Journalist @KQED #PoliticalBreakdown. @ucbsoj ‘22. formerly #TheCaliforniaReport @politicoCA @sacbee_news @ucberkeleyirp
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Articles by Isabella Bloom
Do California Trump Supporters Have Buyer's Remorse? Not So Far
May 12 Failed to save article Please try again President Donald Trump’s administration has disrupted long-standing government norms. Yet even in California, many of his supporters remain steadfast. (Anna Vignet/KQED) President Donald Trump has flooded the first 100 days of his second term with a flurry of executive orders.
Democrats Voice Frustration and Determination to Win Back the House
Izzy BloomScott ShaferMarisa Lagos May 6 Failed to save article Please try again Senator Alex Padilla speaks with politics reporters Marisa Lagos and Scott Shafer for Political Breakdown on the U.S. Capitol subway system on May 6, 2025. (Izzy Bloom/KQED) The Political Breakdown team is reporting from Washington D.C. all this week.
Abortion, Immigration and Water Policy Are Key in This Competitive House Race
Izzy BloomMarisa LagosScott Shafer Oct 17 Failed to save article Please try again Left: Rep. John Duarte January 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Right: Assemblymember Adam Gray March 2012. (Photo by: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Political Breakdown continues their series examining the key California congressional races that could determine which party controls the House of Representatives next year.
How a California Tribe Fought for Years to Get Their Ancestral Land Back in Eureka
Nov 3 Failed to save article Please try again Cheryl Seidner (right) and her grand-niece Hilanea Wilkinson on Humboldt Bay on September 22, 2023. (Alexandra Hootnick for KQED) ‘Wiyot people had always intended to go back to the island. I don’t think there was ever a generation in which that wasn’t happening.’Michelle Vassel, current tribal administrator, Wiyot Tribe A young woman named Jane Sam, who survived the massacre by hiding in a trash pile, later recounted the events of that night.
Newsom Vetoes Workplace Safety Protections For Domestic Workers
Oct 13 Failed to save article Please try again The California Domestic Workers Coalition, employers, domestic workers, and partners gather outside the Earl Warren Building to protest Governor Gavin Newsom’s veto of SB 686 in San Francisco on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. SB 686 would have provided health and safety protections to domestic workers such as nannies, house cleaners, and homecare providers.
Grateful Dead fans have a whole mini economy
Email address * This is the last summer that the Grateful Dead’s offshoot band, Dead & Company, is on the road. In the hours before their final show in San Francisco, there’s a big crowd at Shakedown Street, the flea market-slash-tailgating party that takes place in the parking lot of each concert. All kinds of formal and informal sales take place here. Somebody tries to trade a joint for a hot dog. Several people wander the crowd offering balloons filled with nitrous oxide.
Izzy Bloom, Author at Marketplace
A mini economy follows Dead and Company on tour. What happens now that the show's over? Vendors who have been following the band around for decades must now figure out what’s next.
'It's Like You're on a Different Planet': In Search of Whales (and Other Creatures) at the Mysterious Farallon Islands
Failed to save article Please try again Southeast Farallon Island, about 27 miles west of San Francisco, is the largest and only inhabited island of the Farallones. (Rhys Watkin/Oceanic Society) If you look out west from San Francisco, when the fog clears and the light is just right, you might be able to see a cluster of islands jutting out of the ocean, like sharp, misshapen teeth.
What. A. Year.
THE BUZZ — LOOKING BACK: This is the final California Playbook of 2021 — and what a year it has been for California politics. Cast your mind back to mid-December of 2020. We were in an uneasy interstice between election and certification, with California Republicans exulting in House seat flips and the horrors of Jan. 6 still to come. Gov. Gavin Newsom had locked down the state again as a brutal winter surge battered the state and brought new daily death records to Los Angeles.
Dems’ smash-and-grab breaking point
THE BUZZ — NO MORE B.S.: California’s elected officials clearly have crime on their minds — and their political radars.
Garcetti glides
THE BUZZ — LA TO DELHI? Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s moment in the Senate spotlight proved less dramatic than his home city’s tumultuous politics.
California masks up — again
THE BUZZ — NICE WHILE IT LASTED: Those masks may be getting ragged from nearly two years of use, but we hope you haven’t discarded them just yet. Because California’s mask mandate is returning. Facial coverings will be mandatory for indoor public spaces across the state starting on Wednesday through mid-January, California’s top doc, Mark Ghaly, announced on Monday. POLITICO’s Victoria Colliver has some details.
