THE BUZZ — LATE BLOOMERS: It’s crunch time for ballot initiative campaigns — and some hugely consequential proposals are just getting started.

While some campaigns have been collecting signatures for months or have already gathered enough to get on the ballot, others are ramping up with mere months to go.Unless you have a volunteer army at your disposal, it takes some serious resources to secure the requisite support on a compressed timeline — petition-circulating firms obey the laws of supply and demand too, so the market sets the per-signature price. And money is moving.

A pair of late-surfacing proposals from opposite endsof the political spectrum could dramatically alter the dynamics of this ballot. On the right, a coalition of business and anti-tax organizations are looking to raise the bar for tax increases. On the left, deep-pocketed progressive Joe Sanberg is questing to push California’s minimum wage to $18 and beyond.

The minimum wage proposal was cleared to start collecting signatures this week.Sanberg has said he will spend what it takes to get the measure on the November ballot, arguing the pandemic has exacerbated financial strain on low-income Californians. He also appears to have the powerful California Labor Federation in his corner, with Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski releasing a statement lauding a wage boost as “an absolute necessity.” Labor was instrumental in putting California on its current $15 minimum wage trajectory.

Meanwhile, the California Business Roundtablechanneled $1.6 million toward qualifying a proposal that would throw up barriers to new or higher taxes. It would require voter approval when the Legislature raises or enacts taxes — fortifying the already-tough 2/3 legislative vote requirement — while broadening the definition of what counts as a tax and upping the threshold for local voter-passed taxes to two-thirds. Apotent coalition of labor and local government groups has already mobilized against this effort. If it gets enough signatures, that could give supporters leverage to win concessions from Sacramento, as happened with a 2018 dealdisarming local governments on soda taxes.

And don’t forget about sports betting. A Native American coalition has already qualified a measure authorizing bets on tribal land. But after DraftKings and FanDuel launched a push to run online bets, some tribes upped the pot with another measure that would cement tribal control of online wagers. That one is on the street. At the same time, tribes have launched a $100 million-plus counterattack to the platforms’ campaign, and they’re still funding the initial tribal measure: Yocha Dehe Wintun dropped another $5 million this week.

In other words: the potential 2022 ballot has shrunk, and some campaigns have pulled out. But we’re still a long way from knowing the final lineup of initiatives — and it could be a long one, depending how many dollars and signatures pile up between now and April.

BUENOS DÍAS, good Thursday morning. Republicans are trying yet again today to force a vote in the Legislature on ending the state of emergency that has endured since Gov. Gavin Newsom declared it at the start of the pandemic — a gambit that is likely to fail and all but certain to inform GOP campaign messaging.

Got a tip or story idea for California Playbook? Hit jwhite@politico.com or follow me on Twitter @jeremybwhite.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Their world view, on even the case of the death penalty, ultimately come down to 100 feet in front of and to both sides of their front door. … Tomorrow morning, something could go down in any one of these neighborhoods that becomes a punching bag for the opposition.” State Sen. Dave Cortese on how colleagues weightough crime bill votes, via CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff.

BONUS QOTD: “It’s disturbing to see that the Republican leader of the House ran — actually, literally refused to condemn that resolution of ‘legitimate political discourse.’ He literally ran away from the press when he was asked about his position.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, remarking on a viral clip of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy avoiding a reporter’s questions.

TWEET OF THE DAY:Assemblyman @Alex_Lee on undercompensated Capitol staff, as part of a thread: “CULTURE There’s a pervasive myth that if you are a public servant you should not be fairly compensated. Doubly so in the capitol bc there is no union AND there’s this toxic ‘right of passage’ mentality that you HAVE to suffer to earn your place”

WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.

Rep. Katie Porter raised more money in 2021 than 90% of her fellow House members, according to campaign finance reports filed this week.

Porter, D-Irvine, took in $2.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 and $10.5 million last year. With cash rolled over from her last election, that leaves her with a $16.1 million war chest as she looks to a June 7 primary against three GOP challengers in Orange County’s new coastal 47th District.

This week’s fundraising reports are the first since new political district boundaries were finalized in late December. And they offer an early clue at how competitive some Orange County House races might be in 2022, with at least three of six local seats likely to be in play this year.

Porter’s primary challenger is Scott Baugh, R-Huntington Beach, an attorney and former Assembly member. He entered the CA-47 race Dec. 22 and in nine days, before the close of the year-end filing period, he raised $519,425 in donations.

Another Republican challenger in CA-47 — Brian Burley, R-Huntington Beach, who does I.T. consulting — reported raising $338,759 in 2021, ending the year with $233,728 in cash. But his campaign owes $298,021 including $234,500 he loaned himself.

Amy Phan West, R-Westminster, who runs a rental car company with her husband, raised $151,423 in 2021 for her CA-47 bid and ended the year with $77,403 cash.

Over in the new 40th District, which covers all of eastern Orange County plus Chino Hills in San Bernardino County, Freshman Rep. Young Kim, R-La Habra, took in more than $1.2 million in the last quarter of 2021, giving her $4.3 million raised this cycle as of Dec. 31. She owed $172,409 and had $2.6 million in cash, which her campaign pointed out is one of the highest of any GOP incumbent targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2022. Her new district favors the GOP by 5.6 points.

But while Kim’s primary challenger — Democrat Asif Mahmood, a physician from Bradbury who’s moving to Tustin to run for CA-40 — didn’t enter the race until Jan. 20, and so hasn’t filed any campaign finance reports yet with the FEC, his campaign said he raised $500,000 during his first 11 days in the race.

Two other candidates are challenging Kim from the right: Mission Viejo Councilman Greg Raths, a Republican, and American Nationalist Nick Taurus.

Taurus, of Laguna Hills, has raised $7,431 this cycle largely through donations from one local family. He had $2,549 cash at the end of the year.

Raths, who last year lost to Rep. Katie Porter by seven points, officially entered the race Jan. 4, and has yet to report any fundraising.

