California prepares to go to the mattresses with a Donald Trump administration.
ALEXEI KOSEFF with Sacramento Bee: "Donald Trump claimed the presidency with a decisive electoral victory, but he was just as soundly defeated in California, where Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won by the largest margin in 80 years."
"It underscores a tension between deep-blue California and the wave that swept Trump to the White House, which will likely only intensify throughout his term."
"The state’s overwhelmingly Democratic politicians are already publicly rebuking Trump, setting California up to become the center of dissent and legal challenges to his agenda over the next four (or more) years. Here are six key areas that could produce significant political clashes:"
President Obama gives his support to Nancy Pelosi as she faces challenges to her leadership within the Democratic caucus.
CHRISTI PARSONS with LAT: "President Obama all but endorsed Nancy Pelosi to continue to lead House Democrats on Sunday, defending her as she faces a challenge to her position from restive members of the Democratic caucus."
"Although he is reticent to “meddle” in party votes while he is on the way out the door, Obama said at a news conference that he “cannot speak highly enough” of the first female House speaker, who has been a key ally on some of his most important work as president."
"She combines strong progressive values with just extraordinary political skill, and she does stuff that’s tough, not just stuff that’s easy,” Obama said when asked whether the California Democrat should be reelected to her position."
Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to figure out who the next chairman of the DNC will be.
MARK Z. BARABAK with LAT: "When Hillary Clinton lost her White House bid, it was a jagged exclamation mark punctuating several painful years for Democrats."
"Come January, the party will have at least 11 fewer U.S. senators, 63 fewer House seats and perhaps a dozen fewer governors than in 2009, duringPresident Obama’s first year in office. Nationally, there will be about 900 fewer Democratic state lawmakers."
"By some benchmarks — the control of state capitols, for instance — the Democratic Party is in worse shape than it has been in more than a century."
A critical senate race in Southern California is still undecided.
JORDAN GRAHAM with OC Register: "A still-undecided Southern California state Senate race that will determine the balance of power in the California statehouse narrowed considerably over the weekend, bringing Democrats within striking distance of gaining a two-thirds legislative supermajority in Sacramento."
"As of Sunday, Fullerton Democrat Josh Newman had pulled within 187 votes of Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, R-Diamond Bar, in the race for the 29th state Senate District, which straddles Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties."
"Newman’s late surge has nearly eliminated the 5,051-vote lead Chang held on Wednesday. And with several thousand votes left to be counted in that contest, the race could swing either direction in the coming weeks."
An undocumented, Pulitzer Prize winning author warns of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the United States.
STEPHEN MAGAGNINI with Sacramento Bee: "Jose Antonio Vargas left the Philippines for Northern California at 12 and has spent 23 years fighting to become a legal resident. He hasn’t succeeded, despite sharing in a Pulitzer Prize at The Washington Post in 2008."
"Now he says he is fighting for thousands of “Dreamers” – young undocumented immigrants brought here as children who finished high school and legally obtained their work permits but could face deportation by the Trump administration, which has called for the removal of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants."
"On Monday, Vargas – founder of Define American, a nonprofit media and culture organization built around immigration and citizenship, and editor of #EmergingUS – will be the keynote speaker at the Keeping The Dream Alive Summit from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Sacramento State’s University Union Ballroom."
Southern California may see some possible flooding with an incoming storm.
MATT STEVENS and SHELBY GRAD with LAT: "A winter storm moved into Southern California on Sunday afternoon, bringing scattered showers and warnings of more significant rainfall and possible flooding in some areas in the evening."
"The rain was already causing traffic tie ups on roads and freeways throughout the region, officials said. Forecasters warned of flooding in parts of downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, Alhambra, the South Bay and elsewhere."
"Scott Sukup, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office, said an average of 0.5 to 1.0 inches of rain is expected to fall throughout the Los Angeles basin, with heavier rain possible in the mountains."
Speaking of weather, the Bay Area faces sea level rise--and a whole slew of new issues.
JOHN KING with The Chronicle: "The levee that rings Oakland International Airport seemingly has nothing in common with the salt-crusted stretch of flat land alongside Menlo Park’s Bayfront Park."
"One is a 7-foot-high line of boulders, an engineered barrier between the tidal flows that surge in through the Golden Gate twice daily and the runways used by 10,000 commercial flights every month. The other is quiet desolation, a white void dotted with stagnant pools of water."
