California
California lawmaker announces ballot initiative campaign after voter ID bill fails
SACRAMENTO — A bill to require voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote was rejected by California lawmakers Wednesday, though the Republican sponsor of the legislation vowed not to give up.
Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) announced that he plans to launch a campaign to qualify his proposal as a statewide ballot initiative for the 2026 election.
DeMaio described his proposal as a nonpartisan issue when it came before the Assembly Committee on Elections Wednesday morning. The bill failed on a party line vote of 3-2 over concerns from opponents that more requirements would disenfranchise eligible voters and embolden false claims that California’s elections are not secure.
“We have the lowest level of public trust and confidence in our elections that we have ever seen. All the polling shows that, and that is something that Democrats and Republicans should see as a democracy issue, not a partisan issue,” DeMaio said during the hearing.
Most Americans approve of requiring voters to provide identification and proof of citizenship, polls show. According to a Gallup poll last October, 84% of Americans support photo ID and 83% support providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time.
DeMaio believes the initiative will have widespread support in California, too, calling it “shameful” for his colleagues to kill the bill.
“Democrat, Republican and everyone in between, [voters] care about the health of our democracy. They demand more integrity from our elections,” he said afterward.
The bill, AB 25, would have required people to provide some kind of documentation of citizenship when registering to vote, and for registered voters to present a photo ID before voting in person. The legislation was co-sponsored by Assemblymember Bill Essayli (R-Corona), who last week was appointed as U.S. attorney for Los Angeles and surrounding areas.
According to a legislative analysis of the bill, it was unclear what kind of documents could be used to prove citizenship. A California Real ID can be obtained by permanent and temporary residents that are not citizens, and some people born in American territories, like in American Samoa, can obtain a U.S. passport as U.S. nationals but are not considered citizens.
Currently in California, people registering to vote sign a declaration under perjury that they are U.S. citizens and eligible to vote, but do not have to provide proof of citizenship — a stipulation that DeMaio called a “pinky swear.”
DeMaio’s bill would have required Californians voting by mail to provide the last four digits of a government-issued identification number, like a Social Security number or driver’s license. If the numbers didn’t match, the ballot would be disqualified.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states request or require voters to show some kind of identification at polling stations, although laws vary regarding photo ID.
California is one of 14 states, along with Washington, D.C., that uses other verification methods, such as matching signatures from a ballot to information on the voter’s registration file.
Forcing otherwise eligible voters to obtain government documents “amounts to what we consider to be an unconstitutional poll tax,” said Dora Rose, deputy director of the League of Women Voters of California, who testified in opposition of the bill. It would disenfranchise vulnerable groups of people, she said — women, people with disabilities, communities of color and the elderly.
Changing the law could also bring credence to claims of widespread voter fraud — which has repeatedly been debunked, Rose told committee members.
Chair Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), who voted against the bill, agreed.
“I hope that my colleagues on the committee will join me in rejecting baseless attempts to erode public trust in California’s elections,” she said. Pellerin suggesting that if elected state representatives didn’t believe state elections were valid, they should resign.
DeMaio’s Republican allies on the committee pushed back. David J. Tangipa (R-Fresno) said the argument that minorities were too poor or not intelligent enough to secure a government-issued ID was offensive.
Last week, California and a coalition of other states sued the Trump administration to block the president’s recent executive order seeking to radically reshape voting rules nationwide, including requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship, at the penalty of states losing access to federal funds.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Trump’s order was an illegal attempt by the White House to strip states of their authority to govern elections.
Trump — who has falsely asserted that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him — has said the U.S. voting system is wildly outdated and alleged that fraud and voting by noncitizen immigrants is a major problem.
Trump’s order, if upheld by the courts, would require all voters in the U.S. to show proof of citizenship — such as a passport or Real ID — before they could register to vote in any federal election. Bonta said the president’s order is clearly unconstitutional and that it’s up to states to regulate and administer elections, and that California has decided that requiring voter ID is not necessary.
“There is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud, there is no evidence that proof of citizenship is needed to secure the integrity of our elections,” Bonta said during a news conference last week.
DeMaio’s bill in California also would have overhauled other election laws — in a state where some counties take a month to count ballots, even those postmarked on election day, the bill would have required all ballots to be counted within 72 hours.
California
Northern California’s House of Clocks has stood the test of time for 55 years
While we may lose an hour of sleep this coming weekend, one clock store in California is gearing up for one of its busiest times of the year: daylight savings.
It’s the House of Clocks, the largest clock company in Northern California, which was recently celebrating 55 years of business.
It’s a place frozen in time. Just visit the store’s 240-year-old grandfather clock. It’s got plenty of stories to tell, dating back to 1780.
“This is the oldest piece we have right now,” clocksmith Joey Hohn said.
The House of Clocks is on the outskirts of Downtown Lodi in San Joaquin County.
“We have new, we have vintage, we have antique,” co-owner Sandy Hohn shared. “Honestly, it feels like not a day goes by that we don’t get a phone call or an email of somebody wanting to sell something for 100 different reasons.”
The clock store has been with the Hohn family for three generations. It’s all thanks to one family heirloom.
“When the first war started, [my grandparents] left everything and had to move,” Joey Hohn explained. “After the Second World War, my grandpa was stationed in Germany. They went back to the house that had been abandoned and the neighbor who they left the property to said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, everything in the house is still yours.’ They went back and got this, so this is my great-great-grandparents’ clock.”
You can find just about anything in the House of Clocks, from old grandfather clocks to clocks that can fit in the palm of your hand.
What you can’t find anywhere else is the Hohns’ love for Lodi.
“We’ve made so many friends over the years out of customers,” Sandy Hohn said. “Friends that are just wonderful, that love collecting, and we keep them repaired for their families, which is awesome. They have sentimental value that’s passed down.”
That same love for the city and their community runs in the family.
“We had a customer that wanted to repaint their dial,” Joey Hohn explained. “We told them no because it was her father’s who had passed away. Every time he went to wind the clock, he placed his thumb in the same spot. When we told her that smudge there on the dial was her father, she said, ‘Back away, don’t you dare.’ It was just a good memory we have.”
While you can’t turn back time, what we can do is keep memories alive and treasure the present moment.
“There’s so many personalities,” Sandy Hohn said. “We just try to find a good home for them.”
California
Signs of spring blooming at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve after wet, warm winter
It’s beginning to look a lot like spring!
The warm and wet weather this winter has led to the start of a dazzling super bloom at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.
“We had an unseasonably warm winter as well, so there’s actually a lot of growth,” said Callista Turney with California State Parks. “We’re having early wildflowers that are already at the park. So if you look at the poppy live cam, it shows a lot of orange already.”
The rain has helped the early blooms, but it’s actually the heat that accelerated the growth of the flowers.
“It will actually speed up the growth of the plants, so some of them were already blooming and that’s going to cause those blossoms to accelerate faster towards seed production. And the blossoms that are in the process of being formed, those are going to open up soon as well.”
We also sometimes see great super blooms in Death Valley National Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve.
“It’s definitely a rare occurrence because we don’t always have the right conditions. It’s gotta be the weather, the wind, the rain, all coming together,” said Katie Tilford, Director of Development and Communications with the Theodore Payne Foundation.
If it continues to stay unseasonably warm, we’ll see a shorter bloom. The key to a longer season is milder weather.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
California
Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’
We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.
In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”
Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.
“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.
Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies
Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.
When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”
“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”
When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”
Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.
Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.
The primary election is June 2.
No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows
A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
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