Politics
California and Los Angeles County are getting tougher on crime. Here are the maps that show it
California and Los Angeles County are getting tougher on crime.
The stiffer penalties on some drug and theft crimes that voters recently approved with Proposition 36 took effect this month. Weeks earlier, in L.A. County, former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman was sworn in as the new district attorney and kicked off his administration by reversing several policies that his progressive predecessor George Gascón put in place.
The 2024 general election saw California voters reverse course against criminal justice reform policies and candidates. Proposition 36 overhauls key parts of Proposition 47 that passed handily in 2014. A closer look at L.A. neighborhoods reveals where Proposition 36 and Hochman made headway and how opinions shifted compared with10 years ago.
A majority of the neighborhoods that supported Prop. 47 in 2014 now support Prop. 36.
Yes on Prop. 47 (2014)
Yes on Prop. 36 (2024)
No on Prop. 47 (2014)
Yes on Prop. 36 (2024)
Yes on Prop. 47 (2014)
No on Prop. 36 (2024)
Yes on Prop. 47 (2014)
Yes on Prop. 36 (2024)
No on Prop. 47 (2014)
Yes on Prop. 36 (2024)
Yes on Prop. 47 (2014)
No on Prop. 36 (2024)
Yes on Prop. 47 (2014)
Yes on Prop. 36 (2024)
No on Prop. 47 (2014)
Yes on Prop. 36 (2024)
Yes on Prop. 47 (2014)
No on Prop. 36 (2024)
In 2014, Proposition 47 was overwhelmingly approved by 90% of neighborhoods in L.A. County. It turned some nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. Ten years later, 87% of neighborhoods that supported the ballot initiative voted to overhaul it.
All of the few neighborhoods that voted against reduced crime penalties in 2014 voted for harsher penalties with Proposition 36. Those include Santa Clarita, Glendora and La Mirada.
Longtime California pollster Mark DiCamillo, who directed polls for both Propositions 36 and 47, said both state measures were decided by the same swing groups: voters with “no party preference” and voters who consider their political ideology “middle of the road.”
“Those same swing voter blocks, which showed you there was support for Prop. 47 10 years ago, definitely changed their opinion and are now much more inclined to be supportive of Prop. 36,” DiCamillo said.
Former Rep. Jackie Speier, who had previously supported Proposition 47, said in a public statement that Proposition 36 is a “common-sense” adjustment to the previous law.
Comparing the polls for each ballot initiative reveals differences within age groups and political parties, adds DiCamillo.
Among voters with party preferences, Republicans were mixed on Proposition 47, with Democrats almost 4-to-1 in favor of turning nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. In 2024, Republicans were 9-to-1 in favor of overhauling Proposition 47. Democrats were more mixed.
“So opinions switched, obviously, but the same age differences were there; the same party differences were there,” DiCamillo said. “You had the same kind of subgroup variations that we saw 10 years ago, but a very different view of the initiative.”
Executive Director Rev. Zachary Hoover of LA Voice, an interfaith community organization that helped pass Proposition 47 and organized against Proposition 36, said the team campaigned in L.A., Long Beach, Inglewood and the San Gabriel Valley.
In L.A. County, both ballot measures passed with 64% of votes, though the 2014 midterm saw a record low turnout for a general election.
LA Voice’s campaign against Proposition 36 reminded people of what Proposition 47 has accomplished, especially in places where people benefited from the initiative. But that was not the main message.
“We focused more on the deceptive nature of how 36 is being sold to us, and what it would really do and what we really need, which is strong investments in mental health and addiction support,” Hoover said.
“When we worked on Prop. 47, that was two years after the ‘three strikes’ [law],” Hoover said. “That was the period when a lot of people were starting to wake up to the ways in which the justice system has been racist and persists in having racialized outcomes to this day. People haven’t backed away from that.”
Voters also haven’t changed their opinion on the importance of treatment. The September Berkeley IGS poll found that nearly half of those surveyed said they support rehabilitation or other alternatives for first-time offenders.
However, imposing harsher penalties for repeat offenders was what drove support for Proposition 36.
“Across the country, regardless of your D.A., crime went up in certain ways during the pandemic in the entire country,” Hoover said. “We were disconnected from each other for a long time. To a certain extent, the world is more complicated now than it was 10 years ago.”
Who would be the next D.A. and how they would handle increased crime rates was a high profile issue in L.A. County this fall. Support for Proposition 36 went hand in hand with support for former federal prosecutor Hochman for district attorney. A large majority (75%) of precincts backed both the increased crime penalties of Proposition 36 and Hochman’s promises of law and order. Hochman beat incumbent Gascón by almost 20 points.
