3 days ago
A Kamalaless confab in the shadows of Disneyland
Presented by California Environmental Voters
DEM DERBY — California Democrats will gather in Anaheim this weekend to hold their largest meeting since native daughter Kamala Harris faceplanted in the presidential race and Donald Trump returned to besieging them from Washington.
Harris' decision of whether to run for governor or president for a third time will hang over the 4,000 party faithful in attendance — but she's not expected to be among them.
Only a vestige of her failed run, ex-running mate Tim Walz, is scheduled to be in the building. He'll rally the troops Saturday but is unlikely to have time for a ride on the tea cups at nearby Disneyland, as he's also headlining the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention on the same day.
Let's hope Harris' would-be competitors in the governor's race aren't fiending for a Mickey-shaped pretzel, because they'll be busy stumping as if delegates aren't waiting to see if the former vice president gets in the race.
Other would-be 2028 contenders will be around. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is slated to speak, ideally for fewer than the 25 hours he recently spent filibustering on the Senate floor. And Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach is scheduled to take a break from his House Oversight bid to party with Planned Parenthood Friday night (DJ not yet announced).
The party won't vote on endorsements this weekend, but candidates down the ballot in the lieutenant governor's and treasurer's race are descending on the city to promote their runs.
Math problem: This initial phase of the endorsement fight will be especially critical for the governor's field — particularly if Harris doesn't get in — and the race remains as crowded. Candidates would need more than a majority of delegates to back them to get the party nod, though California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks did not rule that out in an interview.
'They may or may not get 60 percent,' Hicks said. 'You know, in 2018 many folks didn't think that Gavin Newsom would get the endorsement.'
The Kamala in the room: Hicks went to great lengths to praise his party's 'deep bench,' rattling off candidates in the field, but agreed Harris will be on attendees' minds.
'A former Attorney General, Senator, Vice President, and presidential candidate from California is certainly going to loom large, especially when everyone has had some interaction with her, has probably worked, certainly worked hard for her, and worked hard for her recently,' Hicks said. 'The decision is for her to make in the coming weeks and months.'
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WHERE'S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
CAMPAIGN YEAR(S)
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: A Democratic candidate to succeed Assemblymember Mike Gipson is excavating one of her opponent's left-leaning tweets on policing and oil in a bid to erode the challenger's labor bona fides and consolidate union support.
Compton school board member Ayanna Davis' campaign has launched a website chock full of social media posts from progressive candidate Fatima Iqbal-Zubair in which Iqbal-Zubair expressed support for the Defund the Police movement in the wake of George Floyd's murder and called for divestment from oil companies. The campaign is also planning to blast out a memo full of opposition research to convention-going party delegates in the Assembly district in play this morning.
'Ban police associations. End qualified immunity. Prosecute cops,' Iqbal-Zubair wrote in a 2021 post featured on the site.
The open race for Assembly District 65 is already shaping up to be a tough Dem-on-Dem contest. Davis and Iqbal-Zubair — the chair of the state party's progressive caucus and a legislative affairs staffer for California Environmental Voters who has challenged Gipson in the past — are also joined in the race by another Democrat, Myla Rahman, the district director for state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas. Gipson is term-limited and running for the California Board of Equalization next year.
Labor support was key for Gipson in locking down the seat in the past and could be critical in the heavily Democratic district again this cycle. Iqbal-Zubair in an interview said her values haven't changed but that 'it's important to preserve all union jobs in my district, that includes the jobs in the refineries at the ports.'
'Policing and prisons: There's union members in there that have good jobs,' she elaborated.
Iqbal-Zubair bemoaned environmental pollution and police violence disproportionately affecting people of color in her Los Angeles-area district. She cast clean energy jobs as an opportunity to maintain union ranks while offsetting the effects of climate change. And she called for more social service workers to work in the criminal justice system.
'The whole underpinning of my campaign is undoing the systemic harms in the district,' Iqbal-Zubair told Playbook. 'Public safety is a huge part of that, obviously, because, if you ask community members in my district, they haven't had systems that have helped them feel safe.'
TRADE
CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC — State Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Democratic officials across the country who took a victory lap after a pair of federal court rulings struck down Trump's tariffs. But, the AG cautioned, economic turmoil over Trump's see-sawing tariffs is likely not over.
