Inside Golden State Politics

Friend of the podcast Mike Bonin, former Los Angeles City Council member and executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA, guides us through some of the hot measures on the November ballot.  And we take a final look at the Los Angeles mayor's race.

Our guest, Bob Stern, a nationally known expert on the initiative process, walks us through some of the hot  measures on the Califonia ballot.   

We discuss whether the recent debate moved the needle in the Los Angeles mayor's race. We note voting has begun despite Trump's attempts to hijack the election.

We speculate  whether Trump will interfere with the mid-term elections. We  look at the status of the L.A. mayor's race.

We critique the recent California governor's debate and examine the efforts of the candidates for mayor of Los Angeles to win support in the Jewish community. And we  wonder why there isn't more coverage of the casualties in the Iran war.

We explore  the political, economic and cultural speed bumps  dominating the explosion of artificial intelligence.  We also check in on the race for mayor of Los Angeles.

Out guest analyst, Jon Regardie, a respected political observer, thinks the mayoral race will get hot when the advertising takes off.  We discuss how the three of us can't and  won't predict  a winner.

We push the pause button to check out where we are as we approach the mid-term elections.  And we worry  about what appears to be election chaos and Trump's use of the United States Postal Service to determine who gets to vote.

Can Trump limit mail voting in this year's elections?   If he succeeds, many Americans could be disenfranchised.  We also check in on the race for mayor of Los Angeles.  

We dig deeper into what was gained—and not gained—from the recent debate between incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and her opponent, Councilmember Nithya Raman. 

We continue our analysis of what the primaries are telling us about the Democrats intraparty fighting.  We look at Trump's continued drop in the polls and his shaky record in primary endorsements.  

We examine the fallout from the Michigan Democratic Senate and  Congressional primaries.  We check on the status of the  Los Angeles mayor's race.

Nationally-known housing policy expert David Garcia walks us through recent national, state and local attempts at housing reform. 

We look at President Trump's defense of ICE traffic stops.  We examine the impact of age, illness and death on the midterm elections.   We discuss the seemingly invisible campaigns for California governor and Los Angeles mayor.

We discuss the impact of the left- leaning Democratic Socialists on national and local elections.  We advise candidates to do opposition research on themselves before jumping into the fray.

Democrats and Republicans fumed over  two different SCOTUS bombshell decisions: birthright citizenship and campaign finance.   Meanwhile, Democratic divisions over Israel grew more intense.

We offer our reflections on the Reflecting Pool. We pinpoint shifting attitudes toward Israel In U.S. politics. We wonder whether Trump will declare a state of emergency before the November elections.

Trump applies cage fight politics to a prime foe, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. And we apply cage fight politics to each other, arguing over California's slow vote count.

With our guest, Mike Bonin, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute For Public  Affairs and a former Los Angeles City Council member, we take on the election results and discuss what they could  mean for the future of Los Angeles.

We examine the still-unfinished California primary election.  We look at the attacks by the Trump administration on the news magazine "60 Minutes" and the rest of the mainstream news media.

We wonder how Trump's revenge-tour primary victories will impact the November elections. And Los Angeles and the rest of California await the results of heated and confusing elections for California governor and mayor of Los Angeles.

It’s time to celebrate. Inside Golden State Politics has over 50,000 podcast downloads. This week we explain how artificial intelligence is changing political communications, using the Los Angeles mayor's race as an example. President Trump scores big in the recent GOP primaries.  We worry about a U.S. invasion of Cuba.    

When is old too old to run? Should  we ditch the top two primary?  What's stoking the gubernatorial campaign and the Los Angeles mayor's race? Let's discuss.

We dig into the California gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral  debates.  The candidates  skimmed over the issues.   In the end, there were no winners.

We share our observations about the disappointing California governor's  debate. We argue about the impact of prediction markets on the American political  process.