In her bid to return to Congress — this time to represent the new 45th District, which is a majority Asian American and centered around Little Saigon — freshman GOP Rep. Michelle Steel raised $808,700 in the last quarter and $3.2 million so far this cycle. The Seal Beach resident owed $164,199 as of Dec. 31 and had close to $1.7 million cash in the bank.

That’s nearly double the cash of her primary challenger, Democrat Jay Chen. The district does favor Democrats by 4.9 points in terms of voter registration.

Chen, a Hacienda Heights resident who owns a real estate firm, raised $327,759 last quarter and $1.4 million last year. He owed $18,376 and had $978,339 in cash as of Dec. 31.

As he goes for a third term representing the 49th District, Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, raised $2 million in 2021 and headed into 2022 with $2.5 million cash. That’s twice as much as any of his three GOP challengers.

Redistricting kept CA-49 largely intact, with the district covering south coastal Orange County and northern San Diego County and favoring Democrats by 1.9 points.

His repeat GOP challenger Brian Maryott, R-San Juan Capistrano, had the next highest total with $1.8 million raised and $1.2 million cash on hand at the end of the year. But that included $1 million the former councilman loaned himself in 2021.

Maryott similarly loaned himself some $500,000 for his 2020 campaign against Levin, didn’t use most of the funds and paid himself back on Election Day, when he lost to Levin by 6.2 points.

Another candidate in CA-49, Oceanside Councilman Christopher Rodriguez, raised $776,146 in 2021, including a $100,000 loan from himself. He had $466,273 cash at the end of the year.

County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett, R-Dana Point, entered the CA-49 race at the start of 2022, so she didn’t FEC reports for last year. But she had $238,291 sitting in a state Senate fund as of Dec. 31. She can’t transfer those funds, but her campaign said she’s contacted donors about writing new checks for her Congressional campaign.

In the solidly blue and majority Latino 46th District, centered around Santa Ana and Anaheim, third-term Democratic Rep. Lou Correa is sitting on a comfortable war chest of $1.5 million. Correa raised $603,911 last year, and he had cash left over from his 2020 election, which wasn’t competitive.

This year, Correa is facing a challenge from the left in Mike Ortega, a biomedical engineer and self-proclaimed socialist who’s also from Anaheim. Ortega, who will run as a Democrat, raised $34,590 in 2021. He had $4,593 left in cash after campaign expenses.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Whittier, has an easy fundraising lead over three challengers in the new 38th District, which still includes southeast Los Angeles County and a slice of Orange County, now in La Habra.

Sanchez, a 10-term incumbent, has raised $686,353 so far this cycle. With funds rolled over from previous cycles, she had $1.1 million in cash at the end of 2021.

Her closest competitor in terms of fundraising is Republican Eric Ching, who is Mayor Pro Tem of Walnut. Ching originally was going to primary Kim, in CA-40, but after district lines were redrawn he said he plans to run in CA-38, which favors Democrats by 26 points and is majority Latino.

Ching raised $75,970 in 2021, all from individual donors. That includes $7,400 of his own money. After expenses, he had $35,163 cash Dec. 31.

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Democratic challenger Elizabeth Moreira, who lives in Norwalk and works in hospitality management, has raised $9,803 this cycle, including an $1,800 loan from herself. She had $2,021 in cash at the end of the year.

Fundraising for the district now represented by Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, isn’t included in this story because Lowenthal is retiring at the end of this term and redistricting has drawn Orange County out of that seat.

A handful of other candidate have pulled paperwork to run for local seats, but haven’t yet formally filed or reported any fundraising. The deadline to enter the race is March 11.

The next round of campaign finance reports, covering the first quarter of the year, are due April 15.

Former Orange County District Attorney’s Office supervisor Michael Jacobs announced his bid for district attorney Tuesday, Feb. 1, saying neither the incumbent nor his main challenger thus far have the experience or ability to run the office.

Jacobs, a prosecutor for nearly 30 years, was a trial attorney for 25 years, dwarfing the trial experience of first-term District Attorney Todd Spitzer and candidate Pete Hardin, a former county and federal prosecutor.

“Both of the other candidates have problems in their backgrounds and a lack of experience,” Jacobs said. “It seems to me Hardin and the prosecutor have similarities.”

Spitzer is being sued by several women prosecutors who claim they were sexually harassed by a friend of Spitzer’s who was promoted to a top position in the office. Hardin was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps after allegedly violating its adultery policy.

Jacobs said of Hardin: “I don’t believe he’s up to doing the work.”

However, Jacobs career is not without blemishes as well.

He was fired from the District Attorney’s Office in 2001 after reporting then-D.A. Tony Rackauckas to state prosecutors for allegedly shutting down investigations into cronies. The California Attorney General’s Office had earlier warned Rackauckas about potential problems with Jacobs withholding evidence on jailhouse informants from defense attorneys.

Jacobs won back his job in 2003 and retired three years later. He now practices civil law. He said he has never been cited for misconduct and that any legal mistakes he made were found by judges to be inconsequential.

Spitzer, a former member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and state Assembly, said the county shouldn’t take that chance on Jacobs.

“We don’t need Mike Jacobs to come back from retirement,” Spitzer said. “Mike Jacobs was linked to the snitch scandal in 2016 and the last thing we need is to reopen that horrible chapter of Orange County history.”

The snitch scandal evolved from a series of court hearings beginning in 2014 that concluded prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies were misusing jailhouse informants to secure confessions from targeted inmates, violating their right to have a lawyer present.

The violations were so profound that a judge took the death penalty off the table for mass killer Scott Dekraai, who instead got life in prison for the 2011 massacre at the Salon Heritage in Seal Beach where his ex-wife worked.

For his part, Hardin said he hopes the three-man race will focus on real issues, not a comparison between Los Angeles and Orange counties, which Spitzer did last week when he officially declared his candidacy for the June 7 primary election. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the ballots cast, the two top vote-getters move on to the Nov. 8 general election.

