The Brief

Late science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler started to imagine the worlds that would become best-selling books while a Pasadena public school student.

Washington Junior High School was renamed Octavia E. Butler Magnet in 2022, 60 years after she graduated the eighth grade.

Butler’s portrait gazes out at the students from murals above the library, in a second-floor hallway, and from the front of the school. Her legacy is alive in the school’s science-focused curriculum and in the annual SciFi writing contest and festival.

“I want [students] to realize that their ideas matter,” said school librarian Natalie Daily. “I think that Butler is a testament to that, you know, she was writing stuff and thinking about really, really deep ideas when she was a student here.”

Thanks to the author’s meticulous archives, which include her journals, early writings, and even her homework, students learn not just about the award-winning writer’s list of adult accomplishments, but the awkward adolescent who walked the very same halls.

“I did hear that she wasn't very talkative either, and she'd write a lot,” said eighth grader Dayana Diaz. “I felt like that's something we had in common.” Dayana's short story about the cost of war between humans on Mars and Jupiter won the school’s 2022 science fiction contest.

“People didn't believe in her,” Dayana said. “But she still made it either way and that's what I would like to do as well.”

Brock St. James with his daughters, Kobe Arnold, 2, and Guinevere Arnold, 7, inside the Octavia E. Butler Magnet library on March 22, 2024. The space is stocked with hundreds of books, board games, puzzles, and craft supplies.

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It started with the library

Octavia Estelle Butler was born June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, a city shaped by policies and practices that limited where Black, Latino, and Asian people could buy houses, receive health care, eat at restaurants, and attend school.

The city’s libraries became her second home. Butler wrote her first novel from downtown Los Angeles’ Central Library.

“I'm a writer at least partly because I had access to public libraries,” she wrote in a 1993 column sounding the alarm about the shrinking access to public literary spaces. “I'm Black, female, the child of a shoeshine man who died young and a maid who was uneducated but who knew her way to the library … At the library, I read books my mother could never have afforded on topics that would never have occurred to her.”

Butler was almost 6 feet tall by the time she was 12 and as anyone who has ever attended middle school knows, being different is not always greeted with kindness.

“She knew what it was like to be what she called the out kid, like the kid on the margins,” said Ayana Jamieson, a scholar of Butler’s life and assistant professor of ethnic studies at Cal Poly Pomona, as well as the founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network.

Butler’s professional writing career was inspired, in part, by the idea that she could do better than Devil Girl From Mars, a “terrible movie” she watched as a kid.

“I was very lucky to be born just in time for the space race to build public support for education,” Butler said in a 1998 MIT speech. “All of a sudden there were plenty of supplies, for instance, for science education.”

Students can see Octavia E. Butler's yearbook picture in the library.

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A George Washington Junior High School certificate of promotion given to Octavia E. Butler in 1962. Butler graduated from John Muir High School in 1965.

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The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

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Butler worked and took classes at Pasadena City College.

“I wrote and wrote, and sent things out, and collected rejection slips until I realized that collecting rejection slips was masochistic,” Butler said in the same speech. “And I took the drawer and threw them all out.”

Butler sold her first short story at 23 and when she died in 2006, she’d created a dozen books and several short stories. Her narratives often center on humans trying to figure out how to navigate a dire future that is frightening in its familiarity, rather than its foreignness.

But Jamieson said there is hope in her stories.

“No one has the right answers, but we just have to do our best ... what we can, at the time when we have to make the decisions,” Jamieson said. “I think that's really powerful.”

Changing the name

The board approved the naming of the Octavia E. Butler Library in 2020. Former principal Shannon Malone, who wrote the proposal with librarian Natalie Daily, said it was a “no brainer.”

The reaction from parents was so positive Malone and Daily started to explore changing the school’s name. Institutions everywhere were reckoning with who is memorialized in public spaces and who is not.

“The context of the time made it more important for us to have a school named after someone whose genius started here in the halls,” Malone said. “To recognize someone who represented the community.”

“The idea is to have the exposure to a lot of different things so you can see yourselves in that science diaspora," said former principal Shannon Malone, of Octavia E. Butler Magnet's curriculum.

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The school’s existing name carried nearly 100 years of history. Washington Junior High School opened in Northwest Pasadena in 1924. Jet Propulsion Laboratory founders Jack Parsons and Edward Forman and baseball player Jackie Robinson are among the school’s earliest alumni.

