Ten days since sexual abuse allegations were disclosed in a chilling New York Times investigation against farmworkers rights advocate César Chávez, the race to erase his name and likeness from public life is moving at a breakneck pace.

Municipal governments and agencies from the Bay Area to Phoenix, Denver and Texas are removing statues, renaming his holiday (March 31) and cutting mentions from history classes and beyond.

While action has been quick in removing Chávez’s name, there has been plenty of debate on how best to move forward.

A similar process played out a few years back in Burbank, when a student-led investigation propelled the changing of David Starr Jordan Middle School to, coincidentally, farm labor leader Dolores Huerta.

Four years removed, the school’s former principal, Jennifer Meglemre, and a former Burbank Unified Board of Education member, Steve Frintner, have advice for those not sure how to navigate a controversial name change.

Burbank name change background

In early 2018, Jordan student Ixchel Sanchez Jimenez investigated her school’s namesake as part of a class project.

What she found led her and her mother, Laura Jimenez, to push for a name change in May 2018.

Jordan was known for being the founding president of Stanford University and a famed ichthyologist, or fish scientist.

But he was also a believer and supporter of eugenics, a system of controlled breeding and separation of certain people to increase the chances for desirable heritable characteristics. It was a belief espoused by the Nazis.

University of Vermont associate professor and historian Lutz Kaelber estimated that roughly 20,000 people in California deemed undesirable were forcibly sterilized until 1964 due to eugenics policies. Most were sterilized because they were believed to be mentally ill or mentally deficient.

The name-changing process

Burbank Unified set up committees to debate the topic, first to decide whether there should be a name change, and then what the new name should be.

The committees took input from students, teachers, administrators and community members.

Frintner said it was critical not to rush the decision and allow for thorough conversations.

“It’s important to make sure you’re giving people in the community a voice because they want to feel a part of this process,” Frintner said.

After agreeing to drop Jordan, Burbank Unified’s renaming process centered on a few considerations: should the school replace David Starr with another notable Jordan (Texas lawmaker Barbara Jordan), should the school be named after another individual or something less contentious like a tree or a street.

Those decisions mirror the current Chávez debate. Los Angeles is changing César Chávez Day to Farm Worker’s Day, while some advocates, including former farmworkers, are asking that Chávez be replaced with Dolores Huerta, the civil rights leader who fought alongside the man who allegedly raped her.

Resistance to change

Meglemre said resistance to the school name change came from all sides: from those not wanting to drop Jordan and others who did not want the school renamed for a living person.

“The discussions were about how people are flawed and we don’t want to get into a situation where something is named after a person still alive and something terrible ends up happening,” Meglemre said.

After three years of debate, hampered in part by COVID-19, the committee settled on Dolores Huerta. (César Chávez was never a top contender.)

“Almost all the schools in Burbank are named after a person and we wanted to continue that tradition,” Meglemre said.

Frintner said the district committees wanted to choose someone with Southern California ties and was either a minority or a woman.

Last piece of advice

Meglemre said that while there was heated debate and pushback from community members, after a couple of years, most people “moved on with their lives.”

Frintner believes more research is always a positive.

“My advice is make sure you’re doing as much background as possible,” he said. “You do want to honor people but you don’t want to be in a position where you’re having a hard time defending your decisions.”

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Residents in the San Gabriel Valley are contending with a dramatic surge in black flies, a painful little pest known for biting around the eyes and necks of people and pets.

The San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District issued a warning this week advising residents of a spike in black fly activity in foothill communities including Altadena, Azusa, Bradbury, Duarte, Glendora, Monrovia, San Dimas and Sierra Madre. The flies develop quickly in flowing waters, where females will lay 200 to 500 fertilized eggs at a time.

“Black flies are currently very active in the San Gabriel Valley, and many residents are feeling overwhelmed,” the district said in a statement. “Right now, populations are increasing due to favorable conditions, and black flies can travel up to five miles from where they emerge, which is why they’re being seen throughout the community.”

The district is treating river breeding sites to reduce populations, but warns this might take several weeks to take effect.

In the meantime, residents are advised to take protective measures such as wearing long pants and long sleeves and using protective netting over one’s face. People should also consider using DEET-containing repellent on exposed skin and turning off personal water features such as decorative fountains for 24 hours once a week, according to the district.

The bugs, measuring two to three millimeters, are so small they can be hard to see. Still, their bite can pack a painful punch.

Azusa resident Constance Yu described the persistent bugs as “like little demons but tiny,” while she swatted away the critters during an interview with CBS News this week.

Though the flies cause discomfort, they are not known to transmit diseases in L.A. County, according to the vector control district.

Spikes in black fly activity are often caused by scheduled water releases from upstream dams, which are necessary for the region’s water management but also create ideal breeding conditions for the pests.

The district monitors and sprays pesticides at breeding sites — including local rivers, streams and locations such as Morris Dam — and sets traps in foothill communities to track the population size and minimize the effects on residents.

This time last year, surveillance traps had single-digit counts of black flies. Now they are capturing more than 500 flies at a time, district spokesperson Anais Medina Diaz told LAist.

