The Brief

This is an excerpt from Make It Make Sense, our pop-up newsletter on the 2024 election. If you want weekly updates through September on following the money this election season, sign up here.

We’re about eight weeks out from Election Day, which means it’s prime season for political ads in your mailbox. So how do we find out more about who’s paying for them?

In the past month alone, I’ve gotten not one, not two, but three mailers from the same campaign — No on Proposition 33.

It's a statewide ballot measure that would give cities and counties the ability to expand rent control to properties where it’s currently not allowed. And from the looks of it, someone is really, really invested in making sure it doesn’t get passed.

Who exactly is this someone? Well, for starters, some information is printed right on the mailer: “Ad paid for by NO on 33, Californians for Responsible Housing: A Bi-Partisan Coalition of Affordable Housing Advocates, Taxpayers, Veterans, and Small Businesses. Ad committee’s top funder: California Apartment Association”

That’s a lot of words, but they only tell you so much. We know the California Apartment Association helped pay for the ad, but who are the other “affordable housing advocates, taxpayers, veterans and small businesses” that make up this group? (And some of you may be wondering: Is your landlord one of them?)

We’ll help you follow the trail, but first, let’s go over some basics.

Political committees 101

• What’s a political committee? In an election, all political ad spending has to come from a committee. That’s any group of people (it can even be just one individual) who wants to raise or spend money to support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure. 
  
• How they work: Some committees stick around for a long time, putting money behind various measures year after year. One example is the Protect Prop. 13 committee — a project from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-tax group that has been around for decades. For the most part, committees are ephemeral: They come together for one specific purpose in an election, then disappear.
  
• Who's behind it? All committees have to file a form that outlines their purpose, names of officers and some basic contact details. This information alone may not be enough to reveal the source. You can find a fair amount of information about who contributed money to a committee — and that's where you'll find the really juicy details.

Where to find campaign spending information

For state ballot measures, all the campaign finance information you want to dig through can be found on the California secretary of state’s website. It's campaign finance database is called Cal-Access.

If you’re following the money trail in county or city elections, you’ll have to get that info from the county or city department that tracks campaign finance information (usually the county registrar or city clerk).

Once you get to the secretary of state’s website, you can look up any committee’s name to find out what they’re all about — who’s listed on file as treasurer, previous names the committee has used, who’s contributed money to them and where they’ve spent that money.

What we found on the NO on 33 committee

I looked up the NO on 33, Californians for Responsible Housing committee, and here’s what came up:

• Who started the committee: The names of the officers listed (on a filing called Form 410) are Elli Abdoli, Joel S. Aurora and Tom Bannon, and they’re based out of San Rafael and Sacramento. The committee is sponsored by the California Apartment Association.
  
• Previous names they’ve used: This committee has been around for a while under slightly different names, one of which is “No on Prop 21: Californians for Responsible Housing, A Coalition of Seniors, Veterans, Affordable Housing Advocates, Labor & Social Justice Organizations.” (Prop. 21 was a failed rent control measure from 2020 that is essentially the same as Prop. 33, so it makes sense they’d revive that same committee for this year’s election.)
  
• How much money they’ve raised: They’ve reported raising about $5.1 million dollars between January and the end of June this year. (Remember that the propositions weren’t even finalized for the ballot until late June, so expect this number to be much higher by November.) 
  
• How much money they’ve spent: About $1.7 million between January and the end of June this year.
  
• Who contributed money to them: A quick look through “Contributions Received” finds a handful of small donations from individuals, ranging from $100 to $1,000 each. (This is where you can check if your landlord donated, or anyone else you’re curious about!)  The list shows the vast majority of the money — several contributions of $75,000 to $700,000 each — came from the California Apartment Association Issues Committee. 
  
• Another committee! Yep. Committees often contribute money to other committees. You can look up this committee, too — and when you do, you’ll see a much longer list of individual contributors to this fund. If you look at “Contributions Made,” you’ll also see that the California Apartment Association Issues Committee has put in a significant amount of money to support Prop. 34 in this year’s election, a measure that has to do with health care — but we’ll go down that rabbit hole in another post.
  
