Twenty months ago, then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom sealed the endorsement of the powerful California Nurses Association in the governor’s race with an impassioned promise to bring single-payer health care to the Golden State.

“There’s no reason to wait around on universal health care and single-payer in California. It’s time to move [Senate Bill] 562. It’s time to get it out of committee,” Newsom told a nurses union conference in September 2017. “If we can’t get it done next year, you have my firm and absolute commitment as your next governor that I will lead the effort to get it done. We will have universal health care in the state of California.”

But now, as Newsom undertakes a “California for All” tour of the state’s largest cities, that ambitious rhetoric has long since given way to more modest proposals – and to attempts to dampen expectations. Instead of the governor reviving Senate Bill 562 – a 2017 measure passed by the Senate that would have committed the state to creating a single-payer system – he now says that’s not feasible without the assistance of the federal government.

Newsom has asked the Trump administration to give California a waiver from federal laws allowing the state to set up its own unique health care system – and for a sum equivalent to the amount the federal government now spends on health care for state residents. Senate Bill 562 died in the Assembly over expectations it would cost about $400 billion a year – double the state’s budget.

Governor risks backlash from fellow Democrats

The May Revise of the 2019-20 state budget that Newsom unveiled last week includes several proposals to expand availability of health care partly subsidized by the state government, in particular raising the income threshold of eligibility up to $73,000 a year. Individuals who make $48,000 a year or more are not eligible for federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But he stopped short of extending Medicaid coverage to unauthorized individuals in California, citing its $3.4 billion cost. And he made no concrete proposals on advancing single-payer beyond previously announced plans to use the newly created state Council on Health Care Delivery Systems to examine how the state could transition to such a system.

The potential for a backlash from Newsom’s own party is clear. Politico reported in March than Newsom believed strongly that leadership on single-payer should be led by “the horseshoe,” an insider’s term for the governor’s unusually shaped office. But having a commission look at the state’s possible courses of action isn’t the dramatic move that fans of Democratic presidential candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren want. A Quinnipiac University poll released in February showed 61 percent of state Democrats back a government-run single-payer system in California.

The California Nurses Association has expressed disappointment with the lack of progress. In February, CNA lobbyist Stephanie Roberson told the Sacramento Bee that it was “baffling” that no state lawmaker had introduced a measure like Senate Bill 562 and said her union strongly believed that incremental improvements in health care access were not enough.

“We can’t, as leaders, just protect what we have because we fundamentally believe that health care is [a] human right,” Roberson said.

Signaling he’s very likely to run for president, Bay Area hedge fund billionaire and progressive activist Tom Steyer has begun searching for key aides to help him as he seeks the 2020 Democratic nomination.

A recent Linked-In ad was traced by the New York Times to Steyer’s nascent campaign. ”A high profile political campaign based on the West Coast is seeking highly skilled political professionals to join our national campaign team,” it said. The ad sought state directors for New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – the next three primary and caucus states after Iowa kicks off the nomination process with caucuses on Feb. 3, 2020. A Steyer aide confirmed to the Times that he was responsible for the posting.

Steyer, 60, a former Yale soccer team captain who became a Californian after enrolling at the Stanford graduate business school, had a relatively low-key role in state and national politics until 2012. That’s when he handed over many of his financial responsibilities and began aggressively advocating for bolder environmental programs, among other causes.

‘Need to Impeach’ campaign raises national profile

This year, Steyer’s national profile has shot up after he spent at least $40 million on a “Need to Impeach” cable and online campaign in which he stars in advertisements criticizing the conduct of President Donald Trump. The campaign has gathered more than 6 million signatures in an online petition urging Congress to remove the Republican Trump.

Steyer could be competing for the nomination against as many as three other California Democrats: Sen. Kamala Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Rep. Eric Swalwell of the East Bay area near San Francisco.

Harris has by far the highest national profile of the three, having won headlines as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In online prediction markets, Harris, Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have all been the leader to win the nomination at various points over the past two months.

Harris 5th in first CNN survey of Iowa Democrats

Harris didn’t fare as well in the first CNN/Des Moines Register poll of Iowa Democrats released over the weekend. Former Vice President Joe Biden led with 32 percent, Sanders was next with 19 percent, O’Rourke had 11 percent, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren had 8 percent, with Harris in fifth at 5 percent.

