.
Hoping to lay the matter to rest, the board asked the Riverside registrar, Art Tinoco, to show the group that it had misread the data his office had provided. Tinoco said Langworthy and others had relied on raw data that did not include provisional and other ballots. The actual discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted, he said, was 103 — a figure independently confirmed by the Riverside Record.
Tinoco spoke for more than an hour, but members of the Riverside Election Integrity Team were not convinced. One by one they approached the podium with prepared statements, laying out their audit.
The supervisors struggled to hide their frustration. But Langworthy didn’t need the board; he had Bianco. Just one day before that hearing, an investigator from the sheriff’s office had appeared in court asking for a warrant to take hundreds of thousands of ballots from Tinoco’s office.
The judge handling the matter was Jay Kiel.
The investigator’s sworn statement, intended to justify the warrant, focused almost entirely on Langworthy’s audit and Bunch’s claims. In three years of investigating the matter, the sheriff’s office had failed to produce any of its own evidence to support a case.
Kiel signed off on the warrant and sealed it, preventing the public from seeing the justification for Bianco’s seizure of the ballots.
Over the next few weeks, Bianco's office removed 1,500 boxes of election materials from the registrar’s office. If stacked, they would rise as high as the Empire State Building.
It was the first time in the nation’s history that a sheriff took possession of previously cast ballots.
The California attorney general, Rob Bonta, appears to have been caught off guard.
A day after Bianco seized the first batch of ballots, Bonta sent him a letter asking him to “pause” his investigation. Bonta wrote that he was “concerned” that Bianco had taken the boxes without probable cause that a crime had occurred.
Bianco ignored him.
A few days later Bonta sent another letter. “I learned that you intend to ignore my directives and plan to start counting the seized ballots tomorrow,” Bonta wrote. “Let me be clear: this is unacceptable.”
Bianco called a press conference to tell reporters he would continue counting ballots and that the attorney general did not have the authority to stop him. What had been a behind-the-scenes battle immediately became national news.
“I will carry out my constitutional duty to pursue justice,” Bianco said. He called the attorney general “an embarrassment to law enforcement.”
According to the California Constitution, the attorney general has “direct supervision over every district attorney and sheriff ... in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective offices.” There is no California case law directly addressing this provision.
Bianco believes he is the final authority on everything that happens in his county. In flouting Bonta’s orders, he has sparked a high-stakes legal showdown testing the constitutional separation of powers. The case is currently in front of the state Supreme Court.
Bonta didn’t file a lawsuit to try to stop Bianco until almost a month after he first learned about the ballot seizure, and only after the story exploded in the national press. At that point, according to sworn statements by investigators, Bianco’s office had already begun counting the ballots, opening about 22 boxes.
During that same period, Bonta filed at least a dozen lawsuits on other issues, many of them against the Trump administration.
A spokesperson for Bonta said the attorney general was trying to “work cooperatively with the sheriff’s office in order to better understand the basis for its investigation,” and that Bonta believed Bianco was complying with his directives.
The state’s initially tepid response, and its inability, thus far, to get Bianco to return the ballots raise concerns about how officials here will be able to protect future elections.
Bianco has already said he wouldn’t hesitate to seize ballots again, even in the June primary for California governor, when his own name will be on the ballot.
And there’s another critical election that Bianco could throw into flux: In the November midterms, the Riverside registrar will be responsible for counting a significant percentage of the ballots in California’s 48th Congressional District. Last year’s redistricting effort made the district competitive for Democrats. Of the 435 House seats nationwide, it’s one of fewer than three dozen that analysts consider too close to call. These races will ultimately determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
If Bianco takes ballots cast in the race for the California 48th, the ensuing chaos could transcend Riverside County.
In the months before Bianco’s ballot seizure, the FBI seized reams of paper ballots cast in Fulton County, Georgia, based on debunked claims from citizen election-deniers, and sought electronic voter data from Maricopa County, Arizona, despite multiple investigations that have turned up no evidence of fraud. The Justice Department has demanded voter information in dozens of states, leaving many attorneys general to fight those demands in court. In speeches and on social media, Trump has escalated his voter fraud claims. He has said Republicans should “nationalize the voting.”
