The Brief

After spiking in 2021, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. improved significantly the following year, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..

The data shows that 817 women died of maternal causes in the U.S. in 2022, compared to 1,205 in 2021. These are deaths that take place during pregnancy or within 42 days following delivery, according to the World Health Organization, "from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes."

"I think that the bump [in 2021] reflects the pandemic and we're returning to pre-pandemic levels," says study author Donna Hoyert, who a health scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

The maternal mortality rate in 2022 was 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births. That's a significant decrease from the 2021 rate of 32.9, but it's still much higher than the rate in other wealthy countries.

There continue to be enormous racial disparities in the U.S. maternal mortality rate as well — the rate for Black women was 49.5 deaths per 100,00 births in 2022, compared to a rate of 19 deaths for white women. Research shows the vast majority of these deaths are preventable.

Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell is an OB-GYN in New Orleans who was not involved in the CDC report. She agrees that COVID-19 was likely the reason for the major spike in maternal mortality.

"I really think that 2021 was actually an outlier because of the circumstances," Gillispie-Bell says. "We know that because of COVID-19, there were disruptions to care that obviously impacted our ability to care for pregnant individuals, plus there were pregnant individuals who were dying from COVID." It's hard to know for certain since the CDC report did not include cause of death, she adds.

She's encouraged that the 2022 numbers are slightly lower than 2020 — 817 in 2022 versus 861 in 2020. "It could mean that we're moving in the right direction — I think we need more years of data to know," she says.

CDC's newest data comes several weeks after an academic study cast doubt on the agency's methodology, suggesting that a pregnancy checkbox on death certificates was causing the numbers to be much higher than they are in reality. CDC strongly rejected the study's findings.

Hoyert also defends CDC's methodology. "There was plenty of literature before we made the changes that we were underestimating [maternal deaths] without a checkbox, and so we did add the checkbox," she says, explaining that they have continued to do evaluations and issue guidance to ensure it's being used correctly.

"I think CDC is doing great work in collecting the data and sharing that back," CDC Director Mandy Cohen told NPR last month. "We disagree with how that study was looking at it, and think it's unacceptable for moms to be dying at that rate here in the United States."

The stakes for getting these numbers right are high in a post-Roe America. Reproductive health advocates warn that abortion bans threaten women's lives, and if CDC's data is not viewed as reliable by the public, that could make it hard to evaluate the impact of these restrictions.

Dr. Gillispie-Bell says the public should still put a great deal of stock into CDC's analysis. She also pointed to the work of state maternal mortality review committees around the country – she is the medical director of the committee in Louisiana. They are supported and funded by CDC.

"The first step for our maternal mortality review committee — once we get the death certificate with that pregnancy checkbox — is to then start extracting data to confirm ... so our numbers are very accurate," she says.

Not all states have these committees validating maternal deaths and making recommendations to reduce their numbers. CDC Director Cohen pointed out the agency now has funding available for each state. She also pointed out that CDC's data has already led to policy changes to reduce maternal deaths, including allowing Medicaid coverage to continue for a year postpartum.

"I think we're making strides, which is great," Cohen added. "We have more work to do."

Resources

A three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that the new congressional maps created by California voters in the fall are legal and should remain in place, handing a win to state Democrats who hope the new districts will swing five congressional seats for their party next year.

The ruling denies a request by California Republicans and the Trump administration for the federal court in Los Angeles to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the maps created by Proposition 50.

In the 117-page ruling, the federal judges rejected GOP arguments that the new maps amounted to racial gerrymandering, which has been prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court. The panel ruled 2-1, with the two Democratic appointees ruling for California and Judge Kenneth K. Lee, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dissenting.

In the opinion, Judge Josephine Staton wrote that the panel’s conclusion “probably seems obvious to anyone who followed the news” about Proposition 50 last year. She noted that during the campaign, no one ever described the new maps as racially motivated — including the Republican plaintiffs.

