The Brief

USC canceled a gubernatorial debate set to be held on March 24 after widespread claims that the debate purposefully left out candidates of color.

The USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future was organizing the debate, with ABC/KABC Los Angeles and Univision set to co-host and televise in both English and Spanish. Many of the Democratic candidates, including those who were invited, have been calling for the inclusion of all candidates regardless of their positioning in USC’s debate criteria formula.

"USC vigorously defends the independence, objectivity and integrity of USC Professor Christian Grose, whose data-driven candidate viability formula is based on extensive research and enjoys broad academic support,” said a USC statement sent to the media late Monday night. “At the same time, we recognize that concerns about the selection criteria for tomorrow’s gubernatorial debate have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters.

“Unfortunately, USC and KABC have not been able to reach an agreement on expanding the number of candidates at tomorrow’s debate. As a result, USC has made the difficult decision to cancel tomorrow’s debate and will look for other opportunities to educate voters on the candidates and issues."

Controversy surrounding the debate began as early as March 16, when former Human and Health Services Secretary and candidate for governor Xavier Becerra sent letters to USC, ABC7 and Univision calling the debate criteria a “patently arbitrary, spontaneous qualification formula.”

The former California Attorney General took issue with no candidates of color being invited to participate, while a white candidate, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, was invited despite polling lower than Becerra and others.

The Democrats who were invited — Mahan, Rep. Eric Swalwell and former Rep. Katie Porter — all took to social media in the last week calling on USC to expand its debate to include all of the Democratic candidates.

Also invited to the debate were political commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, both Republicans who are polling fairly high.

Becerra took the debate cancellation as a win, saying in an X post late Monday night that “hopefully next time it’s done right.”

“Thank you to everyone who stood up, raised hell and demanded justice,” reads the post. “Never give up when you’re fighting for fairness!”

Coming into the first major mayoral debate, Los Angeles city resident Sapna Suresh wanted to understand how the potential alternatives to incumbent Mayor Karen Bass diagnose the problems the city is facing.

For the three candidates who attended the debate Monday, one diagnosis was clear: L.A. isn’t the city it could be.

• Adam Miller, founder of a homelessness nonprofit and self-described lifelong Democrat, said the city is “broken,” physically and figuratively.
• Nithya Raman, an L.A. city councilwoman, said the city is “challenged.”
• Rae Huang, a Presbyterian minister, community organizer and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, said L.A. needs “new and fresh leadership.”

The candidates, among 40 to qualify for the June primary, answered questions about housing and transportation over the course of about an hour and a half in downtown L.A. The debate was organized by groups Streets for All and Housing Action Coalition. Streets for All founder Michael Schneider and Housing Action Coalition’s Southern California Director Jesse Zwick moderated.

Bass declined the invitation to participate. Spencer Pratt, another candidate surfacing high in polling, was invited but did not attend. The debate came on the heels of a poll released Sunday from UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times that showed her leading the crowded field, even while many voters say they view her unfavorably.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass delivers her State of the City address from City Hall in Los Angeles on April 15, 2024.

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The poll found Bass had about 25% of support from likely voters. Raman, who entered the race just two months ago, is polling at 17%. Pratt, a former reality TV star, has 14% of support from those polled. Huang and Miller are each polling below 10%.

Takeaways from attendees

Truman Segal and Jacob Wasserman, whom LAist interviewed together, said they admired Huang’s passion, grassroots campaign and community-focused policies.

Ultimately, Suresh, who'd come to hear the candidates take on the state of the city, left the debate feeling confident about her pre-existing preference for Raman.

Councilmember Nithya Raman photographed in her home.

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“She was able to identify the problem, diagnose it, articulate a vision for how she would solve it, and point to specifics she’s done in her legislative career,” Suresh said.

Annika Wines said she appreciated the values Huang shared, but concluded that she’s “running on buzzwords.”

“I felt Nithya was running on a campaign platform with actual realized goals … and an actual plan about how she was going to attain more affordable housing, more housing in general, safer streets, more access to transportation,” Wines said.

Watch the full debate

Top issues covered

Measure ULA

A majority of city voters in 2022 approved Measure ULA, which taxes high-value real estate sales. The goal of the tax, commonly referred to as the “mansion tax,” is to raise funds for renters’ aid and development of affordable housing, though studies from academics and researchers have shown it has reduced multi-family housing production in the city.

