CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION? WHY OPEN PANDORA’S BOX?

 CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

 “CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION? WHY OPEN PANDORA’S BOX?”

 

Two of California’s last three governors have wanted to help organize and promote constitutional conventions, either on the state or federal level. They’ve both been dangerously wrong about this.

 

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted only a state convention, aiming to take some of the clumsiness out of California’s governing documents, which changes as often as every two years if voters pass ballot initiatives.

 

But current Gov. Gavin Newsom is more ambitious, seeking the first national constitutional convention since 1787, even before George Washington was elected president.

 

Newsom thinks he can confine such a convention to one issue: gun control.

 

Ironically, these seemingly simple calls from a moderate Republican and a liberal Democrat put them both in the camp of the far-right Republicans of the Convention of States organization, which has been seeking a national constitutional revision meeting for years. So far, the COS effort has garnered support from more than half the 34 states needed to call a convention. 

 

Like Newsom and Schwarzenegger, COS claims its convention could be confined to its narrow goals, which include imposition of severe spending restraints on Congress, along with term limits for senators and Congress members and a few other officials. (Presidents are already limited to two terms by the existing Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.)

 

And there’s the problem: Because there’s never been a second constitutional convention, no one knows if such a gathering’s activity can be confined to one or two subjects, or whether everything would become fair game. The First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech and freedom of religion, might disappear. So might the Second Amendment’s guarantees of gun rights. Or the 14^th Amendment guarantees of due process in all criminal proceedings. And on and on.

 

In short, a constitutional convention would be a Pandora’s Box and no one knows what institution might supervise or limit its scope. For just one example, since the Constitution sets up the Supreme Court as one of today’s major authorities, why would anyone believe that court’s justices might have jurisdiction over the doings of a constitutional revision convention that might potentially change or eliminate the court itself?

 

That’s why San Francisco’s ultra-leftist Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener wants the Legislature this year to revoke its approval of a resolution calling for a convention to deal with gun control. Wiener, who has been wrong about many things including reshaping California housing to make it far more dense than before, is right about this. There’s even the possibility that California’s call for a gun control confab could be added to the COS efforts for a convention dealing with vastly different issues. No one knows.

 

Said Wiener, “There is no way I want California to accidentally help these extremists trigger a constitutional convention where they (might) rewrite the Constitution to restrict voting rights, to eliminate reproductive health access and so forth.”

 

Wiener’s fears are becoming more common, as states like Illinois and New Jersey, which previously had open calls for a constitutional convention, have rescinded their prior actions. Any that are not rescinded remain valid indefinitely and could be used by COS or anyone else wanting to call a convention, whatever their motives.

 

No doubt a constitutional convention, whether at the state or federal level, would be a delight for people who like to tinker with or brainstorm about government structure. But it also could turn into a nightmare for those who treasure civil liberties and protection against the tyranny of the majority when it comes to things like taxation.

 

The fact is, no one even knows how delegates to such a convention might be chosen, or who would be eligible to serve. The current state and federal constitutions indicate only they must represent different areas and states in proportion to their population. Whether they would be elected or appointed by current officeholders is an open question. For sure, there are no guarantees of which groups would be represented and which might not.

 

The bottom line: It’s best not to confront questions like this at all, since the lack of existing rules could mean that decisions would be made by the loudest among us, rather than the wisest. So why open this Pandora’s box at all?

 

 

 

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

“EVERYONE ELSE ABOUT TO START SUBSIDIZING MANSION PAYOUTS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“EVERYONE ELSE ABOUT TO START SUBSIDIZING MANSION PAYOUTS”

 

Here’s the likely outcome of the April 8 hearing set to follow the California insurance commissioner’s tentative mid-March approval of a 22 percent average rate increase for customers of State Farm General Insurance Co., this state’s largest carrier of home insurance policies:

 

All other Californians will soon be subsidizing the rebuilding of myriad mansions burned down in the January firestorm that ravaged much of Los Angeles County. Plus a good number of less luxurious homes, too.