But the former San Francisco district attorney can take solace in two facts. The first is that polls before the Iowa caucuses have a history of swinging wildly, and there is still more than 13 months until voting. The second is that African American candidates tend to do better in more diverse states than Iowa, which is 91 percent white.

While Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won the 2008 caucuses with 38 percent of the vote, that was among his 10 worst showings in primaries and caucuses as he went on to win the nomination. In 1988, civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson got 8.8 percent of the Iowa caucus vote versus the 29.4 percent he got in the overall Democratic nomination process as the runner-up to the nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Jackson only fared worse in two other states.

In the Register-CNN poll, Steyer and Swalwell got 1 percent each. Garcetti was at 0 percent, receiving the fewest votes of any of the 20 listed Democratic candidates.

The California progressive movement’s summer of discontent continues, with anger still on display over the abrupt withdrawal of a single-payer health care bill and over the May election of a party insider as California Democratic chairman.

This week, the Associated Press reported that progressives remain interested in pursuing a recall campaign against Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, (pictured) for his decision to kill Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. Los Angeles activist Steve Elzie is a lead organizer.

The California Nurses Association last month paid for two mailers to be sent to constituents in Rendon’s Los Angeles County district blasting him for “holding health care hostage” and “protecting politicians, not people’s health care.” The mailers urged constituents to complain to Rendon’s offices over the decision, but did not advocate a recall.

That decision may reflect that CNA President RoseAnn DeMoro – who initially led the criticism of Rendon – has realized how difficult it would be to ultimately remove him from office.

Obtaining the 20,000-plus signatures needed to trigger a recall election might not be much of a problem, given that single-payer champion Bernie Sanders got 44 percent and 48 percent of the vote in the June 2016 Democratic presidential primary in California’s 38th and 47th Congressional Districts, respectively. The districts cover much of Rendon’s 63rd Assembly District district which includes parts or all of Commerce, Bell, Lynwood, Paramount and Lakewood.

But Rendon has gotten at least 69 percent of the vote in his three Assembly bids. He also has more than $1.2 million in his campaign war chest and has the support of other influential unions, meaning ready access to more donations and help campaigning.

Rendon killed SB562 because he said it failed to adequately identify how it would pay its $400 billion in annual costs to provide health care to every Californian.

‘Berniecrat’ still won’t accept loss in party chair vote

The other flap pitting the party establishment against “Berniecrats” also flared this week when Bay Area political organizer Kimberly Ellis launched a new salvo over her narrow loss for state party chairman to Eric Bauman, a nurse who has long been a fixture in Los Angeles County Democratic politics and was deputy to the last state chair, former Congressman John Burton.

At May’s state Democratic convention in Sacramento, Bauman held off a late surge from the lesser-known Ellis to win 51 percent to 49 percent. Ellis immediately challenged what she said were election irregularities, leading to a July recount in which 47 of about 3,000 ballots were thrown out but Bauman’s margin of victory was unchanged.

Ellis and her fellow Sanders’ supporters, however, still don’t accept the results.

On Tuesday, she called on the California Democratic Party to accept binding arbitration to determine who really won the May election. She hinted it was the only way the party could head off a lawsuit that she suggested last month was forthcoming if she were unhappy with how party officials handled her appeal, which continues this month with a hearing of the Democratic Party credentialing committee.

California Democratic Party spokesman Mike Roth said the party would stick to its rules, which don’t provide for arbitration.

“Ms. Ellis is now deep in her own end zone and throwing a desperate Hail Mary pass in hopes of changing the outcome of an election that she lost fair and square,” Roth said.

But Ellis’ “Vote for Kimberly” website remains unchanged and continues to feature sharp – if indirect – criticisms of Bauman for allegedly close ties to corporate interests.

Kimberly Ellis

The tension between the progressive “Berniecrat” wing and the mainstream liberal wing of the California Democratic Party appears likely to resonate for years to come. That’s the clear takeaway from Bay Area political organizer’s Kimberly Ellis’ vow to keep contesting her narrow loss for state party chairman to Eric Bauman, a registered nurse who chairs the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and was deputy state chair before John Burton’s recent retirement as party leader.