"Both, though, are examples of the Bay Area shoreline at risk from the long-term effects of sea level rise — and reminders that there’s no single way to prepare for what might lie ahead."
San Francisco is trying to protect it's sanctuary city status amid a new Trump presidency.
HEATHER KNIGHT and EMILY GREEN with The Chronicle: "Just days after Donald Trump was elected America’s next president, Mayor Ed Lee stood with a line of top city officials on City Hall’s grand marble staircase to promise that San Francisco will uphold its 27-year-old sanctuary city laws protecting people who are in the country illegally."
"“We have been and always will be a city of refuge, a city of sanctuary, a city of love,” Lee told the crowd gathered for a unity ceremony on Monday. “We promise to be a city that’s always welcoming. There are no walls in our city!"
"Other mayors, including those in Portland, Ore., Seattle and Chicago, made the same pledge in the days after the election. Trump’s top immigration adviser, Kris Kobach, promptly fired back. A co-author of Arizona’s controversial 2010 immigration law, Kobach tweeted “End #SanctuaryCities” and shared part of an interview he had done on Fox News."
Republicans in California are becoming more and more of a rare breed, but that still doesn't prevent them from jubilating over their most recent victory.
JENNIFER MEDINA with NYT: "Sandra Eudy has considered leaving for Texas. Tina Larson finds it hard to envision retiring here, with the state’s high taxes eating into her savings. And Greg Surgener would leave, if not for family obligations."
"Republicans are something of an endangered species in California, where Democrats control both houses of the Legislature and all statewide elected offices. For the first time since the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, even Orange County, long viewed as the cradle of the Republican Party in California, voted for Hillary Clinton."
"But not here."
Widespread fear of Trump's immigration policies are causing palpable fear in the Bay Area, but many wonder how exactly his plans will work.
THOMAS PEELE and TATIANA SANCHEZ with EBT: "To achieve his goal of deporting two to three million immigrants with criminal records, President-elect Donald Trump would have to go after hundreds of thousands of people in California, including some with green cards who have minor convictions on their records, immigration and legal experts say."
"High in hyperbole but short on details, Trump’s plan raises many more questions than it answers, but immigrant advocates are girding for a crisis, urging potential deportees to meet with lawyers now and make “safety plans.”
"And perhaps nowhere in the country would the plan meet more resistance than California and the Bay Area, where state and local leaders say they will defy Trump’s demands that they drop so-called “sanctuary” policies or face cuts in federal aid."
Capitol Weekly sits down with Donald Trump's west coast operations manager.
CW: "Capitol Weekly sits down with Donald Trump's man in California, Tim Clark. Clark ran Trump's west coast operation out of his Auburn, California offices, directing thousands of volunteers and staff. One and a half million phone calls later, Donald Trump was the winner of the 2016 election. Clark talks about his work on the Trump campaign and his next steps as he heads to Washington DC to work on the transition."
Trump's school voucher plan faces opposition in California.
LOUIS FREEDBERG with EdSource: "While K-12 education issues were rarely mentioned in the 2016 presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trumps’s proposal to give children taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend a range of schools, including private schools, could find fertile ground in his administration."
"The idea has never been popular among California voters, and union leaders and those close to them view it with trepidation."
"Josh Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, said that with Congress under GOP control, enactment of Trump’s voucher plan was a “scary prospect.” Steve Zimmer, president of the Los Angeles Unified school board, worried that Trump would promote a “radical deregulation policy” that would include “federally implemented vouchers."
READ MORE related to KQED: Helping third-graders cope with post-election fears -- ZAIDEE STAVELY with KQED
Some wonder if California's rising cannabis industry can save the labor movement.
BILL SWINDELL with Press Democrat: "One of the biggest impacts of Proposition 64, which legalized marijuana, will likely be felt by the estimated 300,000 to 350,000 workers in the California cannabis industry."
"Whether they are farmworkers, trimmigrants who each year head to Humboldt County to process the crop, or retail clerks helping to legally sell various forms of the plant, there are workplace issues to be resolved."
"Cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, listed as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. But the fact is many employees will now be able to come out of the shadows and may find a more worker-friendly environment evolving in this multi-billion-dollar industry, analysts said."
READ MORE related to Cannabis: Trump's choice for top law enforcer has cannabis proponents fearing future -- NATHAN ROTT with CPR
