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Super Tuesday, Luskin-Style

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As Super Tuesday drew to a close after 72 hours of campaign twists and turns, Public Policy students and faculty flocked to a watch party at the Luskin School for pizza and political talk. The contest for the Democratic presidential nomination as a two-man race came into focus as returns came in from across the country. In addition to weighing the merits of Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, students talked about state and local races and the new voting centers rolled out by Los Angeles County for the March 3 primary. Many in the room wore “I Voted” stickers after casting their ballots at Ackerman Union. The crowd also included half a dozen international students who were fascinated by the political process unfolding before them. Professors Martin Gilens and Mark Peterson provided context and commentary as hosts of the event. They were joined by Associate Professor Wesley Yin and Visiting Professor Michael Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic nominee. Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, shared their own unique perspectives with students at the watch party.

View more photos on Flickr.

 

Super Tuesday Watch Party

UCLA Luskin Research Informs State’s Water Affordability Actions Effort for California Legislature represents the first statewide picture of California’s water affordability challenges

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By Stan Paul

Researchers at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation helped develop and inform recommendations for a report released this week by the California State Water Resources Board aimed at establishing a statewide low-income rate assistance program for water.

The report was requested from the Water Board, within the California Environmental Protection Agency, by the California State Legislature via AB 401, which passed in 2015.

In creating the report, Water Board staff worked with UCLA lead investigator and author Gregory Pierce and Center for Innovation (LCI) colleagues Nicholas Chow, J.R. DeShazo and Kyra Gmoser-Daskalakis.

“We gathered and analyzed data on water rates, household incomes, and other low-income assistance programs to create the first statewide picture of California’s water affordability challenges,” said Pierce, LCI associate director and senior researcher for the center’s Water, Environmental Equity and Transportation programs.

To date no federal government or state has developed or administered a water rate assistance program, added Pierce, who is also an adjunct assistant professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

In California, about 13 million people (34%) live in households with income under 200% of the federal poverty level ($50,200 for a family of four in 2018). At the same time, retail cost of water has risen over the past decade and will continue to rise, while low-income households continue to struggle, according to the report. Among several reasons offered to support a statewide water affordability program include the fact that the majority of the state’s more than 3,000 water systems are too small to support low-income programs by themselves.

“Through research, we are broadly supporting efforts to implement policy to make the human right to water a reality,” said Pierce, explaining that affordability is one of three dimensions of the human right to water, which also includes quality and accessibility.

Recommended in the report is a three-part strategy to comprehensively address water affordability for low-income Californians, including those who pay indirectly through rent. The recommendations are: a direct water bill credit, a renter’s water credit, and water crisis assistance.

If implemented in full by lawmakers, the effort is expected to cost about $600 million in the first year. This would include administrative expenses as well as billing modifications.

The report also identifies possible revenue sources, including tax increases, which would require a two-thirds approval by the state legislature or voter approval via a ballot initiative.

Another Win for the UCLA Voting Rights Project

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The UCLA Voting Rights Project, a research, advocacy and clinical program within the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative of the Luskin School of Public Affairs, celebrated its role in defeating a challenge to the California Motor Voter law. The case is the third legal win for the Voting Rights Project this academic year, making it undefeated thus far in the courts. A 2015 state law created California’s motor voter system, designed to make it easier for citizens to register to vote by automatically adding eligible DMV customers to the voter rolls unless they opt out. In September, plaintiffs sued in an attempt to put an end to the law and force motor voter customers to prove citizenship by showing their papers. The Voting Rights Project intervened on behalf of affected individuals and presented strong papers, leading the plaintiffs to dismiss the case, said Chad Dunn, the project’s director of litigation. The project is now assessing cases around the country, including in Kansas, New Mexico and rural Washington, as well as in Orange, Ventura and other California counties.

 

Newton on Decision to Leave Congressional Seat Vacant

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Public policy lecturer Jim Newton spoke to Reuters news service about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to leave the congressional seat vacated by U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter unfilled throughout 2020. Hunter submitted his resignation after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges. His district, encompassing parts of San Diego and Riverside counties, will go without elected representation as Democrats and Republicans vie to win the seat in November elections. Newton said the governor had no particular political motive to rush a special election to fill Hunter’s seat. He said the yearlong vacancy probably gives Democrats a slight edge in providing more time to mount a campaign operation and raise money in a district that remains heavily Republican by registration but is, like much of California, moving to the left.

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Manville Speaks to Inevitability of Congestion Pricing

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Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the logic behind congestion pricing. While the idea of paying for freeway use has prompted backlash from drivers, transportation experts argue that congestion pricing is the only way to combat the traffic problem in California. “What happens on the 405 every day is what happens at Best Buy and Target on Black Friday,” Manville said. With the implementation of congestion pricing, “those who can afford to pay the fees are able to avoid congestion for a reliable daily commute, while presumably lessening traffic for those who don’t pay and use the general lane,” he said. Toll lane expansion is in the works across the state, including plans in Los Angeles, Riverside, Alameda and Orange counties. “People who study congestion have known for a long time that the only thing [that will relieve congestion] is dynamic pricing,” Manville said.

