Posts

Diaz on Caruso’s Entry Into the L.A. Mayor’s Race

/0 Comments/in /by

Sonja Diaz, executive director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, spoke to the Los Angeles Times and New York Times about billionaire developer Rick Caruso’s entry into the race for L.A. mayor. Caruso has said that elected politicians have failed voters on issues such as homelessness and crime. His résumé, which includes serving as head of the city’s Police Commission and chairman of the board of trustees of the University of Southern California, evokes an older generation of Los Angeles power brokers. Diaz said the success of any mayoral candidate will depend, at least in part, on the ability to appeal to Latino voters. “Obviously, COVID-19 has had a disparate impact on Latino households in this city,” she told the L.A. Times. “So a mayor is going to have to articulate a policy agenda that centers Latino workers and Latino households in ways that they can remain in the city and not just survive but thrive.”

Read the L.A. Times article
Read the New York Times article

 

Diaz Calls on Sen. Sinema to Protect Democracy

/0 Comments/in /by

Sonja Diaz, director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times about the urgent need to protect voter rights. The 2020 Census found that the country’s white population is declining, while the number of Latinos and Asian Americans is increasing. However, voter suppression tactics, including closing polling places, purging voter rolls and passing restrictive voter ID laws, are threatening democracy, especially affecting voters of color, Diaz wrote. She directed her comments at Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who has helped block congressional action even as lawmakers in her own state have put forward audacious attempts to curb access to the ballot. “We are facing an all-out assault on free and fair elections that coincides with the growth and consequence of voters of color,” Diaz wrote. “[Sinema’s] inaction allows the will of a minority of the population to have an outsized influence on who can participate in our democracy.”

Read the op-ed

Reber on Link Between High COVID Risk and Vaccine Hesitancy

/0 Comments/in /by

Quartz spoke with Associate Professor of Public Policy Sarah Reber about her study finding that the political environment outside a skilled nursing facility did not strongly predict the likelihood that its residents were vaccinated against COVID-19. Politics might be expected to seep into nursing home environments, Reber said, especially because many of the residents suffer from cognitive decline and have substitute decision-makers — often adult children and other family members who live nearby — who must give consent before a resident can be inoculated. Reber said the extreme threat COVID-19 poses to older adults could be one factor at play. “It does seem like the higher the risk, the less politicized vaccination is,” she said. In an article for Brookings, Reber and co-author Cyrus Kosar of Brown University also found wide disparities in states’ effectiveness in delivering life-saving vaccines, including flu shots, to nursing home residents, but the reason for this gap is unclear.

Read the article

Reber on Nursing Homes, Booster Shots and Politics

/0 Comments/in /by

Associate Professor of Public Policy Sarah Reber co-authored a Brookings article that used a political lens to view COVID-19 vaccination rates at nursing homes. “Vaccination for nursing home residents has not been politicized as much as for younger populations,” Reber found. Nursing home staff and residents have been slow to get COVID booster shots since the CDC first recommended them for high-risk populations in September. However, Reber found that booster uptake among nursing home residents has not been strongly politicized the way it has in the general population. Instead, she noted that “pre-pandemic flu vaccination rates for nursing home residents, which was highly correlated with initial vaccination rates, continues to be a strong predictor of the share receiving boosters for COVID-19.” Reber highlighted the importance of boosting nursing home residents and staff in order to reduce the impact of the Omicron variant.

Read the article

Turner on Framing the Heat Narrative to Find Solutions

/0 Comments/in /by

Assistant Professor of Urban Planning V. Kelly Turner explored the question “How do we change?” as a guest speaker on an episode of the UCLA lecture series “10 Questions: If not now, when?” Turner discussed her own work on cool pavement, climate change, and the way that different narratives surrounding heat can point to different solutions. “I never thought that cool pavement would be the most political thing that I would study,” Turner said. She highlighted the importance of incorporating equity into the conversation about heat and climate change, noting that only about 25% of city plans use an equity narrative. “We know that heat is one of the most inequitable consequences of climate change,” she said. Turner also explained that “changing the problem framing can unlock new legal doors.” For example, she pointed out that there is no government entity that regulates heat the way that air and water pollution are regulated.