At May’s state convention in Sacramento, Bauman won 51 percent to 49 percent over Ellis in what was initially expected to be a landslide win. He had the support of most top Democrats and had built up relationships with key party figures for decades. But Ellis rallied fellow Bernie Sanders’ supporters with her call to “redefine” the California Democratic Party as an ambitious agent of change.

After her defeat, Ellis immediately raised questions about illegal votes being counted and about election irregularities. Her concerns were borne out to some extent when a review by party officials found 355 suspect ballots – more than 11 percent of the nearly 3,000 ballots that were cast. But a weekend re-examination of the ballots and recount didn’t change the results. Forty-seven ballots were tossed – 25 for Bauman and 22 for Ellis.

Party leaders – only starting with Bauman – hoped that Ellis would drop her complaints and offer a unity message. Instead, the Richmond activist is pursuing another appeal with party officials and is considering a lawsuit while blasting the state’s Democratic establishment and maintaining her “Vote for Kimberly” website.

Ellis said her quest to push her party to embrace an aggressive version of progressive politics led her to continue her challenge. “To turn away now would be a betrayal to my own sense of integrity and ethics,” she said Monday, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

Difficult two months prompt Brown warning

Ellis’ renewed fight with the Democratic establishment comes in the wake of a roiling dispute over health care. In late June, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, drew the bitter ire of the California Nurses Association and Berniecrats when he pulled the plug on a single-payer health care bill that appeared headed for passage – and an eventual veto by Gov. Jerry Brown. Rendon called the bill “woefully incomplete” because it didn’t specify how the $400 billion annual cost of a single-payer system would be covered.

Off the record, many Democrats used more colorful language to rip the bill, which was partly based on the assumption that the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress would give the state the equivalent of total federal spending on Californians’ health care to set up California-only single-payer. Defenders say it’s time Californians – and Americans – grasp that a broken health-care system needs replacing, not more tinkering.

The 2018 governor’s race is likely to be buffeted by the Berniecrats’ demands. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang appear more interested in courting the progressives than former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The national media has taken notice of the infighting in America’s largest state. On July 10, Politico declared a “civil war” was wracking California Democrats.

The article featured a warning from Brown: “Look, you can always go too far. Trump has obviously gone too far in one direction. It’s possible to go too far in the other direction.”

But it was also noteworthy for Rendon’s tart dismissal of his critics. He described the push for single-payer as “posturing,” not something that “can actually be implemented to help people.”

“Though UC Berkeley promises its students an environment that promotes free debate and the free exchange of ideas, it had breached this promise through the repressive actions of University administrators and campus police, who have systematically and intentionally suppressed constitutionally-protected expression,” the suit reads.

The university rescheduled the event for May 2 following backlash, but that’s a date that Coulter isn’t available for and it’s also “reading day” before exams when classes are not even in session.

“It is a sad day indeed when the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement is morphing before our eyes into the cemetery of free speech on college campuses,” said Harmeet Dhillon, who represents the school’s College Republican chapter.

In response to attempts to silence her, Coulter is vowing to show up as planned on Thursday, arguing she won’t allow her First Amendment rights to be stripped.

“It is anarchy when you are only enforcing the law in order to allow liberals to speak. But, no, we’ll let these masked rioters show up with weapons and start – I mean, they are all little beta males, but with a weapon, even a beta male can do some damage, especially to a 99-pound girl,” the New York Times best-seller told Sean Hannity in a recent interview.

The event was rescheduled due to security concerns, according to administrators, highlighting the willingness of the school to cancel events amid the threat of violence from leftist opposition.

Overall, Berkeley has become something of a flashpoint in the violent resistance to President Trump. Just weeks ago, nearly two dozen people were arrested after anti-Trump protesters clashed with Trump supporters at a rally in the liberal enclave.

Furthermore, there was even rioting when former Breitbart editor and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos came to speak the school — an event that the public university also shut down.

The canceling of Coulter is just the latest chapter in the debate over the suppression of conservative speech on college campuses, as even left wing figures like Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders are coming to her defense.

“If you can’t ask Ann Coulter in a polite way questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo, or shut her down, or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world?” Sanders told The Huffington Post.