The tax has been a high-profile subject in L.A. City Council, which earlier this month voted to form an ad hoc committee to explore reforms to Measure ULA.

When asked about their positions on the initiative, Raman invoked the reforms she tried, but failed, to get on the June ballot. She argued those reforms, including an exemption from the tax on apartment buildings built in the last 15 years, would still retain most of the revenue funding for eviction defense and affordable housing production.

“This is where Nithya and I disagree greatly,” Huang said, alleging that Raman, in concert with Bass, is “dangling the idea that developers will get a tax break” and supported revisions to the law without community input.

Raman pushed back on Huang, saying she worked with the tax’s proponents, labor groups and developers to come up with reforms.

Rae Huang is among those running for mayor of Los Angeles

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Miller said the law needs to be “greatly reformed” and has caused developers to shy away from investing in the city.

LAX management

The candidates also differed on management of Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency responsible for LAX. The agency has been criticized for pursuing a major roadways project with one of the developers working on the embattled Automated People Mover, which has suffered years of delays and nearly a billion dollars in budget overruns.

Raman faulted “disinterest from the leadership in City Hall” for the issues facing Los Angeles World Airports and said she’d use her position as mayor to make changes to airport leadership when projects aren’t done on time.

Immediately, Huang asked why Raman hasn’t pushed for changes in her time on council.

Raman retorted with a list of initiatives she pushed “over the areas that [she has] real control over.” Raman, who heads the city council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, specifically spoke about lowering annual rent increases.

Traffic fatalities

In 2025, 6% fewer Angelenos died in traffic fatalities than the year prior. Still, with 290 traffic deaths in the city last year, according to police data, L.A. is far from the goal it set a decade ago to reach zero such deaths.

When asked about their support for cameras that automatically issue tickets to drivers who run red lights, Huang was at first stumped but eventually said she doesn’t support technology that surveils the community.

Raman and Miller disagreed with Huang, saying L.A. should reinstate a red light camera program, which local leaders canceled back in 2011.

Tech entrepreneur Adam Miller is among those running for mayor of Los Angeles

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“Speeding kills, and automated enforcement is one tool in our toolkit to be able to address this,” Raman said. “ I would make sure that any automated enforcement tool that we're using will not share data, will not add to surveillance, but merely increase safety, and that's totally possible to do.”

Housing crisis

All three of the candidates largely fell on the same page about:

• The need to increase housing production
• Shortcomings of Bass’ signature homelessness program, Inside Safe,
• The need to boost the budget for street and sidewalk-focused city departments.

Huang and Raman emphasized how they’d both use the city’s four Metro Board seats to shepherd through timely regional transit projects. Huang committed to appointing transit riders rather than politicians as decision makers for the countywide transportation agency.

“ We need to ensure that our Metro Board is going to be actually driven by people who ride it,” Huang said.

Huang and Raman both also emphasized the need for multi-year budget plans to ensure infrastructure projects have dedicated funding to get done.

Other topics covered include congestion pricing, Executive Directive One and LADWP-related housing delays. You can watch the entire debate here.

Where was Mayor Bass?

A Bass campaign spokesperson said last week that the mayor “can’t participate in every debate invitation” but is “eager to discuss her record of changing L.A. and her vision for the future of Los Angeles."

The spokesperson did not answer follow-up questions about the reason for Bass’ absence. A regular Friday email from Bass’ communications office that details the mayor’s public events said she would be traveling out of state Monday and returning Tuesday morning.

For debate attendee Mikey Reid, the mayor’s absence could be seen as a positive.

“ We want to have multiple candidates taking her to task for certain shortcomings, but I felt it ultimately worked in the candidates’ favor in a way that they were able to just articulate their vision without necessarily only centering it on negatives,” Reid said.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California sued the Trump administration Monday to block what it says is an unprecedented power grab: using emergency authority to force the restart of an offshore oil operation shut down more than a decade ago.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, argues a March 13 order by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright oversteps his authority under the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law.

“No matter how much President Trump may claim there's a so-called national energy emergency — it's just not true,” Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters. “The U.S. already produces significantly more oil and gas than we use — it's a completely fabricated claim intended to curry favor with the oil industry.”

The legal fight pits the Trump administration and Sable Offshore Corp. against California officials and environmental groups — and comes as fuel prices jump in the wake of the Iran conflict. Sable, which bought the system from ExxonMobil in 2024, has told investors that production could increase from about 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to more than 50,000 if it restarts, sending oil to refineries in Los Angeles, Bakersfield and the Bay Area.

