The Brief

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Pasadena Tuesday over whether the federal government has the right to access sensitive data about California’s 23 million voters. The court also heard a nearly identical case involving Oregon.

California is among 30 states and the District of Columbia sued by the Trump administration in an effort to get access to unredacted state voter registration rolls. The administration says it wants to make sure only citizens are voting and that states are otherwise properly maintaining their rolls, for example, by removing people who have died.

Why won’t California hand over the data?

California has offered access to its publicly available voter file, which does not include information like driver’s license and social security numbers. State election and privacy laws prohibit state officials from sharing that more sensitive data, and lawyers for California argue that federal laws do not allow the U.S. Department of Justice unfettered access to the state’s voter files.

Why does the federal government want voter rolls?

Trump administration officials have given different reasons for requesting the data over the past year. But earlier this month, a memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wants to run voter rolls through the federal government’s SAVE system to check the immigration status of voters. NPR and other news outlets have reported on major flaws in the system, including improperly flagging eligible voters as non-citizens.

What happens to flagged names?

It differs in each state. Some states give flagged voters time to prove their eligibility; others suspend or cancel registration immediately. Voting rights groups worry that a large number of voters may be disenfranchised right before the midterm election.

The political backdrop

The debate has largely split along party lines, although not entirely — some Republican-led states are resisting the federal government’s demands for sensitive voter data. At least 15 states have agreed to provide their full registration lists, most of them Republican-led, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which is tracking the issue.

What’s next

There's no specific timeline for a ruling from the Ninth Circuit. A separate appeals court is considering the Trump administration’s demand for Michigan voter data. Depending on the outcome of that and the California and Oregon cases, observers say the issue could be headed to the Supreme Court.

With President Donald Trump dragging them down in the polls, California Republicans are repackaging one of his core crusades into an idea they hope will be more palatable to voters.

They are framing their successful push to get a voter ID law on the November ballot as a “common sense” measure.

“We’ve structured this initiative based on what voters across the political spectrum would want,” Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego said in a March interview, adding that showing an ID at the polls shouldn’t be any different than using one to buy alcohol or pass airport security.

DeMaio and other backers point to polling that shows 56% of California voters support requiring ID at the ballot box and that most states require or recommend an ID to vote.

But even in their pursuit to appeal to moderates, GOP lawmakers haven’t given up pushing Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.

Last month, GOP legislators held a “stop the fraud” press conference, where they alleged without proof rampant corruption across state government, from elections to homelessness programs, and urged Newsom to call a special election to “audit” the alleged fraud.

The polling they point to also shows, however, that support for requiring identification at the polls drops to 39% when voters are told it is backed by DeMaio and could suppress turnout.

Voting rights groups say the measure would create needless barriers and would stifle turnout among low-income and disabled voters.

Current law already requires counties to routinely review voter registration databases to remove anyone who is ineligible to vote in case of a move, incarceration or death.

“Those checks and that maintenance of that list is already happening,” League of Women Voters executive director Jenny Farrell said. “We don’t need to erect new barriers.”

Voter suppression concerns tank voter ID support

If passed, as many as 1 million eligible voters could be kept from voting. Another 500,000 aren’t registered and don’t have the necessary documents it would require, according to UCLA Voting Rights Project director Matt Barreto.

“There’s been a very consistent finding in almost any state, in any environment, that lower-income and working-class voters are less likely to have an updated, valid ID,” he said.

Labor groups who bankrolled Democrats’ campaign for last year’s redistricting proposal, Proposition 50, are funding a similar opposition campaign focused on Trump’s push for a proof-of-citizenship bill in Congress.

Meanwhile, Democrats want to increase penalties for violating election laws after Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a candidate for governor, seized hundreds of thousands of ballots earlier this year over baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2025 election.

Bianco, who seized the ballots in response to unproven claims from a right-wing activist group, supports voter ID.