While Berkeley historically has prided itself on its willingness to embrace free speech and expression, the school has appeared to morph into something of a thought bubble, at times seeming almost eager to shut down events involving those on the right.

“Berkeley, you know, used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it’s just the cradle for f—king babies,” Maher said on Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time.”

The conservative firebrand is still planning to speak about immigration, the topic of one of her most recent books.

“I’m showing up this Thursday. It’s up to the police to keep me safe,” Coulter said.

With just a few years left in his marathon return tour as California governor, Jerry Brown has promised not to back down on his climate policy in the face of what could be a powerful change in priorities from above in a Donald Trump administration.

Moving to reassure his party earlier in the election season, Gov. Brown had signaled critics of his approach to environmental policy that he’d organize opposition to their agenda if they increased their political power. “In August, Brown vowed to ‘vanquish’ climate change skeptics,” the Los Angeles Times recalled. “‘Bring it on,’ Brown said at the time. ‘We’ll have more battles, and more victories.'”

Now, in his first remarks after Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, Brown promised “to do his part to find common ground with the president-elect,” but “put Trump on notice that ‘as Californians, we will also stay true to our basic principles,” as the Bee also reported. “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time — devastating climate change.”

Competing interests

Although analysts have often hesitated to predict that a Trump administration will follow through on all the promises the candidate had made or qualified on the campaign trail, liberals and progressives have expressed special concern over what Trump might do on climate change, such as backing out of promises made at the recent landmark Paris talks — where a delegation of California Democrats played a high-profile role.

“Brown has repeatedly contrasted the intransigence gripping Washington with California’s progressive policy approaches, from joining other countries to address the threat of climate change to shielding the rights of unauthorized immigrants,” the Bee added. “In the statement, the fourth-term governor moved past his earlier criticism of Trump, and didn’t directly address the incoming president’s dismissal of climate change as a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.”

California Democrats have braced for harder sledding ahead on the environment. Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio told the San Jose Mercury News, “Republicans now have a free hand to intervene in California’s battles over water, which often pit agribusiness against environmentalists and fisherman. Water allocations for imperiled species like Chinook salmon could be tightened. It’s one of many conflicts he foresees,” the paper noted. 

Increased anxiety

Party fears have arisen that without a supportive president, California could begin to change shape in Americans’ minds from a bellwether and vanguard state into a marginal outlier. “Trump’s stunning election threatens years of Democratic progress here and deprives the state’s ambitious social change agenda of a sure collaborator in Clinton,” as the Bee suggested. “From local concerns like affordable housing and homelessness, to statewide priorities such as climate change, health care, immigration reform, gun control and the protection of organized labor, nowhere is the nation’s embrace of Trump felt more acutely than in deep-blue California.”

But not all leadership figures popular on the west coast have fueled anxiety. Brown has worked to steer clear of what has become sometimes frantic criticism of Trump from within his party, projecting a steely-yet-relaxed demeanor reminiscent of Bernie Sanders’ recent pledge to work with the incoming administration where possible and to oppose it elsewhere. At a dinner in Sacramento for labor organizers last week, Brown joked “that if Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump wins the presidency, California would build its own wall at the state’s border — an obvious reference to Trump’s ambition to build a wall between the United States and Mexico,” as the San Francisco Chronicle noted. “If Trump were ever elected, we’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country,” said Brown, caught on video reported by the Sacramento Bee.

Underscoring lingering divides in a Democratic Party facing an uncertain future, Bernie Sanders returned to California in the campaign season’s final days, but failed to mobilize enough support to pass Proposition 61. 

“The drug industry successfully swatted down California’s Proposition 61, a ballot initiative that would have capped how much the state’s public health programs pay for medicines at the same level the Department of Veterans Affairs (which receives deep discounts on treatments) shells out for them,” Fortune observed. Despite a full-throated push from Sanders, who was anticipated to move the needle substantially in deep blue California, Prop. 61 went down in a 46 percent to 54 percent vote.

“Prop. 61’s clear-cut defeat is a bit surprising considering that polls taken earlier in the fall had shown widespread support for the initiative, which was introduced in the midst of widespread backlash to soaring drug prices,” the magazine added, noting that polls had tightened up as Election Day neared.

