Politics
Column: Jose Huizar was our rancho's American dream. Now, he's headed to prison for 13 years
As he exited the federal courthouse elevator on the way to his sentencing hearing, Jose Huizar was relaxed enough to joke with his lawyers.
The ex-Los Angeles city councilmember would soon find out how much prison time he would serve after pleading guilty last year to racketeering and tax evasion.
Walking down the hall in black glasses and a blue suit and toting a brown satchel, he spotted me. I’ve written columns trashing him for not only disgracing his position but for embarrassing Latinos. He could have scowled, yelled or simply ignored me.
Instead, the Eastside politico offered me a saludo — a greeting, steeped in our rural Mexico roots, reserved for people who command respect.
“How’s it going, brother?” he said with a smile as we shook hands and headed to the courtroom together. I asked how he was feeling. He looked as puckish as Alfred E. Neuman as he shrugged his shoulders and put out his hands.
His public defenders, youthful-looking enough to be fresh out of law school, tried to whisk him away, but he wanted to catch up.
“I was in your rancho recently,” he said — El Cargadero, the village in the mountains of Jerez, Zacatecas, where my mom was born, next to Huizar’s birthplace of Los Morales.
In late October, Huizar traveled back to the rancho after U.S. District Court Judge John F. Walter allowed him to “attend religious ceremonies [in Zacatecas] that are important to his Catholic faith.”
In Spanish, I asked if he had attended the Oct. 24 feast day of St. Raphael Archangel, the patron saint of El Cargadero, marked with processions and parties that draw thousands from around Jerez and the U.S. diaspora. Huizar grinned again and went into the courtroom without saying anything else.
You’d think we were cousins catching up at a family party. In a way, we were.
His parents knew my parents. My older cousins know his brothers. He and his family spent summers picking strawberries in the same Orange County fields as my mami and aunts. We followed his ascendancy with pride — Boyle Heights to Berkeley, Princeton to UCLA Law, the L.A. Unified school board to City Hall. At family parties where we caught up on who had done good and who had done bad, my cousins told their children that they too could be like Huizar.
He wasn’t just the American dream. He was our American dream. He represented a zenith for people from Zacatecas, who in Southern California number nearly half a million. Tens of thousands of those are jerezanos, who live mostly in Anaheim, the San Fernando Valley and the Eastside.
When Huizar was arrested in 2020, I not only shook my head in disgust, I sighed in profound disappointment. Prosecutors alleged that Huizar monetized his government position for years, securing more than $1.5 million in cash bribes, gambling chips, luxury hotel stays, political contributions, prostitute services, expensive meals and other financial benefits from developers with projects in his downtown district.
Our elders, meanwhile, cried conspiracy.
I almost brought my dad to the sentencing so he could spot anyone from the rancho. More than 50 people had written letters of support for Huizar — his mother, his children, childhood friends and folks from Jerez. But few, if any, were in attendance. Huizar would answer for his crimes alone.
After prosecutors argued for 13 years in prison, and Huizar’s attorneys argued for nine, Walter spoke. Huizar was loved by his family and even his constituents, the judge said, and his rags-to-riches story was worthy of praise.
But Walter’s sympathy soon turned to anger. He blasted Huizar in a didactic monotone for “selling out his constituents,” an “unusually pervasive and rampant pattern of misconduct” that was in “a league of his own,” for showing “little remorse” and for making people distrust public officials.
Huizar, 55, arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips as Walter let him have it. He spoke only briefly to “reiterate” the apology letter he had submitted to the court the day before.
I nodded along as Walter continued. When Walter said, “It’s difficult to understand why he decided to throw it all away,” any empathy I had for Huizar vanished, despite our shared background.
Our parents bought homes, became U.S. citizens and raised children — my generation — who became teachers, professors, white-collar professionals or blue-collar entrepreneurs. Some of us are famous — jerezanos of note include cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist; Chicana novelist Helena Maria Viramontes; Maywood councilmember Heber Marquez; and actor Jessica Alba, who’s my third cousin once removed and the descendant of civil rights pioneers in Pomona.
So many jerezanos became success stories without ripping off the public. Why couldn’t Huizar?
Walter gave him the 13 years prosecutors had requested, also ordering him to pay nearly $444,000 in restitution to the city of Los Angeles and nearly $39,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He must surrender to federal authorities on April 30.
Afterward, reporters gathered outside the courtroom. He ignored them all … except me. He gave me a saludo once again, this time with a fist bump and a smile no less radiant than the one two hours earlier.
I asked again how he felt.
“You know I can’t talk, brother,” Huizar replied. “But when it’s the appropriate time …” He trailed off as people swarmed him on the way to the elevator.