Home is where the redistricting committee says it is
THE BUZZ — DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES: Scarcity breeds conflict, and that’s especially true in legislative politics. The volatility of California’s current political moment has been a running theme of California Playbook lately. Redistricting is the key culprit as the Citizens Redistricting Commission redraws the contours of power in real time in public view. The uncertainty enshrouding the legislative map is preoccupying incumbents, campaign managers and bit-champing prospective challengers.
Rendon’s time is endin’
THE BUZZ — SPEAKER SUCCESSION: Assembly speakers come and go, but rumors of leadership changes are eternal — and they’ve ramped up lately. Current Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is termed out at the end of 2024, as is the enormous 2012 Assembly class that gave us Rendon and his core team of supporters. Here we must distinguish between the invariable and the variable: Term limits guarantee that the Assembly will have a new leader for the 2025 legislative year.
Nunes ousts Nunes
THE BUZZ — WHAT’S NEXT FOR NUNES:Rep. Devin Nunes has accomplished on his own terms — with an assist from a former president — what millions of dollars and years of Democratic fervor could not: getting Devin Nunes out of Congress.
Long list of candidates vie to oust Villanueva
THE BUZZ — NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN? The contest to control America’s largest sheriff’s department keeps getting more crowded. Few elected officials in California have seen their relationship with voters transform as much as Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Elected in a 2018 upset, Villanueva has since antagonized onetime supporters and L.A. Leaders.
Inside the panics over the annex
THE BUZZ — MOVING THE HALLS OF POWER: The changes now altering California’s Legislature aren’t restricted to accelerating lawmaker turnover. The physical space of policymaking is also going to look different. It has been roughly 70 years since construction concluded on the State Capitol annex.Gov. Earl Warren was in charge, term limits were decades away and we hadn’t even gotten to the first Gov. Brown.
California keeps a key gun restriction - for now
THE BUZZ — AIMING FOR THE HIGH COURT: California’s zest for gun control could produce a landmark national decision — and California Democrats may not like the outcome. Gun safety advocates had reason to celebrate Tuesday after the 9th Circuit upheld California’s ban on large-capacity magazines.
California’s House contingent hinges on new maps
THE BUZZ — MAPPING THE CHANGES: California’s possible 2022 battlegrounds are starting to come into focus. A caveat, before we delve into our analyses of the draft House maps California’s redistricting commission released last night:None of this is final. In fact, the prevailing presumption in Sacramento is that those proposed lines will shift again before district-delineators put out the final maps in late December.
PPIC poll suggests Newsom is safe, but his allies might not be
THE BUZZ — TEMPERATURE CHECK: California voters are telegraphing a mixed midterm result. Gov.
Pelosi wins in Infrastructure Week’s thrilling conclusion
THE BUZZ — PELOSI PREVAILS: Speaker Nancy Pelosi managed to steer her caucus from another embarrassing defeat to a long-sought victory on Friday. Democrats defending battleground House seats were staring down the bleak possibility of returning to their constituents empty-handed, fueling a narrative of dysfunction that Republicans would be thrilled to amplify.
SF school board recall portends parent-teacher clashes
THE BUZZ — GETTING SCHOOLED: Much about who and what Californians will vote on in 2022 remains in flux, but this much you can count on: Schools will be on the ballot. The San Francisco school board recall electionramped up into a new phase Thursday. As backers prepared to hold a launch event, SF’s state senator, Scott Wiener, jolted the race by publicly proclaiming his support.
California schools: Get Covid shots or go back to distance learning
In California, however, some of the state's largest school districts say they have an obligation to protect students by increasing vaccination rates this winter. California has already moved aggressively by mandating teacher vaccines and indoor masks beyond other states. “Why wait? To me, that feels irresponsible,” said Victoria Flores, director of student support and health services for Sacramento City Unified.
Newsom’s recall survival formula fizzles elsewhere
THE BUZZ — RED HARBINGER: As goes California, so goes … California. In the heady days after Gov. Gavin Newsom decisively defeated a recall attempt, some pundits and politicos came to believe Newsom had offered Democrats elsewhere a road map to victory. The winning recipe: Don’t run away from stringent coronavirus rules, but lean into them as a way to distinguish yourself from Republicans who would imperil public health.
California schools: Get Covid shots or go back to distance learning
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks to students in a seventh grade science class at James Denman Middle School in San Francisco on Oct. 1. | Jeff Chiu/AP Photo SACRAMENTO — Nearly 350,000 California students face an imminent choice: Get vaccinated for Covid-19 or stay home. Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Oakland are the first large school districts in the nation to mandate Covid vaccines for older students, becominga national test case for the logistical hurdles and possible lawsuits that lie ahead.