California argues the emergency powers law is meant to prioritize contracts during emergencies — not to override state law or force a pipeline restart. The state says the administration failed to meet the law’s basic requirements, including showing an actual energy shortage.

Wright’s order marked the most aggressive federal intervention yet in a yearslong dispute. A March 3 legal opinion from the U.S. Justice Department had laid the groundwork, concluding that the emergency order could preempt state law — and even override a 2020 federal consent decree requiring approval from the California State Fire Marshal before the pipeline can restart.

Environmental groups and experts have argued that forcing the pipeline back into production would not lower gasoline prices but would put coastal wildlife at risk and set a troubling precedent for federal power over state law. The Trump administration has long sought to expand offshore oil leasing along the West Coast, which has drawn fierce opposition in California.

Sable is facing mounting legal pressure on multiple fronts. In December, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration ruled that the infrastructure qualifies as an interstate pipeline and issued an emergency permit approving a restart plan — a move environmental groups and the state of California challenged. That case is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In February, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge ordered the pipeline to remain shut down, ruling that earlier federal intervention was not enough to override an injunction requiring Sable to obtain state approvals before restarting.

Representatives for Sable, the Energy Department and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

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

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted unanimously Tuesday to rename two campuses named after César Chávez by fall 2026 and to fund the removal of murals and any other commemorations of the disgraced labor leader at other schools.

A New York Times investigation published last week found Chávez sexually abused girls and women including United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta.

Board Member Kelly Gonez introduced the resolution.

“These heart-wrenching stories represent a betrayal for so many of us and yet they resonate with many survivors and many women who have experienced this as girls and in our adulthood including myself,” Gonez said through tears.

Board Vice President Rocío Rivas co-authored the resolution.

“This is not an easy moment, but it’s a necessary one,” Rivas said.

What comes next?

The board committed to working with the communities surrounding César Chávez Learning Academies in San Fernando and César Chávez Elementary School in El Sereno to identify new names that “reflect the District’s values of equity, justice, and community leadership.”

The district will also recognize March 31 as Farm Workers Day this year and in future calendars.

Read the resolution and go deeper to see how educators are responding to the allegations.

At the Supreme Court Monday, the conservative majority seemed ready to overturn laws in 29 states that allow mail-in votes to be counted after Election Day if they were postmarked by Election Day.
President Donald Trump has long railed against mail-in voting, believing — incorrectly — that those late votes improperly cost him the 2020 election. But citizens and politicians alike have enthusiastically embraced voting by mail.

The split was illustrated in Monday's case from Mississippi. In 2020, the state Legislature, by a bipartisan and nearly unanimous vote, approved a five-day grace period for counting election ballots if they were postmarked by Election Day but arrived late.

But in the Supreme Court Monday, the conservative justices, like Trump, seemed suspicious of extending a short grace period to count late-arriving ballots. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, for instance, fixated on what they deemed the possibility of voters "recalling ballots," which they said could be theoretically done by the U.S. Postal Service or other common carriers like FedEx.

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart tried repeatedly to assure the court that the state does not permit ballot recalls. But Gorsuch in particular seemed to view those assurances as unreliable.

"FedEx isn't an election official," Gorsuch said.

Similarly, Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether a grace period to count legally cast ballots might undermine public confidence in the election process. And Justice Clarence Thomas wondered how early voting is legal. On that, however, even the Trump administration's solicitor general, D. John Sauer, conceded the validity of early voting.

The larger question that seemed to divide the court's six conservatives from the three liberals was where the court should be in terms of assessing new election procedures.

Why, asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, should we look only at old procedures and not new ones that Congress has left undisturbed. And finally, Justice Sonia Sotomayor took aim at what she viewed as dishonesty in the Trump administration's brief.

"I am a little upset — not a little, a lot upset — by many of the statements in your brief quoting historical sources out of context," she said.

A decision overturning Mississippi's law would have particularly profound implications for large rural areas, and members of the military abroad.

The state most likely to suffer serious ramifications is Alaska, the nation's largest state by area, where 80% of the population lives off the road system, the weather is unpredictable, and some communities do not offer in-person voting. Indeed, in 2022, ballots from six rural villages were not counted because the U.S. Postal Service failed to deliver them in time.

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