 

Commissioner Ricardo Lara tentatively approved the average 22 percent rate hike for State Farm customers, with similar increases sure to come also for customers of other insurance companies like Mercury, Safeco, Travelers, Allstate and more.

 

These increases will hit virtually everyone: They include a 38 percent hike for rental properties, with a 15 percent raise for renters’ insurance on contents and for condominium owners.

 

The hearing will see opposition from several consumer groups, most prominently the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group. The eventual outcome may end with some increases dropping a percentage point or two. As it stands, what Lara tentatively approved amounts to an average of about $600 per year for every policyholder in the state.

 

Make no mistake, this is a pure subsidy for State Farm and the folks it insures. Perhaps the archetype claim from the January fires was for a destroyed home on two contiguous ocean-front lots in Malibu that sold three years ago for $85 million.

 

Trying to put up a show of looking after customers’ interests, Lara said he will expect State Farm to stop canceling homeowner policies, a practice that led to intense distress for some victims of the latest crop of large wildfires because many were forced after cancellations to turn to the state’s expensive and not very comprehensive last-resort insurer, the California Fair Plan.

 

Lara also said he will expect State Farm General’s parent company, Illinois-based State Farm Mutual, to contribute hundreds of millions, perhaps as much as $500 million, from reserves long held by the parent company. That would be a tiny fraction of the company’s actual reserves, which in January stood at a minimum of $134 billion, with some estimates as high as $192 billion.

 

So people who live in areas that have never seen a wildfire and are not likely ever to experience one will soon contribute to payouts for owners of large homes in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.

 

What’s more, State Farm and other insurance companies stand to get much of their money back via the current spate of lawsuits blaming Southern California Edison Co. transmission lines for sparking the Eaton fire that incinerated much of Altadena, about 40 miles east of Pacific Palisades. Once insurance companies pay their policyholders off in that area, they will inherit any customer claims against the big utility.

 

Then there’s re-insurance, routinely bought by insurance companies to insure themselves against big losses. That will cover more billions of dollars for them.

 

None of that will much mitigate what Lara likely will allow the insurance companies to add to customer premiums starting in May. These other factors making life easier for the insurance industry have played little or no role in price increases assessed after previous wildfires hit other parts of California through the last eight years.

 

Meanwhile, the closest customers have heard to the truth about all this came from a since-fired State Farm executive who was secretly recorded saying his company uses policy cancellations as a ploy to drive prices up in California and other disaster-prone states.

 

Haden Kirkpatrick, until recently State Farm’s vice president for innovation and venture capital, was fired immediately after he became the first completely truthful insurance executive this nation had seen in decades.

 

But Lara showed no sign of paying the slightest heed to anything Kirkpatrick admitted. Which should come as no surprise from a state official who promised never to accept campaign donations from the companies he regulates and then took large sums, only to be shamed into returning the money later.

 

The entire exercise is shameful and demonstrates why, when Lara leaves office after next year, his replacement must be far more consumer friendly.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

WESTERN REGIONAL GRID IMPERILS CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENCE

 CALIFORNIA FOCUS

1720 OAK STREET, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90405
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WESTERN REGIONAL GRID IMPERILS CALIFORNIA INDEPENDENCE”

 

If California wants power company executives from coal-happy states like Wyoming and Utah to run energy policy in this state, then the state Senate should pass a proposed law called SB 540, sponsored by Silicon Valley Democrat Josh Becker.

 

Similarly, if California wants its most important environmental decisions to be made by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) controlled by President Trump, pass this bill.

 

But if California wants to continue controlling its own destiny in deciding what kinds of energy sources to employ as power needs expand, then a no vote is needed.

 

Make no mistake, large companies like Google in and near Becker’s district want this bill, which would probably allow it and similar firms operating insatiably power-hungry artificial intelligence (AI)  plants going up in many rural parts of the West to use all the coal-fired energy they like, and hang the smog effects – which California has resisted for decades.

 

 

Becker chairs the state Senate Energy Committee, where his bill is due for its first vote April 8. Ironically, on accepting that job, he promised to push for clean energy.

 

 

This is actually the second big effort in the last eight years to have California join something informally called a Western regional electric grid. Like current Gov. Gavin Newsom, ex-Gov. Jerry Brown also pushed the idea.