Critics say he’s stoking fear among voters and that there are already adequate safeguards.

“We have a two-person rule where no ballots are ever in an area that’s not with at least two people observing what’s happening,” said Gail Pellerin, Democratic chair of the Assembly elections committee, at a UCLA elections panel last month.

Ramping up the base?

Experts agree voter fraud is rare.

However, fears about election integrity have risen among Republicans since Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen, spurring GOP lawmakers across the country to introduce bills seeking to tighten voter restrictions.

This is DeMaio’s third attempt at a voter ID ballot initiative. It qualified for the ballot last month.

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio announces that supporters of the CA Voter ID Initiative will submit more than 1.3 million signatures to qualify the measure for the November 2026 ballot during a press conference at the west steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento on March 3, 2026.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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Strategists say there’s little evidence that ballot initiatives actually turn out voters, but this measure is something intended to activate voters in what will likely be a difficult election year for Republicans.

“Issues like this, that are kind of red meat issues for Republicans when the governor’s race is fairly lackluster, it helps,” Stutzman said. “It’s all upside. It’s not going to hurt Republicans to have this on the ballot.”

Following bruising losses after Prop. 50 and in other states, GOP leaders are hoping to hold onto three statehouse seats they flipped in 2024 and gain others. But Trump — and his push for national voter restrictions — threatens Republicans’ success at the ballot box.

“It’s a loop that Republicans keep hammering on, either fraud or ineptitude, or waste in dollars,” Stutzman said. “It’s kind of traditional Republican messaging.”

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

The Pasadena City Council voted this week to clear the way for new apartments for low-income fire survivors. But some council members noted their hesitancy to approve the project, saying their hands were tied by state law.

The council denied an appeal from a homeowners group who opposed the project, which plans to bring 133 units of low-income housing to East Pasadena. The nearby residents said it was too tall, too dense and had too little parking.

Mayor Victor Gordo expressed reluctance about denying the appeal. He blamed state lawmakers for pitting local elected leaders against the interests of existing residents.

“We're going to see more and more of these frustrating hearings, where the local elected body essentially has little to no discretion, little to no say, and that's wrong,” Gordo said during the Monday night meeting.

The developer’s plans for the project include adapting a former office building into 50 units of permanent supportive housing for tenants, including formerly unhoused people. A new five-story building will include another 81 units of income-restricted housing. Two units will be for property managers.

Neighbors fought to block the project

Members of the Lower Hastings Ranch Association appealed an approval of the project by the city’s Design Commission. They argued the development wasn’t suitable for the neighborhood.

Ronnie Po, the association’s president, said nearby homeowners felt “blindsided” by the plans. Their appeal wasn’t really about the project’s aesthetics, he said. They were mainly opposed to the development’s height, density and reduced parking.

“I wouldn't call this a design issue,” Po said. “This project will literally rise up to the backyards of some of our neighbors up there. So this is literally in someone's backyard.”

The development team countered those complaints in a presentation to the City Council, saying the project complied with all relevant laws and did not impinge on single-family homes.

“The building is no closer than 25 feet to the nearest property line, and no closer than 110 feet away to the nearest home,” said Dana Sayles, who is with the land use firm three6ixty.

Who is the project designed to house?

The project at 600 N. Rosemead Blvd. will be reserved for renters who earn no more than 80% of the area’s median income. By current standards, that would include individuals earning up to $84,850 per year and families of four earning up to $121,150.

Many units will be set aside for renters with even lower incomes. And under state funding agreements, preference will be given to tenants displaced by the Eaton Fire.

“More than half of the units are two and three bedrooms, so this project is very much focused on families,” said Stephanie DeWolfe, a consultant on the project. “Getting family-sized units has been a challenge for the city in the past, and especially now with all the people displaced from the fires."