“I welcome Mr. Jacobs to the race. I’m sure we’ll have our differences, but Mr. Jacobs and I agree that safety and justice have suffered from having a career politician play gatekeeper to our criminal legal system,” Hardin said. “I hope his candidacy helps steer the discourse back to the serious issues facing our community, like increasing crime, homelessness and the culture of sexual harassment and retaliation that DA Spitzer has enabled.”

In one of Jacobs’ cases involving informant Daniel Escalera, the trade-off to win a conviction would prove disastrous to a gas station attendant and his family.

Facing a felony charge for robbing and beating another man in a hotel room, Escalera might have spent years in prison, but Jacobs and others signed off on a plea arrangement allowing Escalera to receive probation, according to the state Attorney General’s Office. Jacobs has acknowledged signing the plea agreement.

Escalera, already released on his own recognizance, was allowed to remain free when the case ended — but only temporarily. A few months later, he got into a wee-hour altercation at a gas station, drew a gun and fatally shot station attendant Edward Rios in the neck, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records.

The star informant had become a killer.

Redistricting could shift partisan odds in local districts months before the 2022 primary.

A month after voters cast ballots in the California Gubernatorial Recall Election at the Huntington Beach Central Library in Huntington Beach, talk of the 2022 midterm elections is heating up.. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)By BROOKE STAGGS | bstaggs@scng.com | Orange County RegisterPUBLISHED: October 19, 2021 at 6:54 p.m. | UPDATED: October 20, 2021 at 9:29 a.m.

Though the 2022 midterms are more than a year away the political battleground of Orange County is tight enough, and the stakes high enough, that candidates running for local House seats have already raised $19 million, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

And all of the local House races — two of which are considered highly competitive and two others marginally so — also are just weeks away from serious potential shakeups.

Once-in-a-decade redistricting is expected to shift the geography and the electoral lean of every political district in the country. By year’s end, those changes could bring new candidates and a flurry of new fundraising if incumbents wind up looking more vulnerable than they do today.

So far, in the most competitive seats, GOP Reps. Michelle Steel and Young Kim, who both flipped their districts to win in 2020, are out-fundraising their Democratic challengers, Harley Rouda and Jay Chen, by margins close to two to one. Still, Rouda and Chen have each brought in more than $1 million, with some experts predicting that voters in those districts (CA-48 and CA-39, respectively) will lean more to the left after boundaries are redrawn.

Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Mike Levin, who flipped CA-45 and CA-49 in 2018 and held them in 2020, look more solid heading into next year. Porter continues to post massive fundraising hauls, with no high-profile GOP candidates so far challenging her. And Democrats in Levin’s district continue to expand their once slim advantage in voter registration.

But these districts could see significant changes when boundary lines move during redistricting. Official drafts of new district maps are due Nov. 15 and the deadline for final boundaries is Dec. 15. However, some unofficial maps floated during recent California Citizens Redistricting Commission meetings suggest registration in Porter’s district, which now has 6,652 more Democrats than Republicans, could shift to the right while Kim’s district, which now has 22,000 more Democrats than Republicans, could become deeper blue. For example, one proposal gives Porter a portion of conservative Yorba Linda and Kim a slice of solidly blue Anaheim.

Levin — along with local Democratic Reps. Lou Correa and Linda Sanchez, who are both in solidly blue districts and have drawn no major political challengers the last two cycles — faces zero or minimal risk from redistricting, according to a ranking from Cook Political Report. The same report suggests Kim, Porter, Steel and Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach all face a slight risk. Porter’s district is overpopulated while Kim, Lowenthal and Steel represent underpopulated districts.

Porter’s growing national profile might offset the risk she might face in redistricting. That profile helped her raise $2.7 million in the third quarter, more money than any other Democrat in the House. More than 97% came from individual donors. Porter is now sitting on $14.5 million in cash.

Among Porter’s six GOP challengers, two have some traction in terms of campaign funds. Brian Burley of Huntington Beach, an IT professional who last year lost a primary challenge to Steel in CA-48, has banked $304,627 this cycle, though he loaned himself nearly three-quarters of that total. And Shawn Collins, an attorney and Navy veteran who lives in Trabuco Canyon, has raised $206,543 entirely from individual donations.

In the 39th District — which includes portions of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties — Kim raised $981,170 last quarter. She had $1.95 million in cash at the end of last month.

Democratic challenger Chen of Hacienda Heights, an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserves who owns a real estate firm, raised $351,043 during the third quarter. His campaign had $782,081 in the bank. Republican challenger Eric Ching, Walnut’s Mayor Pro-Tem, raised $11,025 last quarter and had $29,955 in cash. And repeat challenger Steve Cox, an independent from Chino Hills, hasn’t reported raising any money so far this election cycle.

In CA-48 — which runs along coastal Orange County, from Seal Beach to Laguna Beach, and where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 21,000 — Steel raised $751,480 in the third quarter of the year in her bid to keep the seat. Her campaign owes $211,455, including $150,000 left on a 2020 loan from herself. She reported $1.35 million in cash heading into October.

Rouda, of Laguna Beach, raised $376,904 in the third quarter. He had $604,008 in campaign cash.

Independent Chris Balasinski of Newport Beach filed to join the CA-48 race but has yet to report any fundraising.

In CA-49, a narrowly blue district that includes southern Orange County and northern San Diego County, Levin of San Juan Capistrano raised $501,490 in the third quarter. At the start of this month Levin had $2.3 million in cash.

Two Republicans from opposite ends of CA-49 are squaring off to face Levin in the general election.

Repeat CA-49 challenger Brian Maryott — a Republican from San Juan Capistrano who won 46.9% of the vote while losing to Levin in November — raised $619,349 over the past three months. But that includes another $500,000 he loaned to his own campaign. Maryott now has $566,010 in cash.

Oceanside City Councilman Christopher Rodriguez, who’s also a Republican, raised $303,609 in the third quarter, including a $50,000 loan from himself. He reported having $310,363 in cash at the end of the third quarter.

