The Brief

As a Republican in the Democratic-controlled state Assembly, Bill Essayli doesn’t expect his bills to pass.

That isn’t going to stop him from introducing some, though. Most recently, the Corona lawmaker proposed repealing new state funding to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants.

Whether the bill is going to pass is the wrong question, he said. His goal is to start a discussion, and to provide a clear contrast on policy to voters.

“Ultimately, we use a lot of bills to communicate issues and to get the Democrat Party on record on where they stand on common sense policy positions,” he said.

Essayli isn’t alone. It’s common practice for California legislators on both sides of the aisle to author bills to make a political statement.

In 1971, then-Sen. Leroy Greene was motivated by a “bemusing” headline to introduce a bill legalizing prostitution — a tall order, despite support from his district. In 1994, then-Assemblymember Mickey Conroy’s bill to allow “public paddling of graffiti vandals” made it to the Assembly floor before it was defeated.

Besides bills that are just political statements, dozens of others don’t make it into law because they duplicate existing laws, or are deemed “solutions in search of a problem.”

In the 2024 session, the deadline to introduce new bills is Feb. 16 and the final day to pass them is Aug. 31. Because of this year’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit, lawmakers have been warned by legislative leaders and the governor to be judicious in introducing bills.

That may have its upsides. About 2,000 bills are introduced each year, which some legislators say makes it difficult to study each one — or each version — in depth before voting on them.

The lawmaking process is also not free: Although there are fixed costs, in 2002 the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated that each bill cost at least $18,000 to go from introduction to passage: Each bill is given a title and number, goes through analysis by committee staff and is printed out.

An updated dollar figure from the legislative analyst was not available, but adjusting for inflation, each bill today costs in the neighborhood of $30,000. That means the cost of the 1,046 bills sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom last year would total about $31 million.

Still, party leaders and committee chairpersons might be hard-pressed to block bill introductions. That’s because they understand members must answer to outside forces, which include constituents they’re supposed to represent, voters who decide whether to re-elect them and interest groups that help fund their campaigns.

Even Jerry Brown, who famously vetoed a bill with the message, “Not every human problem deserves a law,” signed a majority of those sent to his desk while he was governor.

“A newly introduced bill is a bright, shiny object that gets lots of attention and gets people excited,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine University.

But he added: “Making sure that bill does what it was supposed to do isn’t nearly as glamorous, but it’s just as important.”

Shooting for the moon

Ideas for bills come from several different sources — from past lawmakers, advocacy or other interest groups, in response to current events and, occasionally, from constituents.

But why might lawmakers introduce bills they know won’t pass?

“I used to always introduce what I call ‘diarrhea bills,’ to give people a heart attack or to just try to get attention on an issue,” said former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg.

One benefit lies in the “political industrial complex”: Introducing a bill on a hot topic can propel a lawmaker into discussions that might benefit them politically.

“There’s a whole architecture of analysts and lawyers that look at every single piece of legislation — so it’s a unique opportunity to participate in the discussion,” said Hertzberg, who served as Assembly speaker from 2000 to 2002 and Senate majority leader from 2019 to 2022.

Then-state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, a Democrat from Van Nuys, presides over a Senate Governance and Finance Committee meeting in 2015 at the state Capitol in Sacramento.

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But once a less-than-stellar bill is introduced, what keeps it moving?

In Hertzberg’s view, one major reason is because lawmakers are faced with too many bills to review, and are spread too thin on committee assignments — both of which he limited while speaker. That’s why he thinks the key is legislative leadership.

“It really boils down to early management, early understanding, early communication with your members — showing them respect, because you can’t tell a member you can’t do something. They have every constitutional right to do it,” he said. “But at the same time, you have to balance that respect with an institution.”

That also includes clearly defining each Legislature’s objectives: What are the big issues facing Californians? What does success look like?

“It’s not just getting rid of bad bills,” he said. “It’s making sure good bills go through, and making sure that good bills get the proper attention necessary.”

Who decides bills’ fate?

There isn’t an in-depth filtering process before bills are introduced.

The Office of Legislative Counsel, which drafts and reviews bill language, has attorney-client privilege with each lawmaker. So, according to the Senate’s rules, the office only notifies other members if a bill is “substantially identical” to another one in the works.

That leads to bills mostly being weeded out after introduction. One of the main filters: The appropriations committees and their suspense file hearings, where dozens of bills are quickly killed without explanation.