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Goh on Rethinking Homeownership in Face of Deadly Wildfires

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Kian Goh, assistant professor of urban planning, wrote an article for The Nation about California’s raging wildfires, the deadly stakes of global warming and a key aspect of the crisis that has not captured headlines: “Yes, climate change intensifies the fires — but the ways in which we plan and develop our cities makes them even more destructive,” Goh argued. Private homeownership, a key part of the American Dream for generations, is an ideal that has blinded us to safer and more sustainable priorities, she wrote. She called for new urban designs that protect whole communities, including their most vulnerable members, rather than individual lots. “Given the scope and scale of the climate crisis, it is shocking that we are being presented with so few serious, comprehensive alternatives for how to live,” Goh wrote. “We need another kind of escape route — away from our ideologies of ownership and property, and toward more collective, healthy and just cities.”

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Newton on California’s Strained Quality of Life

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The New York Times spoke with public policy lecturer Jim Newton for an article about California’s socioeconomic conundrum: The state has a thriving $3-trillion economy with record low unemployment, but also has a pernicious housing and homelessness problem and faces a future of ever-worsening wildfires. California’s biggest cities, plagued by traffic and trash, have gone from the places other regions tried to emulate to the places they’re terrified of becoming, the article noted, adding that the state has lost more than 1 million residents to other states since 2006. “What’s happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country,” Newton said. “It’s a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.”

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25 Years Beyond Proposition 187 With a new school curriculum, media archive and documentary, LPPI is sharing lessons from the fight against the anti-immigrant ballot initiative

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By Zoe Day

Twenty-five years after Proposition 187 was approved by California voters, UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (LPPI) is working to ensure that the lessons of the Latino activist movement that fought against it are not forgotten.

The 1994 ballot initiative sought to deny social services to undocumented immigrants but instead set off a political earthquake, inspiring many Latino activist leaders to make their debut in politics.

Eventually struck down as unconstitutional, Proposition 187 marked a profound turning point for Californians and yielded important lessons for other states about immigrant rights, electoral participation and collective action in the face of bigotry.

UCLA students Cira Sandoval, left, and Amado Castillo help digitize historic photos for a Proposition 187 media archive.

As the 2020 election and Census approach, LPPI has pledged to ensure that Latino voices and experiences remain a part of policy-making decisions across the country.

Sonja Diaz, founding director of LPPI, described the parallels between 1994 and today.

“I remember hitting a piñata of Gov. Pete Wilson at the Prop. 187 rally in downtown Los Angeles. In 2016, on my way from L.A. to Virginia for the presidential campaign, I saw Donald Trump piñatas in Arizona and Texas,” Diaz said. “The similarities between California in the 1990s and the U.S. as a whole today are unreal.”

As a founding member of the We Are CA advocacy campaign, LPPI is playing a critical role in equipping future generations of voters and leaders with accurate information and an understanding of history, she said.

For example, Diaz co-developed a middle school and high school curriculum to share the lessons of Proposition 187. The curriculum explores the impact of student protests in shaping public opinion and the role of litigation and advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in helping defeat Proposition 187 in the courts.

In addition to organizing a “Rally for Our Rights” in downtown Los Angeles in November, LPPI and We Are CA have launched a project to create a documentary and media archive of the activist movement. Archival content about Proposition 187 includes articles, photos, flyers and audio recordings.

LPPI fellow Amado Castillo, a third-year undergraduate student, worked directly with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center to collect and digitize photos for the documentary, which will be produced by KCET.

“The effort to take away the rights of California’s immigrants more than 25 years ago continues to shape politics beyond the state to this day,” Castillo said. “UCLA, its student activists and professors have played a key role in shaping that history, and it is critical that we document that historical work to ensure that we learn from the mistakes and lessons of the past.

“Now, more than ever, we need to highlight the stories of those who experienced a political awakening as a result of Prop. 187.”

Cora Cervantes contributed to this article.

Blumenberg on Affordable Car Insurance in California

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Evelyn Blumenberg, director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and professor of urban planning, spoke to WalletHub about affordable car insurance in California. Studies have shown that drivers from minority neighborhoods have higher insurance rates than other households, and Blumenberg advised states to regulate insurance companies to minimize such disparities. She also encouraged a transparent system of rate-setting that limits the use of factors not linked to driving safety, such as occupation, education and credit score. Blumenberg also pointed out that many drivers have difficulty understanding the full costs of owning a car, such as out-of-pocket expenses as well as congestion, environmental harms and other social costs. But she noted, “If access to a car increases employment outcomes (as many studies show), then the benefits of having a car must be weighed against the costs.”

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Rowe on California’s Struggle to Regulate Cannabis

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