A third Republican, Anne Elizabeth from Dana Point, filed to run for CA-49 in September but hasn’t reported any fundraising to date.

Two local Democratic incumbents in solidly blue districts so far face their biggest challengers from the left.

In central O.C.’s 46th District, Correa, D-Anaheim, raised $203,115 during the third quarter. His largest donors include trade union and corporate PACs, left-leaning committees and Phillips 66 oil company. When that number is combined with funds rolled over from previous cycles, Correa has $1.5 million in cash on hand.

CA-46 challenger Michael Ortega, a biomedical engineer from Anaheim who has pledged not to take corporate PAC money, supports progressive Democratic policies such as Medicare for All, abolishing ICE and the Green New Deal. He’s raised $20,351, all from individual donors, with $8,279 left in cash.

Cecelia Truman, a Republican from Menifee who lost a 2020 bid for a seat on her city council, is also challenging Correa. She’s raised $35 this cycle.

In CA-38, which is primarily in southern Los Angeles County but includes a small slice of north Orange County, Sanchez, D-Whittier, took in $171,033 in contributions during the third quarter of the year. She has $927,769 in cash on hand with funds rolled over from previous elections.

Challenger Sylvester Ani Jr. of Cerritos, a Democrat who runs a nonprofit to help marginalized communities, raised $9,304 in the third quarter, with $9,515 left in cash. Democrat Elizabeth Moreira of Norwalk, an Army veteran who works in hospitality management, raised $2,015 last quarter and had $4,444 in cash. Republican Paul Irvine Jones, a reverend from Lakewood, hasn’t reported any fundraising in the CA-38 race.

The only local challenger who appeared to raise more than the incumbent last quarter came on the northwest edge of Orange County, where five-term Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, faces a repeat matchup with Republican John Briscoe in CA-47. But funds for Briscoe, a marketing instructor who lost to Lowenthal in November, came entirely from $270,000 in loans he made to himself. He had $255,306 left in cash heading into the fourth quarter.

Lowenthal, who last year was re-elected with 63% of the vote, raised $46,057 during the third quarter in his bid to keep the solidly blue district that includes northwest Orange County and southwest L.A. County. He reported $443,783 in cash with funds rolled over from previous elections.

Republican Michelle Lyons of Long Beach, who owns a modeling school, also is challenging Lowenthal this cycle. The former independent, who became an ordained minister during the pandemic, has raised $21,515 this cycle. She has $9,338 in cash left and $14,405 in outstanding debt.

The next fundraising reports, covering all of 2021, are due to the FEC by Jan. 31.

An idea that never quite seems to die – changing the limit on Orange County supervisors’ service from two back-to-back terms to three lifetime terms – has reared its head again, just as two current board members are set to hit the limit in the next few years.

Since 1996, county supervisors have been permitted two consecutive four-year terms, after which they must leave office for a time before they’re eligible to run for a board seat again. The proposed change, which must be approved by voters, would impose a lifetime cap of three terms.

Supporters of the measure say it would help ensure eventual turnover on the board while allowing supervisors to build experience and relationships that can make them more effective legislators. Critics see the measure as misleading to voters and self-serving, noting that the same officials backing the idea would get to run for reelection if it passes.

On Tuesday, June 22, supervisors agreed to put the measure on a special election ballot that will be held later this year, when voters statewide will decide on the possible recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The 3-2 vote drew support from board Chairman Andrew Do (currently termed out in 2024), Lisa Bartlett (termed out in 2022) and Doug Chaffee (whose first term ends next year), and opposition from Don Wagner (whose first full term ends in 2024) and Katrina Foley (who won a special election in March).

Do and Bartlett pointed out that a three-term limit would put the county on par with the rules for state legislators and with the rules of some other California counties. Bartlett added that in counties with no term limits some supervisors serve for decades even though voters “want to see a rotation.”

“What’s good enough for the state, and good enough for many other counties, why wouldn’t it be good for us?” Do said.

If approved, it appears the new rules would only apply going forward, meaning current and past supervisors could serve up to three additional terms.

The only former county supervisor who has left for another position and returned to win a supervisor’s seat again is Todd Spitzer, currently the county’s District Attorney. But Wagner said the example that illustrates why the rule change isn’t necessary is former supervisor John Moorlach, who finished two terms as supervisor in 2014 and went to the state legislature, then lost a bid for the District 2 supervisor seat to Foley in the March 2021 special election.

“The public chose to put someone else in his place,” Wagner said of Moorlach. “We didn’t need term limits. We didn’t need this initiative in place.”https://4d61519e7ae74227c2a96a138ea0d48f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

The debate over term limits isn’t new. In 2012, Moorlach pitched a similar idea but the board majority said no. In 2016, former Supervisor Shawn Nelson brought it up again, but yanked the proposal over a lack of support. And as recently as July 2020, Bartlett and Chaffee put a new term limit proposal on the agenda, though it was removed before coming to a public discussion or vote.

The 2020 proposal specifically said anyone who had already served two terms on the board could run for one more. The measure added to the agenda by the county’s attorney doesn’t make that distinction.

Political observers from both ends of the spectrum said the term-limit proposal looks to them like a last-ditch effort by politicians hoping to extend their own careers.

Jim Righeimer, a former Costa Mesa mayor who is active in county GOP politics, said that because it’s harder for a newcomer to beat an incumbent any extension of term limits is essentially job protection for sitting supervisors.

He speculated that the measure might pass because it will be on a special election ballot, when turnout typically is low, but “anybody who knows what it is, is not going to vote for it.”

Chapman University political science professor Fred Smoller said term limits typically have been popular with voters, who tend to view long-serving politicians as entrenched and less responsive to constituents. And when combined with the fact that supervisors will use 2020 census data to redraw their own districts later this year — a process that is required by law — Smoller suggested the new term limit proposal could be viewed negatively by some voters.