'He's pretty stubborn, he wants to do it how he wants and when he wants,' Bonta told Playbook. 'He's clearly, in our view, far overstepped his legal authority.'
The Trump administration is appealing the decisions, which found the president unlawfully invoked emergency economic powers to unilaterally enact tariffs on dozens of countries without congressional approval. A federal appeals court temporarily reinstated Trump's sweeping 'reciprocal' tariffs while litigation plays out.
California, led by Bonta and Newsom, was the first state to sue over Trump's taxes on imports. The state is still challenging his actions in a separate but related lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
'These are our own arguments… included in court orders,' Bonta said of the two rulings. 'That's validating. Of course, we're interested in durable, permanent results.'
SAN FRANCISCO
PELOSI MANS UP — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week endorsed a San Francisco county party resolution urging Democrats to pay more attention to the well-being of men and boys — siding with moderate leaders who've sought to force Democrats to confront criticisms that the party isn't male friendly.
Pelosi backed the measure at the SF Democratic County Central Committee's monthly meeting, albeit after a minor friendly amendment. Gary McCoy, Pelosi's proxy representative to the county party, said she shares the sentiment that Democrats 'need to do more' to reach out to men and boys and listen to their issues.
Party leaders overwhelmingly approved the resolution. Emma Hare, a local Democratic county vice chair who wrote the resolution, said it's designed to spark an intraparty conversation about how to win back male voters who have flocked to Trump, including through efforts like universal paid parental leave for fathers, apprenticeship job programs and more behavioral health resources targeted at men.
CLIMATE AND ENERGY
EMISSIONS DISCOUNT — The state's latest quarterly sale of pollution permits to high-emitting companies went worse than it ever has since the pandemic, leaving the state with a third less revenue from the program this fiscal year than last. Read last night's California Climate for more on how questions around the future of California's signature cap-and-trade program are becoming budget problems.
Top Talkers
YER FIRED— Floyd Brown said on X today that he was fired yesterday by Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions, from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts one month after being recruited to be the center's vice president, POLITICO's Cheyenne Daniels reports.
He theorizes that his firing may have had something to do with an inquiry from CNN, where they asked him about his 'past writings and statements about traditional marriage and homosexual influence in the @GOP.'
'The only explanation is the one given to me at the time of my firing,' he wrote ''Floyd, you must recant your belief in traditional marriage and your past statements on the topic, or you will be fired.' Needless to say, I refused to recant and was shown the door. My beliefs are much more common to Biblical Christianity.'
APUSH LESSON— California Rep. Judy Chu says President Donald Trump's decision to revoke Chinese students' visas is 'xenophobic,' the Los Angeles Times reports.
'This is yet another example of the Trump administration targeting Chinese people instead of the Chinese government, assuming that every Chinese person is a pawn for the Chinese Communist Party,' Chu said. 'That is what xenophobia is all about, and it is reminiscent of the Chinese Exclusion Act.'
AROUND THE STATE
— San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to cut about 1,400 city jobs as the city confronts a roughly $800 million budget deficit. (San Francisco Chronicle)
— Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho wants to establish a registry for people convicted of fentanyl murders. (The Sacramento Bee)
— Twelve people who were charged with crimes at a pro-Palestinian protest at Stanford's executive offices were arraigned in Santa Clara County. (The Mercury News)
PLAYBOOKERS
PEOPLE MOVES — John Goodwin was named vice president of global brand at Back Market. He was most recently at Ogilvy, Razorfish, Klaviyo and Patagonia.
— Josué Estrada has just been named chief operating officer at the Center for AI Safety. He's a former COO at both Salesforce and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, now stepping into the AI safety space to help scale research and impact.
— Stacey Geis, former deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has joined Crowell & Moring's environment, energy and natural resources and white collar and regulatory enforcement groups as senior counsel in its San Francisco office.
— Chris Shimoda joined the Supply Chain Federation as strategic policy adviser. He will continue to operate his firm Shimoda Government Strategies which he opened in April 2025.
BIRTHDAYS — POLITICO's Maggie Miller … songstress Idina Menzel … rapper Remy Ma
BELATED B-DAY WISHES — Tami Grossglauser in the office of Assemblymember Rick Zbur
You may have noticed that the lead-in to California Playbook, 'The Buzz,' has disappeared from your screen. After many years, we've decided it was time to retire it. We woke up today feeling a little lighter for it. Onward.
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