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WASHINGTON, D.C. - It’s official. This year was the costliest midterm election in US history. Outside spenders forked out $1.31 billion. That’s an increase of 61% over the 2014 midterms. The total over-all cost of $5.2 billion is a 35% jump over 2014. The political advertising side of a campaign is a massive investment. Rhetoric filters into living rooms across America at all hours of the day and night, while a candidate gives a stump speech to a crowd of thirty. According to Advertising Analy

Democrats have a supermajority in Sacramento, having won or leading in 58 of the Assembly's 80 districts and could hold as many as 60 or 61 seats after all the ballots are counted. But that far from guarantees legislative wins when you consider the factions taking shape. Three distinct caucuses have created large blocs of votes which will no doubt fight for the direction of California and their respective groups. The Caucuses The Conservative caucus has 24 members and is led by Marie Waldro

This is my post-election column where I analyze the impact of independent voters who came out in force last Tuesday, almost 34 million of us. Huge. The stats and takeaways are at the end of this column, dear reader, so if you prefer to cut to that chase, scroll on down. Suffice it to say that independents are swinging between cycles of disruption and cycles of stabilization, all the while searching for systemic changes that will take us to new ground. Independent rather than partisan ground. Th

The California Republican Party isn’t salvageable at this time. The Grand Old Party is dead – partly because it has failed to separate itself from today’s toxic, national brand of Republican politics. Painful though it was, that was the message I delivered at the California Priorities Summit, sponsored by the Sacramento Bee in Sacramento last week. I’ve spent my entire adult life in Republican politics, so for me to make such a comment wasn’t easy. But it doesn’t make it any less true. I and o

Assemblyman Jim Cooper is passionate about keeping Californians safe. It's a message he made clear to me at the Independent Voter Project (IVP) conference in Hawaii. The former Sacramento County sheriff's captain is no stranger to criminal justice reform. Since he assumed office in 2014, Assemblyman Cooper has been on a mission to reform the system and, in his words, "make it more accountable to the perpetrators, and empower victims." To that end, voters will get to weigh in on Coopers 2020 ba

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am an independent who believes that at this moment of partisan dysfunction and division that the health of American democracy depends on the capacity of the American people to come together, to grow and to develop. While the media is saturating us with a focus on the results of who won and who lost in the midterm elections, my attention is drawn to signs of the emergence of a bottom up nonpartisan developmental politic in our country that breaks throu

In a Monday appearance on Fox and Friends, Hillary Clinton's former chief strategist said: "Do not underestimate Hillary’s positioning to run again. Clintons never stop until they get where they want to go." Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and the chief strategist for Clinton's failed 2008 bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, was following up on an op-ed written for the Wall Street Journal Sunday with another Democratic pollster named Andrew Stein. The title of the piece was

FLORIDA - Election integrity advocates will take Florida to court over ballot image preservation as soon as possible — the latest in a myriad of conflicts contributing to post-election chaos in the Sunshine State. A group of plaintiffs is about to sue Secretary of State Ken Detzner (R) over his office’s failure to enforce legal requirement to preserve the digital image files of ballots cast. These records are crucial with the possibility of a recount in both the US Senate and governor’s races.

Medicare Part D beneficiaries may receive some much-needed relief on the cost of their prescription drugs starting in 2019. Back in 2010, the Affordable Care Act set a timeline to close the coverage gap. The so-called “Part D Donut Hole” was initially scheduled to close by 2020. But legislation signed this year, through the recently enacted Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA), is expected to go into effect in 2019— closing the gap one year early. The Medicare “Donut Hole,” a nickname for the g

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. - After successfully winning reelection in the 52nd congressional district, Rep. Scott Peters joined us on Beyond The Headlines to discuss what he thinks the top priorities should be for the House after Democrats reclaimed the majority. I asked Congressman Peters a number of pressing questions, including who should be the minority leader, will Democrats spend the next two years probing and subpoenaing the President, or will they pursue policy solutions for infrastructure, heal