“Does it look untoward?” Smoller said. “Sure it does.”

Chaffee said Tuesday that voters can reject the idea, and that the measure doesn’t change the fact that supervisors who want to keep serving would have to win reelection.

“I’m only suggesting that this is something that people can decide,” he said.

“It’s a message to us if it’s rejected.”

By ANH DOSTAFF WRITER NOV. 15, 20205 AM

By text, by phone and by social media, they trumpeted the news from California to Asia: Late Friday, Young Kim had joined her “sister” Michelle Steel in making history as two of the first three Korean American women ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In winning two hotly contested Southern California districts, Kim and Steel helped Republicans push back against the blue wave that resulted in Democrats gaining all seven Orange County congressional seats in the 2018 midterms.

The two Orange County Republicans will be sworn into office in January alongside a third Korean American congresswoman-elect, Marilyn Strickland, a Democrat from western Washington state.

Apart from politics, many Korean Americans said it was a moment to savor.

“How cool is this?” said Ellen Ahn, executive director of the nonprofit Korean Community Services, the largest Korean American social services agency in Orange County. “It’s amazing that women are making inroads on all political platforms.”

For Steel and Kim, the victories go beyond giving California’s beleaguered GOP a boost; they could offer the party a way forward, post-Trump, to appeal to voters outside the white, suburban Republican base.

National exit polls showed that Asian Americans backed Joe Biden over President Trump. Political analysts say there are lessons in the wins by Steel and Kim, which came even though Biden beat Trump in Orange County, and after years of outreach by local Republicans to Asian communities.

“It looked like they were taking Asian votes for granted in the past, so they had to start paying more attention to the communities,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science at UC Riverside. “These wins prove the Republican Party is still strong in O.C., and the message they want to share with people is that you have a home in our party.”

In a rematch of their 2018 contest, Kim, a former state Assembly member, defeated Gil Cisneros with 50.6% of the vote in the 39th District, which spans Anaheim Hills to Buena Park and includes parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Steel triumphed over incumbent Harley Rouda with 51.03% of the vote in the coastal 48th District, which stretches from Seal Beach to Laguna Niguel. Workers are still counting provisional and mail-in ballots, but the victories are clear in both districts.

The contests were among the most closely watched battles for the House, and coverage in Korean-language media was intense.

Steel, 65, said she wouldn’t be heading to Washington “without teamwork. At this stage, the first feeling I have is relief.

“It’s been tough,” she added. “What made the difference is I stick to my issues, and I’m determined to fight for less government regulations and more aid for the small businesses.”

Kim, 58 — who received a congratulatory call from Cisneros, a Navy veteran and lottery winner turned philanthropist — posted a message on her Facebook page Friday evening. “As an immigrant to America, I know that the promise of America is alive,” she said in the video. “Thank you for your faith in me, and let’s get to work.”

Kim, born in Incheon, South Korea, grew up in Guam before moving to Hawaii, then went to USC to earn a degree in business administration. The mother of four worked for Ed Royce, then a state senator, and stayed on his staff after his election to the U.S. House of Representatives, devoting more than two decades as his community liaison and director of Asian affairs. She served in the California Assembly from 2014 to 2016 and, when Royce retired two years ago, decided to run for federal office.

“Whoever you voted for in this election, I hope you know that regardless of any differences we may have, I will always work on your behalf and fight for you,” Kim said in the video.

Steel, chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, signaled her intention to continue creating “stepping stones” to public office for young Asian Americans.

In an interview last week before her flight to the nation’s capital to attend orientation, she reflected on her relationship with Kim. The women’s children are close, and Steel’s mother and Kim’s father-in-law taught at the same high school in South Korea.

“Young and I, we go way back,” she said. “You can be sure we’ll be helping one another, doing projects together.”

Last Tuesday, word of Steel’s election prompted Kim to post to Facebook an old photo of the two hugging. “So excited to see my good friend and sister Michelle Steel win her seat to represent the CA-48!” Kim wrote. “Congratulations on your hard-fought campaign!”

Steel, a mother of two, is the daughter of a diplomat who moved the family from their native South Korea to Japan. She later immigrated to the United States to attend Pepperdine University and earned an MBA from USC. She is married to Shawn Steel, former chairman of the California Republican Party, and has served on the State Board of Equalization.

Ahn said the wins by Steel and Kim “are such a validation of the immigrant experience. Having a person who looks like you and having a seat at the highest level of government can be a game-changer. I hope they don’t forget the issues that affect people of color, and healthcare tops that list.”

Strickland, who served as mayor of Tacoma from 2010 to 2018, challenged legislator and environmental activist Beth Doglio in Washington’s 10th Congressional District, which covers the southern portion of Puget Sound from Olympia to the Tacoma suburbs. Strickland won with 58.1% of the vote.

In the weeks leading to the election, she took part in a Zoom call featuring all five Korean American candidates for Congress, including Andy Kim (D-New Jersey), who won reelection, and David Kim, an immigration attorney who ran unsuccessfully to represent California’s 34th District. “It was remarkable to have us all talking,” Strickland said.

“It’s hardly easy running for national office and, as a woman, just think of the calculations we make before we can jump in,” she added. “Not only do you need to ask, ‘Am I qualified?’; you also have to ask, ‘How’s this going to affect everyone else in my family?,’ as women are the primary caregivers.”

Like Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Strickland, 58, is of Asian and Black heritage.

“There are still issues of inequities we need to resolve,” she said, “and though I understand my duty to my past, I’m also here to represent all of my constituents.”

The rise of Korean Americans in Congress, particularly of Kim and Steele, is partly the result of significant investment by the GOP to diversify its ranks and launch targeted outreach at Asian American voters starting in 2013, according to observers. Some of those efforts have been obscured by Trump’s actions and caustic comments about immigrants, rhetoric that critics say fuels racism and violence. In March 2018, Steel was the only elected official to greet Trump when he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on his first official trip to California as president. Kim, meanwhile, publicly criticized the commander-in-chief’s use of the term “kung flu,” saying such language incites hate against Asian Americans.