The school was also at the center of a 1961 lawsuit, in which a judge eventually ruled that district leaders had created boundaries “for the purpose of instituting, maintaining, and intensifying racial segregation at Washington.”

A 1970 U.S. District Court ruling ordered Pasadena Unified to desegregate and students were bused to increase racial diversity. The following exodus of white students to private and charter schools drained resources from the district.

“Part of changing the name of the school was to almost give a reboot to that space for people to remember that, oh, great people have walked through here,” said Malone, who’s now a district administrator overseeing schools from transitional kindergarten to high school.

Leira Ruperto graduated from what was then Washington Junior High in 2000. Her family still lives within walking distance and her oldest son is in seventh grade this year. She anticipates her three younger sons will follow.

“The schools have changed dramatically from when I was going to school,” Ruperto said. “There's a lot more resources, there's a lot more help for the kids, they do a lot more activities for the kids.”

The school's full name is Octavia E. Butler Magnet, a dual langauge STEAM Middle School. The acronym stands for science, technology, engineering, art, and math.

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In 2013, the school adopted a focus on science, technology, engineering, mathematics and art and in 2018 the school started a dual-language Spanish immersion program. There are also accelerated math classes, and a focus on college and career readiness.

While Pasadena Unified, like many Los Angeles school districts, faces declining enrollment, Octavia E. Butler Magnet has attracted 13% more students than five years ago.

California funds schools based on average student attendance, so more students bring more money to a school.

Ruperto said the new name can help teach students a subtle lesson.

“It's good for them to know like, ‘OK, things don't always last forever,'” Ruperto said. “Sometimes some kids kind of struggle with change.”

Ruperto’s answer recalls the gospel in Parable of the Sower: "All that you touch you Change. All that you Change Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.”

Learning from Butler

When Butler died in 2006, she left 398 boxes and 18 oversized folders of journals, manuscripts, notes and other ephemera to the Huntington Library, including many artifacts of her childhood.

At Octavia E. Butler Magnet’s library, students can see her picture in the 1961 yearbook, her eighth grade promotion certificate, assignments, even report cards from her time at the school.

Daily showed them to a student whose grades matched Butler’s at the time— Bs, Cs, and Ds.

“She just goes ‘Well this is very inspiring,’” Daily said. “That's what we're supposed to think. Like just the idea that somebody, she didn't have it all together in middle school yet. Look what she did.”

Ayleen Medina, 12, puts on an astronaut helmet prop during the Octavia E. Butler Library Science Fiction Festival in Pasadena on March 22, 2024.

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Daily also said the reports prompt questions about how educators evaluate student success.

“What was she being graded on? Was that appropriate? Was she being graded on the things that made her shine?” Daily said. “Was what she was capable of valued? I think those questions are just as valid.”

There’s also a ranked list of “Favorite Movie Stars.” Nick Adams, was her top-ranked actor— five stars— for his role in the TV western series The Rebel.

“It just really shows that she was a middle school kid just like any other middle school kid,” Daily said.

There are drafts of short stories Butler wrote on her own time.

In “Evolution,” dated in July 1962, the month after she graduated from middle school, a woman finds a baby in a post-war landscape.

“It had two small hard lumps on its shoulders,” Butler wrote. “Probably some new kind of disease brought on by that war.”

The lumps grow and feathers emerge.

“It was time she thought of something to call it. Years before it would probably have had a name on the day of its birth. Now names did not matter much. There was no time for making friends,” the story continued. “A child with wings though. Such a child. deserved a name. There had been mutations before, but none like this.”

"Something that we really want our students to be able to do is have a sense of agency," said librarian Natalie Daily. "[Butler's] a really great model of someone who did exactly that."

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Daily visited the archives at the Huntington and said there’s about a dozen versions of the story.

“There's a lot going on in a kid's mind,” Daily said. “We really need to explore it with them and encourage them to keep pulling those threads.”

A new generation of explorers, creators

Octavia E. Butler Magnet educators are encouraged to weave the author’s work into their classrooms.

Eighth grade English teacher Roslyn Terré, a science fiction lover and aspiring writer, recently assigned students a poem based on one of Butler’s.