“Did the Santo Niño de Atocha listen to your prayers?” I replied — a reference to the patron saint of Zacatecas, an image of which Huizar had posted on Instagram hours before federal agents arrested him at his Boyle Heights home. Afterward, zacatecanos from here to the motherland ridiculed him for hiding behind Mexican baby Jesus.
His smile this time was incredulous — as if he couldn’t believe I would go there.
He entered an elevator with his legal team. Court security guards shoved my colleague Dakota Smith back into the hall. Reporters and protesters shot questions and insults at him.
Huizar, however, was listening only to me.
“¿Qué le dices a los de Jerez? ¿Cuál es tu mensaje a tus paisanos?” I yelled.
What do you say to those from Jerez? What’s your message to your countrymen?
This time, Huizar laughed. His smile got so wide that I thought it was going to prop open the doors that closed as he rode down to the rest of his life.
Politics
Spencer Pratt surges to runoff in LA mayor’s race after angry voters send message to Karen Bass
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Reality television personality Spencer Pratt appears on track to clear a key hurdle in Los Angeles’ mayoral race as he seeks to unseat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November.
Bass, who has led the city since 2022 amid a turbulent stretch rocked by her response to wildfires, advanced to a runoff after failing to secure a majority of the vote in Tuesday’s primary election. With no candidate surpassing the 50% threshold, the top two finishers will face off in a November runoff.
The anticipated runoff is a symbolic blow to Bass, who was endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and former Vice President Kamala Harris and has spent decades serving California in a series of elected Democratic offices.
Pratt, a first-time candidate known for the MTV reality show “The Hills,” was running in second place as of Wednesday morning.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attends the Women for Bass Phone bank event in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles on June 1, 2026. (Louise Barnsley/Splash for Fox News Digital)
REALITY TV STAR SPENCER PRATT TESTS LA VOTERS’ APPETITE FOR POLITICAL OUTSIDER
“Obviously, God wanted five more months of me exposing the failures of our mayor,” Pratt gloated to reporters as the returns came in Tuesday evening.
Pratt has relentlessly hammered Bass on issues that have long plagued the city, including fire recovery, street homelessness and crime. The insurgent candidate holds Bass personally responsible for devastating wildfires that destroyed more than 18,000 structures in the city, including his Pacific Palisades home.
Pratt’s surge appears to have shut out Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, a former ally of Bass who challenged the incumbent from the left and was once viewed as a threat to her bid for a second term. Raman is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and has argued for steering the city in a more progressive direction.
Raman has not yet conceded despite running well behind Bass and Pratt as of Wednesday morning.
Pratt, a registered Republican, faces an uphill battle to defeat Bass in November if he advances to the runoff election.
Less than 20% of voters in the heavily Democratic city identify with the GOP, though Los Angeles’ mayoral contest is officially nonpartisan.
Media personality and independent candidate Spencer Pratt, left, pictured alongside LA mayor Karen Bass, right. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
KAREN BASS GRILLED OVER BROKEN HOMELESSNESS PROMISE, BLAMES BUREAUCRACY FOR SLOWED PROGRESS
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who represents a San Diego-anchored seat, told Fox News Digital that Pratt has won a following in the mayoral contest due to widespread voter discontent with Bass’ leadership.
“He’s catching fire among ardent historic Democrat voters because Karen Bass has been so ineffective,” Issa said in an interview. “And every time she opens her mouth, she’s talking about more of the same to people who have seen their streets, both crime-ridden and in fact … ineffectively managed.”
Bass, conversely, argues that her leadership is leading Los Angeles in the right direction.
“Los Angeles is at a turning point. After decades of rising homelessness, under-built housing and a shrinking police force, it’s Mayor Karen Bass who finally stepped up to change how City Hall works,” Bass’s website reads.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman appears likely to finish in third place, keeping her out of the November runoff. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
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“Homelessness is down, more housing is being built, and the LAPD is hiring new officers,” it also claims.
Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed reporting.
Los Angeles County’s half-cent sales tax to fund healthcare services was trailing Tuesday, with early returns showing a majority of voters rejecting the measure.
The tax — a half-penny of every dollar spent in the county — is meant to prop up local hospitals and clinics that are hemorrhaging funding after recent federal cuts.
The sales tax, which needs a simple majority to pass, would take effect Oct. 1 and last five years. Officials say it would pull in $1 billion annually to help plug the budget holes hitting local hospitals and clinics.
L.A. County health officials anticipate the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Trump last summer, will slash more than $2 billion from the county’s health services budget within the next three years. Due to eligibility changes, the county will no longer be able to get reimbursements for many Californians who have lost Medi-Cal.
The measure was championed by a coalition of healthcare advocates called Restore Healthcare for Angelenos who warned that mass layoffs and emergency room closures could be imminent if new funding didn’t come fast. The Department of Public Health recently closed seven clinics — a grim sign, supporters said, of service cuts to come.