75% of precincts supported both Prop. 36 and Hochman for district attorney.
Yes on Prop. 36 /
Hochman for DA
No on Prop. 36 /
Gascón for DA
Yes on Prop. 36 /
Gascón for DA
Yes on Prop. 36 /
Hochman for DA
No on Prop. 36 /
Gascón for DA
Yes on Prop. 36 /
Gascón for DA
Yes on Prop. 36 /
Hochman for DA
No on Prop. 36 /
Gascón for DA
Yes on Prop. 36 /
Gascón for DA
A preelection Berkeley IGS Poll analysis of likely L.A. County voters for Proposition 36 and district attorney found that the largest combination was voters who planned to vote for both Proposition 36 and Hochman (40%). The next largest pairing — those voting against the state measure and for Gascón — represented only 14% of voters.
In analyzing the two voter blocs, DiCamillo found that the biggest demographic differences were the political dimensions. L.A. voters who supported Proposition 36 and Hochman were a mix of those who considered themselves moderate or conservative. By contrast, 82% of those who voted for Gascón and no on Proposition 36 identified themselves as liberals.
An even mix of registered Democrats, Republicans and those who registered as “no party preference” or with a third party supported Proposition 36 and Hochman. Among voters who were against the ballot initiative and for Gascón, 74% were Democrats while the remaining were independents or registered with a minor party.
“Gascón had a base of the Democrats, but it wasn’t enough,” DiCamillo said. “If they were voting no on 36 and they were Democratic, they were very likely to be for Gascón, but that was a relatively narrow segment.” Forty-seven percent of Democrats supported Prop. 36.
Ninety-two percent of the precincts that went for Trump also voted yes on 36 and for Hochman for district attorney.
Hochman flipped 100 neighborhoods where Gascón had won in the March primary.
More votes per square feet
More votes per square feet
More votes per square feet
Nov. 2020 general election
March 2024 primary election
Nov. 2024 general election
Nov. 2020 general election
March 2024 primary election
Nov. 2024 general election
Gascón did not win any new neighborhoods in the general election. Hochman won all 33 neighborhoods that other candidates won in the March primary.
LA Voice Action, a political affiliate of LA Voice, worked to get Gascón elected in 2020. Hoover, who is also LA Voice Action’s executive director, said the group’s campaign to reelect him focused on promises that Gascón followed through with while he was in office, including not charging children as adults.
“He’s really been who he said he would be in a lot of ways,” Hoover said. “And those were things that people wanted then, and I think most of it hasn’t changed.”
Hochman ran as a centrist with a campaign that offered a “hard middle” approach to fighting crime. On election night, he credited his victory to a bipartisan coalition of people who considered public safety a “crossover issue” during polarizing political times.
With Proposition 36 now in effect, several other California officials have vowed to use the power of new legislation to hold people accountable, and criminal justice reform advocates show no signs of backing down.
Hoover noted that Hochman’s platform does include messages of moderation from the justice reform movement. During his inauguration speech, Hochman repeated his campaign promises to balance criminal justice reform and public safety and called California’s overpopulation in prisons a systemic failure. “I think he understood that to win, it couldn’t just be about ‘Gascon is bad’ and ‘crime is up,’” Hoover said. “We see, even in the campaign that was against the progressive reformer, signs of progressive reform messaging.”
Politics
EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after $1.2B deal scrapped
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EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas will remain open and is undergoing an operational upgrade, Fox News Digital has learned.
“Camp East Montana is NOT closing, quite the opposite,” an ICE spokesperson exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday.
“Rather, ICE has contracted with a new provider following Secretary Noem’s termination of the old contract inherited from the Department of War. ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.”
Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The spokesperson said the new contract will allow the facility to maintain what the agency described as the “highest detention standards” while expanding oversight.
According to ICE, the new contractor will also provide increased on-site medical care, additional staffing and a “PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan.”
The agency said the updated agreement also strengthens ICE’s direct oversight of operations at the El Paso-area facility.
“Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said.
El Paso immigration facility faces scrutiny but ICE says Camp East Montana is upgrading, not closing, after the $1.2 billion contract termination. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The news that the facility will remain open comes after The Washington Post reported that the facility could face closure amid scrutiny over operations.
A document was distributed to ICE staff, the Post reports, indicated that the agency was drafting a letter to terminate the facility’s $1.2 billion contract at an unspecified date.