“They were able to say things like, ‘I am my power,’ ‘I am great,’ ‘I have skills,’” Terré said. “They each talked about their different talents and then how those talents would take them into the future.”

Eighth grader Brooklyn Roffman started exploring Butler’s work after the library was renamed: First, the graphic novel adaptations of her work, then “the real thing.”

In “Speech Sounds,” a disease wipes out much of humanity and those left struggle to communicate.

“I get a lot of social anxiety, and sometimes I don't really have the right words,” Brooklyn said. “So that, I don't know, felt personal to me.”

Brooklyn describes herself as a mix of African American, Irish, and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

“There's been a lot of like, feeling like I'm not Black enough, if that makes sense. Or like, I'm not enough of what I am,” Brooklyn said. “I don't fit into any of the boxes. And so in a lot of Octavia's works, it's quite often about characters who don't really fit into a box.”

"When you go out and like meet a mushroom, I recommend smelling them," said Aaron Tupac (left), 32, a mycologist at the Octavia E. Butler Library Science Fiction Festival on March 22, 2024. "Some smell like farts, some smell like uh, apricots, some smell really sweet, some smell like things that you never smelled before. There's over 300 different mushroom smells."

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Daily organizes an annual science fiction contest to honor students’ short narrative, poetry, art, and graphic fiction.

“We don't want them to just be consumers of sci fi, which is awesome,” Daily said. “We also want them to be creators of it.”

Each year, every submission is collected into a book for the students.

The school also holds an annual Science Fiction Festival. This year students could make space-inspired art, code robots, and compete in a cosplay contest.

“It's just ways for kids to be engaged in both science and art, and creation,” Daily said. “To see themselves as part of all of it.”

In the spring of 2020, the library was re-named the Octavia E. Butler Library. “Something that I really try to provide as a space for the library to just kind of be a central location,” Daily said. “[I] try to keep it at the heart of the school so kids want to keep coming back.”

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Butler, "La Autora," is part of a lotería mural created by Jen Swain in 2023 on the school's second floor.

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In one classroom, mycologist Aaron Tupac laid out an array of dried mushrooms for inspection.

“Have ya’ll ever met any mushrooms in your neighborhood?” they asked.

Grayson Schnnitger watched as Tupac zoomed in on the spores of a Turkey Tail specimen with a microscope.

“I haven't ever learned about [mushrooms] before,” Grayson said. “So it was something new.”

Just one example of the middle school exploration, many students were eager to tell LAist about.

Eighth grader Maxine Molnar joined the musical theater club. She’s portrayed Linus in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and a friend to Jasmine in Aladdin.

“I've explored more of, like, what I enjoy doing,” Maxine said. “What I'm really good at and things that I also need to work on.”

Arturo Nuño has learned to code robots in an after-school club — a discovery preceded by an earlier failed after-school experiment. “This is actually a funny story,” Arturo said. “First my mom put me in Glee, but I didn't really like it.”

Sixth grader Naila Walker recently dissected a chicken leg — “It was really gross, but really fun at the same time.”

A second case of measles has been confirmed in Los Angeles County.

L.A. County Department of Public Health officials announced on Saturday the virus was detected in an international traveler who arrived at the Tom Bradley International Terminal — or Terminal B — at LAX on Monday, Jan. 26, through Gate 201A on Viva Aerobus Flight 518.

Public Health said anyone at Terminal B from 10:45 p.m. on Jan. 26 to 1 a.m. on Jan. 27 may have been exposed.

The traveler also spent a day in Disneyland Park and California Adventure Park in Anaheim on Jan. 28 from 12:30 to 10 p.m. On Jan. 30, they visited a Dunkin’ Donuts in Woodland Hills from 3 to 4:45 p.m.

Health officials say people who visited the above locations during those time periods may also be at risk of developing measles.

Symptoms typically appear one to three weeks after exposure.

Public Health recommends these individuals check if they are already protected against measles and advise getting a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine if they aren't.

Symptoms include a fever above 101 degrees; cough; runny nose; red, watery eyes; and a rash that typically starts on the face.

• For those exposed at LAX, the last day to monitor for symptoms is Feb. 16.
• For those exposed at Disneyland Park and California Adventure Park, the last day to monitor for symptoms is Feb. 18.
• For those exposed at Dunkin’ Donuts, the last day to monitor for symptoms is Feb. 20.