“No one on either side of that debate characterized the map as a racial gerrymander,” the opinion states, noting that the California Republican Party called it a “political power grab to help Democrats retake Congress and impeach Trump,” and Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi deemed it a “redistricting power grab” for political gain.”

The judges also rejected Republican arguments that the voters’ intent did not matter. The majority wrote that voters clearly were endorsing the argument that both sides were making: that this was a partisan power grab, aimed at giving Democrats a leg up in the midterm elections and counteracting what GOP-led states were doing with their own districts.

Democrats celebrated the ruling.

“Republicans’ weak attempt to silence voters failed. California voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 50 — to respond to Trump’s rigging in Texas — and that is exactly what this court concluded,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

Newsom pushed lawmakers to put Proposition 50 on a special statewide ballot after Trump set off a mid-decade redistricting scramble by demanding Texas redraw its maps to benefit Republicans.

In his dissenting opinion, Lee wrote that race “likely played a predominant role in drawing at least one district because the smoking gun is in the hands of Paul Mitchell,” referring to a Democratic consultant who helped draw the new lines.

Lee argued that Mitchell publicly “boasted” about boosting Latino voting power in the 13th Congressional District in theCentral Valley, and that voter intent should not be the only basis for the court’s decision.

“To be sure, California’s main goal was to add more Democratic congressional seats. But that larger political gerrymandering plan does not allow California to smuggle in racially gerrymandered seats,” said Lee, who wrote that Democrats likely wanted to create a Latino majority district “as part of a racial spoils system to award a key constituency that may be drifting away from the Democratic party.”

The ruling could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Congressional candidates have until March 6 to file papers to run for office in the June primary.

Huntington Beach’s controversial former city attorney is running for state attorney general.

Michael Gates officially launched his campaign today and he will be going up against the current Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Gates has been an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and his policies — and a continuous thorn in the side of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is one of the most prominent critics of the president.

Gates was first elected city attorney in 2014 and easily won re-election twice since then. Over the years, Gates earned plenty of fans and enemies as he filed a barrage of lawsuits against California over state housing mandates and the city’s plans to require voters to show ID to cast a ballot, among other issues.

Gates left the city last year to work in the Trump administration and left his D.C. post in November to return to the beach city. He told LAist he missed Huntington Beach and his family and was hired back at the city as a chief assistant city attorney. The circumstances of his return made headlines.

In a video announcing his campaign, Gates said too many lawmakers in Sacramento spend their time "scheming" for ways to raise tax rates while leaving streets unsafe.

“California has lost its way," he said. "When I am your attorney general, we are going to be toughest on crime. ... We are going to restore public safety, law and order, up and down the state of California."

He said he would also prioritize election integrity and giving local cities (and not Sacramento) final say over construction. You can watch his full statement here:

Rene Lynch also contributed to this story.

Progressive forces in Los Angeles are taking aim at companies with bloated executive pay through a ballot initiative.

On Wednesday, a coalition led by hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 launched a signature-gathering effort for a ballot proposition they called the "Overpaid CEO Tax." If the proposition makes the November ballot, it will ask voters to impose an additional city business tax on large companies with CEO pay that is exponentially higher than worker pay.

Representatives of some of Los Angeles' most powerful unions, including the Los Angeles teachers union UTLA, gathered in Hollywood to announce the launch. They spoke on the sidewalk outside of the Tesla Diner — a recently opened charging station and restaurant owned by world's richest man Elon Musk.

"A growing and dangerous divide is tearing Los Angeles apart. On the one side, corporate CEOs live in their own world," said Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen. "On the other side, workers … juggle two and three jobs, they make impossible choices between medicine and rent."

The initiative takes aim at big corporations. If passed by voters, the executive pay ordinance would impose an additional business tax on companies with at least 1,000 employees whose top executive makes more than 50 times the median worker pay in Los Angeles. Those funds would go toward low-income housing projects, sidewalk repairs and other projects.