ICE officials, however, characterized the contract termination as a deliberate effort by Noem to raise standards and improve services.
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Camp East Montana is photographed Friday, March 6, 2026, in El Paso, Texas, as a bus enters the detention center. (Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
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The facility, located at Fort Bliss in Texas, has been used to house thousands of detainees as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
ICE did not immediately provide details on the identity of the new contractor or the timeline for full implementation.
WASHINGTON — Russia is emerging as one of the few early economic beneficiaries of the war with Iran, as disruptions to energy infrastructure drive up demand for Russian exports and the world casts its gaze to the Middle East and away from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its European counterparts slapped severe sanctions on Russia in March 2022, barely a month into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The effect was a stranglehold on Russia’s exports, depriving Putin’s war effort of at least $500 billion, experts say. But over the last week, as President Trump’s war in the Middle East choked energy markets worldwide, the White House began easing its restrictions on Moscow.
“It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” California Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said on X, demanding the Trump administration reverse course. “Russia is giving intelligence info to Iran that helps Iran target American forces.”
Crude droplets rained over Tehran after Israeli airstrikes decimated oil depots, draping the Iranian capital in a dense smog. Iranian counterattacks have also targeted refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Crude oil prices have surged, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has all but ceased, sending energy importers in search of alternate sources.
Those spikes are giving Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, a rare advantage. After spending a decade as the world’s most sanctioned nation over his aggression in Ukraine, Putin is finally starting to regain some leverage in global markets.
“In the current economic situation, if we refocus now on those markets that need increased supplies, we can gain a foothold there,” Putin said at a meeting at the Kremlin on Monday, according to Russian state media. “It’s important for Russian energy companies to take advantage of the current situation.”
On March 4, the Treasury Department issued a temporary 30-day waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. The appeal by the Trump administration was described as a way to ease demand for Mideast oil, but was criticized as a reversal of sanctions placed against Putin meant to deny him the capital needed to fund his occupation of eastern Ukraine.
Now, Moscow is poised to press that advantage further, after Trump said Monday he will further lift sanctions on oil-producing countries to ease the trade friction and reintroduce additional oil and gas supplies. The only countries with U.S. oil sanctions are Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
“So, we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Doral, Fla. “Then, who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on — they’ll be so much peace.”
The surprise concession to Moscow comes as reports suggest Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. personnel.
Trump’s announcement followed an unscheduled hourlong call with Putin about the situation in the Middle East.
The war has also set the stage for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.
“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”
Putin is unlikely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf, according to Robert English, an international foreign policy expert at USC. Instead, Putin is expected to play his position carefully, reap the economic rewards, and keep focused firmly on Ukraine at a time when key air defense systems are diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf.
“Russia is winning the Iran-U.S.-Israel war, at least so far. Oil and natural gas prices have soared, filling Putin’s Ukraine war chest,” he said. “Russia is gathering forces for a big spring offensive in Eastern Ukraine, and it’s not even front-page news.”
Ukraine has dispatched drone interceptors and ordered its anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks. Zelensky’s allegiance may not pay off, English said.
“When will Ukraine see the benefits of helping the U.S. with anti-drone technology? No time soon, apparently,” he said.
Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf energy supplies could bring the largest windfall to Russia, the Associated Press reported, citing energy analysts.
The economic turmoil caused by the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system, particularly its lingering dependence on Russian fuel.
Despite sanctions, the European Union remains a major purchaser of Russian natural gas and crude oil. Russian gas accounted for approximately 19% of E.U. gas imports in 2025. Allied Europeans have agreed to completely stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas, oil and pipeline gas by late 2027.
Putin expressed no desire Monday to rescue the European market now that U.S.-Israeli escalations and Iranian retaliation have choked oil production and shipping. The Russian president instead proposed to divert volumes away from the European market “to more promising areas” like the Asia-Pacific region, Slovakia and Hungary, which he said were “reliable counterparties.”
European leaders have been criticized for being “stunned, sidelined, and disunited” since hostilities began in late February. Excluded from the initial military planning by the U.S. and Israel, Europe entered the conflict with gas storage at only 30% capacity, the lowest levels in years. Instead of bold action, English said, European leaders have quarreled over internal divisions and rivalries.
“Sky-high energy prices are the underlying cause of many of these frictions, as Europe struggles now more than ever to find affordable alternatives to the cheap Russian petroleum,” English said.
Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, told European leaders in Brussels on Tuesday that rising energy prices and the world’s shifting attention risk strengthening the Kremlin at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.
“So far, there is only one winner in this war,” Costa said. “Russia.”
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
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President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
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