 

The advantage: New power supplies could become available to California more quickly. The disadvantage: much of that power would be from “dirty” sources, plants fired by coal, oil and natural gas. Especially coal, which is favored heavily by regulators in states with large coal reserves, like Montana and Wyoming.

 

No question, Idaho and Utah are not as coal dependent as they once were, but they remain far more reliant on that source than California. Utah, especially, has plants itching to export coal energy to California.

 

So, says Jamie Court, director of the Consumer Watchdog public advocacy group and the most vocal opponent of the Western grid, “Sovereignty issues that have doomed the Western Regional Transmission Organization and prevented it from becoming law have not gone away. In fact, they are more perilous than ever.”

 

Advocates against the regional grid contend flatly that “This…would place control over California’s energy market in the hands of an (organization) heavily dominated by coal interests. California would be subject to…a market authority not interested in either California or its policies.”

 

One reason this plan has a better chance of passage today than in 2017 is increased union domination of the California legislature, achieved mostly via campaign donations.

 

Back in 2017, the similar earlier plan was opposed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which issued dire warnings about loss of California authority. Now the IBEW sports contracts with big AI farms and with PacificCorp, an Oregon-based utility that controls vast coal resources from Montana to Texas, the nation’s largest coal using state.

 

The regional grid, said Court, could completely control how California’s Independent System Operator manages this state’s grid. “California,” he said, “would give up its right to demand that its own environmental, consumer and health laws be followed.”

 

What’s more, California consumers could be forced to help pay for construction of new transmission lines all over the West. Building new power lines is already a major part of most utility bills here.

 

The new plan does contain so-called guardrails aiming to protect California, including a “statement of governance”  saying the new regional grid would “respect California’s right to set policies.” But that statement could be overridden by a simple order from FERC whenever Trump desires. 

 

What’s more, there is no realistic way to escape this deal, once made. Any attempt for California to get out would need approvals both by the regional grid’s officers and by FERC.

 

It’s as if California were considering inviting Enron to move in and take over the state’s grid again, even if that turns out to be as crooked and disastrous as when it happened during the early 2000s energy crunch.

 

No, this proposal is not labelled “Coal, Coal, Coal,” but reality is that a lump of worthless coal is just what California would likely end up holding.

 

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

CONSUMER FRAUD, PRICE GOUGING THREATEN FIRE RECOVERY DELAYS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“CONSUMER FRAUD, PRICE GOUGING THREATEN FIRE RECOVERY DELAYS”

 

 

And so the word went out almost precisely two months after fire incinerated most of the Pacific Palisades district in Los Angeles: The water is OK again, you can drink it, come on back home.

 

 

Immediately, the old Latin slogan Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) gained new relevance, for survivors of both January’s fires in the Palisades and burned out Altadena, 40 miles east – and for prospective survivors of big new fires state authorities predict later this year.

 

 

For no matter the happy talk from embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, few paid much heed. “In the tragic Camp fire (which destroyed Paradise in Butte County in 2018), it took a year (to restore water quality). It was done here in two months,” she said.

 

 

That may not matter much. The great bulk of the thousands of residents whose homes did not burn are not moving back for the time being. There enters the sometimes bitter reality of Caveat Emptor.

 

 

Frank and Grace Milton (not their real names) ran afoul of this very quickly. Once the 70-something grandparents learned their home survived and that, at a minimum, all its internal walls and ceilings would need scrubbing, they took bids from rehab contractors. Such contractors are subject to California’s anti-price gouging law (penal code section 396), but for washing their walls, estimates for the four-bedroom Milton place began at $40,000. Not including polluted furniture, carpeting and beds that must all be replaced.

 

 

They gave one contractor a $500 deposit, then never heard from the firm again. An out-of-state company, its “office” was a South Carolina cellphone.

 

 

Does $40,000 for a three-day job constitute price gouging? It was the best price the Miltons could find. Lawyers differ on whether it’s gouging, and if the company did not previously operate in California, no one will say for sure for lack of a baseline price. Similar problems reportedly plagued survivors of the 2017 Tubbs fire in the Santa Rosa area, which destroyed more than 5,600 structures. No one knows the full extent of such possible fraud and gouging; there is no formal registry.