Diaz also said it is usual to see such so much fly activity this time of year, noting that the uptick is probably connected to the recent record-setting heat wave. Southern California is experiencing the hottest March on record, leading to a surge in snow runoff from the mountains.

“We are experiencing them now because of the warmer temperatures we’ve been having,” Diaz said. “And of course, all the water that’s going down through the river, we have a high flow of water that is not typical for this time of year.”

The black flies are not the only troublesome creature acting up during the unseasonably warm weather.

The Southland has also seen more rattlesnakes, with two recent human fatalities, as the early heat draws more serpents onto hiking trails. Toasty ocean temperatures have been linked to a great white shark sighting in Newport Beach that prompted a temporary beach closure Thursday.

Polling shows Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco leading the pack, while eight Democrats split the liberal vote.

• A crowded field of Democratic candidates for California governor has split the vote, creating an opening for Republicans.
• California’s “jungle primary” system allows the top two finishers, regardless of party, to advance to the general election.
• Incumbent Governor Gavin Newsom has not endorsed a successor, a move some experts say could be costly for the party.

Democrats’ 2026 comeback could be spoiled by California electing a Republican governor, as two GOP candidates are leading in recent polls.

Experts forecast a potential “blue wave” in the midterm elections, as Democrats have recently overperformed in special elections, including flipping a state senate seat in President Donald Trump’s own Palm Beach, Florida, district on March 24.

But the party is facing a nightmare scenario in the nation’s most populous state, where polling shows Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco leading the pack in the June 2 nonpartisan primary. The state’s liberal majority is split among eight Democratic contenders.

The Democrats’ dilemma stems from California’s unusual election system, in which the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November general election. A Berkley ISG survey released March 18 of more than 5,000 registered voters showed Hilton, a conservative TV host, receiving 17% of the vote while Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, held 16%.

In third was Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, with 14%, then former Rep. Katie Porter holding 13%, followed by Tom Steyer at 10% and the five other Democratic candidates each getting 5% or less.

Other yardsticks show a similar trend, such as a March 18 survey commissioned by the California Democratic Party showing the two GOP candidates on top with Swalwell, Porter, and Steyer in a three-way tie for third place.

California Democrats enjoy a 2-to-1 voter registration edge over the GOP, but Golden State voters say there is a fog of confusion around the race due to the party’s failure to coalesce around a frontrunner. Olivya Reyes, a graduate student who lives in Oxnard, California, told USA TODAY the party still feels like it is trying to “find its footing” between a more moderate or progressive candidate.

“I feel like as a Democratic voter, what I would want to see from my party is clarity on who we’re supporting and getting behind,” she said.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is prevented from running due to term limits, has one eye on the presidency and hasn’t endorsed a successor or publicly nudged lower-performing candidates out of the race.

That neutrality could come at a cost, some experts say, should the two GOP aspirants prevail.

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‘Nobody has leapt out’: Voters disengaged, largely unenthusiastic

Reyes, 29, a lifelong Democrat, said typically by the end of March she would have a strong idea of which candidate she planned to support. She was planning to back former Vice President Kamala Harris or Sen. Alex Padilla, but both bypassed running, leaving her clueless about who was running or who to support.

She has only learned about Steyer, who has poured millions into the contest, and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

“I’m going to be honest in saying that I have been getting a lot of conflicting messaging, even from my own party, about who I should put my vote behind,” Reyes said. “Right now, it seems that the party is very much trying to find its footing on whether or not we’re going for a progressive candidate or for a more moderate Democrat.”

Experts say voter apathy typically occurs in California because it’s a heavily Democratic-leaning state, and that a majority of voters don’t pay attention until after the usually low-turnout primary.

The Berkeley survey underscored how much inattention is responsible for Democrats’ lack of enthusiasm for a specific candidate. It noted that voters “remain largely disengaged and unenthusiastic,” and about 16% of Californians are undecided.

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The poll found that even among the candidates who are generally better known, “significant proportions of likely voters have no opinion” of them.

That might come as a surprise, given that the top three Democrats all ran for major office before. Porter made an unsuccessful bid for Senate in 2024 while Steyer and Swalwell launched uneventful presidential campaigns in 2020.

There are other notable contenders on the Democratic side: Becerra, the former health secretary in the Biden administration who had just 5% in the Berkley poll; former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan who raked in 4%; Tony Thurmond, state Superintendent of Public Instruction and Betty Yee, a former state controller who both shared 1%.

“No one in particular has caught fire with the average Democratic voter,” said Brian Sobel, a veteran political analyst based in San Francisco. “Nobody has leapt out.”

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Democrat Rick De Alba, a workers’ compensation rights attorney from Pacifica, California, said he prefers Beccera, but noted he consistently sits in the basement of the race. He doesn’t want his vote going to someone who doesn’t have a shot at winning, and wishes underdog contenders would heed state party leaders’ advice and bow out gracefully.

“I think realistically you need about $30 million to put on an effective campaign in California, and if you can’t raise that, you should step aside,” De Alba said. “California always votes Democrat, no matter what. We just need to know who the candidate is.”

