Unofficial ballot boxes are legal and they'll keep using them, California Republicans tell state officials
Sac Bee's LARA KORTE: "Unofficial ballot boxes are legal, California Republican leaders said Wednesday, saying they will continue to use them despite cease and desist orders from the California Attorney General and Secretary of State.
They told told reporters that any box marked “official” was an error made by volunteers and has been corrected. But the party said it will continue to collect vote-by-mail ballots that are voluntarily delivered to local party offices or headquarters.
“In this case, voters have decided, for themselves, that they trust the staff and volunteers at their local political Party headquarters, or their church, or a business that they patronize, to securely deliver their completed VBM ballot to the appropriate election official,” party officials said in a letter to Secretary of State Alex Padilla on Wednesday."
READ MORE about boxes: Battle Heats Up Over Legal Challenge to Unofficial GOP Drop Boxes -- GUY MARZORATI, KQED; California GOP pushes back against state election officials on unofficial ballot boxes -- SARAH PARVINI and STEPHANIE LAI, LATimes.
California ramps up census push in final hours
JOHN HOWARD, Capitol Weekly: "California launched an aggressive push through Thursday night to bolster its census tally, immediately following a U.S. Supreme Court decision blocking the count.
“We’re pulling out all the stops,” said Ditas Katague, director of California Complete Count, the state’s census office.
On Tuesday, the high court issued a terse order, rejecting the rulings by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of San Jose and the U.S. 9th Circuit appellate court that allowed the census to continue through the end of October."
Deadly Zogg Fire in NorCal fully contained, Cal Fire says
Sac Bee's MICHAEL MCGOUGH: "The Zogg Fire, which killed four Shasta County residents in September, has been 100% contained less than three weeks after igniting.
Cal Fire’s Shasta-Trinity unit announced the full containment at a final size of 56,338 acres (88 square miles) Tuesday evening. The wildfire destroyed 204 structures, the state fire agency says.
A small number of firefighters, and three fire engines, will continue to monitor the area for the next few days, amid gusty winds that are sweeping back into Northern California this week."
California Supreme Court orders Scott Peterson's murder convictions to be re-examined
The Chronicle's MICHAEL WILLIAMS: "The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered a re-examination of Scott Peterson’s convictions for murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, after finding that a juror in the case failed to disclose that she had been involved in previous legal proceedings.
The decision by the state’s high court to send the case back to the San Mateo County Superior Court, where Peerson was tried, comes just over a month after the court overturned Peterson’s death sentence for the 2002 murders. The court did not overturn the convictions in that decision or the most recent one.
Wednesday’s order was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which said the issue centers on a juror who failed to disclose that she had obtained a restraining order against a woman who had harassed her while she was pregnant."
Can SF sway the presidential election? Drag queens support the resistance by writing to swing voters
The Chronicle's HEATHER KNIGHT: "Manny Yekutiel is tired of hearing that San Franciscans can’t influence the outcome of the national election from our very blue perch on the edge of the country. So the owner of Manny’s, the civic engagement space in the Mission, decided to try to prove the naysayers wrong — and he enlisted 18 drag queens to help.
First he got permission to take over several parking spaces and build a long wooden structure composed of 18 socially distanced “Victory Booths” with a table and chair inside each one and the words “Come help us win this election” painted on the outside. Then he came up with the astounding goal of gathering San Franciscans to send swing-state voters a combined 25,000 letters, a throwback mode of communication that some campaign organizers believe resonates more than e-mails and texts. He’ll meet the goal any moment and plans to mail them all Saturday.
Next, all he needed were drag queens. Eighteen of them. One for each booth for perhaps the most quintessentially San Francisco photo opportunity of the city’s entire 2020 election season. So he texted Grace Towers and Honey Mahogany — two mainstays on the city’s drag circuit — and soon his glamorous vision became reality."
Democrats believe Trump has put Texas in play. A Biden would could be a game-changer
LA Times's MARK Z BARABAK/KEVIN BAXTER: "For years it shimmered on the far horizon, beckoning like a watery mirage: a blue Texas.
Democrats plotted and schemed and talked about flipping this conservative stronghold and seizing its electoral votes, a stockpile that is crucial for Republicans. Inevitably, they fell short — typically by a lot.
This time, however, it is not far-fetched to think Joe Biden could carry the Lone Star State, a sign of the difficult straits facing President Trump and the growing opportunities for cash-rich Democrats aiming not just to win the White House but take control of the Senate and expand their House majority."
What Latinos, immigrants and first-time voters need to know about California's November election
Sac Bee's KIM BOJORQUEZ: "California Latinos’ influence at the voting booth often trails their share of the state’s population.
They make up the state’s largest ethnic group, but they tend to vote in lower numbers than other communities. Language barriers and a lack of political engagement sometimes suppress Latino turnout, candidates and researchers say.
This year could prove especially difficult in persuading occasional voters to cast ballots. The coronavirus pandemic is hindering outreach efforts, making occasional and first-time voters harder to find."
Charts show how coronavirus cases in Bay Area compare to hotspots in Texas
The Chronicle's KELLIE HWANG/MIKE MASSA: "As the country’s most populous state, California, unsurprisingly, has the country’s most coronavirus cases.
But the second-largest state — Texas — is closing in on the No. 1 spot. Cases have started to surge again in certain parts of the Lone Star State, while California’s cases have declined since the summer surge and continue to stay relatively low.