Saturday's announcement comes one day after L.A. County public health officials confirmed the first case of measles in the county. More information about that case here.

Orange County has reported two other measles cases this year, one in a young adult who recently traveled internationally and the second in an unvaccinated toddler who had no known exposure to the virus.

Transmission, prevention and more

Measles spreads easily through the air and can stay on surfaces for many hours. Those infected can spread the virus before showing symptoms, which can take weeks to appear.

So far, 588 measles cases of measles have been reported in the U.S. this year, the highest number of cases in a January since the U.S. eliminated measles in 2000. Most of these cases are linked to outbreaks in South Carolina, Arizona and Utah.

The L.A. County Department of Public Health is encouraging Angelenos to check their immunization status for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to determine if they’re protected against the virus.

If symptoms develop, contact a health care provider via phone as soon as possible. L.A. Public Health advises people not to go physically into a health care facility before notifying them of measles symptoms.

The measles outbreak in South Carolina is showing little sign of slowing down. The state has confirmed 847 cases since the first case was reported in October, making the outbreak bigger than the one in Texas, which started just over a year ago.

Dr. Linda Bell, South Carolina's state epidemiologist, points out that in Texas, measles cases grew over the course of seven months, while in South Carolina it has taken just 16 weeks to surpass the Texas case count.

"This is a milestone that we have reached in a relatively short period of time, very unfortunately," she said at a press briefing Wednesday. "And it's just disconcerting to consider what our final trajectory will look like for measles in South Carolina."

The state on Friday reported 58 new cases since Tuesday.

This latest outbreak, as well as the speed at which it is spreading, is another test of the United States' ability to contain measles. It comes as the Trump administration has taken multiple steps to undermine overall confidence in vaccines.

And it is happening as the U.S. is already in danger of losing its status as a country that has eliminated measles. That's a technical designation. It's given to countries that have gone a year without a continuous chain of transmission. For the U.S., the clock started in January 2025 with the Texas outbreak.

Who makes the call?

Measles elimination status is granted — and taken away — by a special verification commission set up by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). It reviews extensive evidence to determine whether the outbreaks in the U.S. are all part of a continuous chain of transmission that began with the outbreak in Texas in January 2025. Gathering the necessary epidemiological data, genomic analyses and surveillance reports takes time.

But even if PAHO determines that the outbreaks are separate, the U.S. could still lose its elimination status if it fails to prove that it can interrupt the spread of measles quickly and consistently, says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, an infectious disease specialist and former top official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And so far, he says, the U.S. is failing on this front.

"We do not have the capability to actually control measles, whether or not this is demonstrated through continuous measles transmission for 12 months," Daskalakis said in a press briefing this month. "So I'm going to say that elimination is already lost."

PAHO has said it plans to review the United States' measles elimination status this spring.

"Health freedom"

When asked whether the potential loss of measles elimination status was significant during a press call this month, Dr. Ralph Abraham, the principal deputy director of the CDC, said, "Not really."

Abraham said losing elimination status would not impact how the administration tackles measles. He said the administration supports the measles vaccine, but "You know, the president, Secretary [Kennedy], we talk all the time about religious freedom, health freedom, personal freedom. And I think we have to respect those communities that choose to go a somewhat of a different route."

But infectious disease experts and epidemiologists say the choice not to vaccinate is what's driving these outbreaks. Daskalakis says the resurgence of measles is being fueled by misinformation that undermines trust in vaccines.

And public health experts say losing elimination status is more than just symbolic. "I think it's really a comment on the state of the public health system," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We maintained elimination for 25 years. And so now, to be facing its loss, it really points to the cycle of panic and neglect, where I think that we have forgotten what it's like to face widespread measles."

And as measles cases rise, that will lead to more hospitalizations, more deaths and a greater toll on the public health system as a whole, says Dr. William Moss of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He points to estimates suggesting that the average cost for a measles outbreak is $43,000 per case, with costs escalating to well over $1 million total for outbreaks of 50 cases or more. And fighting measles also takes resources away from other public health priorities.

Elimination vs. eradication

In 2000, PAHO declared measles eliminated from the U.S. because there had been no continuous domestic spread for more than 12 months. But the virus is still endemic in many parts of the world, and every year, there are U.S. cases brought in from abroad. So the virus has not been eradicated. 