• What’s the takeaway? Looking at the contributors to both committees, it’s clear that real estate interests — property management companies, developers, brokers and investment agencies from all around California — are putting in the vast majority of money to this committee. That’s probably not surprising, and this isn’t the only group spending money against Prop. 33, but it does give you a better idea of who makes up the “affordable housing advocates, taxpayers, veterans and small businesses” referenced in the mailer.  

At this point you may be wondering why this group is so invested in preventing Prop. 33 from passing. You can read more about the ins and outs of the rent control measure in our voter guide.

I hope this gives you a good starting point for following the money in other campaign ads, whether that’s through TV, text or mail. Let us know what you find.

We’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at blee@scpr.org.

At a time when the federal government is dismantling civil rights protections in K-12 schools, California is expanding them — although some wonder how far the state will go to combat discrimination in schools.

A new law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, creates an Office of Civil Rights within the California Department of Education. The office will have a staff of at least six, including an antisemitism coordinator, who will educate school districts about the harms of bias and investigate discrimination complaints.

“I think it’s a good idea and the state of California will pull it off. The risks are small and the possibility for good is large,” said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. “But for it to be successful, it has to have real responsibility and real power.”

The new law stems from a surge in antisemitic incidents in California last year following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel and the ensuing violence in Gaza. Authored by Assemblyman Rick Zbur and Assemblywoman Dawn Addis, the law is intended to eliminate anti-Jewish and other bias in the classroom and ensure that students of all ethnicities and religions feel protected.

But the road to Newsom’s desk was not smooth. The bill faced tough opposition from the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, which argued that the law would limit teachers’ right to free speech by curbing their ability to discuss the conflict in Gaza or other topical issues. The union declined to comment for this article.

Zbur, a Democrat from Los Angeles who was among the law’s authors, said the new Office of Civil Rights and the antisemitism coordinator are not intended to punish teachers. The idea, he said, is to help schools stamp out bullying, discrimination and other acts targeting specific groups of students.

“The idea that this law is about policing is hogwash,” Zbur said. “It’s intended to be productive, to provide districts with resources so they can prevent students from being harmed in school.”

Federal layoffs and closures

Discrimination has long been illegal in California schools. Individuals who feel they’ve been discriminated against can file complaints with the state’s Civil Rights Department or with their local school district. But much K-12 anti-discrimination enforcement has fallen on the federal government’s Office of Civil Rights. Created in the mid-1960s, the office investigates complaints about a range of issues, such as school segregation, unfair discipline practices and whether students with disabilities or English learners are receiving the services they’re entitled to.

In March, the Trump administration announced it was laying off nearly half of the U.S. Department of Education workforce and closing numerous branches of the Office of Civil Rights, including the one in California. That’s meant a steep decline in the number of cases and long delays for those the office investigates. In the three months after the Department of Education cuts, for example, the office received nearly 5,000 complaints but investigated only 309.

On Tuesday, the Department of Education went even further, spinning off some of the agency’s largest responsibilities to other federal departments — including much of the administration of elementary and high school funding. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative vision for the country that so far Trump has followed, calls for the Office of Civil Rights to become part of the Department of Justice and for it to “reject gender ideology and critical race theory.”

The U.S. Department of Education didn’t respond to a request for comment.

‘Cutting off funding, that’s what works’

California’s new Office of Civil Rights will have a director and several coordinators who will oversee anti-discrimination cases based on race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religion. The director and anti-discrimination coordinators will be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature, likely after Jan. 1.

The office will provide schools with materials about preventing discrimination, and work with districts that have been the subject of complaints from students, families or the public. In serious cases, the office will recommend more intensive assistance to the state Department of Education to correct problems. For districts that persistently flout anti-discrimination laws, “the department may use any means necessary to effect compliance,” according to laws already in place. That may include cutting funding for textbooks or other materials found to be discriminatory.

The office will also submit an annual report to the Legislature on the overall picture of discrimination in schools, including the number of complaints, how they were resolved, and their outcomes.

But to be successful, the office will have to be nonpartisan, transparent and fair, Orfield said. Cases against a school should include strong evidence, and schools should have the opportunity to defend themselves and appeal a verdict if they believe it was wrongly issued.