Some of the administration officials pushing these efforts are associated with the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that has consistently supported unverified election conspiracy theories. The founding director of the institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, John Eastman, was disbarred in California last week for being one of the legal masterminds behind the attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Several years ago, the Claremont Institute set its sights on sheriffs and began hosting week-long education sessions to provide them with a roadmap for promoting Trump’s brand of conservatism in their counties. Bianco attended the training, and the institute later gave him its “Sheriff of the Year” award — a bust of John Wayne — at a fundraiser in Huntington Beach.
Other sheriffs who were trained at the institute have since dedicated the resources of their offices to investigate baseless allegations of election fraud, but all of those efforts have failed.
In 2022, when it seemed as though Bianco’s investigation into Bunch’s claims had also reached a dead end, Mack’s constitutional sheriff’s organization offered the services of “an expert in cyber crimes” who could “provide Sheriffs with immutable evidence of election fraud” to help them push their investigations forward.
That expert was Gregg Phillips. Before Trump tapped him to lead emergency services at FEMA, he had a history of profiting from unfounded allegations of voter fraud, asking donors to fund his pursuit of concrete evidence and pocketing much of the money.
Recently, Phillips was back in the news with a different claim: He said he had been “teleported” against his will to a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.
Jeanne Kuang contributed reporting for this story.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
A new lawsuit alleges Uber is violating California’s rideshare law and should not be allowed to assert its drivers are independent contractors.
The backstory: In 2020, voters approved Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that exempted Uber and other app platforms from labor law and allowed them to keep classifying their workers as contractors instead of employees. The measure included a promise that drivers would have an appeals process.
Why now: Rideshare Drivers United, a drivers group that says it has about 20,000 members in California, said Monday that because Uber has violated Prop. 22 by not delivering on all its promises, it should not be allowed to continue to assert that its drivers are independent contractors.
Read on... for more on the lawsuit.
Uber has failed to create an appeals system to give drivers due process when they’re kicked off the app, violating the California law it carved out that declared app-based drivers independent contractors, a lawsuit filed Monday alleges.
In 2020, voters approved Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that exempted Uber and other app platforms from labor law and allowed them to keep classifying their workers as contractors instead of employees. The measure included a promise that drivers would have an appeals process.
Rideshare Drivers United, a drivers group that says it has about 20,000 members in California, said Monday that because Uber has violated Prop. 22 by not delivering on all its promises, it should not be allowed to continue to assert that its drivers are independent contractors.
“Uber has not met the conditions to take advantage of Prop. 22,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Massachusetts-based lawyer who has challenged Uber and other gig companies for years and is representing the California group, told CalMatters.
Many deactivated drivers report that they struggle to appeal their cases. They say they are initially sent to sites where they appear to be talking with bots, then eventually reach agents who are working from a script and appear to be in another country. Rarely do they reach people who are empowered to truly help them, they say.
Liss-Riordan said at a news conference in San Francisco that she is seeking a declaration from the court saying that the company is violating the law it wrote, which she said should help drivers who are pursuing individual arbitration of their cases.
“We're going to seek back pay and other damages for them if they were unfairly deactivated, and we're also going to be seeking their rights under the labor code,” she said.
Among the promises of Prop. 22: guaranteed minimum earnings of 120% of minimum wage for active ride or delivery time; health care stipends for those who qualify; occupational accident insurance and accidental death insurance; and “mandatory contractual rights and appeal processes,” according to the initiative’s text. The text does not specify what the requirements for an appeals process should be.
Devins Baker said he has driven for Uber and Lyft in the Bay Area for eight years and was deactivated by Uber right before Christmas in 2024.
He told CalMatters that he thinks Uber deactivated him after he had to brake hard to avoid hitting a person who darted across the freeway, causing his passenger — who was not wearing a seatbelt — to fall out of his seat.
“I don’t know because we never find out which passenger complained,” Baker said, adding that he thinks some people report drivers to try to get a free ride from Uber.
Baker got emotional during the news conference, saying he is trying to “keep it together” and is scrambling to find other ways to make money so he will not become homeless.
Uber spokesperson Ramona Prieto called Liss-Riordan an “opportunistic trial lawyer” in an email to CalMatters and said the company will “fight this publicity stunt in court.” Prieto said the company provides drivers with a clear appeals process, and pointed to a company blog post from last week that explains what drivers can expect when they challenge deactivations.
Another deactivated driver from the Bay Area, Mirwais Noory, said Uber kicked him off the app in November 2024 over what the company said were safety concerns. He said he tried to show Uber dashcam video to plead his case, to no avail.