Dueling dollars

But pharmaceutical industry giants such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca ponied up over $100 million to combat the initiative, fueling anti-61 critics who warned it was just the first step in more sweeping and hard-to-manage change. “The big funding support pharma has given the ‘No’ campaign reflects both the huge amount that California state agencies spend on medications annually — around $4 billion — and concerns drug companies have that other states might follow suit with drug-price control initiatives of their own in the event that Prop. 61 passes,” CNBC reported. “The ‘No on 61′ campaign, which in addition to pharma companies includes patient advocates, doctors, veterans’ groups, labor unions and other AIDS activists, warns that the measure could have negative unintended consequences that would include higher drug costs for many people, and decreased access to some medications.”

Pro-61 advocates raised only $16 million, by contrast — during a span when the would-be law’s popular support seemed stable and adequate to win. “The ‘yes’ lead has shrunk over the past month,” Vice News recalled, “but a Hoover Institution poll released Tuesday pegged support for the initiative at 51 percent, opposition at 24 percent, and undecided at 25 percent. In interviews last week, no representative for either of the campaigns felt confident enough to predict victory.”

“The Prop. 61 campaign offers a possible preview of a bigger intraparty fight for the national Democratic Party’s future, a fight Bernie Sanders helped instigate this year in the presidential primary against Hillary Clinton. Then as now, voters are largely tuning out so-called elite opinion and raging against a monolithic corporate power. But instead of Wall Street, it’s now Big Pharma.”

Lingering hopes

Sanders personally fired back against his critics in an op-ed defending Prop. 61 at the Sacramento Bee. “It ties the prices that the state of California pays for drugs for about 6 million patients, including Medi-Cal recipients and active and retired state employees, to the prices that the Department of Veterans Affairs pays. The department pays about 20 to 26 percent less than what most government agencies pay. Those are significant savings that will make drugs more affordable and accessible to more people,” he explained. “The nation is watching California. When Prop. 61 passes, I predict the revolution against drug industry price-gouging will sweep across the country like a prairie fire.”

Although Hillary Clinton has benefited from a post-convention bounce, Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent counsel to complacent party members resonated sharply for Democrats, many aligned with Bernie Sanders, concerned that Donald Trump will win the presidency come November.

Calling the horserace “very uncertain and very threatening” to Clinton’s fortunes, Brown recently suggested the campaign and the party go on “full alert,” as The Hill reported. Recalling the bygone rivalry between Brown and the Clintons, the governor made the remarks upon arrival in Philadelphia, site of this year’s Democratic National Convention. “Most famously, in a 1992 Democratic primary debate, Brown, who had served his first two terms as governor, accused Bill Clinton of funneling money for state business to Hillary’s law firm,” as Roll Call recalled. “Jerry Brown caused a ruckus at the 1992 Democratic convention in New York, when he tried to parlay his 600 delegates into a prime-time speaking slot without promising to endorse Bill Clinton.”

A Clinton crisis

The smugness and sense of entitlement Brown has cautioned against on the established Left has sent some left-leaning political analysts into similar alarm. “[T]he insistence in Philadelphia that Democrats represent harmony and inclusion often brought to mind less the Beatles on a BBC ‘Our World’ satellite broadcast in 1967 and more the Ministry of Love on a bender in 1984,” wrote T.A. Frank at Vanity Fair. “At a time when many splits among Americans resemble war more than disagreement, and the Left has been as happy as the Right to stoke rage and hound people out of jobs or public life, neither side gets to call itself the party of love. At least not without being insufferable.” With historic unfavorables for a Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton has had a unique challenge striking a balance between her party’s touchy-feely aspirations and its often strident tone.

As a result, Clinton has struggled to put Trump away, even when she has managed to put polling daylight between him and herself. In a recent CNN/ORC poll, “voters by an 11-point margin think Trump would better handle the economy as president,” The Hill noted. “By a similar margin, voters think Trump would respond better to terrorism than Clinton.”