Ramakrishnan said the GOP’s Growth and Opportunity Project has aimed to transform the party — it set aside $10 million to create better connections with minority communities and spur efforts to recruit and back Asian American candidates.

Most Asian Americans vying for Congress come from districts that are not majority Asian, Ramakrishnan said. That’s true in Steel’s 48th District, which is 71.8% white, 15.9% Asian, 11.8% Latino and 0.5% Black; and in Kim’s 39th District, which is 49.4% white, 25.7% Latino, 24.1% Asian and 0.8% Black.

A preliminary analysis shows that in early returns for Steel, her core support came from affluent white neighborhoods, according to the Orange County Civic Engagement Table.

“I think it was very clear there was an investment by the Republicans in this district,” said Jonathan Paik, the group’s executive director. “Overall, the questions remain for any of the winners: How committed are they to better listen to Asian American voters? Are they still going to represent the most vulnerable communities, the ones most struggling and the undocumented? Yes, the O.C. landscape is shifting, and we’ll all be watching to see how these officials make their mark.”

Both Paik and Tammy Kim — the top vote-getter in the Irvine City Council election, who will assume her new position in January — said outreach by Kim and Steele in Asian languages leveraged their backgrounds to attract the relatively small proportion of Asian Americans in their regions.

“If you believe that every vote counts, they did fully embrace that,” Tammy Kim said, citing Steel’s texts and mailersreleased in both simplified and traditional Chinese. Both women also appeared on Vietnamese-language television.

Young Kim had an edge over Cisneros who was “shut out by Korean media, though he was a strong advocate for the Korean community through his term and did so much for Korean veterans and adoptees through legislation,” Tammy Kim said.

Some immigrants believe that what helped Kim and Steel cement their victories was a mistake made byJeff LeTourneau, the vice chair of the Orange County Democratic Party, who shared a Facebook post glorifying Ho Chi Minh, the former communist leader of North Vietnam. His comments led to immediate criticism from politicians of both parties and from the county’s conservative-leaning Vietnamese American community, which backed Trump for reelection.

“Again, Asian American voices are becoming more dominant, as they should be,” Tammy Kim said.

Strickland, the Washington representative, can’t forget how her 91-year-old mother reacted upon hearing that her daughter had cleared a historic hurdle.

“Every generation, people want better for their children. And she was happy about a 14-point victory,” Strickland recalled. “Then she said, ‘Now you have to work really hard to get reelected.’ ”

How did your neighborhood vote? Ballot data for Orange County reveals curious shifts, splits

Some minds changed. Some communities switched. Some ballots were split. A precinct-level exploration of county voting records offers a glimpse of an unusual election.

By BROOKE STAGGS | bstaggs@scng.com, IAN WHEELER | iwheeler@scng.com and ALICIA ROBINSON | arobinson@scng.com | Orange County RegisterPUBLISHED: November 13, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. | UPDATED: November 15, 2020 at 10:23 a.m.

Over the past month, more people turned out to vote in Orange County than in any election in more than a half century.

With old trends upended by the coronavirus pandemic and political rhetoric, more voters submitted their ballots via drop box than by any other voting method.

And while reliably blue neighborhoods in Santa Ana and Irvine strongly favored President-elect Joe Biden, President Donald Trump flipped Little Saigon this year, which in 2016 gravitated toward Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

These are a few of the electoral facts emerging as the Orange County Registrar of Voters counts the last of the ballots from the 2020 general election.Top ArticlesUCLA studied film of Denver Broncos’ offense to preparefor CalREAD MOREREAD MOREREAD MOREREAD MOREREAD MOREREAD MOREjavascript:false00:28/00:30SKIP AD

While final numbers are expected to be certified in December, a precinct-level analysis of the preliminary totals offers insight into how local voting patterns have changed, where some residents left ballots blank and when they did something increasingly rare in American politics — split their tickets.

The vote for president

Across the county, 54% of voters chose for Biden while 44% picked Trump. Another 2% voted for third-party candidates.

This election, the county was diced into 1,795 precincts, many with hundreds or thousands of registered voters and others with as few as zero.https://public.tableau.com/views/OCgeneralelex2016-2020map/Dashboard1?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&publish=yes&:toolbar=no&:showVizHome=no

While many neighborhoods showed a presidential preference that mirrored the overall county numbers, most were at least somewhat lopsided. In all, some four in ten of all active precincts showed a difference of 10 percentage points or less between Biden and Trump, while more than half (55%) showed a bigger gap.

If you pull away the tiniest precincts, where just a few votes were cast, Biden is most popular in the neighborhoods around UC Irvine, which include student and faculty housing. In those, Biden won around 9 out of 10 votes out of about 2,300 ballots cast for president.

Trump’s support in Orange County was more scattered.

While the outgoing president got 100% of the vote in a small horse country precinct in Orange Park Acres, where all 14 voters chose him, and 11 out of 12 votes cast in a precinct that touches Newport Beach’s Back Bay, the most Trump-friendly standard precincts weren’t quite as supportive. For example, in the voting zone that includes Fashion Island, where 2,232 ballots were cast for president, Trump took about 65% of the vote.

The data also showed this: In some parts of Orange County, voters changed their minds about Trump.

Four years ago, Clinton led strongly over Trump in many neighborhoods of Santa Ana and Little Saigon. This election, while many Santa Ana precincts still favored Biden, the share of votes that went to Trump grew. And in much of Little Saigon, centered in Westminster, voters that once liked Clinton outright favored Trump this time around.

Conversely, voters in some parts of Mission Viejo and other South County areas who in ’16 liked went to Biden this year.

Looking at total votes by city, Villa Park, Yorba Linda and Newport Beach, the first, second and third most Republican cities by party registration, were, in that order, Trump’s strongest supporters.

