Hitting all the wrong notes in LA

Your afternoon must-read briefing on politics and government in the Golden State

Feb 22, 2024 View in browser   By Sarah Grace Taylor GOING NEGATIVE: It’s getting kind of ugly out there. With less than two weeks until voting is over in the March primary election, campaign flyers and ads are taking a predictably nasty turn and the mood is definitely getting a little tense. The latest example is in the state’s Assembly District 57, a swath of downtown and South-Central Los Angeles now represented by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who’s leaving the seat because of term limits. Four Democrats are jockeying in the primary to represent a solidly blue district that was historically Black but is now largely Latino. Among the candidates are Efren Martinez, who ran against Jones-Sawyer in 2020, and Sade Elhawary, a community organizer and educator. Martinez went on the attack this weekend with a text from his campaign that was kind of a doozy — arguably sexist, xenophobic and maybe a little ageist at the same time. It comes at a particularly painful time in Black-Latino relations in Los Angeles after the 2022 leaked tape scandal that rocked the City Council. The ad called Elhawary “shady” for using her middle name — Sade, like the famous singer — instead of her first name, Zeinab. That’s the xenophobic part, reminiscent of those who like to say Barack Hussein Obama to emphasize the former president’s full name to suggest his otherness. The sexist and perhaps ageist bit are the photos in the ad, showing the candidate in casual clothes and appearing to be drinking with friends, which is perfectly acceptable behavior even for an assemblymember last time we checked. The ads have drawn a harsh response. “We hope that people would have respectful disagreements on policy,” said Assemblymember Lori Wilson, speaking on behalf of the Legislative Black Caucus. “You can even attack someone's past or leverage that. But using otherism is unacceptable.” Assemblymember Tina McKinnor said the ad was an attempt to “Blacken” Elhawary to scare off Latino voters. She was also dismayed to see the phrase “protect our children” paired with the photo of the candidate apparently drinking alcohol. “This looks really bad because nothing she’s doing is against the law and we don’t want to fan the flame of hate like this,” McKinnor said. McKinnor also noted that the ad suggests Martinez may feel politically threatened by Elhawary. “It’s clear that he is feeling desperate about the campaign,” McKinnor said. Elhawary, who has a 21-year-old foster daughter, was bothered by the assertion that she lied about having a foster daughter but laughed off the photos of her taking shots. “The response I got from this attack ad, especially from the Latinos, was ‘Wow, you look like a badass,’” she said. The Martinez campaign did not respond to requests for comment. IT’S THURSDAY AFTERNOON. This is California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check on California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to sgtaylor@politico.com or send a shout on X. DMs are open. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY BAILING OUT CALIFORNIA: California should close more of its prisons than planned and could save nearly $1 billion by doing so amid a massive budget deficit, the Legislative Analyst’s Office said today. Around 15,000 prison beds sit empty across the state — the result of policies reducing sentences and parole periods for some crimes that were meant to make the criminal justice system less punitive. California, as a result of those policies, has closed prisons in Susanville and Tracy in recent years and plans to deactivate another one in March 2025. But the Newsom administration has argued further closures could reduce the number of classrooms and workspaces available to inmates — key pieces of the state’s strategy for reducing recidivism. The LAO says the state could shut down five facilities given projections that inmate populations will dwindle further, even though doing so could create added costs for rehabilitation programs. The costs, however, would be offset by the nearly $1 billion in savings, the nonpartisan analyst said. It’s still unclear how California Democrats’ rightward shift on crime this year could affect incarceration rates moving forward. But Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders have in the last few weeks backed increased penalties for retail theft and several lawmakers are carrying bills that would take a harder tack on other crimes. For now, California’s prison population is projected to fall by around 2,500 next fiscal year, or 3 percent. — Blake Jones Gov. Gavin Newsom | AP ON THE BEATS ALARMING AI — More than 300 experts in technology and ethics signed a letter drafted by UC Berkeley researchers this week urging governments around the world to guard against deepfakes — the artificially generated images and videos that have been used to impersonate celebrities and politicians. The letter, authored by Andrew Critch, an AI researcher in Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, warns that deepfakes are a “growing threat to society” and calls on leaders to fully criminalize deepfake child pornography, establish criminal penalties for those who create or spread harmful deepfakes, and require software developers to prevent their products from creating the deepfakes. The letter tracks with several bills already introduced in California’s legislature, including a bill by Assemblymember Marc Berman to criminalize AI-generated child sexual abuse content and a proposal by state Sen. Scott Wiener to require the biggest AI models to undergo security checks before deployment. Critch adds that the rate of deepfake creation has ballooned in the past four years, growing by 550 percent from 2019 to 2023. It poses a particular threat to election misinformation. Assemblymember Gail Pellerin this year is championing a bill that would prohibit the use of artificial intelligence in political communication, including mailers, robo calls and video advertisements. — Lara Korte TIMELY REMINDER: California’s political leaders are calling attention to the state constitutional guarantee to reproductive freedom following an Alabama court decision that has forced medical centers there to stop providing in vitro fertilization. Attorney General Rob Bonta said today that letters are going out to pharmacists, health plans and others to make sure they are aware that state law requires contraception access, including for minors. The letters come in response to what Bonta in a statement called “unprecedented attacks to reproductive freedom nationwide.” California voters enshrined reproductive freedom into the state constitution last year. In addition to the Alabama court ruling on in vitro, the state’s reminder comes after a recent report from the UCLA School of Law that found that, despite the law, minors are still denied access to contraception because of their age. — Rachel Bluth ROUGH NUMBERS: San Francisco Mayor London Breed is in deep trouble with her November reelection bid, according to a poll commissioned by the San Francisco Chronicle that found 71 percent of likely voters disapproved of her job performance. Moreover, the poll showed that one of her chief rivals, former interim Mayor Mark Farrell, is the first choice for a plurality of voters. He has the support of 20 percent of likely voters, followed by Breed with 18 percent and Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit executive and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, with 16 percent. Farrell’s lead over Breed is within the poll’s margin of error. But Breed’s odds could be even tougher with the city’s ranked-choice voting system. Lurie is the leading second-choice candidate among likely voters, while for more than a third of the people polled, Breed was the last choice out of the four major candidates. The poll could provide a jolt of momentum to Farrell, who officially announced his campaign the day before the poll began. He took to Twitter, saying he was humbled to be “in the lead after only 4 days.” Breed’s camp, meanwhile, responded by touting a dip in crime rates in recent months and said she’s focused on a spate of city ballot measures to improve public safety and combat drug addiction. — Dustin Gardiner WHAT WE'RE READING TODAY BORDER POLICY: The Biden administration is weighing a series of executive actions to reduce migration along the U.S.-Mexico border including a prohibition on making an asylum claim between ports of entry. (POLITICO) PANDA DIPLOMACY: China plans to send a new pair of giant pandas to the San Diego Zoo by the end of summer in a gesture of goodwill between two nations that have had frosty relations in recent years. 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