Tag: San Francisco

But the candidates don’t want to discuss any of this. “It’s more about the donor amounts than the dollar amounts.” But, Ms. Dacey added of big donors, “They still need them.” Two prominent candidates, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have disavowed the traditional money circuit entirely — a safe bet for Mr. Sanders, whose online donor network amply funded his 2016 run, but a far riskier gambit for Ms. Warren, who has a far smaller base of low-dollar contributors. He has held no fund-raisers so far and has none planned yet in the future, according to his campaign. [Keep up with the 2020 field with our candidate tracker.] “When I see a 202 number these days, I don’t usually answer it,” said Amber Mostyn, a Houston-based attorney and prominent Democratic fund-raiser, joking about the Washington area code and the number of candidates who have reached out for help. According to several donors as well as invitations obtained by The New York Times, four senators — Mr. Booker, Ms. Gillibrand, Ms. Harris and Ms. Klobuchar — have been particularly aggressive on the national donor circuit. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Gov. So while a recent trip by Ms. Harris to Texas drew headlines for her decision to rally in the home state of Mr. O’Rourke, the visit was also about raising money, with a fund-raiser at the Dallas home of Jill Louis, a partner in the law firm K&L Gates. Mitchell Berger, a longtime South Florida fund-raiser and self-described political “dinosaur,” who fondly recalls his work on behalf of a young Al Gore in 1987, rattled off the names of five candidates that had called him. In April, Steven Rattner and Blair Effron, two prominent donors in New York, are planning a dinner for unaligned donors to discuss how and when to engage in a primary contest that is more unpredictable than any in a generation.

$25 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $10 for students. Noon, 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. $10, students free. Party for Socialism and Liberation. Gates open at 11 a.m., rally at 12:30 p.m. More information is here. 6 p.m., Pinole City Hall, 2131 Pear St. More information is here. Sponsored by the Community Water Center, Sierra Club California, and the David Brower Center. Sponsored by Berkeley College Republicans. 7 p.m., Evans Hall, UC Berkeley. $25 for members, $10 for students.

$25 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $10 for students. Noon, 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. $10, students free. Party for Socialism and Liberation. Gates open at 11 a.m., rally at 12:30 p.m. More information is here. 6 p.m., Pinole City Hall, 2131 Pear St. More information is here. Sponsored by the Community Water Center, Sierra Club California, and the David Brower Center. Sponsored by Berkeley College Republicans. 7 p.m., Evans Hall, UC Berkeley. $25 for members, $10 for students.

Tagg, 69, sold his San Jose home and moved his family to Arizona in 2014. “I’m a good old Republican,” Tagg said. “I just saw the writing on the wall.” The Bay Area has become one of the most popular places in the country to leave in recent years. One-party domination in Sacramento and constant chafing with neighbors has driven conservative Bay Area refugees to communities in Texas, Idaho, Colorado and Florida. Former residents say their views on immigration and taxes put them on the margins of a region they once embraced. San Jose State political scientist Larry Gerston said the region’s rising taxes have pinched many high-income residents, while low-income residents are burdened by the high cost of living. DeStefano, 72, and his wife bought a home and moved into a gated retirement community in Fort Meyers, Florida, in late 2017. “California will become the next Venezuela in five years,” DeStefano said. Politics was “99 percent” of the reason for a move, he said. But the Bay Area, he said, “is really not worth it.”

A San Francisco-based district court judge in the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census "threatens the very foundation of our democratic system" because it would cause a significant undercount of immigrants and Latinos that could distort the distribution of congressional seats. The ruling by Judge Richard Seeborg, which will head to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals if challenged by the government, said the Commerce secretary's decision to add the question was arbitrary and capricious and would violate a constitutional requirement that the census accurately count the U.S. population. "Indeed, I have argued in a brief filed in the Supreme Court that the 'excluding Indians not taxed' language in the [Constitution's] apportionment clause requires that only citizens be counted. Furman also found the question violated administrative requirements, but he rejected an argument that it violated the Constitution. The clause states, "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." Seeborg ruled in lawsuits by California and several cities in the state that asserted the citizenship question was politically motivated and should be kept off the census. Census numbers are used to determine states' distribution of congressional seats and billions of dollars in federal funding. The Justice Department had argued that census officials take steps such as making in-person follow-up visits to get an accurate count. The Trump administration announced last March it would include a citizenship question on the 2020 count, saying the Justice Department requested its inclusion to help with enforcement of voting rights laws. Seeborg rejected the claim that the citizenship question stemmed from a request by the Justice Department, calling that a "pretext" for the real reason to add it.

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Trump's nominee to be a judge on the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a party-line vote -- and, in a historic snub, the White House ignored the input of the judge's two Democratic home-state senators in the process. Miller was one the 51 federal judicial nominees left over from the previous Congress whom the White House re-nominated last month. Miller, currently the appellate chairman of the high-powered law firm Perkins Coie, will replace Judge Richard Tallman, a Bill Clinton appointee who assumed senior status March 2018. Miller represented the government before the Supreme Court when he served from 2007 to 2012 as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. Among those objecting to Miller's nomination were Washington State's two Democratic senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Aides say Miller's confirmation marks the first time the Senate has strayed from tradition and confirmed a judicial nominee over the dissent of both home-state senators. “This is wrong. The White House has previously signaled it will also plow ahead with other 9th Circuit nominations in other states without using the "blue slip" consultation process. “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” Trump tweeted. “It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an ‘independent judiciary,’ but if it is why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned,” Trump continued.

