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“You are going to be talking about Democrat-on-Democrat crime, for the
most part,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford
University’s Hoover Institution. “What also is certain is that the next
governor is going to be more progressive than Jerry Brown.”
[While the country shifts to the right, California keeps moving left]
The prescription here for Democrats in a state where few — if any —
will need to moderate their positions for the general election is
simple. “You go left,” said Karen Skelton, a Democratic consultant here.
[...]
Candidates will be forced to defend California’s “sanctuary state”
status on immigration and push investment in the solar power and
electric car industries to reach strict environmental goals. They also
will have to address a sexual harassment scandal that, in Democratic
consultant Bill Carrick’s description, “hangs like a black cloud” over
a State Capitol where two Democratic lawmakers have resigned and
another has been suspended.
[...]
The Trump administration has criticized the “sanctuary state” law,
passed last year, as a way of protecting criminals. Federal authorities
have indicated immigration raids might happen in California soon.
In response, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose mother was
born in Mexico and whose father was raised there, warned California
businesses that they might be subject to prosecution if they cooperate
with federal officials.
“Donald Trump wants us to go back to ‘Make America Great Again,’ and to
me those are the days that my dad could not walk into a restaurant
because of signs that said ‘No dogs or Mexicans,’ ” said Becerra, who
after his appointment to his post last year is seeking statewide
election for the first time. “I think of the issue in those terms.”
State Sen. Kevin de León, the Los Angeles-area Democrat who runs the
Senate chamber, wrote the sanctuary state bill. He hopes to harness
Latino enthusiasm to his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by
Dianne Feinstein, a five-term incumbent nearly three decades older than
he is.
During the recent federal government shutdown, Feinstein voted against
reopening the government because the deal did nothing to protect
undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children, roughly
220,000 of whom live in California. Democratic consultants here say
Feinstein’s move to the left is inevitable given de León’s
resistance-inspired candidacy.
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