News Clips

But discriminatory laws and practices do not have Asian American exemptions. Stein pointed out that there is no Asian American exemption to a federal public charge rule that targets immigrants. There is no Asian American exemption to deportations or to racially gerrymandered districts. To Stein, the rise in xenophobia and anti-Asian sentiment during the coronavirus pandemic makes this even more apparent.

Ranked choice’s superiority is perhaps most clear in situations like this year’s Super Tuesday, where early voting combines with a big field. But it has other advantages; among them: It can prevent “vote-splitting” in races with multiple candidates from one party. For state and municipal elections, it can replace expensive winnowing caucuses and primaries altogether, saving money and time, but still giving voters the same level of choice...

But spokesman Sean McMorris with the good-government group Common Cause California said in an interview that if Modesto believes Rank Investigation & Protection is the best company, then the city should have proved it by having it compete through a request for proposals. “If this is the best person for the job,” he said, “they still will get the contract if it goes out to an RFP.” McMorris said there is no justifiable reason for a city not to issue a large contract through a request for proposals or other formal competitive process that will draw a lot of responses, giving a city a full range of companies to evaluate before picking one.

"There are legitimate uses of streamlining, but we want to ensure the proposed penalty structure does not eliminate important deterrents to violators,” said Kathryn Phillips, a spokeswoman for California Common Cause.

When the Los Angeles City Council ultimately approved the new system Wednesday, the California Clean Money Campaign, California Common Cause and other groups said they were sorely disappointed.

"When politicians feel brazen enough to not just admit but to openly declare that they are drawing political lines to rig the elections and punish certain voters, we need the Supreme Court to step in and say enough is enough," said Kathay Feng, a lawyer representing the challenges from Common Cause.