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it’s canceling $929 million of federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project and demanding the return of $2.6 billion that’s already been spent. The administration made its move a week after Newsom suggested that the state was refocusing its $77 billion plan to run 220-mph trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco. President Trump seized on the governor’s statement in a tweet, calling California’s rail plan a “disaster” and saying he wanted the state to return federal money that has been invested in the project. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican and close Trump ally who has long opposed the high-speed rail project, also celebrated its “extinction.” Related Stories In a letter sent Tuesday to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Ronald Batory, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, noted Newsom’s “significant retreat” from the state’s original plan. Batory wrote that the high-speed rail authority reported spending only $48 million in December, far short of the $142 million officials committed to design and construction activities, and that “other months show the same shortfall of expenditures as compared to the state contribution commitment.” He said the Federal Railroad Administration had determined that California would be unable to meet its 2022 deadline to complete the first section of track from Madera, north of Fresno, to Shafter, near Bakersfield. The agency is “exploring all available legal options,” Batory wrote, to recover more than $2 billion of stimulus money that it awarded in 2010 for the project. The governor said he just wanted to get the Central Valley segment, which is under construction, up and running first. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2019 California joined 15 other states to file suit against the Trump administration on Monday for declaring a national emergency to secure funding for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border without going through Congress. “This is clear political retribution by President Trump, and we won’t sit idly by,” Newsom said. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com, alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander, @akoseff

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted President Trump’s suspension of a 32-year-old nuclear arms treaty with Russia on Friday as dangerous and irresponsible, and warned it could prompt a new arms race. Pompeo said that if Russia isn’t abiding by the treaty, then neither will the U.S., starting a six-month countdown until the agreement officially ends. But Pelosi, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee before she became speaker for the first time a dozen years ago, said the administration should have tried to work through its differences with Russia before moving to kill the treaty. But to throw it out like that is a gift to Vladimir Putin.” Pelosi’s fear is that, freed of having to even appear to abide by the treaty, Putin will embark on an arms race in which Russia will put missiles even closer to NATO nations. “What do the Russians have on the president politically, financially or personally that he is their handmaiden?” Pelosi said. She also expressed concern about Friday’s move in light of a U.S. intelligence threat assessment that Russia and China “are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.” The assessment said Russia and China are growing stronger “across all domains,” including in their quest for “technological and military superiority.” Pelosi said she is concerned that Trump is ignoring what intelligence agencies are reporting about Russia and other U.S. adversaries. He doesn’t have to know the facts, so he doesn’t have to act upon them.” Asked by reporters at the White House about Pelosi’s concerns about an arms race, Trump said, “Honestly, I don’t think she has a clue, I really don’t. She doesn’t know and I wish she did because she’s running this country so badly. Trump told the New York Times in an interview posted late Thursday that “if she doesn’t approve a wall,” congressional negotiations about border security are “just a waste of money and time and energy.” Having failed to get Democrats to give him money for a wall during the 35-day partial shutdown of the government, Trump is now broadly hinting that he’ll try to secure funding by declaring a national emergency on the southern border. Pelosi told The Chronicle that the president’s comments were “classic Trump ... by projecting his own shortcomings in terms of this wall discussion onto me.” “The president’s comments are par for the course for him.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past extramarital relationship with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in his weekly column Saturday, saying he may have boosted the presidential hopeful's career. "Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago," Brown wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "That's politics for ya." "The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as jaywalked' while she was D.A.” — Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco Brown appointed Harris -- about 30 years younger than Brown and just a few years out of law school – to two well-paid state commission assignments on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission, the Washington Free Beacon reported. "Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work," Harris said in a 2003 interview with SF Weekly. "I brought a level of life knowledge and common sense to the jobs." Brown's involvement in her election raised questions as to how Harris would remain impartial, given his enormous political clout. During his two terms as mayor of San Francisco, Brown was known for his charm, arrogance and ego, according to a 1996 profile in People magazine.

Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. [Get On Politics delivered to your inbox.] Late Thursday afternoon, he revoked her military transport for a secret trip to Afghanistan — a visit to a war zone that Mr. Trump derided as a “public relations event.” He suggested Ms. Pelosi, third in line for the presidency, fly commercial. Now, none of the fighting over flights gets the country any closer to ending a government shutdown that’s crippling the finances of 800,000 federal workers and starting to have economic impacts far bigger than even the White House anticipated. Dozens of Democrats spent months campaigning against supporting Ms. Pelosi as speaker. Ms. Pelosi kept Representative Kathleen Rice’s name off the list of suggested members for the Judiciary Committee, a powerful spot that will be at the center of investigations into Mr. Trump — and any possible impeachment. Divided government, a special counsel investigation, the longest government shutdown in history, the biggest Democratic primary field in decades, secretive meetings with Russia — at this point in the Trump administration, we’ve written “unprecedented” so much that it’s become a cliché. This is, “Wait, can they do that?” Our first topic: Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking President Trump to scrap or delay his State of the Union address. After George Washington gave the first address on Jan. 8, 1790, in New York, the practiced continued for about a decade. Thanks for reading.