Getting deactivated caused financial hardship as he tries to support four children, he said. He has found work as a security guard since then, and now occasionally drives for Lyft.
“I’m the only one with income,” Noory told CalMatters. “It has turned my life upside down.”
Jason Munderloh, chair of the Bay Area chapter of Rideshare Drivers United, said at the news conference: “Once they’re deactivated, there is no unemployment insurance (because drivers are not considered employees). This leads to poverty and desperation.”
“The minute someone joins RDU, their first concern is pay and the second is deactivations,” Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United, told CalMatters ahead of the news conference.
Uber, a multibillion-dollar company based in San Francisco, was the lead backer of the $205 million Prop. 22 campaign that was also funded by DoorDash, Lyft, Instacart and Postmates. Uber spent a total of $59.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions, and Postmates — which Uber bought in a deal that was completed in 2020 — spent $13.3 million.
The lawsuit filed Monday in San Francisco Superior Court is the latest of many legal challenges against Prop. 22, which CalMatters has found has no state agency assigned to enforce it. The state Supreme Court upheld the gig-work law in 2024.
The plaintiffs also allege Uber deactivates drivers based on grounds not specified in its “Platform Access Agreement,” and that the company does not provide drivers with enough information about their earnings to determine that they are receiving 120% of minimum wage.
Separately, Uber is facing a lawsuit by the state Justice Department and the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego over thousands of wage-theft claims that predate Prop. 22. A trial-clock deadline for that lawsuit as well as a similar one against Lyft is set for December 2027.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, may face a tough fight for confirmation today — partly over events for which he has no control.
What to know: The Senate Banking Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for Warsh today — but already one GOP senator has said he will block a vote on the nominee until the Department of Justice drops an investigation into the Fed.
What else? Warsh will likely face questions about inflation and borrowing costs and whether he can maintain his independence as Trump makes it clear he expects his next Fed chair to lead the charge to lower interest rates.
Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, may face a tough fight for confirmation — partly over events for which he has no control.
The Senate Banking Committee holds a confirmation hearing for Warsh on Tuesday — but already one GOP senator has said he will block a vote on the nominee until the Department of Justice drops an investigation into the Fed.
Warsh will also likely face questions about inflation and borrowing costs and whether he can maintain his independence as Trump makes it clear he expects his next Fed chair to lead the charge to lower interest rates.
Here are three things to know as the confirmation process begins.
A key member of the banking committee, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has promised to hold up confirmation of the nominee, but not because of any objection to Warsh himself.
Tillis wants the Justice Department to drop its criminal investigation of the central bank and its current chairman, Jerome Powell. That probe is ostensibly about cost overruns on the Fed's headquarters renovation project. But Powell says it's really part of a pressure campaign by the Trump administration to get the Fed to lower interest rates, and a federal judge agreed, blasting the investigation as an unjustified act of intimidation.
The DOJ has promised to appeal the judge's decision. By dropping its probe, the administration could win Tillis' vote and clear the way for Warsh's confirmation. But that hasn't happened yet.
Kevin Warsh previously served on the Fed's board of governors and had a reputation as "hawkish," meaning he was cautious about cutting interest rates for fear inflation might get out of control.
But recently, he's argued that productivity gains from artificial intelligence could allow the central bank to lower interest rates while still keeping prices in check.
Critics like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the banking committee, see that flip-flop as a sign that Warsh will take direction on rates from President Trump, even though the Fed is supposed to operate free from political pressure.
"Warsh has really gone out of his way to demonstrate that he will be the sock puppet in chief," Warren told NPR.
While past presidents have given the Fed wide latitude, at least publicly, in setting interest rates, Trump has been outspoken in demanding lower rates, raising concern that he could jeopardize the Fed's independence.
Even if Warsh wants to lower interest rates, he may not be able to. Interest rates are set by a 12-member committee at the Fed, and many committee members are reluctant to cut rates until inflation is closer to the central bank's 2% target. The war with Iran and the resulting spike in gasoline prices have made that a more challenging goal.
If confirmed, Warsh could also seek to narrow the Fed's footprint in the economy. Warsh has criticized the Fed for straying beyond its statutory role of promoting stable prices and maximum employment. He's argued that the central bank should play a smaller role and that Fed leaders should talk less and stay in their lane.
While he agrees that political leaders should keep hands off the Fed in setting interest rates, he argues the Fed should be equally cautious about stepping into muddy political waters around climate change or inclusion.
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