However, the same wasn’t true for Biden. Voter registration shows that Santa Ana, Stanton and Anaheim are the county’s top three Democrat cities, but Biden drew his biggest vote shares in Santa Ana, Irvine and Laguna Beach.

How we cast ballots

The March primary was the first time a ballot was mailed to ever registered voter, and the first time the county opened multi-day vote centers and placed drop boxes around the county to collect mail ballots.

Though Orange County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley couldn’t have anticipated the coronavirus when he began pushing to update the county’s voting system in 2017, the changes that started in March came in handy during the general election, allowing anyone who chose to cast a ballot from home.https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/4333315/embed

Kelley said it’s hard to tell how much the pandemic influenced voters’ behavior because the high turnout for the Nov. 3 election included some younger voters who may simply have been energized to vote early. But he said, “We did hear from a lot of voters that they were thankful that they did have the opportunity to vote through the mail because of COVID.”

Another sign of things to come: the term “vote by mail” ballots might not be 100% accurate anymore. More people ultimately returned their Nov. 3 ballots via county drop boxes (about 583,000) than sent them by the postal service (about 512,000), while another group (about 195,000) brought completed mail ballots to vote centers during the last five days they were open.

The last week before Election Day, the registrar’s data shows a clear drop-off in voters using USPS and a spike in use of drop boxes. This came despite some confusion over unofficial drop boxes placed by the California Republican Party, and online chatter about whether drop boxes were secure. Kelley said there were no broad problems related to any voting method.

Changes in how voters cast their ballots also appears to have changed how results were reported, upending conventional wisdom from prior election cycles.

In previous Orange County elections, ballots counted on election night included votes cast early in the mail-in period and in person — a voting block that typically leaned Republican. But ballots counted and reported after Election Day tended to favor Democrats.

This year, for reasons ranging from fears of the postal service being slow to spread of coronavirus, the voting patterns seemed to shift. Democrats mailed their ballots in early and Republicans voted on Election Day. That meant the first vote counts announced favored Democrats, while the next round of vote counts shifted to Republicans. And as later mail-in votes and provisional ballots have been counted, the Democrat tilt hasn’t been pronounced, with many Republican candidates making gains as final ballots are tallied.

Kelley said he expects use of mail ballots to continue to grow, though many voters may opt not to return them through the post office. The 1,000-pound metal ballot drop boxes were permanently installed and will remain in place for future elections.

Historic voter turnout

Orange County posted high voter turnout in this election, shattering the notable 2016 number and on track to tie with turnout last seen in 1968.

As of Friday, Nov. 13, county turnout was 86.6%, with 1.53 million ballots cast from a pool of 1.77 million registered voters.

That’s significantly higher than statewide turnout, which as of Friday was at 75.3%. Both figures will inch up even as late mail-in and provisional ballots are tallied, with more than 1 million ballots still being processed across the state as of Thursday night.

In the 2016 election, voter turnout was at 80.7% in Orange County, with 1.2 million ballots cast from 1.5 million registered voters. That marked the county’s highest election participation rate in four decades — O.C. turnout was 67.3% in 2012, 72.6% in 2008 and 73.2% in 2004.

The county’s all-time turnout record is 90%, hit in 1960 and again in 1964.

Heading into this election, Kelley had predicted perhaps an 80% turnout given the enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle. His office doubled its scanning and automation capacity over the past six months so they’d be ready, with O.C. counting ballots at a significantly faster rate than neighboring counties.

Ballots partially complete

Most people who vote regularly have at one time or another “undervoted,” meaning they’ve left some races or measures blank, whether by mistake, as a protest against the available choices, or because they didn’t know enough about the candidates or measures to decide.

Some Orange County voters failed to vote in certain contests, but on top-of-the-ticket choices most people had their minds made up. The presidential race appeared to have the lowest rate of undervoting of anything on the ballot, with fewer than 1% of voters not picking a candidate, according to the registrar’s data.

That’s a change from four years ago, said Michael Alvarez, a Caltech political science professor who studies elections and voting. His research found that in the 2016 general election there was a national jump in voters who passed on casting a vote for president, with Republicans often unwilling to pull the lever for Trump or Clinton.

This year, most county voters also made their wishes known in congressional and state assembly races, and on statewide initiatives and a few local measures only about 5% of ballots cast left those options blank.

“Most likely, when you see an undervote, it’s because people don’t know the choices,” Alvarez said.

Because California ballots are often quite long, he added, there’s an increasing tendency to “roll off,” or quit filling in boxes, the farther down a voter gets.

Voters split tickets

There’s also evidence that some Orange County voters split their tickets, casting votes for Democrats and Republicans on the same ballots.

Though split-ticket voting was common as recently as the late 1970s, it’s become rare as politics have become more polarized.

It’s tough to definitively identify ticket splitting without seeing actual ballots, since other factors can come into play. But in a majority of O.C. congressional districts there were thousands more ballots cast for Biden than for Trump, while tighter margins — or even reversed partisan results — were seen in House contests, with little evidence of ballot drop-off between those races.

The biggest discrepancy was in the local portion of the 39th House District, which Includes northern Orange County cities from Buena Park to Anaheim Hills. There, Biden had 51% of the vote Friday while Democratic incumbent Rep. Gil Cisneros had 47%. Meanwhile, in the same area, Trump had 45% of the vote while Republican congressional contender Young Kim had 51%.

Even after accounting for third-party presidential candidates and other factors, the results indicate thousands of people voted Biden for president and Kim for Congress.

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The only congressional district where it appears voters may have split their tickets the other way was the 46th District, which includes Anaheim, Santa Ana and parts of Orange. There, Democratic incumbent Rep. Lou Correa earned a higher percentage of votes than Biden, while Correa’s Republican competitor received a lower slice of the vote than Trump. That suggests several thousand CA-46 residents — who in the March primary backed Democrat Bernie Sanders for president — voted for Correa and Trump.