State law overrides local limits

Because of the state’s density bonus law — which allows larger projects when units are kept affordable — the developer is allowed to build taller than would normally be allowed under Pasadena codes. The project is within a half-mile of the Sierra Madre Villa stop on Metro’s A Line, qualifying it as near a “major transit stop” under California law.

Because it’s near a transit line, the project also qualifies for a state law that removes parking mandates. The developer is voluntarily planning to build 55 parking spaces. Many public commenters — and some council members — said more parking was needed.

“What's the assumption of where people will park their cars?” asked Councilmember Tyron Hampton.

“We live in California, by the way,” he said, drawing applause from audience members opposed to the project.

People at the meeting who expressed support for the project said many tenants, including those exiting homelessness, likely would not be in a financial position to own cars.

“I support this building since it would be perfect for people like me, who would qualify based on income limits and do not need to have parking,” said Koji Sakano. “Those who apply, like me, would tend to be those that do not wish for car parking in the first place.”

Local housing vs. new state laws

Jesse Zwick, the Southern California director of the Housing Action Coalition, said the Pasadena project’s path to approval shows city officials and residents slowly catching up to changes in state law, which in many cases override local opposition.

“The state has awarded priority to building affordable housing in places like this — that typically have resisted it,” Zwick said. “What you're seeing now is some of that resistance being up against where state law has evolved on this issue.”

Cities that have resisted state housing laws aimed at increasing development have found themselves in California’s legal crosshairs. Beverly Hills had to approve massive “builder’s remedy” projects after it failed to comply with a state requirement for cities to plan for more housing. Huntington Beach recently faced a court order to pay $50,000 for every month it continues to flout state housing laws.

Despite those risks, some Pasadena residents urged city leaders to fight back on the state’s efforts to encourage taller, denser affordable housing projects.

“The state of California has come up with these crazy laws,” said Scott Shimamoto. “We would love for the City Council and mayor to tell the state of California: Pause this.”

Jaz Roche, also known to nearly 11,000 Tiktok followers as @spo0kymom, hawks facial cleansing bars, baby wagons and AI tools in short social media videos.

On a website where clients can pay her to post videos about their products, she says she’s based in Pennsylvania. Yet the content creator has taken an interest in the California governor’s race lately.

Tiktok and Instagram accounts linked to Roche have posted 34 times in the past 10 days to boost the campaign of billionaire Tom Steyer or to criticize his main Democratic opponent, Xavier Becerra.

“Hear me out, I have something to admit,” she says in the first video, posted May 8, on an account where she describes herself as a “so-cal girlypop.” “I did not expect the most progressive governor candidate to be a billionaire. But look at the policies, you guys.”

What she didn’t say was that Steyer’s campaign is paying her to say it.

Steyer, who has poured nearly $200 million into the most expensive primary campaign in state history, is under scrutiny for using paid social media influencers to post favorable things about him.

Is that legal?

Gov. Gavin Newsom three years ago signed a law meant to bring transparency to the increasingly intertwined world of politics and content creators, enacting a law requiring influencers to be upfront in their posts about being paid by a political campaign. In one of the first tests of the law, regulators have opened an investigation into one of the Steyer influencer videos.

But experts and transparency advocates aren’t optimistic: The law was intentionally designed with no real penalties, and the agency responsible for enforcing it sometimes takes years to resolve investigations.

“This is where the ‘Wild West’ analogy becomes useful,” said Dan Schnur, a political science professor and former chair of the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

‘Inundate the internet’

Campaign finance filings from January through April 18 show Steyer has paid over $123,400 to at least eight influencers. The New York Times reported that includes $100,000 to Texas-based Latino mega-influencer Carlos Eduardo Espina, whose 14.3 million Tiktok followers are a coveted target for Democrats and who has endorsed Steyer.

The campaign is also paying over $870,000 to a digital media agency, Group Project Digital, that solicits creators to post daily videos about Steyer. The listing initially offered $10 per video; it was amended last week to offer $1,000 a month and now includes a sentence telling creators they need to disclose the payments.

