Democratic Candidates Swing Through Southern California

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/us/democratic-candidates-california.html

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Over the weekend, Democratic presidential candidates swung through Southern California, making their pitches to state party officials in Long Beach and to young voters at California State University Los Angeles.

And as has often been the case in a race marked by an extremely crowded field — and one that has managed to become even more so in recent days — it was telling who showed up and who didn’t.

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited Los Angeles Trade Technical College on Thursday, where he slammed Republicans for yielding to the N.R.A. hours after a shooter opened fire at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, but he didn’t attend the party’s convention in Long Beach and didn’t participate in a Univision forum there.

When Mr. Biden skipped another state Democratic Party convention this year, Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said it was most likely because Mr. Biden was focusing his efforts on high-dollar donors and big-ticket endorsements, rather than on the most progressive wing of California’s vast Democratic contingent.

As CalMatters reported, though, that means Senator Elizabeth Warren’s absence this time was “a bigger puzzler” since she’s been warmly received at past conventions and recently bulked up her staff in California.

In any case, my colleagues Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer reported that top candidates — including Senator Bernie Sanders, who was in Long Beach, and Ms. Warren, who spoke to reporters in Iowa — found themselves grappling with President Barack Obama’s warning the day before that “the average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system.”

[Read the full story on candidates’ responses to President Barack Obama’s advice.]

Mr. Sanders chuckled briefly and responded, “Well, it depends on what you mean by tear down the system.”

Julián Castro, the former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who was also in Long Beach, said he took his former boss’s words “very very seriously.”

But he emphasized that he believed any of the Democratic candidates would be well-positioned in the general election.

“I don’t think that anybody in this campaign has articulated a vision for the future of the country that would not command a majority of voters in November of 2020,” he said. “Their vision for the future of the country is much better and will be more popular than Donald Trump’s.”

Mr. Sonenshein, who helped organize the forum at Cal State L.A. on Sunday, said he hoped the five candidates who participated took away a sense that California is worth courting — even if it at times feels too big and diverse to directly address.

“It felt like a more place-based discussion,” he told me.

[Read more about the role of the California State University system here.]

Although issues that affect Latinos were the forum’s nominal focus, in practice, that translated into a wide-ranging discussion of issues that affect all Angelenos. (As Jennifer noted on Twitter, Los Angeles’s Latino population is larger than Iowa’s entire population.)

Among them: health care and housing affordability, a crisis that is affecting regions across the country, but perhaps most acutely in Los Angeles and in the Bay Area.

Mr. Sonenshein suggested that similar conversations in communities around California could help root their campaigns in a state with a newly significant primary.

“It’s not impossible to grasp California,” he said.

You can watch Saturday’s Univision forum on YouTube here. And watch coverage of Sunday’s forum at Cal State L.A. from ABC7 here.

We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times coverage, but we also encourage you to support local news if you can.

Just days after one California community was devastated by an outburst of violence, at least four people were killed and six others wounded Sunday night in a mass shooting by assailants who the authorities said “snuck” into a Fresno backyard during a football-watching party. [The Fresno Bee]

And on Saturday, a man came to the San Diego home of his estranged wife and fatally shot her and three of their children before turning the gun on himself, the authorities said. The slayings came less than 24 hours after the woman got a restraining order against the man. [The New York Times]

The 16-year-old gunman at Saugus High School, whom the authorities identified as Nathaniel T. Berhow, died from his self-inflicted gunshot wound on Friday. Investigators struggled to figure out a motive. [The New York Times]

Community members turned out in force after the shooting, at a picnic on Saturday and at a vigil on Sunday evening. Here’s how to watch a live stream of the vigil. [The Santa Clarita Valley Signal]

If you missed it, here’s more about the shooting and the outpouring of grief on Thursday evening. [The New York Times]

After a warm, dry Monday, the season’s first winter storm is expected to hit California on Tuesday, bringing rain. [The Los Angeles Times]

A top federal homelessness official suddenly announced he had resigned on Friday at the request of the Trump administration. The move comes as the White House explores a crackdown in California. [The Washington Post]

The Supreme Court is weighing whether to allow the Trump administration to end DACA. Here’s what people think about that. [The New York Times]

California said it won’t buy cars from carmakers who have not agreed to follow its vehicle emissions standards. [CalMatters]

A Bakersfield oil company has been accused of spreading hazardous waste over Kern County roads for years as a dust suppressant. [The Bakersfield Californian]

FaZe Clan could be called a media company, or an esports team, or an influencer marketing agency. Its talent lives, dorm-style, in a house in the Hollywood Hills. Its leaders want it to become a billion-dollar business. [The New York Times]

A deep dive into how hip-hop dance groups, particularly ones started at schools in California, have helped Asian-Americans feel a sense of community. [Vice]

In 2017, Coachella generated more than 100 tons of trash every day. But this isn’t a depressing story about how an expanding universe of festivals and other big parties is contributing to ever-rising quantities of single-use waste.

No, this piece from my colleague Penelope Green is about the Trash Pirates who are trying to stem the tide.

They are, she wrote, “a loose collective of waste management specialists,” artists and activists, who educate festivalgoers about recycling and composting. They also shepherd mis-categorized waste to the appropriate receptacles.

“We are trying to alter the cultural norms of a throwaway society,” one filmmaker and Trash Pirate said. “We teach them that there’s no ‘away.’ We are the shepherds of the ‘away’ and it’s being buried inside the earth forever.”

(And here’s how to make less trash in your non-festival life, too.)

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.