The additional tax would be one to 10 times the typical city business tax. According to the city clerk's office, the current city business tax is between 0.1% and 0.425% of gross receipts.

The campaign is part of a bigger political fight over the coming Olympic Games and who will benefit from them.

The executive pay initiative is one of a series of competing ballot propositions launched by union and business interests after the Los Angeles City Council voted last year to raise the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 an hour by 2028.

That vote set off a cascade of responses from the companies it affected. A business group backed by Delta and United Airlines launched a referendum to repeal the wage increase. That effort eventually failed.

The fight around the so-called "Olympic wage" is still playing out. A coalition of business interests has introduced its own ballot initiative to eliminate the city business tax entirely. In December, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson introduced a motion to delay the $30 minimum wage by two years.

Campaigners for the executive pay tax will be on the ground as hype around the Olympics ramps up. Ticket registration opened for fans on Wednesday morning, the same day union leaders gathered in Hollywood.

To land the ballot initiative on the November ballot, campaigners have 120 days to gather around 140,000 signatures from registered voters in the city of Los Angeles.

Facing a loss of state and federal funding and increased costs, Los Angeles County officials are considering cutting homeless services and programs by more than 25% in the next budget year.

If approved next month, the spending plan presented to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday would trim $219 million from homeless services and programs, slashing county street outreach efforts in half and closing most of the sites for the Pathway Home encampment clearing program.

Several supervisors pushed back on aspects of the spending plan and urged county staff to find ways to avoid some of the proposed cuts.

“ I'm not particularly happy with everything that I'm seeing,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said. “I've heard from my providers that their people are disappointed.”

L.A. County’s new Department of Homeless Services and Housing drafted the spending plan. In a presentation to supervisors, officials said the deep cuts were necessary because of the rising costs of operating existing shelter beds and the loss of tens of millions in temporary state and federal funding.

The proposal comes after county voters approved Measure A in 2024 to increase the sales tax rate and double county dollars dedicated to addressing the homelessness crisis.

“This is really challenging, and we’re making recommendations that nobody wants to be making,” department Director Sarah Mahin told supervisors.

After the department published a draft of the plan in November, authorities changed the proposal to avoid more than $80 million in additional program cuts. They did that by securing $39 million one-time state grants and implementing about $45 million in other cost-saving measures, officials said.

Dozens of homeless service providers on Tuesday thanked county officials for shrinking the initial $303 million shortfall and urged them to avoid further cuts to services.

“We truly appreciate the progress you've made, but now the remaining shortfall is devastating for Los Angeles and for organizations like ours that are already stretched to the limit,” said Georgia Hawley of Midnight Mission, a homeless shelter in Skid Row.

Garrett Lee, of Department of Mental Health's HOME Team, collaborates with LAHSA’s Homeless Engagement Team during outreach in the targeted COVID-19 testing efforts in the homeless community in 2020.

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Courtesy of Los Angeles County

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What’s driving the deficit?

Several factors are driving the budget deficit projected for the fiscal year that begins in July, according to L.A. County’s homelessness department.

• Shelter bed cost increases: The rates L.A. County pays shelter bed operators went up last year. It will now pay 46% more — an increase of $86 million — to maintain the same 6,000 shelter beds, officials said.
  
• Funds expiring: Several temporary funding sources — totaling about $185 million — have ended or will end in the next fiscal year, officials said. That includes $38 million in federal COVID relief and more than $80 million in state funding.
  
• Consumer spending: Sales tax revenue from Measure A is projected to decrease by $14.5 million in the next fiscal year because consumer spending is down.
  
• Carry-over funds: There are fewer one-time funds available from previous budget years that can be rolled into the coming budget year, officials say.  That number is down by $18 million.
  

