Politics
Former L.A. Councilmember Kevin de León faces ethics fine for voting on issues in which he had a financial stake
Former Los Angeles Councilmember Kevin de León is facing an $18,750 ethics fine for voting on City Council decisions in which he had a financial interest and for failing to disclose income.
De León has admitted to four counts of “making or participating in a decision in which a financial interest is held” and one count of failing to disclose income, according to a report prepared by the enforcement arm of the L.A. City Ethics Commission.
The ethics report says that in 2020-21 De León voted on three City Council issues that benefited the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and one that helped USC — all decisions that were made less than a year after he received more than $500 income from each. According to state law, elected officials must disclose each source of gross income of $500 or more received in the 12 months before taking office.
Less than 12 months after receiving income from AIDS Healthcare Foundation, De León participated in three separate city decisions that affected the foundation in which he knew or had reason to know he had a financial interest, the ethics commission report said. But according to the Ethics Commission report, De León failed to disclose $109,231 in income he had received from the foundation before he took office.
On Nov. 25, 2020, he voted for the foundation’s application for historical designation of the foundation-owned King Edward Hotel. On April 22, 2021, he voted for an item regarding a city lease of the foundation-owned Retan Hotel. On May 4, 2021, he voted again for a city lease of the Retan Hotel.
De León’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but The Times received a statement from a spokesperson for De León: “This matter centers on disclosure — not personal gain. The items in question provided homeless housing during a pandemic and health services to vulnerable Angelenos,” the statement said. “They passed unanimously, and had Councilmember De León been advised that he should recuse himself, he would have done so without hesitation — the outcomes would have been the same.”
USC paid him $155,000 as an independent contractor from July 2019 to June 2020.
Less than 12 months later, De León participated in a city decision that benefited USC, according to the Ethics Commission. In June 2021, De León voted to approve the Housing and Community Development Consolidated Plan proposed budget, which included a $1-million allocation to the USC Keck School of Medicine.
In March 2020, De León was elected to represent Council District 14 on the L.A. City Council. In May 2020, while still a council member-elect, De León entered into a consulting agreement with the Healthy Housing Foundation, a division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and began providing services as a strategic policy advisor.
The agreement said that De León was to “advise and strengthen strategy regarding partnerships and policy insights on behalf of HHF’s programs and portfolio,” and “[e]ngage with policymakers and regulators on all areas related to overall strategic goals of HHF,” according to the ethics commission.
De León took office in October 2020. He filed a financial disclosure form the next month but did not disclose the AIDS Healthcare Foundation or its Healthy Housing Foundation as sources of income. In December 2020, he filed an amended financial form but did not disclose income from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which was “the true source of the income that he received under the consulting agreement,” according to the ethics commission report.
In determining the fine amount, the Ethics Commission said that De León cooperated with staff and that he had no prior enforcement history. However, the Ethics Commission noted the violations in this case are serious and that “the violations appear to indicate a pattern of conduct.”
Similar issues were highlighted in a 2023 Times story that found De León helped organized a meeting in summer 2020 with a group of city department heads and high-ranking mayoral staffers to address issues facing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. At the time, De León had been elected but not yet taken office.
In the months before the meeting, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation was pursuing a lawsuit alleging the city illegally denied funding for an affordable housing project that the foundation was proposing. An email from the mayor’s then-deputy chief of staff to colleagues said De León “wants to engage and come up with a solution.”
Five city officials who attended the briefing or were involved in organizing it told The Times in 2023 they were unaware that De León was employed as a consultant for the foundation at the time — or of the more than $100,000 it was paying him in the six months before his taking office.
Political ethics experts, meanwhile, told The Times that De León’s relationship with the foundation and failure to disclose his financial ties raised a potential conflict-of-interest concern. They believed his actions could have left city staffers with uncertainty about whose interests he was serving — the city’s or his then-employer’s.
Politics
Video: President Trump Reclassifies Marijuana With Executive Order
new video loaded: President Trump Reclassifies Marijuana With Executive Order
transcript
transcript
President Trump Reclassifies Marijuana With Executive Order
Marijuana was downgraded from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug on Thursday. The reclassification does not legalize cannabis, but it does ease restrictions on the substance and allows for more research.
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Today, I’m pleased to announce that I will be signing an executive order to reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance with legitimate medical uses. We have people begging for me to do this. I want to emphasize that the order I am about to sign is not the legalization or it doesn’t legalize marijuana in any way, shape, or form, and in no way sanctions its use as a recreational drug — has nothing to do with that.
December 18, 2025
Politics
Trump quietly signs sweeping $901B defense bill after bipartisan Senate passage
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President Trump signed into law a nearly $1 trillion defense policy bill Thursday and approved what looks to be the largest military spending package in U.S. history.
The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $901 billion in military spending, roughly $8 billion more than the administration requested, according to Reuters.
It also delivers a nearly 4 percent pay raise for troops, provides new funding for Ukraine and the Baltic States, and includes measures designed to scale back security commitments abroad.
In a release shared online, Rep. Rick Allen said: “With President Trump’s signature, the FY2026 NDAA officially delivers on our peace-through-strength agenda with a generational investment in our national defense.”
TRUMP ADMIN ANNOUNCES $11B TAIWAN ARMS SALES DEAL
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. December 11, 2025. (Al Drago/Reuters)
“Not only does this bipartisan bill ensure America’s warfighters are the most lethal and capable fighting force in the world, but it also improves the quality of life for our service members in the 12th District and nationwide,” he added.