Kevin Wallsten, political science professor at Cal State Long Beach, said most people still vote the party line. “It is also obvious, however, that there is an anti-Trump/never-Trump/save-democracy constituency in the Republican Party that probably voted for Biden as a protest to Trump but wanted to check the Democratic Party more broadly by voting for conservative candidates down ballot.”

Wallsten doesn’t expect such ticket splitting to be a trend, however.

“Once Trump is off the ballot,” he said, “many Republicans will probably ‘return home.’”

Large commercial properties would face higher property taxes under Proposition 15.(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)By JOHN MYERSSACRAMENTO BUREAU CHIEF NOV. 10, 20207:17 PM UPDATEDNOV. 11, 2020 | 3:35 PM

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SACRAMENTO —  

A four-decade quest to downsize Proposition 13, California’s famed limit on property taxes, has come up short after supporters failed to convince a new generation of voters that businesses should pay more to help fund schools and local services.

Defenders of the landmark 1978 tax-cutting initiative say that the defeat of this year’s proposal, Proposition 15, should serve as a warning to liberal activists and labor unions.

“Like it or not, Prop. 13 has almost mythical powers against those who would assail it,” Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., wrote last week.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press projected Proposition 15 had been defeated with 48% of votes in support and 52% opposed — more than 15 million votes have been tallied so far. Final results aren’t expected until the end of the month.

More than $139 million was spent by supporters and opponents combined on the Proposition 15 campaign. Its backers spent years crafting their plan to strip high-value business properties from the protections provided by Proposition 13, arguing that the long-standing law has allowed powerful corporations to avoid paying property taxes they can easily afford. Had they prevailed, independent analysts said, the higher business property taxes could have brought in as much as $11.5 billion a year in new funds for public schools and local governments.

The California Teachers Assn., one of the state’s most politically powerful labor unions, contributed more than $20 million to the campaign in favor of Proposition 15.

“We came very close, but we demonstrated the power of democracy in action. We demonstrated the difference we can make for ourselves and the next generation. That alone is a victory,” E. Toby Boyd, the union’s president, said in a statement.

Supporters prevailed in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and a handful of other coastal counties, according to unofficial returns. But Proposition 15 ran into strong opposition just about everywhere else, resoundingly rejected in the Central Valley, Inland Empire and Orange and San Diego counties.

The tally of support was close to that found in a poll last month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, in which 49% of likely voters said they would vote for Proposition 15. The business-funded campaign opposed to Proposition 15 said its own private polling found that voters who were undecided toward the end broke sharply against the measure.

Check this page for live California election results

Where Proposition 13 sets the value of a property by its purchase price and caps the annual tax at 1% of the value, Proposition 15 would have generated new tax revenue by allowing more frequent valuations of commercial and industrial property holdings worth $3 million or more. Some lower-valued properties would have also been swept into the system because their owners have large portfolios of property across California.

“California voters understood the very real threat Proposition 15 presented to small businesses, farmers and consumers,” Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said in a written statement. “Voters in California smartly recognized that enacting the largest tax hike in California history would have been devastating to jobs, our economy and California’s future competitiveness.”

While the homeowner tax protections of Proposition 13 have remained popular over the last four decades, liberal interest groups and labor unions believed few voters realized that the low-tax rules also applied to multimillion-dollar corporations. Numerous studies revealed that many of these companies, many headquartered in Southern California and the Bay Area, operate in facilities where land values have changed very little since the 1970s — even as new businesses and homeowners alike pay taxes on property assessed more closely to market value.

Larry Grisolano, a Democratic campaign consultant to the effort supporting Proposition 15, said the big business donors to the opposition campaign — which spent some $72 million to defeat the initiative — were never mentioned in the advertising blitz.

“There was not one element of the ‘no’ campaign that said we should keep helping these big corporations,” he said. “That ought to tell you something.”

Instead, business groups focused on Proposition 15’s potential impact on small businesses. Their advertising campaign hammered away at the fact that business owners who lease their locations are often required to pay some, or all, of the building owner’s property taxes.

And while Proposition 15 was explicit in its protection of residential property tax rules, some of its opponents ominously warned that it was the first step toward a complete overhaul or outright repeal of Proposition 13.

Too few voters were swayed by the promise of new, substantial tax revenue. About 40% of the revenue would have been sent to K-12 schools and community colleges, while the remaining 60% would go to counties, cities and special districts for services such as law enforcement and fire suppression. The Berkeley poll found that less than a majority of middle-aged voters and those who described themselves as moderates or conservatives believed the new tax revenue was needed.

Though other tax increases have been approved by California voters in recent years, the uncertainty of the current economy may have presented too strong a head wind for Proposition 15 supporters. The pandemic, Grisolano said, created “cross-pressures” for voters who are worried about schools and public health but fearful of a staggering economy.

“People have a very strong sense of uncertainty,” he said. “Those insecurities make it very difficult for them to take a risk on a change.”

CALIFORNIA

Proposition 13 treats all California property taxes the same. Voters could change that in 2020

Supporters of changing the rules for corporate property taxes are unlikely to see the relatively narrow defeat of Proposition 15 as the end of the effort. The proposal had the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has also suggested broader reviews of California’s tax structure in an effort to limit some of the lingering effects of Proposition 13 — most notably, how the cut in property taxes made government services more dependent on income and sales taxes, both susceptible to rapid up-and-down changes.

Boyd, whose union of more than 300,000 educators has led a number of efforts to increase K-12 school funding, said the pandemic-induced recession has only amplified the needs of students.

“The fight for much-needed funding for equitable resources continues as our schools and communities face billions in devastating budget cuts,” he said in a statement.

Any new effort would likely again be contested by business groups, who argue that California is already one of the most expensive states in the country for entrepreneurs and corporate operations.

Whether any future effort would more directly tackle the legacy of Proposition 13 is unclear. Neither side in the Proposition 15 campaign chose to invoke the well-known proposition, and public polling suggests voters generally think of it in positive terms.

Similar polls have also found support for rethinking the tax law’s benefits to business — an embrace of an idea that the election results suggest may be hard to turn into reality.