The state investigation covers just one of the influencer videos, in which content creator Isaiah Washington (known as @zaydante) did not disclose that Steyer’s campaign paid him $10,000 for a now-deleted video. It was sparked by a complaint from a pair of political social media influencers who post frequently in support of Becerra. On Tuesday, they filed another complaint alleging numerous additional paid, undisclosed posts, including from accounts in other countries.

“What he’s done is inundate the Internet in every way, shape and form to try and create an echo chamber,” said Beatrice Gomberg, one of the complainants.

Among the accounts they’ve recently highlighted: @foosgonewild, which has posted memes, content about Southern California street culture and, on May 5, an interview with Steyer talking about his opposition to ICE. The account has 3.3 million followers on Instagram and 1 million on Tiktok.

The Tiktok video has no disclosures. On Instagram, at the bottom of the video description, the account notes it’s a partner with California-based social video firm Flighthouse. Neither the content creator nor Flighthouse responded to requests for comment. The Steyer campaign would not disclose how much it paid the firm.

Steyer has defended soliciting influencers, saying they deserve to be paid for their work.

Spokesperson Kevin Liao called Gomberg’s first complaint “baseless” and said the campaign specified in its contracts with all third-party content firms that they needed to include payment disclosures, satisfying the campaign’s legal obligations under the state transparency law. The campaign doesn’t review posts in advance, he said.

Asked why the campaign had paid some creators who don’t live in California, he said, “I don’t see why that’s an issue.”

“Content creators, wherever they’re based, have followers in California,” he said.

‘Politics is all content now’

The blowback reveals the rising power and profitability of content creators in politics. One in five Americans regularly gets news on TikTok, rising to more than two in five for those under age 30. With traditional television hemorrhaging viewership and Americans hooked on the infinite scroll, campaigns are increasingly chasing posts.

They regularly hold events to court paid and unpaid influencers and sit for video interviews, aided by a new crop of talent agencies and digital media firms that represent influencers and solicit their content.

The relationship has contributed to at least one politician’s downfall: After attending a creator meeting for then-gubernatorial hopeful Eric Swalwell last fall, political influencer Arielle Fodor (aka @mrs.frazzled) received a flurry of messages warning her to stay away from him. It prompted her to post videos discussing rumors of his sexual misconduct, she has said. He quit the race after reporters covered several allegations of harassment and assault.

“Politics is all content now,” said Alex Stack, a Democratic consultant and former communications staffer for Gov. Gavin Newsom. “Candidates need to be content creators and they need a little online army behind them to get traction.”

Roche’s videos about Steyer — some featuring her talking, some simply showing text praising Steyer over mundane videos of her life — have gotten no more than 1,100 views each. They’re posted on accounts with fewer than two dozen followers, a far cry from the millions of Californians Steyer’s TV ad spending blitz is reaching.

But they provide something critical for the billionaire candidate who’s funding his own campaign: the impression of grassroots support.

In a briefing memo for creators obtained by CalMatters, the campaign’s digital firm tells Tiktokers and Instagrammers that the “title of billionaire is his biggest sticking point,” and that the campaign wants to reach California women, Latinos and African Americans. The Sacramento Bee first reported on the memo.

Organic content?

Advertisers covet creators regardless of audience size for their ability to portray a product endorsement as an organic recommendation from a friend. Candidates courting voters are no different.

For example, an organization representing California lawyers is paying influencers to promote a ballot measure targeting Uber's responsibility for sexual assaults by its drivers. Matt Mahan’s campaign for governor has also paid influencers and meme accounts for content boosting him. Instagram users see disclosures on those videos’ descriptions.

In the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Karen Bass’ challenger Spencer Pratt is offering money on social media gig platforms to make videos featuring viral-friendly soundbites of him.