As previously reported by Fox News Digital, the Senate passed the NDAA on Wednesday, sending the compromise bill approved with bipartisan support to the president’s desk.
Trump signed it quietly Thursday evening, according to Reuters.
The NDAA includes $800 million for Ukraine over the next two years as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays US firms for weapons for Ukraine’s military.
It also includes $175 million for the Baltic Security Initiative, which supports Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
TRUMP TOUTS BRINGING COUNTRY BACK FROM ‘BRINK OF RUIN’
President Donald Trump announced his proposal for a ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system in the United States on May 20, 2025. (Reuters/Leah Millis/File Photo; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The bill prohibits reducing U.S. troop levels in Europe below 76,000 for more than 45 days without formal certification by Congress.
The legislation also restricts the administration from reducing U.S. forces in South Korea below 28,500 troops.
Trump ultimately backed the bill in part because it codifies some of his executive orders, including funding the Golden Dome missile defense system and getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, per Reuters.
TRUMP TO HAND OUT $2.6B IN ‘WARRIOR DIVIDENDS’ — AND THE SURPRISING POT HE’S PULLING THE MONEY FROM
The seal of the Department of War is displayed inside the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (elal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Under President Trump, the U.S. is rebuilding strength, restoring deterrence, and proving America will not back down. President Trump and Republicans promised peace through strength. The FY26 NDAA delivers it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson had said in a statement Dec. 7 on the new measures.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Politics
State regulators vote to keep utility profits high, angering customers across California
Despite complaints from customers about rising electric bills, the California Public Utilities Commission voted 4 to 1 on Thursday to keep profits at Southern California Edison and the state’s other big investor-owned utilities at a level that consumer groups say has long been inflated.
The commission vote will slightly decrease the profit margins of Edison and three other big utilities beginning next year. Edison’s rate will fall to 10.03% from 10.3%.
Customers will see little impact in their bills from the decision. Because the utilities are continuing to spend more on wires and other infrastructure — capital costs that they earn profit on — that portion of customer bills is expected to continue to rise.
The vote angered consumer groups that had detailed in filings and hearings at the commission how the utilities’ return on equity — which sets the profit rate that the companies’ shareholders receive — had long been too high.
Among those testifying on behalf of consumers was Mark Ellis, the former chief economist for Sempra, the parent company of San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas. Ellis estimated that the companies’ profit margin should be closer to 6%.
He argued in a filing that the California commission had for years authorized the utilities to earn an excessive return on equity, resulting in an “unnecessary and unearned wealth transfer” from customers to the companies.
Cutting the return on equity to a little more than 6% would give Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, SDG&E and SoCalGas a fair return, Ellis said, while saving their customers $6.1 billion a year.
The four commissioners who voted to keep the return on equity at about 10% — the percentage varies slightly for each company — said they believed they had found a balance between the 11% or higher rate that the four utilities had requested and the affordability concerns of utility customers.
Alice Reynolds, the commission’s president, said before the vote that she believed the decision “accurately reflects the evidence.”
Commissioner Darcie Houck disagreed and voted against the proposal. In her remarks, she detailed how California ratepayers were struggling to pay their bills.
“We have a duty to consider the consumer interest in determining what is a just and reasonable rate,” she said.
Consumer groups criticized the commission’s vote.
“For too long, utility companies have been extracting unreasonable profits from Californians just trying to heat or cool their homes or keep the lights on,” said Jenn Engstrom at CALPIRG. “As long as CPUC allows such lofty rates of return, it incentivizes power companies to overspend, increasing energy bills for everyone.”
California now has the nation’s second-highest electric rates after Hawaii.
Edison’s electric rates have risen by more than 40% in the last three years, according to a November analysis by the commission’s Public Advocates Office. More than 830,000 Edison customers are behind in paying their electric bills, the office said, each owing a balance of $835 on average.
The commission’s vote Thursday was in response to a March request from Edison and the three other big for-profit utilities. The companies pointed to the January wildfires in Los Angeles County, saying they needed to provide their shareholders with more profit to get them to continue to invest in their stock because of the threat of utility-caused fires in California.
In its filing, Edison asked for a return on equity of 11.75%, saying that it faced “elevated business risks,” including “the risk of extreme wildfires.”
The company told the commission that its stock had declined after the Jan. 7 Eaton fire and it needed the higher return on equity to attract investors to provide it with money for “wildfire mitigation and supporting California’s clean energy transition.”
Edison is facing hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims of the fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena. The company has said the fire may have been sparked by its 100-year-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which it kept in place even though it hadn’t served customers since 1971.
Return on equity is crucial for utilities because it determines how much they and their shareholders earn each year on the electric lines, substations, pipelines and the rest of the system they build to serve customers.
Under the state’s system for setting electric rates, investors provide part of the money needed to build the infrastructure and then earn an annual return on that investment over the assets’ life, which can be 30 or 40 years.
In a January report, state legislative analyst Gabriel Petek detailed how electric rates at Edison and the state’s two other biggest investor-owned electric utilities were more than 60% higher than those charged by public utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The public utilities don’t have investors or charge customers extra for profit.
Before the vote, dozens of utility customers from across the state wrote to the commission’s five members, who were appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking them to lower the utilities’ return on equity.
“A profit margin of 10% on infrastructure improvements is far too high and will only continue to increase the cost of living in California,” wrote James Ward, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident. “I just wish I could get a guaranteed profit margin of 10% on my investments.”
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