 

 

The Miltons still have not secured a dependable rehab contractor.

 

 

Another family whose home in the nearby Sunset Mesa subdivision (a reported 400 out of 500 homes there burned down) is unsure they want to return, even if their home can be cleaned up.

 

 

Said the husband, “Our house and some others survived, but we can see no other standing homes from our windows. We don’t yet know how much toxic material penetrated our house. We’re not sure we want to move back to such pure desolation.”

 

 

Meanwhile, that couple pays $15,000 per month for an 850-square-foot one bedroom apartment in a nearby part of Los Angeles. That’s more than three times the pre-fire going rate in the area; rent gouging is illegal. But the apartment was never previously on the market. The couple rented while feeling pressure after living a month in a string of Airbnbs and on relatives’ couches. They’ve been unable to determine whether they’re subjected to illegal price gouging.

 

 

All this is before most returning residents even begin to test toxicity in their walls and yards. And well before the fires widely predicted statewide later this year materialize.

 

 

Yet, there are positive stories, too, of reliable contractors and newly fenced properties sporting contractor signage.

 

 

So when Bass and other politicians crow about speedily taking care of one aspect of reconstituting fire areas, survivors of these and future fires easily see how empty even comforting words can be.

 

 

For many present fire victims, the bottom line is that they’ll wait until today’s overheated activity dies down before deciding their futures. Meanwhile, others are moving elsewhere or planning to wait two or three years for the value of their lots to recover sufficiently to be sold off without heavy losses.

 

 

In the end, as with the Camp fire – where almost seven years after the blaze, about 43 percent of structures are rebuilt or permitted to rebuild, with more than 3,000 more permit applications pending– this now looks like a decade-long process with both good news and bad, but likely to be plagued by consumer issues, regardless of anything politicians say. 

 

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TRANSGENDER EDICT PART OF TRUMP’S PROMISED DICTATORIAL STYLE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

 “TRANSGENDER EDICT PART OF TRUMP’S PROMISED DICTATORIAL STYLE”

 

The news has been bleak for weeks for teenagers convinced they were born in the wrong style of body, children better known as “transgender.”

 

Because of a president untrained in anything medical or psychological, but expert in manipulating public emotions, many of them will be denied previously available care for the foreseeable future.

 

This began as part of what President Trump promised while a candidate, being a “dictator on Day 1.” He never promised to cease acting that way after Day 1, and has not.

 

Trump issued a blizzard of executive orders immediately after his inauguration, a tide that has not abated much. His operatives, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk and a cadre of early-20s computer programmers at the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency, quickly accessed large quantities of previously private information on everything from foreign aid to student loans and Medicare payments – and showed few signs of stopping even when so ordered by courts.

 

 

This is enabled by usually sycophantic, intimidated, but tiny Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, where virtually no Republican protests any Trump move.

 

One illustration is what’s happening to transgender youth – massive uncertainty. Already controversial and never available in all states, gender affirming treatments and surgeries suddenly became harder to get in states like California, New York and Virginia because of a first-day Trump edict.

 

Trump ordered such treatments stopped, saying no young person’s feelings about being in a type of body unmatched to their nature can be valid. He has called this type of care “chemical and surgical mutilation.” One of his first orders halted federal payments for such treatments while the rules are rewritten.

 

Almost immediately, some major hospitals shut down gender care programs. They feared not getting paid for their work and also the possibility that once rules are redone, Trump-appointed officials might try to claw money back from them. After a few court actions, some programs tentatively restarted.

 

In California, the most notable stoppage came at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, the state’s largest medical facility for juveniles, which operates a Center for Transyouth Health. After Trump’s order, the hospital “paused” starts of hormonal care for transgender patients under 19. The facility also said it would continue an “existing pause” on gender-altering surgery for minors. The surgical ban continues, but other treatments have resumed.

 

The original decision was cheered by longtime anti-transgender organizations like the California Family Council, while LGBTQ+ groups called it “alarming.”