And the office should not shy away from cutting funds to schools that don’t comply, he said. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the federal Office of Civil Rights cut funds to more than 100 schools in the South that refused to desegregate — a move that may have been the only way to force compliance, Orfield said.

“Cutting off funding, that’s what works,” he said. “Although if you’re going to have sanctions, there must be due process.”

Photo ops and reports?

Mark Rosenbaum, senior special counsel for strategic litigation for the public interest law firm Public Counsel, agreed that enforcement will be the key to whether the new office is effective.

“If the office just issues reports and does photo ops, we don’t need another one of those,” Rosenbaum said. “The issue is whether or not they can enforce these rights across the board.”

He’d also like to see the office take a more proactive approach instead of only responding to individuals’ complaints. Education itself, he said, is a civil right, and too many students are not receiving the high-quality lessons in safe, well-equipped schools that they’re entitled to. Rosenbaum’s firm recently sued the state over substandard school facilities.

Still, he’s happy to see the office get off the ground, particularly in light of the federal cuts to civil rights enforcement.

“There’s an urgency for California to fill a void,” Rosenbaum said. “It should have happened decades ago, but it’s a good start.”

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

The U.S. government on Thursday released a new crash test dummy design that advocates believe will help make cars safer for women.

The Department of Transportation will consider using the dummy in the government's vehicle crash test five star-ratings once a final rule is adopted, the agency said in a news release.

Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a head-on crash, and they are 17% more likely to be killed in a car crash, than men.

The standard crash test dummy used in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration five-star vehicle testing was developed in 1978 and was modeled after a 5-foot-9 (175-centimeter), 171-pound (78-kilogram) man. The female dummy is smaller and has a rubber jacket to represent breasts. It's routinely tested in the passenger or back seat but seldom in the driver's seat, even though the majority of licensed drivers are women.

The new female dummy endorsed by the department more accurately reflects differences between men and women, including the shape of the neck, collarbone, pelvis, and legs. It's outfitted with more than 150 sensors, the department said.

Some American automakers have been skeptical, arguing the new model may exaggerate injury risks and undercut the value of some safety features such as seat belts and airbags.

Lawmakers and transportation secretaries from the past two presidential administrations have expressed support for new crash test rules and safety requirements but developments have been slow.

U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska, and Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, both released statements welcoming the female crash test dummy announcement.

"Any progress here is good because there's simply no good reason why women are more likely to be injured or die in car crashes," Duckworth said.

Fischer introduced legislation, the She Drives Act, that would require the most advanced testing devices available, including a female crash test dummy. Duckworth is a co-sponsor.

"It's far past time to make these testing standards permanent, which will help save thousands of lives and make America's roads safer for all drivers," Fischer said.

The department said the new specifications will be available for manufacturers to build models and for the automotive industry to begin testing them in vehicles.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Less than a year from the midterm elections, state and local voting officials from both major political parties are actively preparing for the possibility of interference by a federal government helmed by President Donald Trump.

The problem is, no one knows what might be coming.

Steve Simon, the Democratic secretary of state of Minnesota, likened it to planning for natural disasters.

"You have to use your imagination to consider and plan for the most extreme scenario," Simon said.

Carly Koppes, the Republican clerk of Weld County in Colorado, said officials in her state are shoring up their relationships with local law enforcement and county and state attorney's offices, to make sure any effort to interfere with voting is "met with a pretty good force of resistance."

"We have to plan for the worst and hope we get the best," Koppes said. "I think we're all kind of conditioned at this point to expect anything and everything, and our bingo cards keep getting bigger and bigger with things that we would have never have had on them."

Trump, who continues to spread false claims about voting in America, issued an executive order in the spring that sought to mandate major changes to the elections system. That order has so far mostly been blocked by the courts, but he's teased other executive action as well. And his administration is still investigating his loss five years ago, while pardoning people associated with his efforts to try to overturn that defeat.

All of that has made it clear to those in the elections community that Trump plans to have a heavy hand in their processes next year. Here are a few things voting officials are watching for.