Compare that with the smallpox virus, which has not been reported anywhere in the world since the World Health Organization declared it eradicated in 1980. 

Across state lines

Similar to Texas, the vast majority of cases in South Carolina have been in children and teens who are unvaccinated, leading to quarantines in about two dozen schools. Clemson University and Anderson University also have recently reported cases. And the virus has crossed state lines. North Carolina has confirmed several cases linked to the South Carolina outbreak. Across the country in Washington state, officials in Snohomish County told NPR they've linked six measles cases in unvaccinated children there to a family visiting from South Carolina.

Dr. Anna-Kathryn Burch, a pediatric infectious disease specialist with Prisma Health in Columbia, S.C., says it breaks her heart to see her state have such a large outbreak.

"I'm from here, born and raised — this is my state. And I think that we are going to see those numbers continue to grow over the next several months," she says.

Measles is dangerous. Here's how to protect yourself.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases on Earth — more than Ebola, smallpox or just about any other infectious disease.

A person infected with measles can be contagious from four days before the telltale measles rash appears, until four days after. So the person could be spreading measles before they know they're infected. And when they cough, sneeze, talk or even just breathe, they emit infectious particles that can linger in the air for up to two hours, long after the infected person has left the room. On average, one infected person can go on to sicken up to 18 other unvaccinated people.

The best way to protect yourself is vaccination. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is very safe, and two doses is 97% effective — which means 97% of people will develop lifelong immunity against the disease. When vaccination rates are high in a community — 95% or more is considered ideal — that helps prevent measles outbreaks because there aren't enough vulnerable people for the virus to keep spreading. In Spartanburg County, S.C., the schoolwide vaccination rate for required immunizations is 90%.

Vaccination rates have been dropping in the United States. Nationwide, 92.5% of kindergartners had received the measles vaccine in the 2024-2025 school year, according to the CDC. In many communities across the country, those figures are much lower, creating the conditions needed for measles outbreaks to spread. Experts say all that's needed is one spark to ignite it.
Copyright 2026 NPR

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem not to intervene in protests occurring in cities led by Democrats unless local authorities ask for federal help amid mounting criticism of his administration's immigration crackdown.

On his social media site, Trump posted that "under no circumstances are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help."

He provided no further details on how his order would affect operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and DHS personnel, or other federal agencies, but added: "We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists."

Trump said that in addition to his instructions to Noem he had directed "ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property."

Later Saturday night, Trump said to reporters as he flew to Florida for the weekend that he felt Democratic cities are "always complaining."

"If they want help, they have to ask for it. Because if we go in, all they do is complain," Trump said.

He predicted that those cities would need help, but said if the leaders of those cities seek it from the federal government, "They have to say, 'Please.'"

The Trump administration has already deployed the National Guard, or federal law enforcement officials, in a number of Democratic areas, including Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon. But Saturday's order comes as opposition to such tactics has grown, particularly in Minnesota's Twin Cities region.

Trump said Saturday night that protesters who "do anything bad" to immigration officers and other federal law enforcement, "will have to suffer" and "will get taken care of in at least an equal way."

"You see it, the way they treat our people. And I said, you're allowed, if somebody does that, you can do something back. You're not going to stand there and take it if somebody spits in your face," Trump said.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul have challenged a federal immigration enforcement surge in those cities, arguing that DHS is violating constitutional protections.

A federal judge says she won't halt enforcement operations as the lawsuit proceeds. State and local officials had sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Justice Department lawyers have called the lawsuit "legally frivolous."

The state, particularly Minneapolis, has been on edge after federal officers fatally shot two people in the city: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the federal action in Minnesota and across the country.

Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, has suggested the administration could reduce the number of immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota — but only if state and local officials cooperate. Trump sent Homan to Minneapolis following the killings of Good and Pretti, seeming to signal a willingness to ease tensions in Minnesota.

The president on Saturday night said he intended to speak to Homan and Noem on Sunday and he seemed to endorse the idea of immigration agents wearing body cameras or having their interactions filmed.

Trump was asked by a reporter if he thought it was a good thing having lots of cameras capturing incidents with law enforcement.

"I think it would help law enforcement but I'd have to talk to them," Trump said.