 

Hospitals in other states made similar moves, including the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.; Denver Health in Colorado, and NYU Langone Health in New York, among others.

 

These changes potentially affected hundreds of young people and might be illegal, say California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several other state attorneys general.

 

This is only one area where the often inexpert Trump has spoken and acted on presumptions, not facts. Another example: when visiting California wildfire areas, he demanded deliveries of “more beautiful, delicious Pacific Northwest water” to this state. Of course, California has never received water from the Northwest, nor is there now any way to deliver it. Trump also demanded the Army Corps of Engineers suddenly deliver thousands of acre feet of water from behind dams feeding the federal Central Valley Project.

 

When some of that water reached San Joaquin Valley farms in late January, it was unusable because of the already wet season. Most flowed into underground aquifers. No one knows yet if this will cause water shortages later, in hot weather. None reached any part of Los Angeles, as no means exists to bring Central Valley Project water to Southern California.

 

Trump’s vice president then raised the possibility of outright defiance if any court orders a stop when Trump acts illegally on uninformed presumptions rather than real facts and needs.

 

Said JD Vance on the X social media outlet, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

 

Trump and his allies have been fine with the courts when they agree with rulings, but no one knows if they will try to ignore future decisions they don’t like.

 

The entire area remains far from settled.

 

   -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TECH VISAS GETTING A NEEDED CRITICAL LOOK

CALIFORNIA FOCUS 

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TECH VISAS GETTING A NEEDED CRITICAL LOOK”

 

President Trump does not often clash with his base supporters’ most essential beliefs, one of which is that most immigration to this country is destructive.

 

But even as many in Trump’s base push for elimination or at least reductions in the number of H-1B immigration visas mostly used by high technology workers, their leader has leaned the other way, even recalling that in his businesses “I have used (H-1Bs) many times. It’s a great program.”

 

That puts him at odds not only with many of those who voted him back into office, but also with far-left independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who describes H-1Bs as a program “to replace good-paying American jobs with indentured servants from abroad…” Of course, H-1B workers are not indentured, but can switch jobs if a new employer gets a transfer approved.

 

Nevertheless, it’s high time this program, which enables American companies to hire as many as 85,000 highly educated foreign workers per year (20,000 slots are reserved for foreign workers with American master’s or Ph.D degrees), gets a more intense look.

 

There’s also the possibility that Trump’s positive view of the 35-year-old program has been influenced by his well-publicized “bromance” with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, whose companies including Tesla and Space X last year employed just short of 1,800 H-1B workers. Musk, a native of South Africa, spent more than $250 million helping Trump get elected in 2024.

 

H-1B workers’ average six-figure pay puts them among the top 10 percent of American wage earners, but critics maintain their immigration status compels docility in the workplace and that they are often hired at the expense of similarly qualified American workers.

 

This longtime contention was backed by a striking statement inserted into the Federal Register in 2006 by the U.S. Labor Department during the George W. Bush presidency. “The (H-1B) statute does not require employers to demonstrate that there are no available U.S. workers or to test the labor market for U.S. workers.” The statement was never retracted, revised or revoked.

 

In 2023 (the last full year for which figures are available) the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency approved about 24 percent of applications from companies wanting to hire H-1B workers.

 

Even with unemployment in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) categories at only about 2.5 percent last year, there’s no way to contradict with certainty claims that equally qualified American workers are routinely denied jobs in favor of foreign workers guaranteed to cause no trouble and work for somewhat less money.

 

Of one thing there can be no doubt: H-1B workers, who can usually stay here legally no longer than six years unless they become citizens during that time, often overstay their limits by several years. After their permits expire, many work in industries that routinely employ large numbers of the undocumented, including hotels and ridesharing.

 

A significant share of all this occurs in the San Francisco Bay area, whose high tech companies employ about one-third of all H-1B visa holders.

 

At the same time, those and similar firms over the last two years laid off thousands of American workers while holding on to almost all their H-1B employees, a reality that supports the claims of those who contend immigrants take jobs away from Americans.