Let the ballot measure games begin
THE BUZZ — HIGH ROLLING: Counting cards may be easier than tracking California’s sports gambling fight. To review the bets placed so far:The U.S. Supreme Court opened the wagering in 2018 by allowing states to authorize sports betting, opening a new front in the long-running feud between California’s Native tribes and licensed card room operators. Negotiations in Sacramento failed to produce a deal, so both sides have looked to the ballot for control of this lucrative new sector.
Democrats weigh how to rework the recall
THE BUZZ — RECALL AND RESPONSE: It’s clear California Democrats want to overhaul the recall process. It’s less clear what that will look like. The Legislature’s first post-Newsom-victory hearing on changing the rules for ousting elected officials generated many ideas but little consensus. Elections committee chairs Steve Glazer (state Senate) and Marc Berman (state Assembly) made clear they believe changes to our 110-year-old system are overdue.
Newsom boosts the booster shot
THE BUZZ — WINTER IS COMING — Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled up his sleeves for a Moderna booster shot in Oakland on Wednesday, flexing his muscle to stress the efficacy of California’s Covid response. The state leads the nation in vaccinations and has successfully kept a lid on Covid infections — but even in this good mood, Newsom warned that the coming winter months threaten to undo the gains.
Another twist for California’s organized labor
THE BUZZ — SUCCESSION: Change could be coming to one of California’s most powerful political players. California politics-land was thrumming on Tuesday over a letter from San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Brigette Browning — first publicly reported by KQED’s Katie Orr — endorsing Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez to be the next leader of the California Labor Federation.
Facebook’s status: Tarred and tarnished
THE BUZZ — TROUBLE AT 1 HACKER WAY: We’re old enough to remember the era when Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a golden boy to be courted in American politics. Zuck’s hoodied profile was once so hip that then-President Barack Obama made a trip to Facebook’s Bay Area headquarters just to hold a town hall meeting, and talk about the company’s deep value to American democracy. Facebook “is helping to revolutionize how people get information,...
Democrats get picky
THE BUZZ — ACCESS DENIED: The California Democratic Party is poised to start refusing checks from some major interest groups. Law enforcement and utilities have poured millionsinto party coffers in recent campaign cycles.Democratic activists want to cut them off, arguing that accepting their cash clashes with the party’s stated progressive values.
Newsom’s MO: Big ideas, short on specifics
THE BUZZ — NEWSOM’S LOFTY PROMISES: It’s an enduring source of frustration with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership: the loftiness of his claims can outrun the reality.
Breed goes tough on crime
THE BUZZ — SF IN THE HEADLINES: San Francisco Mayor London Breed is trying to get tough on crime with a creative solution — a privately funded cash reward of as much as $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of members of organized crime rings involved in petty theft and the endemic car break-ins known as “smash-and-grabs.” Breed’s announcement Tuesday comes on the heels of a cavalcade of storiesportraying Fog City as a dystopian haven of destruction.
Assembly’s Gonzalez dishes on labor, Musk and ‘Striketober’
THE BUZZ — LORENA TALKS ‘STRIKETOBER,’ ELON AND LABOR: “Striketober” isn’t over yet, but there are already political lessons to be learned from a month that has generated big labor headlines from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. Among them, Democratic Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego says, is just how much Covid has reshaped labor’s priorities and its power — and how some billionaires are still trying to push their workers to the limit.
Salas to vie for Valadao’s vulnerable Valley seat
THE BUZZ — FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: California’s Central Valley will be the battleground for one of the country’s most-watched House races. Five-term Democratic Assemblymember Rudy Salas is launching a bid against incumbent Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who has earned former President Donald Trump’s wrath for being one of the eight remaining members of the House GOP to have backed his impeachment.
To glimpse the future of California recalls, look to LA and SF
THE BUZZ — RE-EXAMINING THE RECALL: The state’s nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission Thursday took a first look at what’s likely ahead as some Democrats push for reforming the state’s recall process. Fasten your seatbelts: If anything, California voters appear to embrace the recall process now more than ever. What’s driving recall fever?
Labor juggernaut’s takedown roils Sacramento
THE BUZZ — SEIU SHOCKER: Allegations against one of the state’s biggest power players — and the major labor union she ran — stunned Sacramento Wednesday. California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office announced a 13-count complaint alleging that Alma Hernandez, the executive director of the powerhouse 700,000-member Service Employees International Union California and her husband, Jose Moscoso, are guilty of perjury, tax fraud, embezzlement and failure to pay unemployment insurance taxes.
Is the next Gascón recall a ‘bipartisan fig leaf’?
THE BUZZ — LA DA RECALL REDUX: Another recall? Indeed. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón will be facing a high-profile recall early next year. But already, there’s some interesting friction between two camps with the same goal: to oust him from office.
Recall over, bills signed - now what?
