LA Taxpayers Are Funding Karen Bass's Campaign

Los Angeles pays a qualifying mayoral candidate six dollars in public money for every one dollar an individual donates — and in the current mayor's race, challenger Nithya Raman has drawn more of that taxpayer match than Karen Bass. Phil and Camille break down how the public matching-funds program actually works, why the "isn't it a First Amendment violation to fund a candidate I oppose?" objection reached the Supreme Court twice and lost both times, and why California has banned public campaign financing everywhere except a handful of charter cities.Then: the California Energy Commission has used a 2003 law that sat dormant for two decades to rewrite which replacement tires can be sold in the state — and the "70% of tires banned" figure is being used to argue two opposite things at once. There's also a second, completely unrelated tire crackdown most coverage misses.Finally, the California High-Speed Rail Authority is on course to run out of money by December 2027, according to its own inspector general — while the project's own CEO says the state's regulatory process is what's strangling the railroad he's trying to build.No team. Just receipts.Read more from Phil at The Gilded State: www.thegildedstate.comFull sourcing and show notes: caunderground.substack.com