He went on and added: "That works both ways. But overall, I think it's 80% in favor of law enforcement."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Facing federal funding cuts that could strip health coverage from hundreds of thousands of Angelenos, clinic leaders, union members and patients gathered in Inglewood last Wednesday to boost a stop-gap proposal they want to put in front of voters: a county sales tax to stave off service cuts and keep more sick people from seeking primary care in emergency rooms.

A newly formed coalition, Restore Healthcare for Angelenos, is asking the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to place a five-year, half-cent sales tax measure on the June ballot in Los Angeles County.

“The ballot measure that we are proposing is an urgent and necessary step to stop the damage, to protect access to life-saving care,” said Louise McCarthy, president and CEO of the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County, one of the organizations in the coalition. “The stakes right now could not be higher.”

As the federal spending plan, H.R. 1, starts to take effect, Medi-Cal cuts and eligibility changes will affect millions of Californians. The state estimates it could lose tens of billions of dollars a year in federal funding.

According to the coalition, their proposal would raise about $1 billion annually for health care in Los Angeles County. The revenue would help create a local coverage program that would pay for primary and emergency care as well as behavioral health needs for people who fall off their Medi-Cal insurance and have no other coverage options, according to the coalition. When people are uninsured, uncompensated care at clinics and hospitals grow, threatening the availability of services for everyone, coalition leaders say.

The coalition is working with Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose office on Wednesday presented the motion to the county — an initial step before public debate. The board is expected to vote next month; the deadline for placing a board-sponsored measure on the June ballot is March 6.

“I do not take lightly asking fellow residents to consider imposing a ½ percent retail tax,” Mitchell said in an emailed statement. “This option is on the table because what’s at stake are safety net services unraveling for millions of residents — which would come at an even greater cost for the largest county in the nation.”

She added that if the measure passed it would sunset on Oct. 1, 2031 and would be subject to public oversight and audits. “This is a last resort option for the times we’re facing and for voters to make the final call on,” Mitchell said.

If the board of supervisors does not approve the measure for a June vote, the coalition will gather signatures toward qualifying the initiative for the November ballot, said Jim Mangia, CEO of St. John’s Community Health, another coalition member.

Efforts to shore up health care access for poor Californians aren’t unique to Los Angeles. Pressure is building for state and county leaders to find new revenue streams to make up at least in part for the federal losses. In a legislative hearing Tuesday, health providers and advocates also urged state lawmakers to seek creative funding solutions.

Last November, voters in Santa Clara County approved a tax similar to the one proposed in Los Angeles County. Santa Clara’s Measure A will raise the local sales tax by five-eights of a cent for five years. The county projects that it will provide $330 million annually for local hospitals and clinics.

Both local proposals are separate from the push led by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West for a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of the state’s approximately 200 billionaires, which would generate an estimated $100 billion to fund  medical care and other social services at the state level. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes the initiative, arguing that such a tax would drive wealthy people — who pay a significant portion of the state’s income taxes — from the state. That measure has not yet qualified for the November ballot.

Local and state tax proposals could seemingly compete for the attention of voters, since both are responses to the issue of federal funding cuts. And in L.A., voters may have to consider a number of other tax measures this election year from a city hotel tax in June to a sales tax to support the Los Angeles Fire Department in November.

Mangia sees the tax initiatives to fund health care as complementary. He said the state tax on billionaires would help restore some of federal cuts to Medi-Cal at the state level, while the L.A County measure would help shore up the local safety net.

“We’re doing this to make sure that no matter what happens federally, statewide, residents of L.A. County will have access to health care,” Mangia said.

Among the most prominent changes and cuts made in Trump’s major budget reconciliation law are a new requirement for enrollees to log 80 hours per month of school, work or volunteering starting in 2027; a rule that requires people to renew coverage every six months rather than annually; restrictions on taxes that the state places on insurers to help pay for the Medi-Cal program; and a reduction in how much the feds will pay for the emergency care of non-citizens.

State health officials estimate 2 million Californians could lose their Medi-Cal coverage over the next several years.

Under its own growing budget pressures, the state has also rolled back coverage for certain groups. Starting earlier this month state health officials froze Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented people — the state foots most of the cost for this group because with the exception of emergency care, federal dollars cannot be used to cover individuals who are in the country illegally. This summer the state will also cut non-emergency dental care for undocumented adults already enrolled in the program.