Watch the video

Anheier on Germany’s New Ruling Coalition

/0 Comments/in /by

Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Helmut Anheier authored an article in Project Syndicate about Germany’s new ruling coalition. After eight weeks of negotiations, a national-level three-party alliance has been established for the first time since the 1950s, with Social Democrat Olaf Scholz succeeding Angela Merkel as chancellor. Leaders of the center-left Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats collaborated to produce the coalition agreement “Dare to Make More Progress,” which outlines lofty goals for Germany, including modernization of the social security system and strengthening support for social welfare programs. Scholz’s government will also aim to increase renewable energy, invest in public transportation, expand public housing and overhaul Germany’s immigration framework. “Germany’s new ruling coalition has advanced a much-needed vision for the country, but whether it can realize it will depend largely on the coalition committee’s political skill,” Anheier wrote. “If the coalition fails, Germany will risk reverting to its old habit of doing too little too late.”

Read the article

Diaz Pushes for Fair Redistricting in Orange County

/0 Comments/in /by

UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Director Sonja Diaz spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the potential impacts of redistricting in Orange County. Nearly a third of Orange County residents are Latino, but current district boundaries divide areas with large Latino populations in Santa Ana and Anaheim. Diaz explained that dividing adjacent cities with ethnic majorities, a process known as cracking, has been a major factor in Latino voter turnout and can dilute political power. The county Board of Supervisors is currently undergoing the decennial redistricting process with data from the 2020 Census and is expected to approve a majority Latino district for the first time. “Orange County has for far too long been dictated by the policy preferences of an aging, white electorate that leans conservative,” Diaz said. “And I say this as a jurisdiction that is increasingly multiethnic and multiracial, with large communities of Asian American and Latino electorates.”

Read the article

Yaroslavsky on Political Reverberations From Recall Election

/0 Comments/in /by

Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to USA Today about the potential for nationwide repercussions if California Gov. Gavin Newsom is ousted in Tuesday’s recall election. Newsom’s removal could fuel efforts to dismantle vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions, and embolden Republicans who will battle to take control of both chambers of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. It could also undermine California’s reputation as a progressive trendsetter. “When California sneezes, the rest of the country catches a cold,” said Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles County supervisor and city councilman. California’s ouster of a Democrat would be a “political earthquake” that could shake the rest of the nation, he added. Yaroslavsky also spoke to the Jewish News Syndicate about the role of the Jewish electorate, noting, “There’s an undemocratic piece to this recall, which I think offends the sensibilities of the Jewish community.” 

Read the USA Today article
Read the Jewish News Syndicate article

Diaz on Investing in Latino Voters

/0 Comments/in /by

Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Director Sonja Diaz spoke to KQED about the importance of engaging Latino voters. Many Democratic candidates have come to rely on support from Latino communities, but recent elections have highlighted political shifts among Latino voters, including increased support for former President Donald Trump. “Where the Republican Party did invest, there were some shifts and that included some minority voters,” Diaz said. “That does not necessitate that Latinos … are somehow more Republican than they ever have been, but it provides this really clear and explicit recognition that in order to engage them, you have to actually invest in them.” Diaz said Trump’s increase in popularity among Latinos during the pandemic can be attributed to his pivot from the anti-Latino tenor of his first campaign. Diaz also spoke to KPBS and the Los Angeles Times about increasing voter turnout, especially in Latino communities, to block the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Read the KQED article

Armenta on Repercussions of ICE Collaboration Programs

/0 Comments/in /by

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Amada Armenta spoke to the Los Angeles Times about increasing pressure to reform the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which has for years been criticized for its treatment of immigrants in detention. The implementation of any changes will fall under the responsibilities of the new director, nominated by President Joe Biden. Some advocates have demanded improved conditions in detention centers as well as the scaling back of programs such as 287(g), which allows for collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement. While ICE says the local collaboration programs are meant to promote public safety, the result is that many undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report crimes to law enforcement out of fear that they will be expelled from the country. Armenta argued for doing away with the collaboration programs altogether. When immigrants are afraid to engage with law enforcement, “that’s bad for all of us,” she said.

Read the article

Events

Nothing Found

Sorry, no posts matched your criteria