Serabeth Mullaney, a part-time San Francisco content creator promoting cat treats and AI tools, turned down an offer to make videos boosting Steyer’s campaign because of her opposition to billionaires in politics. The 29-year-old said she gets most of her news from social media so she’s concerned about the seep of paid political ads into influencer content.

“Anyone desperate to make that (money), they’re going to do the campaign,” she said. “Whether or not they believe in Tom Steyer, they’re going to post those videos.”

The concern mirrors the state Fair Political Practices Commission’s rationale for proposing the 2024 transparency law. Before that, campaigns only needed to disclose payment for ads they posted directly; paid content on third-party platforms was largely unregulated.

But the agency primarily relies on complaints to launch investigations, and violations of the law come with few consequences — no fines or criminal charges for creators or campaigns. The only thing the agency can do is ask a court to force an influencer to disclose payments, but experts say that's an expensive and time-consuming effort for a fleeting video.

Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat who authored the law, said paid influencers in politics are more prevalent than three years ago and lawmakers should make the requirements more enforceable.

“Transparency is like whack-a-mole,” Umberg said. “Every year there’s a new modality, and so there’s a new way to get around stuff.”

Becerra's online army

Now the gubernatorial candidates and their supporters are engaged in a mass scrutiny of all the posts boosting each others’ campaigns.

Critics have also questioned the relationship between Becerra and numerous creators who have boosted his campaign since Swalwell dropped out. The Becerra campaign has insisted it has never paid any content creator for a post.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra on April 1, 2026.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters

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The campaign seeks relationships with creators who are willing to post for free as a blend of campaign volunteer and reporter, said digital strategist Alf Lamont.

“Paid influencer campaigns don’t carry the kind of punch that organizing does,” Lamont said. “We want to make sure we’re getting folks who truly believe in it so we don’t face the second-guesses and the ‘paid by’ and the feeling you’re looking at something that’s insincere.”

Jordan “Jay” Gonzalez’s posts included lifestyle content, Latino advocacy and even salmon DNA facials before he started creating pro-Becerra videos on multiple platforms in March, a month before the campaign hired him as a full-time social media strategist. Gonzalez has recently been amending his posts with disclosures that he is paid by the campaign, “out of extreme caution so as not to seem disingenuous to my audience.”

Opponents point out Gonzalez and another creator who has posted numerous times in Becerra’s favor, Maggie Reed or @mermaidmamamaggie, have previously charged for content. Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign solicited unpaid videos from both of them in the spring, and received quotes from each influencer’s agent of $7,000 to $16,500, emails shared with CalMatters show. The Villaraigosa campaign confirmed the exchanges.

On Tuesday, Steyer’s campaign filed a complaint alleging both influencers’ videos were paid for by Becerra’s campaign with no disclosure.

Becerra’s campaign has not reported any payments to Reed in campaign finance filings, and Lamont denied paying either creator for content. Gonzalez, in an email, said that he had previously declined a paid offer from the Villaraigosa campaign. Reed did not respond to a request for comment.

‘A SoCal girl’

Gomberg and Kaitlyn Hennessy, friends who met at a Becerra rally, have both posted frequently in favor of his campaign — for free, they say.

The pair began sleuthing online in early May, eventually filing a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission last week alleging Steyer’s campaign hired Roche, Washington and several other content creators to post on his behalf without disclosing it.

Posing as another, unnamed campaign, they emailed creators offering paid political content work to prompt them to talk about posting for Steyer’s campaign.

One account, @isabel.speakss, purported to belong to a “so cal girl sharing her thoughts” named Isabel Mendoza and has exclusively posted about Steyer since May 9. The woman in the videos appears identical to Jade Johnson, a Florida-based influencer.

Another account, @jess.votes, is linked to another Florida content creator.

Since the complaint was filed, Roche and the other creators have included disclaimers in their posts. None of them responded to inquiries from CalMatters asking if they knew about the campaign disclosure law. After a CalMatters reporter asked Johnson whether she was asked to pose as a California voter, the @isabel.speakss account on Monday afternoon removed the “so cal” description from its profile.

