Kern County elections will shape California, country

Note: The amazing Ben Christopher shall be handling the newsletter on Monday and Tuesday. I’ll see you Wednesday!

Don’t underestimate Kern County.

This swath of land within the southern Central Valley produces 70% of California’s oil, and industry groups have already raised greater than $8 million to collect signatures for a 2024 referendum to overturn a latest law banning latest or extensively retrofitted oil and gas wells inside 3,200 feet of sensitive areas akin to homes, schools and hospitals.

• Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association, which is spearheading the referendum effort, said in a press release: “Governor Gavin Newsom may say he’s going after energy firms, but in point of fact, he’s going after the high-paying careers of over 50,000 hardworking Californians on the heels of greater than two years of COVID-19 related economic turmoil and a looming recession.”
• Newsom’s office tweeted Thursday: “Keeping harmful drilling near schools & homes will NOT lower gas prices. Oil firms are using record profits to fight a law that protects kids from the impacts of drilling of their communities — including increased risks of cancer, asthma, & more.”

Kern County also represents certainly one of California and the country’s best pieces of political turf, CalMatters’ Ben Christopher and Ariel Gans write on this deeply reported story examining three overlapping toss-up races within the weeks leading as much as the Nov. 8 election:

As Ben and Ariel write, the final result of all three races will largely hinge on voters in east Bakersfield — historically town’s poorer, Latino and fewer politically powerful side — in addition to voters within the ag towns of Shafter, Delano and McFarland. 

There are a whole lot of unique dynamics at play on this a part of the Central Valley, which has more conservative Democrats than every other a part of the state. Kern County is the middle of California’s agricultural and oil industries; it also has the state’s highest homicide rate. Its electorate is majority Latino, but voters here are inclined to be less liberal than Latinos in coastal parts of California.

And the population is growing — and changing — quickly: Bakersfield’s population grew faster than that of any of California’s most populous cities in 2020. Demographics are shifting, too: Along with a growing Latino population, town is home to sizable Sikh and Punjabi communities.

Perez, who’s running for the state Assembly seat, became the primary Latina elected to the Kern County Board of Supervisors in 2013. And her opponent, Bains, could be the primary Sikh and the primary South Asian woman within the state Legislature if elected.

The coronavirus bottom line: As of Tuesday, California had 10,476,942 confirmed cases and 95,808 deaths, in line with state data now updated only once per week on Thursdays. CalMatters can be tracking coronavirus hospitalizations by county.

California has administered 82,974,516 vaccine doses, and 72.3% of eligible Californians have accomplished their primary vaccine series.

Other Stories You Should Know

1
Bonta tells law enforcement to be looking out

Within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning federal abortion protections, many states are taking steps to manage actions outside their borders. And people regulations could take deceiving forms, Attorney General Rob Bonta warned California law enforcement in a Thursday memo outlining how they need to reply to requests for help from agencies in states where abortion is restricted or outlawed. Although California law enforcement is banned from helping out-of-state investigations into patients looking for reproductive health care within the Golden State, out-of-state agencies “might conceal their intent under the guise of investigations into other crimes, akin to child endangerment, child abuse, drug abuse, concealing a death, or murder,” Bonta’s office said in a press release.

2
Growing push for Central American Studies at California colleges

Of the roughly 7 million people within the U.S. who were either born in or can trace their roots back to Central America — a region that features El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica and Belize — 1 / 4 live in California. And, as momentum for ethnic studies grows across the state — it’s a graduation requirement for each highschool and California State University students — East Los Angeles Community College is launching the state’s first two-year degree program in Central American Studies, Itzel Luna reports for CalMatters’ College Journalism Network. This system, which is about to start within the spring, will offer five courses transferable to the UC and CSU systems.

• Jocelyn Duarte, a professor of Central American Studies at East Los Angeles College and CSU Northridge: “Because the summer of 2020, we now have a whole lot of people talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. … We’ve been fighting for this. Now, it’s time to amplify the conversation.”
• Iris Ramirez, a UCLA student pursuing a Ph.D. in Chicana/o and Central American Studies: “I feel a whole lot of us hope that we will have our own space once the institution understands that we will’t homogenize Latinos. We should always get our own autonomy and never at all times need to ask the query of why we’re essential inside the context of Chicano Studies.” 

3
One other round of eye-popping climate studies

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this week was chock-full of concerning California climate studies. You could remember those mentioned in Tuesday’s newsletter, including one which found wildfires in 2020 — California’s worst wildfire yr on record — resulted in greater than double the entire greenhouse gas emissions slashed by the state from 2003 to 2019, and one other that found greenhouse gas emissions skyrocketed on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2021.

Here’s a better take a look at three studies that received media attention Thursday:

• Greenhouse gas emissions from large California facilities, including power plants and refineries, increased by about 2 million metric tons in 2021 in comparison with the yr before, in line with latest data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analyzed by the San Francisco Chronicle. There was the same uptick nationwide in 2021 resulting from an “increase in economic activity following the economic slowdown and reduce in emissions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the agency said in a press release.
• Gas stoves in California are leaking greater than 4 tons of the cancer-causing pollutant benzene every yr, reminiscent of the benzene emissions from about nearly 60,000 cars, in line with a study published within the journal Environmental Science and Technology. These emissions, which are usually not accounted for by the state, are a “good reason to encourage electrification not only for the climate, but for health, too,” Stanford University earth scientist Rob Jackson, who wasn’t involved within the study, told the Recent York Times.
• And about 21 times more Californians are often respiratory air with unhealthy levels of wildfire smoke than they were a decade ago, from about 200,000 people in 2010 to about 4.5 million in 2020, in line with one other paper published in Environmental Science and Technology and analyzed by KQED. “It’s hard to consider one other environmental exposure where things have modified so quickly,” climate economist Marshall Burke, associate professor of Earth system science on the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and co-author of the paper, told KQED.

Other things value your time

Some stories may require a subscription to read

Newsom pledged to finish chronic homelessness as S.F. mayor. It stays his biggest challenge. // Sacramento Bee

‘Loads of cases will get one other look’: More convictions will be challenged over racial bias under latest California law. // San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco mayor apologizes for saying ‘a whole lot of’ drug dealers are Honduran. // Los Angeles Times

In Los Angeles, politics are more complex than a racist recording indicates. // Recent York Times

State Senate candidate Aisha Wahab says she received death threats resulting from false campaign mailers. // San Francisco Chronicle

Top S.F. public health official drew second six-figure salary from drug nonprofit as its funds unraveled. // San Francisco Standard

How the tip of federal COVID funding will shift cost to California consumers. // Mercury News

California full undergraduate enrollment declines have slowed, but still ‘troubling.’ // EdSource

Professors sue California State University system over caste anti-discrimination policy. // Yahoo News

Black developers won’t work with De León on $1.6 billion Angels Landing project. // Los Angeles Times

Celebration for S.F.’s $1.7 million toilet canceled after backlash: ‘The fee is insane.’ // San Francisco Chronicle

Is Santa Monica about to get Manhattanized? // Slate

Bay Area sees ‘eviction tsunami’ as pandemic renter protections end. // Mercury News

Are S.F. landlords sitting on tens of 1000’s of empty homes? Emptiness tax could put debate to rest. // San Francisco Chronicle

California has lost more groundwater than held in all of its reservoirs. // Recent Scientist

Californians can get $3,000 earthquake retrofit grants. // Los Angeles Times