Measure A looms large

Last year, L.A. County started collecting revenue through Measure A. The additional 0.5% sales tax approved by voters to address homelessness is expected to generate about $1 billion for L.A. County next budget year. That’s double the revenue generated under the county’s previous homelessness sales tax ordinance.

On Tuesday, service providers said the county cuts don’t make sense to voters who approved Measure A.

“This is not what voters intended when they doubled the tax on themselves to address the homelessness crisis,” said Katie Hill, CEO of Union Station Homeless Services, a Pasadena homelessness nonprofit.

Dozens of homeless services employees lined up to echo that message and demanding officials restore the full budget.

" My request is that you please not approve this plan without filling the gap first,” said Erin Thompson of Inner City Law Center, a nonprofit law firm. “Please find the funds.

Deandra Davis, from the homeless service provider HOPICS, said cutting programs doesn't end up saving the county money in the long run. The costs get pushed elsewhere.

“We shift these costs to jails and hospitals," she said.

Under Measure A, about 60% of revenue has to go toward homeless services. That’s about $625 million for next budget year.

Nearly 36%, or $372 million, must go to the L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency to support housing development. County homelessness officials said that agency is expected to take on some of the homelessness prevention functions cut from the county’s homeless services budget.

“Measure A has given the overall system more tools to address the homelessness crisis, but fewer of them are held directly by the county,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said Tuesday.

Proposed reductions

L.A. County’s latest homelessness budget proposal includes a $92 million reduction for the county’s Pathway Home program, which moves unhoused Angelenos out of tent encampments by offering them hotel room beds. Pathway Home would be reduced from more than 1,200 beds at 20 project sites to 460 beds at seven sites, officials said.

Fewer beds for the program will mean more tent encampments in areas it serves, officials said.

Solis and fellow Supervisor Holly Mitchell said the program has been crucial for their constituents.

“This continuing attack on Pathway Home is problematic,” Mitchell said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We are clearly heading in a direction where our ability to ultimately resolve homelessness and address encampments and continue to make the progress we've seen in the last couple of years will be severely constrained."

Holly J. Mitchell, an LA County Supervisor who represents the second district.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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The budget plan also includes $127 million in reductions to other programs, including at least 100 frontline worker jobs. Outreach and prevention-related programs would be hit hardest, officials said.

Street outreach-related programs would be reduced by 60% and staffing in those programs would be cut by about half.

Mahin said parts of the county outside the city of Los Angeles will be disproportionately affected by reductions to outreach programs. Her department recommended reductions to certain outreach teams working outside city limits, but not in L.A.

That’s because of legal obligations under a settlement of a major homelessness lawsuit brought against the city and county by The L.A. Alliance for Human Rights.

“There is a requirement due to the L.A. Alliance for the county to maintain a certain level of outreach services in the city of L.A. through next fiscal year,” Mahin told LAist.

Critics of the spending plan urged supervisors to look at other parts of the budget to help save programs still on the chopping block.

Lily Clark of HOPICS told county officials the cuts would hurt her unhoused clients.

"What we can't do is eliminate the programs that prevent homelessness and expect the crisis to improve,” Clark said. “ Every subsidy cut, every outreach program lost, every navigation team dismantled, each one represents a person who will fall through the cracks.”

Next steps

Solis said on Tuesday that she hopes to see changes to outreach spending and other recommendations before approving the plan next month.

“ I know we're gonna have opportunity to try to make some adjustments,” she said.

Mahin told LAist her department has been “turning over couch cushions” looking for other sources of funding to help address the planned cuts and reductions.

“Unless people are bringing other funding solutions to the table,” Mahin said, “My question is: we can make changes, but what would you like to cut instead?”

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said local programs are getting cut because state and federal dollars dried up and costs rose, not because L.A. County cut spending.

“ We cannot invent dollars we no longer receive,” Horvath said. “We're the only level of government that has actually increased our investment. Every other level of government has decreased, and we cannot backfill these gaps.”

The board is expected to vote on the proposed budget Feb. 3.