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Last weekend, as the federal government was shutting down amid partisan squabbles over immigration, President Trump’s re-election campaign released an ad featuring an undocumented immigrant from Mexico accused of murdering two Sacramento police officers.
Democrats, the ad stated, are “complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.”
On the same day, a group of California Republicans put out their own ad about immigration. It featured the sunny disposition of Ronald Reagan, and words he spoke form the Oval Office in 1989, as he prepared to leave office. In the address, President Reagan defined what he meant when described, as he often did, America as a “shining city.”
It is a country, he said, “teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.”
The contrasting tone of the two ads — one dark and ominous, the other bright and optimistic — say a lot about the divergence between the national Republican Party and the party in California. In California, the party is fighting for relevance in a state whose diversity — Latinos are a plurality in the state — and progressive values have placed it at the forefront of opposition to the Trump administration.
“In California we have a problem,” said Chad Mayes, a former Republican leader in the California State Assembly, who was pushed out of his leadership position last year after a backlash within his party because he negotiated with Democrats on climate change.
Mr. Mayes, from Yucca Valley, grew up the poor son of a preacher and has taken moderate positions on a number of issues, including immigration, climate change and poverty. In an effort to rebrand his own party, Mr. Mayes recently founded New Way California, which put out the Reagan ad and has drawn the support of the former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Continue reading the main storyWhen he was his party’s leader in the State Assembly, polling he conducted showed that many Californians, “didn’t think we cared about people,” he said. “They thought we were caustic and abrasive,” he added, and only looked out for, “rich white people.”
Mr. Mayes said his organization is not explicitly anti-Trump. But he said that for Republicans in California to become relevant again, they must have a different message than the party has nationally. “Contempt for fellow man,” he said, is not a winning political strategy in California.
He continued, “I’m a white guy. We are not the majority in California. The Republican Party cannot be the party of white people.”
California Online
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• Is Gov. Jerry Brown confident he is leaving the state in good hands? “That’s a loaded question,” the governor says, as he weighs his legacy and looks ahead to life on the family ranch. [The New York Times]
• In the fight to pick a new mayor of San Francisco, tech, race and raw politics collide in a “battle for the soul of San Francisco.” [The New York Times]
• For a few hours early Tuesday morning, the entire West Coast was at risk of being subsumed by a tsunami triggered by an earthquake close to Alaska. Here are two explainers about tsunamis — forecasting them, and why Southern California is particularly vulnerable. [The New York Times/KPCC]
• Speaking of tsunamis, what about earthquakes? A new study by geologists shows an earthquake fault line runs right below Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. [Los Angeles Times]
• Wednesday was the second night of the countywide homeless count in Los Angeles, where homelessness has become an urgent crisis for political leaders. Here are ways the average citizen can help. [Curbed Los Angeles]
•Soaring Southern California home prices have hit a milestone. In December the median home price in the region hit $507,500, surpassing the high of last decade’s housing bubble. [Los Angeles Times]
• The survival of the death penalty in California may depend on a ruling in an Arizona case at the Supreme Court. [San Francisco Chronicle]
• To reduce the risk of wrongful convictions, lawmakers propose changes to eyewitness lineups. [Los Angeles Times]
• How Hollywood is handling its harassment problem. [The New York Times]
• Was a week in December spent in Orange County just what the Philadelphia Eagles needed to prepare for the Super Bowl? [Philly News/Orange County Register]
• After loud objections from students and Governor Brown, the University of California board said Wednesday it would delay a vote on raising tuition. [Sacramento Bee]
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• The Los Angeles County Museum of Art weighs expansion to South L.A. [The New York Times]
And Finally ...
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On Wednesday, Amanda Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate, paid a visit to the offices of The Times in New York. Ms. Gorman, a 19-year-old Los Angeles native and Harvard sophomore, was chosen for the poet laureate role last year. She answered a few questions and left us with a poem about the city.
Tell us about growing up in L.A.
From a young age, I was exposed to a beautiful plethora of different cultures, languages and ideas, which inspires me to highlight untold stories in my poetry.
What are your favorite spots in Los Angeles?
I love The Last Bookstore downtown. I’m also obsessed with the Natural History Museum because there you can get the science center and the African-American Museum in one day. There’s all this knowledge and exploration in one spot. It’s fantastic.
Do you miss it? Do you think you’ll return to live there?
Absolutely, I miss California every day. In fact, I started doing something new. When it’s warm enough, I go down to the Charles River and pretend that it’s the Pacific Ocean so I can write. I tried doing this when it was snowing, and I almost gave myself the flu.
And here’s Ms. Gorman’s poem:
Daughter’s Metro Map to City Identity
On Slauson I straddle Black girl tango
between northern heights
and south hair salons
Home.
Here I am diamond
solitary treasure
on Western I am unclaimed Christian
scribbling homilies on spines
of wrinkled church fans
here I am veteran
clutching cement scar
I am bandage sticking to sidewalk
On Centinela I vibrate the highest
I am journal of streets
hymnal of homeless, homebound
impoverished and important
California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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