Insurgent solidarity

Gov. Brown has tried to help Clinton strike the elusive balance she seeks, portraying her as a seasoned party favorite Bernie Sanders supporters can rally behind in good conscience. But his praise for this year’s insurgent candidate has been forceful. “Sanders made it real clear that things aren’t right,” said Brown at a Washington Post-hosted convention-time event, according to the Sacramento Bee. “The legacy of Sanders is a wake-up call.” In his open letter endorsing Hillary Clinton late in the primary season game, Brown heaped praise on Sanders while conceding that he’d simply been beaten fair and square by Clinton. “I have closely watched the primaries and am deeply impressed with how well Bernie Sanders has done,” Brown wrote. He has driven home the message that the top 1 percent has unfairly captured way too much of America’s wealth, leaving the majority of people far behind. In 1992, I attempted a similar campaign.” Yet “Clinton’s lead is insurmountable and Democrats have shown — by millions of votes — that they want her as their nominee.”

Meanwhile, although considerably more conciliatory in Philadelphia toward Hillary Clinton than Brown had been to Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Sanders reaffirmed a message that in key respects sounded more like Brown’s did. “Like Sanders, Brown, who accepted no contribution greater than $100 in 1992 — but who has now amassed millions of dollars from large donors — said ‘we’re at the beginning of a long journey,'” the Bee noted. In Brown’s 1992 address, he sounded populist themes now associated most closely with Sanders: “We have to break the growing and dangerous tie-in of economic and political power. We have to save our souls as Democrats, return to our roots, listen to our ancestors and once again fight on the side of the people who pay the bills and fight the wars but never come to our reception.” 

The executive board of the California Democratic Party has endorsed recreational marijuana, throwing its support behind the ballot measure that has won the support of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Meeting recently in Long Beach, the board voted in favor of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, which “would legalize holding up to an ounce of weed for those older than 21” without any medical allowance or qualification, LA Weekly observed. “If it passes, cannabis could be grown, produced and sold under strict regulations already headed for the medical marijuana market. And it would tax cultivation and sales at a rate of 15 percent.”

“The Dems join the ACLU, the NAACP of California and national NORML in endorsing AUMA. Last month the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, the nation’s largest local Democratic Party group, endorsed the initiative.”

On pot, many California Democrats have remained further to the left, or libertarian, than party leaders nationwide. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., supported recreational marijuana in his home state as well as the Golden State. At a rally in San Jose, Sanders — “the only presidential candidate to call for descheduling marijuana under federal law,” as MerryJane.com observed, told crowds, “If I lived in California, I would vote ‘yes’ to legalize marijuana.”

But even in California, many Democrats have been slow to move toward recreational marijuana. At a recent pro-legalization event, “Newsom reminded the audience that even though all of California’s elected statewide officials are Democrats, he is the only one that supports legalization,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. “Newsom said that while polling has been strong in recent weeks, including a Public Policy Institute of California survey last month that found 60 percent support for legalization, there are rumors every day of a deep-pocketed donor popping up for the opposition.”

Quiet ambivalence

Recreational pot advocates have identified several minor issues where state Democrats’ interests have not fully aligned with those of the legalization movement. “There are only a few parts of the initiative that have Democrats worried — one being the potential for increase in accidents involving cannabis in the states of Colorado and Washington, who have both had legal marijuana programs running for a couple of years now,” according to Marijuana Times.

The day after she secured a first-place finish in the primary election to replace outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer, Attorney General Kamala Harris specifically cited the safety issue in qualifying her stance on the ballot initiative. “I am not opposed to legalizing marijuana, but there are some details we need to figure out, including how we are going to test impairment when one is under the influence of marijuana,” she said, according to the Chronicle.

What’s more, as the Marijuana Times added, “individual cities and counties will have the option to opt out of the commercial end of legalization. By not allowing cannabis sales and cultivation, these areas will leave people legally allowed to possess cannabis but no way to purchase it without going to the next city or county over.” (In another sign of hesitance among top California Democrats, Sen. Dianne Feinstein chose not to side with the majority in a banking committee vote to approve banking access for the marijuana business. She was the only Democrat to do so, as Marijuana.com noted.) 

California cities have also recognized the opportunity to add municipal taxes atop what the state will take from marijuana sales. In San Diego, City Councilman Mark Kersey led the council “toward placing a measure on the November ballot that would impose an 8 percent tax on gross receipts from recreational marijuana sales to pay for increased city costs, starting with police,” as U-T San Diego reported. “The council would be able to increase the tax as high as 15 percent but not tax medical marijuana sales.”