More executive action to take control of voting

The Constitution is clear: States control their own election processes, with Congress able to set guidelines for federal races. The president has virtually no authority when it comes to voting.

But Trump is testing that, and those in his circle have pushed fringe theories for how he can change how ballots are cast and counted.

Earlier this month, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the White House is working on a new executive order that will seemingly target mail voting. Trump also said earlier this year that he wanted to ban some voting machines, though it's unclear exactly what he was referring to.

Election officials agree he does not have the legal authority to do either of those things. But recently, Trump ally and attorney Cleta Mitchell, who advised Trump in 2020, broached a bolder strategy to enact election changes: declaring a national emergency.

"The president's authority is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States — as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have," Mitchell said on a podcast appearance in September.

It would be keeping with one of Trump's broader policy strategies: This year he's invoked presidential emergency powers more frequently than any other modern president.

Election experts say there's no legal basis for Mitchell's theory, but numerous voting officials told NPR it's something that's come up in conversations about next year.

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who previously oversaw voting in California as secretary of state, also brought up the scenario recently on the Senate floor.

"If the Trump White House tried to declare some fake national emergency to create a pretense for federal intervention, I will force a vote here in the Senate to stop it," Padilla said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi listens as President Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 15.

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Troops on the ground

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, says six months ago he wouldn't have taken the premise of federal troops at polling places seriously.

But seeing how the National Guard was deployed — and justified — this summer changed his thinking.

"You have National Guard deploying to cities to supposedly quell these 'demonstrations' — basically people in frog suits and riding their bikes naked is the biggest threat," Hobbs said. "And yeah, I start thinking that maybe it could be possible."

Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump spoke of a desire to have federal law enforcement patrol voting locations, and this year, his former adviser Steve Bannon said on his War Room podcast that he hopes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are patrolling polling places in the midterms.

Legal experts say such intervention is clearly illegal, but until the federal government disavows such actions clearly, Simon said voting officials have to game out how to respond.

"One thing that would help is if someone at the federal government would come out and categorically say, 'No, no, no, stop the presses, stop everything. You'll never have to worry about that. That's not something we would ever consider doing,'" Simon said. "That would go a long way."

In response to questions about forces outside polling places, and other scenarios mentioned in this story, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson characterized them as "baseless conspiracy theories and Democrat talking points" but did not directly answer whether the White House would commit not to send agents to voting locations. She reiterated that the president is permitted to send federal personnel to localities to help quell violent crime.

Who is a trusted source?

For the last decade, as voting officials have fought to dam up a tsunami of false information about their work, they've begged people in their communities to go to "trusted sources" for election information.

In 2026, figuring out who is a trusted source may be more difficult than ever.

Along with Trump himself, his administration has elevated to prominent government roles numerous people who have a history of spreading false information about elections, and local officials worry their message may be drowned out by those with much bigger megaphones.

One of the hires alarming voting officials interviewed by NPR works at the Department of Homeland Security. Heather Honey, who's now deputy assistant secretary for elections integrity, worked alongside Mitchell for the past few years to help spread election conspiracy theories, including one about votes in Pennsylvania that Trump mentioned in his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before a mob stormed the Capitol.

"I equate this to having a moon landing conspiracy theorist and flat earther being offered a job at NASA," Hobbs said.

DHS did not respond to NPR's request for comment.

Numerous officials at the Department of Justice also have a history of election denial.

A poll worker holds "I Voted" stickers as people cast ballots on Nov. 4 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

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Unprecedented demands

The insistence to relitigate 2020 also has voting officials worried about what sort of actions administration officials plan to take. Already this year, DOJ has made unprecedented requests to investigate voting machines, access old ballots, and accumulate mass amounts of voter data.

This summer, a consultant in Colorado contacted Koppes and other clerks in that state, in some cases saying he was associated with the White House and asking about accessing their voting machines.

The White House denied to CNN and other outlets authorizing the requests, but separately, in Missouri, a Department of Justice official reached out to clerks there asking basically the same thing.

In each instance, they were told no.

"Since 2020, people in the elections world have become even more knowledgeable of the responsibilities of the different levels of government [when it comes to voting equipment]," Koppes said.