That means how far each bill gets often depends on legislative leadership. Anthony Rendon, the Assembly speaker from 2016 until last year, delegated a lot of decision-making power to committee chairpersons.

At his swearing-in, and at a January discussion hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California, current Speaker Robert Rivas emphasized that lawmakers’ job isn’t just to introduce new bills.

“We’re very good … of introducing bills to solve all of the state’s problems,” said the Salinas Democrat. “But we have a responsibility to look in the rearview mirror to ensure that bills we have passed in the past, policies that have been implemented, that they still work.”

Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, a Ponoma Democrat, tracks bills during session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 24, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters

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Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat who next week hands over the post she has held since 2018 and is running for governor in 2026, said in a statement to CalMatters that “Legislators are acutely aware of the budget constraints that we face and know to be mindful of that when introducing legislation.”

“We will continue to fight to protect our progress and fight for working Californians as we move through this year’s legislative session,” said Atkins, who also served as Assembly speaker from 2014 to 2016.

And, of course, the governor might intervene. In January, Newsom shut down a bill proposing a wealth tax by Bay Area Democratic Assemblymember Alex Lee, and one banning tackle football for kids under age 12 by Sacramento Democratic Assemblymember Kevin McCarty. Newsom also isn’t convinced about a bill by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener to require cars sold in California on or after 2027 to be equipped with speed limiters, telling Politico he’s wary of measures that could be weaponized by Republicans in an election year and to those with virtue signaling as the main motive.

But other bills go all the way through the Legislature before they’re vetoed by the governor.

According to lobbyist Chris Micheli’s review of the 156 bills Newsom vetoed last year:

• 18% were deemed unnecessary; 
• 10% were difficult or complicated to implement; 
• 6% were duplicative of executive branch actions;
• 64% were due to cost and the remainder for other reasons.

That means at least 50 bills “likely should not have been sent to his Desk and, arguably, should not have made it through the process at all,” Micheli wrote. “In fact, perhaps they should not have been introduced at all?”

But whether a bill is necessary, or practical, depends on who you ask. Some see attempts at a single-payer healthcare system as a longshot, while others see any efforts to divest state pension funds for different causes as posturing.

Former and current lawmakers note that sometimes a bill can seem like grandstanding — until social or political winds shift, or the Legislature becomes more diverse.

On Wednesday, the California Legislative Black Caucus announced a package of 14 measures, based on the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force that was created in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd and held more than two years of public hearings.

The package does not include direct cash payments to those harmed by slavery — the most controversial aspect of the reparations discussion in California— but instead takes a more comprehensive approach to dismantling the legacy of systemic racism, the caucus said. The bills cover civil rights, criminal justice, education and health, and one would request a formal apology for slavery from the governor and Legislature.

But some of the bills that include a price tag are meant to set the stage for future requests, said Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat from Suisun City and chairperson of the 12-member caucus.

“There’s a number of bills that they would love to get across the finish line. But they also recognize in this budget environment, and without laying the foundation for reparations yet with colleagues, it is unlikely,” she said. “However, they’re doing it intentionally, to start the conversation.”

Making a statement

Of course, no one says legislators can never make political statements through bills.

That’s where resolutions also come in: Measures that can express the opinions of either one or both chambers — though they don’t create or change state policy. They also don’t always have to go through policy committees, and don’t require the governor’s signature.

They can be an avenue for California lawmakers to weigh in on issues beyond the state’s direct scope: After Hamas’ attack in Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli government’s response, several legislative caucuses sent a letter to President Biden, calling on the administration to try and reduce civilian deaths in the Gaza conflict. Last month, the Senate Republican caucus introduced a resolution condemning Hamas.

But some have criticized resolutions as a way to please donors, to give the “false impression” that legislators are taking action on an issue — or just busywork that allows them to earn their per diems.

Neither the Assembly nor Senate restrict the number of resolutions members can introduce. But they’re limited to 40 bills per two-year session in the Senate, and 50 in the Assembly.

To some — including legislators — that’s still too many to be properly vetted, especially as they change through the process.

The bill limit in the Senate has dropped from 65 in 1995-96 to 50 in 2003-04 and to 40 in 2011-12. In the Assembly, the cap was 50 in 1993-94, dropped to 30 in 1997-98, increased to 40 in 2003-04 and back to the current 50 in 2017-18, according to the California State Library.

Prior to 1993, limits were focused not on the number of bills per lawmaker, but on when they could be introduced.

This session, Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, a Republican from Rancho Santa Margarita, introduced a resolution to decrease the Assembly’s limit to 25 bills per two-year session given the projected budget deficit.