So is there a good chance that Texas will surpass California in total coronavirus cases?"
READ MORE related to Pandemic: Husband-and-wife nurses contract COVID-19. She died in the hospital where she worked -- LA Times's FAITH E PINHO
California unemployment workers testify about troubled agency
Sac Bee's WES VENTEICHER: "The California state Senate took the unusual step Wednesday of calling front-line state workers to talk about a historic backlog of unemployment claims that accumulated at the Employment Development Department during the coronavirus outbreak.
Three workers who process unemployment insurance claims told senators about the personal stresses and systemic challenges of their jobs in the recession that accompanied the pandemic.
“We went from working an eight-hour workday five days a week to working seven days a week up to 14 hours a day … saying people are stressed is an understatement,” said Irene Green, who said she has been an employment programs representative at the department for 11 years."
READ MORE related to Economy: If gig economy initiative fails, will you pay more for Uber and Lyft? What studies say -- Sac Bee's JEONG PARK; Sacramento offering $4.7M in COVID-19 rental assistance. Here's how to apply -- Sac Bee's THERESA CLIFT
GOP suggests SCOTUS, on brink of 6-3 majority, may not strike down Obamacare after all
LA Times's JENNIFER HABERKORN: "As healthcare plays an increasingly prominent role in the closing days of the 2020 election, Republicans are trying to raise doubts in voters’ minds that a GOP-backed lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to strike the entire Affordable Care Act will actually succeed.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s third nominee to the Supreme Court, fueled that effort during her confirmation hearing this week.
She repeatedly suggested — in response to Republicans’ often leading questions — that despite her past criticisms of the 2010 law, she may not support striking the entire law, one of the only issues on which she came close to offering a view of her thinking."
READ MORE related to Obamacare: Repeal Obamacare? Once GOP dogma, it's now the pary's albatross -- LA Times's EVAN HALPER/JANET HOOK
SF's overdose numbers are staggeringly high. They could have been even higher without Narcan
The Chronicle's TRISHA THADANI: "At least 10 times a day, someone on the brink of death from a drug overdose is saved in San Francisco, according to new data provided to The Chronicle.
And that’s likely a massive undercount.
San Francisco’s drug epidemic has skyrocketed this year, claiming about 470 lives in just the first eight months of the year, according to preliminary data from the medical examiner. In a similar time period, at least 2,155 potentially fatal overdoses were prevented by the opioid reversal medication Narcan, which is commonly sprayed up the nose."
Which businesses would pay more property tax under Prop. 15? It's complicated
LA Times's JOHN MYERS: "For more than four decades, privately owned land in California has been taxed under a one-size-fits-all system. Be it a duplex or a delicatessen, a ranch or a sprawling ranch-style home, the same limits apply to all property owners.
Proposition 15 would change that, splitting millions of acres of land and buildings into two categories: one for homeowners — whose tax limits would remain unchanged — and one for businesses, whose property tax payments would rise. The new revenues, totaling as much as $12.5 billion under one independent analysis, would be set aside for local governments and public schools.
Supporters argue the change would mostly affect large corporations, removing the low-tax protections provided by Proposition 13 in 1978 while shielding California’s entrepreneurs and farmers."
California Supreme Court revives challenge to $1 toll increase at Seven Bay Area bridges
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "The California Supreme Court revived an anti-tax group’s challenge Wednesday to $1 toll increases at seven Bay Area bridges and put the case on hold while it considers a related dispute over garbage-collection fees in Oakland.
The toll increase, Regional Measure 3, was approved in 2018 by 55% of voters in the nine Bay Area counties and took effect in January 2019. But the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association argued that the toll was a local tax, requiring a two-thirds vote under state law, because it would fund programs that were unrelated to the bridges and would benefit the general public, not just users of the bridges.
A state appeals court disagreed in June, saying the tolls were not taxes but fees for use of the bridges, which are state property. On Wednesday, the high court voted unanimously to grant review of the case and said a final decision would depend on the justices’ resolution of a related issue in the Oakland case."
Glendale confronts its racist past, apologizing for 'sundown' laws
LA Times's LILA SEIDMAN: "When Tanita Harris-Ligons moved to Glendale in 2008, she said locals kept asking her where she was visiting from.
“If you’re Black, they didn’t believe you lived there,” she said of the city that was once a bastion for white supremacy groups and a so-called sundown town, where Black people weren’t welcome after dark.
About two years later, her son, Jalani, started middle school in the city, and the children began to separate along racial and ethnic lines, Harris-Ligons said. White children sat at one table, Latinos at another and Armenians at still another, she said."
One man's eye 'exploded,' another lost eight teeth from LAPD projectiles fired at Lakers revelers
LA Times's KEVIN RECTOR: "When the hard-foam police projectile struck 22-year-old William Gonzalez in the right eye as he celebrated the Lakers’ NBA title in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday night, it shattered his eye socket, ripped apart his tear duct and “exploded” the eyeball itself, doctors said.
The Kobe Bryant jersey that his brother Michael used to stanch the bleeding was immediately soaked as Michael dragged Gonzalez through the streets, trying to find a way out of the chaos.
“My brother … grabbed me and said ‘Run!’ because they were still shooting,” Gonzalez said Tuesday, one day after extensive reconstructive surgery."