 

Of course, 35 percent of U.S. graduate school students in STEM areas are now foreign born, most wanting to stay here after getting their advanced degrees. The H-1B program is a convenient way to accomplish this legally.

 

Said Musk on his X (formerly Twitter) social media service, “Of course, my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we do…however, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.”

 

Whether that’s correct or merely an excuse for hiring somewhat lower-paid workers at the expense of qualified Americans remains open to dispute, as it has been for almost 20 years. The current debate over H-1Bs will prove healthy if it provides a reliable solution to that argument and leads to reality-based improvements in the program.

 

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

NEW FIGURES ADD PIZZAZZ TO THE RUN FOR GOVERNOR

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“NEW FIGURES ADD PIZZAZZ TO THE RUN FOR GOVERNOR”

 

It was only a matter of time before major new figures began to people California’s next run for governor, with its primary election coming up on June 2, 2026.

 

Until very recently, the race looked to become the most canned and staid major California contest in decades: A former state Senate president in Toni Atkins of San Diego, a termed out state schools superintendent in Tony Thurmond and a former Los Angeles mayor in Antonio Villaraigosa.

 

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, sure to be well funded by her mega-developer dad, was not going to liven things up. Nor was ex-Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter, a failed U.S. Senate candidate. It looked even duller when state Attorney General Rob Bonta opted to stay put, choosing untold numbers of legal battles with President Trump over a run for governor.

 

None of these folks ever set themselves apart despite myriad opportunities. That made this race a natural to be livened up, and now it’s happening.

 

First, Kamala Harris began floating rumors of a campaign.  A former U.S. senator and onetime California state attorney general who as vice president barely failed (by 1.6 percent) in her 2024 run for president, she revived memories of another former vice president who ran for governor after failing in a presidential bid, but then lost – Richard Nixon in 1962.

 

His defeat prompted one of Nixon’s most bitter lines, directed originally at political reporter Richard Bergholz, a persistent critic: “You won’t have me to kick around anymore.” That turned out incorrect when Nixon ran for president again in 1968 and won.

 

So far, Harris is not a formal candidate, content for awhile to let others talk about her chances. But she’s acted very candidate-ish since her return home after leaving office, visiting disaster areas and glad-handing local elected officials.

 

Without any measurable effort, Harris stunned the field by pulling 57 percent in a February Emerson College poll where Porter ran a very distant second at 9 percent. Villaraigosa and Kounalakis tied for third, each with an almost invisible 4 percent.

 

That led San Diego Republican Richard Grenell, a longtime aide to President Trump now carrying out “special missions” like attaching conditions to federal disaster aid for California, to announce he “just might” join this race if Harris does. The next entrant was Chad Bianco, the always vocal ultra-conservative sheriff of Riverside County.

 

Given California’s top two “jungle primary” system, if two Republicans stay in the race, they could split the state’s relatively small GOP vote and allow a second Democrat into the November 2026 runoff election along with Harris.

 

This may be the real primary election contest next year. For example, it was only after all other significant Republicans left the U.S. Senate campaign last year that Republican former baseball star Steve Garvey could make the runoff over Porter and then get pasted by current Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff.

 

Sidelights may also pop up during the primary season, which will place no constraints on the celebrity publicity hounds who occasionally run in California. That could mean a run by the transgender Caitlyn Jenner, formerly named Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion once thought to rival the late Jim Thorpe as possibly the greatest athlete of all time.

 

Jenner came out as transgender in 2015 and seemingly has not stopped talking about herself since. She announced her new name soon after coming out, and then starred in her own short-lived TV show, “I am Cait.”

 

The show may not have lasted, but Jenner seemingly never stopped talking about herself. She tried politics, too, pulling 1 percent of the vote to replace current Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2021 recall election, which Newsom easily stymied.

 

Early this winter, she began ranting on social media about taking on Harris, even bragging that “If I ran…against Harris, I would destroy her.”

 

Harris, Bianco and possibly Jenner are already livening up what began as the dullest major California campaign in decades, a contest where no early entrant had even appeared on a reality show.

 

But no race including Bianco or Jenner should ever be dull, and this one likely won’t be either.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net