“We need quality, not quantity,” she said.

While many lawmakers tout how many bills they passed at the end of each year to their constituents, that measure isn’t necessarily the best way to be a “good” lawmaker.

“My district did not elect me and send me here to pass more laws,” said Essayli. “No one said, ‘I need more laws and rules and regulations in my life.’ In fact, they want less.”

Micheli also supports further reducing the bill limit. He talks to clients about considering options outside the legislative process, such as working on regulations with state agencies, or by suing in the courts.

Often, he said, legislators look at the bill that’s in front of them and debate the language or provisions rather than looking at the underlying problem and determining whether legislation is the right approach. “Having that discussion could potentially reduce the need for bills, because again, does every problem require a bill?” he asked.

Micheli also agrees with Rivas that lawmakers should focus on implementation of the laws that already exist.

“One of your jobs is to make sure that public dollars are being spent wisely and efficiently,” he said. “They just don’t seem to get into it very much. And I think that’s unfortunate, because I think that is an appropriate role and responsibility of the legislative branch of government.”

California Republicans have an unusual shot of claiming an upset victory in the governor’s race this year — but to win, neither of their candidates can get too far ahead of the other just yet.

With eight major Democratic candidates splitting the liberal vote, both Republican candidates, former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, could come in first and second in the June 2 primary and move on to the November ballot.

That would shut out Democratic general election candidates, an extraordinary event that pollsters and strategists of both parties agree is the only viable chance for a Republican to become governor. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one in California and the GOP hasn’t won a statewide race in two decades.

Both Republicans can only advance to November if they split the Republican vote essentially evenly, giving each enough to surpass their Democratic opponents. That’s thanks to California’s top-two primary system, in which the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election regardless of their party.

Democrats insist it won’t happen, though they face mounting pressure over the risk in a year when the party is hoping to turn out liberal voters for U.S. House races in November.

And neither Republican is strategizing to shut the Democrats out. Instead of trying to keep the other alive through the primary, Hilton and Bianco are running campaigns like any other candidate: seeking to defeat each other. Hilton has spent the past few months attempting to consolidate Republican support by attacking Bianco, who has been happy to return the ire.

“There’s an amazing irony there, that they need to beat each other but they both need to succeed at the same time,” GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said. “It cuts against human nature and cuts against the way you put together campaigns.”

An intra-Republican primary

Despite very different backgrounds, Hilton and Bianco are running on similar policies.

Hilton is a British political strategist who’s written extensively about populism, reducing bureaucracy and decentralizing power, and Bianco is a bombastic local sheriff who is pushing the boundaries of police authority over elections.

Both are pushing a deregulation agenda, railing against Democratic-backed environmental policies they blame for raising the state’s cost of living. Their targets include the landmark California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental reviews for new construction.

Both Republicans also want to reverse prison closures, boost oil production to lower gas prices and reduce or eliminate the 61-cents-a-gallon gas tax.

Hilton wants to shield the first $100,000 of earnings from the state income tax (a goal Democrat Katie Porter shares) and significantly lower taxes on higher earners by cutting 18% of the state budget, including areas he claims are fraudulent or wasteful such as using cannabis tax revenue to support substance abuse programs. Bianco also wants to cut, and bring in oil revenues to eliminate the income tax entirely.

Hilton, one of the race’s top fundraisers, has raised more than $6.6 million so far, exceeding Bianco’s haul by more than $2 million. The two are second and third to Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter in the total number of campaign donors — one measure of popular support.

Polls show they remain neck-and-neck at or near the top of the pack, with one survey released last week by the California Democratic Party showing Hilton and Bianco statistically tied with 16% and 14%, respectively. To be competitive, they each need to win over independent and undecided voters, some of whom lean Republican and most of whom are fixated on the state’s cost of living crisis. The California Republican Party is slated to take an endorsement vote at its convention next weekend.

Each has tried to outrank the other on conservative credentials.

Hilton has attacked Bianco for having “too much baggage” related to liberal causes, pointing to a video showing the sheriff kneeling during the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, as many police officers did then to de-escalate crowds, and later describing his actions as praying. Under Trump, the FBI this year fired several agents who had done the same.

“It’s a question of character and honesty and judgment,” Hilton said in an interview.

Bianco pointed to the two Republicans’ continued tie in the polls as proof Hilton can’t carry the party. He’s called Hilton, who worked for the conservative U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, “a fraud amongst Republicans” in part because a political crowdfunding startup Hilton co-founded in 2013, Crowdpac, later rebranded to exclusively support Democrats.