None of those creators are listed in Steyer’s latest campaign finance filings as subcontractors of any digital strategy firm. Steyer spokesperson Liao said they will appear in the next filing.

CalMatters reached out to all the creators listed in the filings; none agreed to an interview. They include lifestyle influencers, comedians and musicians whom Steyer paid between $1,500 and $10,000, mostly through another firm, to post video interviews with Steyer or talk about his platform. One of them labeled her video a “paid partnership;” others did not disclose campaign payments or have since deleted their videos.

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

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

A day after gunmen killed three people outside a mosque in San Diego, Muslim leaders in Los Angeles said the attack was fueled by a growing climate of Islamophobia in America.

Local officials pledged increased security around places of worship as the investigation continues into the mass shooting.

The shooters, ages 17 and 18, opened fire outside the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday morning in what authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Federal investigators said the two met online and shared writings expressing hatred toward Muslims, Jews and other minority groups. Authorities also recovered anti-Islamic writings and messages carved into their weapons, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Both gunmen were later found dead of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

In Los Angeles, Muslim community leaders on Tuesday condemned what they described as the normalization of anti-Muslim rhetoric nationwide.

Omar Ricci, spokesperson for the Islamic Center of Southern California, said the attack did not happen in isolation.

“Even the perpetrators of the crime were victims,” he said, “of what we call and is well-known to us in the Muslim community, the industry of Islamophobia. 
An industry that deliberately creates fear and division.”

“This is not a mysterious situation,” Ricci said. “The Islamophobic industry that seeks to create fear of Muslims and tell the rest of America that Islam and Muslims are incompatible with the society in which we live — it has grown in the past year.”

Other Muslim leaders said the shooting reflects a broader national climate in which Muslims and other minority groups are increasingly portrayed as threats.

Khalid Hudson of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in L.A. said the attack should not be viewed as an isolated act carried out by two young men.

“We have to address the root cause: publicly acceptable anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rhetoric,” he said at a Tuesday press conference at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Koreatown,

Local officials said law enforcement agencies across Los Angeles County have increased patrols around mosques and other places of worship following the shooting.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the attack “grossly unacceptable” and noted that it came as Muslims enter a sacred period of prayer and reflection during the month of Dhul Hijjah.

“I’ve been in close coordination with LAPD to enhance security specifically around mosques,” Bass said. “And across Los Angeles, we will do everything to keep you safe.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna urged residents to report warning signs of extremist violence before attacks occur.

“If you hear something, if you see something, and in this day and age, if you read something, you have to share it with us,” Luna said. “This could literally save dozens of people’s lives.”

San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said the shooting could have been much worse. The Islamic Center includes both a mosque and a school for students ages 5 and up, according to the Associated Press. 

Authorities commended the actions of Amin Abdullah, a security guard who defended the center before he was fatally shot during a shootout with the gunmen. Abdullah also radioed staff members to place the center on lockdown, according to officials.

Authorities identified the other two victims as Nader Awad and Mansour Kaziha, who were shot outside the mosque.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman praised Abdullah’s bravery.

“We need to speak the name of Amin Abdullah, while never speaking the names of his killers,” Hochman said.

“We cannot wait until the bullets are fired to take hatred seriously,” he added. “I want every resident in Los Angeles County to know that this office, in connection with this community and law enforcement, will continue to aggressively prosecute hate crimes wherever and whenever they occur.”

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, also criticized recent federal policies placing political conditions on security grants for mosques. The Department of Homeland Security pulled federal funding from places of worship “with alleged affiliations to terrorist activities” according to reporting from Fox News.

“I just want to give one message to those that are trying to marginalize, deport, stigmatize, expel Muslims from America,” Al-Marayati said at Tuesday’s news conference. “America is our home. We are not going anywhere.”