Voters haven’t rejected a sales tax hike since 2012, when a transportation measure fell just short with 66.1% support. It needed 66.7% to pass.
A majority of county supervisors had supported the new tax proposal, voting 4 to 1 this February to put it on the ballot. But the measure faced significant opposition from local cities, with opponents arguing the sales tax hike would unfairly burden the poorest county residents and encourage people to spend their dollars across the county line.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger, the board’s lone opponent of the tax, said she was concerned it was a “general” tax, meaning the money wouldn’t be earmarked for healthcare costs. Instead, she argued, politicians would have final say over how the money gets spent.
The supervisors have created a plan for spending the tax money, with the largest chunk of the money meant to cover the costs for patients without insurance. The measure also asked voters to sign off on a nine-member oversight committee.
The county currently has a base sales tax rate of 9.75%, and cities impose local taxes on top of that.
Politics
DOJ expands indictment against SPLC, alleging $4M secretly funneled to KKK and extremist groups
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The Department of Justice last month announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), alleging that the civil rights nonprofit defrauded donors by secretly paying informants associated with extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan.
A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment in April charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, according to the Justice Department.
The superseding indictment retains those charges while expanding on the alleged misconduct.
According to the DOJ, the SPLC “secretly funneled” more than $3 million in donor funds between 2014 and 2023 to numerous individuals associated with extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, the National Socialist Movement, participants in the Unite the Right rally and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.
NEO-NAZIS, ‘SADISTIC’ BIKERS AND CHARLOTTESVILLE ORGANIZER: 5 OF THE MOST SHOCKING SPLC INFORMANTS
The Southern Poverty Law Center has widespread influence in education. FILE: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, left, and SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair are shown in a split image as the Justice Department pursues charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images; USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images)
The original indictment alleged approximately $3 million in payments between 2014 and 2023.
“The SPLC’s paid informants (‘field sources’) engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website,” the indictment states.
Prosecutors further allege the SPLC opened bank accounts tied to fictitious entities in order to conceal donor funds that were allegedly routed to confidential sources.
MIKE DAVIS: SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: A TALE OF A RACISM SCAM
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) building seen in March 2020 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)
According to the indictment, the SPLC began operating a covert informant network in the 1980s, and between 2014 and 2023 allegedly paid those sources in a clandestine manner.
The DOJ alleges an SPLC employee instead encouraged the pair to remain involved and offered them a monthly salary of $1,200.
The two subsequently agreed to remain in the organization, according to the indictment.
DR. BEN CARSON: I KNOW HOW BAD THE SPLC WAS, IT CAME AFTER ME AND PUT ME AT RISK
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel at the Department of Justice on April 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C., following the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Prosecutors allege an SPLC employee instructed the individuals to claim they worked for a company called Rare Books and helped college students with research and writing assignments if anyone questioned the source of their income.
The indictment alleges donor funds were used to pay both individuals through SPLC accounts.
According to prosecutors, the pair were also reimbursed for expenses related to Ku Klux Klan activities, including cross-burning events and associated costs such as wood and fuel.
One of the individuals is also accused of recruiting new members using donor-funded payments. The indictment further alleges the SPLC knew donor funds were used to purchase materials for Ku Klux Klan garments.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, attorney Abbe Lowell, who represents the SPLC, denied the allegations.
A composite image shows Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche overlaid on photographs of the Department of Justice and FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This apparent superseding indictment attempts to shore up the flaws in the initial charges, but it changes nothing,” Lowell said.
“The SPLC did not lie to its donors, it did not mislead banks it did business with, and its informant program prevented violence and saved lives,” he continued.
“It appears the Justice Department shared the indictment with media before it was unsealed by the court – another example of the government’s troubling handling of this case.”
“We will be addressing these irregularities with the court and look forward to presenting the truth at trial,” he added.
NONPROFIT REVENUE TOTALS SURGE AMID GROWING SCRUTINY AFTER MAJOR FRAUD CASES
SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair speaks during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala., on March 5, 2026. (Jake Crandall/Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
The superseding indictment also notes that the SPLC’s reported revenue increased from roughly $38.7 million in 2010 to more than $129 million in 2023, an increase of approximately 233%.
According to the filing, the organization’s net assets grew from approximately $238 million to nearly $787 million during the same period.
The SPLC is a longtime nonprofit organization that says it combats white supremacy and extremism through research, reporting and monitoring efforts intended to assist law enforcement and the public.
During a news conference announcing the original indictment, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged the SPLC paid members of extremist groups so it could generate “work product” documenting their activities.
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“To that end, [SPLC] was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing – not dismantling extremism but funding it,” Blanche said.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch, David Spunt, Jake Gibson and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
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