And each has aimed to align himself with Trump without saying the president’s name directly. While both are vocal fans of the president, nearly three-quarters of California voters disapprove of him, and Democratic voters in particular are motivated this year to vote against the president’s agenda. Hilton and Bianco have both blasted Democrats for linking the gubernatorial race to Trump.

Hilton, who once called for an audit into Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, is promoting “CalDOGE,” a program to look into reports of fraud and waste in California government. It’s a nod to Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that slashed federal spending and employment last year. So far, as part of the project, Hilton has held press conferences criticizing state grants to nonprofits with advocacy wings that support liberal causes, like stricter environmental laws and holding voter registration drives; he’s vowed to cut them as governor.

Bianco, who endorsed Trump’s 2024 re-election by saying America should “put a felon in the White House,” told KTLA last fall if he had the president’s support he’d downplay it on the campaign trail. Asked last week if he’s seeking the president’s approval, he said he instead wants “the endorsement of every single person in this country.”

“You have an entire Democrat field trying to label me as Donald Trump, and the reason why is because they have absolutely nothing to run on,” he said in an interview.

He has embarked on an unprecedented effort in Riverside County to recount ballots from last year’s special election based on what local elections officials say is inaccurate and flawed raw ballot data, a move that mirrors the Trump administration’s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia. But Bianco has insisted it’s not political. The investigation, he said this week, is on hold amid legal challenges.

Who is Bianco?

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks with the press after announcing his bid for governor at Avila’s Historic 1929 Event Center in Riverside on Feb. 17, 2025.

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The ballot seizure is one of the many ways Bianco has courted controversy as county sheriff, a seat to which he was first elected in 2018 with hefty campaign contributions from the union that represents sheriff’s deputies.

The three-decade law enforcement officer and one-time member of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers gained attention in 2020 for fighting state orders to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, refusing to enforce masking or stay-at-home rules or to mandate vaccination for deputies. He also opposes school vaccination laws.

He’s often criticized the state’s sanctuary law that limits police cooperation with federal immigration agents, simultaneously insisting he’ll do everything he legally can to help immigration agents but clarifying to Riverside County residents that deputies do not enforce immigration laws and take reports of crimes from anyone. He’s presided over a spike in deaths in county jails that he’s attributed to fentanyl and suicides, though the state attorney general’s office has opened an investigation.

He has ties to an evangelical pastor in Temecula who helps elect Christian conservatives and is pushing to increase the influence of Christianity in government.

His pitch to voters is that he’s an outsider — and he’s prone to using hyperbole to prove it, calling environmental activists who sue to stop development “terrorists,” promising to “completely destroy special interests” and saying if elected he’d “take a nuclear bomb” to the decisions made in California government.

He’s running, he said, to offer a change from the “crime and corruption” he says has defined state politics and claims he’s the only candidate with strong executive experience (though several Democratic opponents have led state or federal agencies, or major cities.)

He’s endorsed by several law enforcement groups, some of which have also jointly endorsed a Democrat, and funded by campaign contributions from dozens of officers and police chiefs, various business owners and the powerful Peace Office Research Association of California, a special interest with outsize influence at the Capitol. The law enforcement association extends to his title as Riverside sheriff on the ballot, which will give him an edge over Hilton, GOP strategists say.

“Every other person in this race is nothing but a career politician,” he said. “We're over career politicians, millionaires, billionaires, bright, shiny objects and career politicians and strategists. California is sick of that.”

Who is Hilton?

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a press conference outside the California attorney general’s office in Sacramento on Aug. 5, 2025. Hilton announced legal action to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta from pursuing mid-decade redistricting.

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Hilton, meanwhile, is making lofty promises like $3-a-gallon gas and halving electricity bills, and says he has experience from London to achieve such cuts.

The son of Hungarian immigrants to Britain, Hilton got his start in the Conservative Party there before moving to the private sector and returning to politics as Cameron’s director of strategy from 2010 to 2012.

The British press noted Hilton’s penchant for casual dress and credited him as the ideological force pushing the party to loosen workplace regulations, cut welfare, shrink the size of government, lower taxes and withdraw from the European Union. Hilton was disillusioned with Cameron’s progress, the Washington Post reported, when he left his team after two years to join his wife, tech executive Rachel Whetstone, in California and take a sabbatical at Stanford. The couple still maintain several properties in central London.