Reyes, the graduate student, said she had hoped to learn more about the other Democrats running through a debate hosted by the University of Southern California, which was originally scheduled to air on March 24. But the university canceled the event at the last minute after an accusation that it purposefully left out candidates of color, casting a shadow over the event for days.

Swalwell, Porter, and Steyer are White, whereas the lower-polling candidates are mostly people of color. Becerra and Villaraigosa are Hispanic; Mahan is White; Thurmond is Black; and Yee is Asian American.

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“As a person of color, it did make me take a pause, and it didn’t look good,” Reyes said. “But I feel like this was a chance for all of these Democratic candidates to kind of put their faces in front of California voters.”

GOP shutting out Democrats ‘theoretically possible’ expert says

Conservative-leaning California voters such as Bud Thompson, a 61-year-old state government employee, said they are enjoying the spectacle of the usually dominant California Democrats in disarray. He was surprised to learn that the two leading candidates in this year’s races were the two GOP candidates.

“I think that you can look at California and see what a mess it is. Look at who’s been running it for the last few years,” the Sacramento, California, native said in an interview. “I am going to start seriously looking at the two Republicans. It would be a nice change of pace.”

California, under Newsom, has been one of the larger state governments that have opposed much of the Trump administration’s agenda, so having either Hilton or Bianco, who are both decidedly behind the president, would be a drastic shift.

Bianco made headlines this month when he followed the administration’s lead by seizing roughly 650,000 ballots in Riverside County, based on a tip from a citizen-led group that has been criticized for delving into conspiracy theories by local officials and other voting rights experts. He’s also made support for the president’s controversial SAVE Act voting bill one of the central themes in his campaign.

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“Investigations into irregularities must happen so that the public can have full confidence,” Bianco said in a March 22 post on X.

Hilton, a former Fox News host, has also spoken in favor of Trump’s election overhaul, arguing that “(u)niversal mail-in voting must end,” in a March 26 post on X. He has emphasized allegedly fraudulent government spending and slammed Bianco for calling to work with Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.

Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno, said it’s “theoretically possible” that the two could shut out the Democrats, assuming GOP voters back their own candidates and earn enough votes from some independent voters.

But he said in the next couple of months, there will be a lot more pressure from state Democrats and others to significantly drain the pool of candidates so that the remaining contenders can consolidate support.

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“I just got to imagine that pressure is really going to mount and a lot of donors to Democratic candidates may also push heavily for some Democrats to drop out,” Holyoke said.

Asked about the prospect of Republicans keeping Democrats out of the top two spots, national campaign officials who spoke with USA TODAY exuded optimism and spotlighted the party’s history of success in the state.

“We are confident that will not happen, and we are having active conversations with our partners in California about ways that we can ensure that doesn’t happen,” Johanna Warsaw, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, told USA TODAY in an interview.

She noted the group was heavily engaged in other elections that turned out well for progressives, including the 2025 redistricting ballot initiative known as Proposition 50 and the failed 2021 recall battle against Newsom.

Trump’s war in Iran is polling badly. Will it hurt Republicans in 2026?

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Democrats express confidence as Newsom’s absence scrutinized

As the California election comes into focus, Newsom’s role in picking a successor is also being heavily scrutinized, especially given that he’s a rumored 2028 presidential contender.

Newsom served as lieutenant governor under former Gov. Jerry Brown, a longtime fixture in the state, before taking the reins in 2019. But Newsom’s second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, dropped out of the running last August.

“There isn’t a logical heir to the throne this time around,” said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Newsom’s office did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment, but he addressed the lack of a focused message among the Democratic pool when speaking with Politico’s “On the Road” podcast. The governor noted that Harris and Padilla declining to run created “a lot of chill and a lot of delay” in this year’s campaign.

“You have this condensed period of time with a lot of candidates,” Newsom told host Jonathan Martin.

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Sobel, the Bay Area political analyst, said Newsom has worked with many of the top candidates in various capacities previously and might want to avoid playing favorites. The 58-year-old governor will need their diverse and wide-ranging networks of support should he formally announce a White House bid.

“He’s going to need them again, sooner than later,” Sobel said.

Many of the low-polling candidates carry significant weight within the party at the local and state level, too, and some have been running for governor as far back as 2023. They are used to fighting ugly political battles, observers say, so they won’t go away easily.

The Yee campaign, for instance, points to the state party chair’s March 3 letter urging candidates to “honestly assess (their) viability” as an example of powerbrokers trying to clear the field for a select few.

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“I’m not going to let that happen. Voters are still shopping,” Yee, a former state party vice chair, told USA TODAY in a statement. “Every poll shows the race remains wide open. Californians have a right to see and hear from a range of candidates, not just the billionaire-backed voices. Let the voters decide. Anything less is undemocratic and simply un-American.”

While the race might have some Democrats biting their nails, psychologist Steve Flannes, of Piedmont, California, said he’s pleased that so many people are running for governor. He said it’s a chore examining all the candidates, but he hopes it won’t be too cumbersome in the coming weeks.

“I’m trying to narrow down the options for myself,” Flannes, 75, said. “I’ve still got a couple of months to figure it all out, right?”