Unfavorable opinions among voters of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — the presumptive presidential candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively — create a do-or-die moment for Libertarians and the Green Party.

But the question is how high can they climb?

In California, probably not very high. But nationally, there’s a great opportunity to get a candidate’s name, party and message out there if they can reach 15 percent in the polls to make it to a debate. From there, ballot access is the main challenge.

The two main third-party candidates are Libertarian Gary Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, and Jill Stein, a Massachusetts physician and activist whose highest-held elected office was local, who will likely be the Green Party candidate.

Both were their parties’ nominees in 2012, but failed to gain any significant traction — Johnson won almost 1 percent of the popular vote and Stein won one-third of 1 percent. Neither won any states, which is still the biggest challenge for any third-party candidate (Johnson got 3.5 percent in New Mexico and outperformed Stein in Massachusetts). 

So why now?

It’s an open seat, so there won’t be a popular incumbent president, like Barack Obama was in 2012, to contend with.

Also, Americans widely dislike the two (presumptive) major party candidates outside of their core groups of supporters. According to the Real Clear Politics average, 61 percent of Americans see Trump — a Republican business and reality T.V. tycoon — unfavorably, while Clinton — the former first lady, former senator and former secretary of state — fares only slightly better at 55.5 percent unfavorable. “We have never had an election in which both major candidates were so unpopular — many people want to vote against Trump or Clinton without voting for the other,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “The third party option gives them the chance to register their disapproval without giving support to a candidate that they also despise.”

More than an emotional victory

The immediate goals for Libertarians in 2016 are securing ballot access in states and appearing on stage at the debates. Being on the debate stage alongside major party candidates would greatly affect how Americans see a third-party candidate — a victory in itself.

“But of course, you want to win,” said Janine Kloss, the executive director of both the Sacramento County Libertarian Party and the state party.

Kloss — who is awaiting the results of her write-in campaign for a Sacramento-area Assembly seat where a Democrat ran unopposed — noted that this election has proven anything can happen.

“We have someone under FBI investigation and someone who woke up one morning and decided he wanted to be president,” Kloss said.

Third-party candidates of yore

To gain traction, third party candidates usually need a major party candidate to fall apart. In 2006, Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic nomination in his Senate re-election campaign, but won the general as an independent because the Republican candidate collapsed. Bernie Sanders won his two Senate races in Vermont running as an independent because there was no Democratic challenger.

Jesse “The Body” Ventura was an exception to the trend. In 1998, the former pro wrestler beat two relatively strong candidates from the major parties by a narrow margin, winning the Minnesota governorship with 37 percent of the vote.

“They can be factors in a race, but winning is a different story and threshold,” said Nathan L. Gonzales, publisher and editor of The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report. “Our country is polarized and primed for the two major parties.”

Spoiler Alert

Often, strong third-party runs play a spoiler role for candidates, as Republicans were worried Trump would do earlier this cycle when they asked him to sign a loyalty pledge. In 1912, Bull Moose Party candidate Teddy Roosevelt stole (a lot) of votes from Republican Howard Taft, paving the way for Democrat Woodrow Wilson to become president.

Prominent segregationist George Wallace — the southern Democratic governor of Alabama who in 1968 ran as an American Independent — took a substantial amount of Electoral College votes from Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to help Richard M. Nixon become president.

Nixon actually had enough electoral votes to beat Humphrey without Wallace’s help, but Wallace still played a prominent role. And in a it’s-a-small-world way, Humphrey’s son was the Democratic-Farm-Labor candidate who lost the gubernatorial race to Ventura in Minnesota.

And Ross Perot, a Texas business man who ran twice as an independent, largely helped Bill Clinton, a Democrat, win the presidency from Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992 and then retain the presidency in 1996 against Republican Bob Dole.
In those races, Roosevelt received 27.4 percent of the popular vote, Wallace received 13.5 percent, and Perot received 18.9 percent and 8.4 percent. Roosevelt and Wallace won several states a piece, Perot won none.

“If more states allocated their Electoral College votes on some sort of proportional grounds, something Perot pushed for, then a third party ticket would be plausible,” said Mark Petracca, chair of the Department of Political Science at UC Irvine. “Right now only Maine and Nebraska have such an allocation scheme.”