“The government has lost its ultimate radical,” The Economist declared of his departure from 10 Downing Street in 2012. “In his visceral disdain for the state, reverence for local communities and commitment to enterprise, he might be the most deeply conservative figure at the very top of this government.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a press conference outside the California attorney general’s office in Sacramento on Aug. 5, 2025. Hilton announced legal action to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta from pursuing mid-decade redistricting. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters He founded Crowdpac in 2013 with two partners, a Stanford professor and a Google executive, with the stated goal of getting more people engaged in politics by using software to match their views with candidates they could support financially. The platform, he highlighted at the time, was used by a Black Lives Matter leader to crowdfund a run for Baltimore mayor and by anti-Trump Republicans hoping for a Paul Ryan presidential run. In 2015, he wrote a column in the Guardian supporting a higher minimum wage in Britain and walking back his own prior campaigns against one.

Years later, Hilton left the platform when Crowdpac, having mostly been used by Democrats, stopped helping Republican candidates in what executives called “a stand against Trumpism.” It later shut down and relaunched again as a Democrats-only platform. By then, Hilton had already endorsed Trump for president in 2016 and landed a weekly Fox News show, which ran from 2017 to 2023. He’s now returned fully to his conservative roots, pushing to “massively reduce spending” and regulation the same way he did in the U.K.

“I have a very clear message of change that's practical and positive and not ideological,” he told CalMatters.

Hilton has raised the third most in the race, behind Democrats Tom Steyer, a self-funding billionaire, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who has pulled in millions of dollars primarily from Silicon Valley. Hilton has put $200,000 of his own money into his campaign, and counts among his supporters Uber, Fox Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch and tech executives who have also supported Democrats: Google founder Sergey Brin and Ripple executive Chris Larsen.

Will Democrats really be shut out of the race?

Experts say a Democratic shutout is unlikely, unless the field remains entrenched.

“It depends upon those two Republican candidates who are splitting the Republican vote fairly evenly right now, doing that, and then having more than a half a dozen Democrats with no one that is a leading favorite, which is what we've seen so far,” said Mark Baldassare, director of polling at the Public Policy Institute of California. “But one thing I would say is it’s still early.”

Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks has also used that reasoning. He has started an incremental public pressure campaign to prompt lower-polling Democratic candidates to drop out, but the candidates have resisted so far.

Hilton, too, dismissed analyses that both Republicans must advance for either to have a shot of winning the seat, calling it a hypothetical exercise from GOP strategists.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about, I mean these are the kinds of people who have been losing for 20 years,” he said. “The idea that the Democratic Party is just going to concede California is obviously ridiculous. … It’s going to be a Republican against a Democrat.”

Bianco said he’s running against Hilton, whom he called a “career strategist,” as much as any of the Democrats. He said he hasn’t thought too much about who his opponent would be in a general election.

“It really doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’m not doing this for Republicans. I’m not doing it for Democrats, independents, anything like that.”

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

FIFA is once again raising prices for a substantial number of games in the upcoming World Cup tournament that will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

The price increases took place in FIFA's latest sales window that kicked off on Wednesday, with 40 out of 104 games now costing more than in the last sales window, according to an NPR examination of prices.

The hikes can be stark. The most expensive "Category 1" tickets for the final will now cost $10,990, a broad area that covers most of the lower two bowls of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where the last game of the tournament will be held in July.

That's significantly more than the nearly $8,700 at which these tickets were priced in FIFA's previous sales window earlier this year — and much higher than the $6,370 at which they were priced when sales kicked off last year.

The increases come even after FIFA has faced heavy criticism about the record prices being charged and its adoption of dynamic pricing for the first time. A group representing European fans and consumers called FIFA's prices "exorbitant" and filed a formal complaint this month with the European Commission in a bid to get the soccer body to lower prices.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to FIFA accusing the organization of "price gouging at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world."

FIFA has not replied to NPR's queries. But previously FIFA has justified its prices citing strong demand for tickets as well as noting it's adapting its pricing to the North American market. FIFA has also repeatedly said it's a non-profit that steers the vast majority of revenue from the World Cup to grow soccer around the world.

Price increases cover a wide range of games

Most of the price increases in the initial stage of the tournament were for teams that tend to draw more fans such as Brazil, Argentina, England and Germany — as well as co-host Mexico.