A similar push and pull is playing out with elections data. The Trump administration has quickly built what is essentially a searchable national citizenship database, and is trying to entice states to run their voting records through it to root out noncitizens on voter rolls. While many Republican election officials have eagerly embraced the system, other GOP officials and their Democratic counterparts have been hesitant to engage with the tool, as there are questions about how well it works, what happens to the voting data once it's been run through the system and, in many states, whether even using the tool is legal under state law.

Still, the administration is intent to investigate voter rolls as it continues to push false narratives about widespread noncitizen voting. The DOJ recently sued eight states (all states Trump lost in 2020) in an effort to compel them to turn over their rolls.

"It's really not a red state or blue state thing," said Al Schmidt, the Republican secretary of state of Pennsylvania, in an interview with PBS News Hour about the data demands. "It is a — in my view, a concerning attempt, a concerning effort to consolidate and overreach at the federal level. In the United States of America, it's the states who run elections, not the federal government."

Vulnerable targets

Since Trump took office, the federal government has pulled back on virtually all of its work related to cybersecurity and elections. The Department of Homeland Security laid off employees focused on election security, and stopped funding a partnership that helped local elections offices share threat information.

Wesley Wilcox, a Republican election supervisor in Marion County, Fla., said smaller counties especially will be more vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the cuts, and Russia, China or any other U.S. adversary may see an opportunity.

"That's what I would do," Wilcox said. "I mean, if I were on that side of the fence, I'm like, 'OK, they're cutting this stuff out. Let's go get them.' You know, 'cause the defenses are down."

Secretary Hobbs, of Washington, told NPR that two years ago he was notified by DHS about a hack in one of his counties. The state responded immediately to make sure the breach wouldn't impact the voter registration database.

Now, Hobbs said, "I don't even know if I would have gotten that phone call, to tell you the truth."

In Arizona, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said he didn't even contact DHS' cyber agency after an online candidate portal was hacked this summer because he didn't have confidence in the agency's "capacity to collaborate in good faith or to prioritize national security over political theater."
Copyright 2025 NPR

L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said she plans to unveil a new ordinance Friday that would ban all law enforcement from concealing their identities with masks.

The move, which was initiated in June, comes after government leaders and community activists reported a rise in federal immigration enforcement activity Thursday in Long Beach and San Pedro.

In a statement, Hahn said, "ICE is continuing to terrorize our communities," adding the actions "hit Long Beach hard."

"They are not communicating with local law enforcement, and we know they are not targeting violent criminals," Hahn said. "They are targeting people based on the color of their skin, or their accent, or the place that they work. They are violating our residents’ rights every day they remain on our streets. They are creating chaos and spreading fear in our immigrant community, and they need to leave."

Hahn said the ordinance will:

1. Prohibit all law enforcement, including local, state and federal officials, from wearing masks or personal disguises while interacting with the public in the course of their duties in unincorporated L.A. County; and
2. Require all law enforcement wear visible identification and agency affiliation while interacting with the public in the course of their duties in unincorporated L.A. County

There are some exceptions, like breathing apparatuses or motorcycle helmets.

Hahn said at least nine people were detained by masked agents on Thursday. According to Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, one of those detained was a gardener for Polly's Pies restaurant on Atlantic Avenue. He said federal agents chased down and attacked the man as diners watched.

The Trump administration increased immigration enforcement in Los Angeles County in early June. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the crackdown is necessary to keep the nation safe from dangerous criminals. However, many activists and leaders have denounced the arrests, saying federal agents are detaining hard-working members of the community and picking up people with no criminal record.

California has already passed state laws that restrict the use of facial coverings by law enforcement. But the Trump administration filed a lawsuit this week to stop them.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on Hahn's ordinance at its Dec. 2 meeting, when members of the public can share their comments. A required second vote on adopting the ordinance could be held one week later on Dec. 9. If adopted, it would go into effect 30 days later.

How to attend the board meetings:

• Dates: Tuesday, Dec. 2 and Dec. 9
• Location: 500 West Temple St., Los Angeles, in Room 381B, at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
• Time: 9:30 a.m.
• How to watch remotely