THE BUZZ — TURN, TURN, TURN: With some final swipes of his pen this weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom closed out an unprecedented political year this weekend. That means it’s time to prepare for the next one. Policymaking in 2021 was less chaotic than in the pandemic’s inaugural year,although the virus still forced lawmakers to jettison some bills as Capitol cases proliferated.Even under the shadow of a recall election, some consequential policy came out of Sacramento.
New pandemic progress
THE BUZZ — MASKS ON, MASKS OFF: There was actually some good news on the Covid front Thursday, as health officers in nine Bay Area jurisdictions finally issued conditions under which indoor mask-wearing rules will be lifted for good. That prompted a series of celebratory tweets from San Francisco Mayor London Breed: “On October 15, SF will begin easing mask requirements in indoor settings where stable cohorts of fully vaccinated people gather.
Where California stands now on vaccination requirements
THE BUZZ — SHOTS IN THE DARK: Ten months after the first shots went into Californians’ arms, coronavirus vaccines remain at the center of our state’s politics. The Los Angeles City Council enacted one of the nation’s toughest indoor vaccination mandates on Wednesday.Assuming Mayor Eric Garcetti signs the ordinance, the more than 10 million residents of California’s most populous county will need to show proof of inoculation to patronize a variety of indoor businesses.
Newsom casts himself as a uniter
THE BUZZ — NEWSOM HEADS TO RECALL COUNTRY: Gov. Gavin Newsom hit Fresno Tuesday to sign some big education bills, but there was no escaping the tough political realities he faces in red California. While Newsom may have beaten the recall in a landslide, more than a dozen counties within the rural, conservative and oft-overlooked Central Valley voted to recall him, Fresno County among them.
Oil spill in OC revives push to halt new drilling
THE BUZZ — CRUDE MEASURES: Decades after a catastrophic oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, another spill now inundating Southern California’s coastal waters has elected officials determined to prevent a repeat.
Newsom dodges questions on Thurmond’s troubles — but for how long?
THE BUZZ — TALE OF TWO TONYS: Last week, as the U.S. reached the incomprehensible milestone of 700,000 dead from Covid-19, Gov. Gavin Newsom made national news by announcing California would be the first state in the nation to mandate the vaccine for all public school students and staff, as POLITICO’s Victoria Colliver and Carla reported Friday.
Cascade of criminal justice laws lock in California’s turn towards reform
THE BUZZ — REFORM WAVE: Forget the Giants and the Dodgers for a moment. California’s criminal justice reformers have also been on an historic run lately. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday bolstered the growing body of legal checks on law enforcement’s power. Preeminent among the bills Newsom signed was a measure enabling California to strip the badges from officers who abuse their authority.
Newsom faces 'anger and ire and frustration’ on homelessness
THE BUZZ — ENCAMPMENTS, ANGER AND ANGST — Gov. Gavin Newsom was signing bills and talking up the homelessness issue Wednesday in Los Angeles. Which is why Fran Quittel was fuming. And why Quittel — a lifelong Democrat who voted against recalling the governor — and the Republicans who pushed for Newsom’s outster may find themselves on common ground these days.
In Oakland, Newsom makes headway on affordable housing agenda
THE BUZZ — A BIG CHANGE IN OAKLAND: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to come to Coliseum Connections, a, shiny new 110-unit apartment building, to sign 27 housing bills dramatized the transformative power of affordable housing in East Oakland, what used to be one of the most notorious neighborhoods in the East Bay. FELIX’S TURF — Decades ago, theblocks in the shadow of the Oakland Coliseum were dominated by run-down public housing and run by East Oakland drug lords.
So dawns the era of mail-in voting
THE BUZZ — ARMCHAIR VOTERS: California voters can mail it in indefinitely. Our temporary transition to universal mail voting became permanent on Monday,as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation directing county elections officials to mail ballots to every registered, active voter in future elections. This caps California’s gradual march to a mail-based system, which was underway before 2020 but accelerated by the pandemic and arrives amid a national struggle over voting rights.
After recall’s failure, California’s Republicans face their fate
THE BUZZ — ASSESSING THE DAMAGE — It took a decade of electoral defeats and the humiliation of this month’s failed gubernatorial recall. But as the California Republican Party gathered in San Diego over the weekend for its biannual convention, the bleak reality finally sunk in. For the foreseeable future, as even party stalwarts here concluded, Republicans will likely not win top-of-the-ticket statewide races — or even compete seriously in them.
De León on race for LA mayor: ‘Bring it on’
THE BUZZ — KDL IS IN: An increasingly crowded field of candidates is vying for the top job in the City of Stars, ahead of an election late next year. But Los Angeles City Council member Kevin de León says he offers something unique, particularly on the key issues of housing costs and homelessness: He’s been there.
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