Although price hikes tended to be of less than $100, they still mark a substantial escalation from the initial prices at which FIFA started selling those tickets. Some increases were quite big though. Mexico's opening game against Saudi Arabia now costs as much as $2,985, up from $2,355 in FIFA's last sales window and up from its initial price of $1,825.

Most of the knockout games also increased in price, including the one being held in Philadelphia on July 4th — and the hikes tend to get more substantial for match-ups later in the tournament.

For example, the two semi-finals of the tournament also saw hefty price hikes. The game that will be held in Dallas in July will now cost as much as $3,710, up substantially from $3,295 in the last sales window.

The current sales window will last all the way through the tournament. FIFA has not said how many tickets are left to sell, only that it will continue to drop tickets periodically, including potentially for games that appear to be sold out.
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Why now: HMC StratCap notified the city on Tuesday that it was pulling its proposal to build a data center in a local business park after months of pressure from residents and advocates who raised concerns about pollution, energy use and health risks. The parent company of the developer — DigiCo Infrastructure REIT — said that HMC sought to "work with the City to establish productive land uses" for its Saturn Street property "that are supported by the broader community." Representatives for HMC StratCap have not responded to requests for comment.

Why it matters: For people pushing back on data centers in the region, Monterey Park is shaping up as a test case for how local organizing can stop them. The developer’s decision to withdraw its application comes ahead of a June 2 special election on Measure NDC. If approved at the ballot box, Monterey Park would be the first to ban data centers by public vote. The developer, which had threatened legal action against the city for data center restrictions, now says it will not contest the proposition.

The backstory: The data center proposal had been moving through the city's planning pipeline for two years before it started showing up on the City Council's agendas and coming to the attention of residents, who were outraged the plans had not been well-publicized by the city. Hundreds of people flooded City Hall during council meetings over the last several months, demanding the city heed their concerns. In response, the council approved a temporary moratorium on data center development, put the issue on the ballot and will consider a separate ordinance banning data center development altogether.

What’s next: Members of groups like No Data Center MPK and San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action are celebrating the application's withdrawal, but say they will continue to advocate for Measure NDC and the data center ordinance, which the City Council is expected to vote on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, organizers are joining the effort to stop a proposal to build a battery energy storage system in the City of Industry, which they see as laying the groundwork for a data center.

Go deeper: How Monterey Park residents pushed back on a data center — and changed the course

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out from the top job at the Justice Department. Her departure comes amid simmering frustration over her leadership and her handling of the Epstein files.

In social media post, Trump called Bondi "a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year."

"Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900," Trump said. "We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, will step in to serve as acting attorney general, the president said.

Bondi, a longtime Trump loyalist, is the second member of the president's Cabinet to be forced out. Her departure comes almost one month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.

Bondi leaves after a tumultuous 14 months in charge that critics say damaged the Justice Department's credibility, hollowed out the career ranks and undermined the rule of law.

Under Bondi, the department jettisoned its decades-old tradition of maintaining independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions, to insulate them from partisan politics.

Instead, she used the department's vast powers to go after the president's perceived foes. That includes the high-profile cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, which were brought after Trump publicly called on Bondi to prosecute them.

A federal judge later tossed both cases after finding the acting U.S. attorney who secured the indictments was unlawfully appointed.

Other political opponents of the president or individuals standing in the way of his agenda also have found themselves under DOJ investigation, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, and former Obama-era intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan.

Bondi also oversaw sweeping changes to the career workforce at the department. The agency fired prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on Capitol riot cases or the Trump investigations.

The elite section that prosecutes public corruption was gutted; the Civil Rights Division, which protects the Constitutional rights of all Americans, experienced a mass exodus of career attorneys who say the division is being turned into an enforcement arm of the White House.

Political firestorm over Epstein files

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, has defended her actions. She has portrayed the firings as a necessary house cleaning of politicized career officials. She's also tried to focus on what she views as major accomplishments during her tenure: targeting drug cartels, cracking down on violent crime, and helping in immigration enforcement.

But ultimately, the department's handling of the files related to the investigations of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein played a large role in her downfall.

Early in her tenure, Bondi told Fox News that she had Epstein's client list "sitting on my desk right now to review." A few months later, the Justice Department and the FBI said there was no client list and that no additional files from the Epstein investigation would be made public.

That touched off a political firestorm and ultimately led Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all of the Epstein files in its possession.

The department failed to meet the Act's 30-day deadline to release the materials, fueling frustrations on Capitol Hill, before eventually releasing millions of pages of files. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also expressed concerns about heavy redactions that were made to many of the documents.

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