California’s 31st Congressional District: Who Will Win the 2026 House Race

Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) has not reported any income for her husband, Charles Kim, on congressional financial disclosures since first running in 2018, despite Orange County records showing he earned up to $100,000 in 2017 as a U.S. coordinator for Dam Jae, a South Korean nonprofit honoring Korean War veterans. The nonprofit's chairman says the payments were volunteer expense reimbursements, not wages, and Kim's campaign says her husband has been retired since 2017 with only exempt Social Security income.

The disclosure comes amid other financial-transparency disputes involving Kim, including a 2025 ethics complaint alleging she failed to report nearly $50,000 in privately funded travel with her husband to Israel and South Korea, and a failed 2018 lawsuit challenging her "small business owner" ballot label. The renewed scrutiny arrives as Kim faces a bruising general-election matchup against fellow Republican Rep. Ken Calvert in California's redrawn 40th District, a race where both incumbents' financial disclosure histories have become a campaign flashpoint.

The Department of Justice escalated its dispute with California over a list of voters flagged as possible noncitizens, filing an emergency lawsuit Oct. 15 in federal court in the Central District of California after state officials missed a roughly 48-hour deadline set by Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter to review the names. DOJ had sent Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan and Secretary of State Shirley Weber a password-protected thumb drive naming more than 20,000 "likely noncitizens," identified through a multiagency USCIS and Homeland Security Investigations review of state voter and federal citizenship data. The 15-page complaint accuses California of violating the Constitution's supremacy clause by knowingly sending and counting mail ballots from likely noncitizens, and asks the court to order the state to set aside such ballots until citizenship is verified. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the alleged practice "state-facilitated voter fraud."

Logan's office declined to open the drive, citing data privacy protocols, while Weber argued federal officials provided insufficient evidence. Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit a "sad, desperate attempt" by President Trump to suppress California voters weeks before Election Day. The suit is the administration's first direct attempt to block vote-counting, following a broader push including a blocked citizenship-verification mandate, a mail-voting executive order partly struck down by the Supreme Court, and roughly 30 similar voter-roll suits against other states with limited success. Senate Democrats have demanded oversight briefings on the administration's election-interference efforts.

A Los Angeles-area state Senate race between labor-backed West Hollywood City Councilmember John Erickson and business-supported media consultant Brian Goldsmith has become California's most expensive state Senate general election contest this cycle, driven by heavy outside spending. The district, covering Malibu, Santa Monica, the Pacific Palisades, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, carries a 12-year term limit as both seek to succeed termed-out Sen. Ben Allen.

Business groups have targeted Erickson with attack spending, while tech-linked donors and Goldsmith's own personal funds have boosted his campaign; labor groups opposing Goldsmith have spent far less. Nancy Pelosi recently endorsed Goldsmith. Ads focus on affordability, housing, public safety and partisan loyalty, reflecting a broader business-labor struggle over California Democratic Party direction.

The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to rule quickly on its bid to stop California from counting ballots cast by people on a federal list of more than 20,000 potential noncitizens. The request came after Secretary of State Shirley Weber and L.A. County registrar Dean Logan did not review the list on the DOJ's timeline; California's Attorney General Rob Bonta has moved to dismiss the suit, calling it legally weak. Federal officials separately charged 28 legal permanent residents with voter fraud-related offenses this week. In a related case, a federal judge blocked the Department of Homeland Security from using its own noncitizen-voter list, finding it unreliable. State audits show noncitizen voting is rare.

Santa Clara County rejected a DOJ demand for data on 902 voters it suspects are noncitizens and to set aside their ballots, calling it unlawful and infeasible before Election Day; San Mateo and Contra Costa counties raised similar objections, noting the DOJ letters carry no court order. The dispute escalated after a federal judge and a 9th Circuit panel both rejected a related Trump administration effort to block roughly 20,000 California ballots statewide, calling the claims about noncitizen voters not credible and the intervention unconstitutional. The DOJ has appealed again. Gov. Newsom says California is deploying election attorneys to monitor DOJ observers at polling sites.

The Trump administration has warned California election officials that processing ballots cast by suspected noncitizen voters could expose them to criminal investigation and prosecution. A letter from acting deputy attorney general Trent McCotter called noncitizen voting a federal crime and said officials who knowingly facilitate it risk being treated as aiders and abettors. The DOJ sued California after it missed a 48-hour deadline to cross-check a federal list of roughly 20,000 flagged names; federal prosecutors have since charged 28 green-card holders across California, 11 arrested, saying all appeared on that list. Secretary of State Shirley Weber called the demand unprecedented and said officials provided too little information to verify names. Governor Newsom calls the suit voter suppression; the dispute looms over competitive California House races in the midterms.

California's High-Speed Rail Authority secured only one of the several legislative priorities it said were needed to keep the Merced-to-Bakersfield rail segment on schedule. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1425, letting the authority issue permits to utilities, local governments and developers on authority-controlled land, but broader proposals—faster environmental reviews, expedited court dispute resolution, sales tax exemptions on construction materials, and new authority to tap local tax revenue near the rail line—stalled or were never formally introduced. Local officials strongly opposed the tax-revenue idea, calling it a raid on funds needed for services and road repairs.

A separate bill from Sen. Henry Stern to let the authority spend more state climate funds outside the Central Valley segment died in committee, as did a utility-relocation bill from Sen. Scott Wiener. The authority and lawmakers traded blame over the losses. The project, now estimated to cost $126-231 billion with full buildout by 2040, depends on $1 billion in annual state carbon-auction funding that could shrink under pending climate rule changes, adding further uncertainty to its timeline.

California's Democratic-led Legislature approved a package of bills aimed at limiting federal immigration enforcement tactics in the state. One measure, authored by Assembly member Mark Gonzalez and dubbed the "Get the Feds Out" Act, would bar agents and contractors involved in immigration enforcement from future employment with state and local government agencies, including police departments, with limited exceptions. A related bill from Assemblymember Isaac Bryan would prohibit law enforcement officers from moonlighting as federal immigration contractors. Lawmakers also passed AB 2760, the nation's first law banning law enforcement from using electric-shock gloves, a response to a Trump administration plan to buy the devices for ICE agents; the Department of Homeland Security has said it won't comply, calling the measure unconstitutional.

Additional bills would bar arrests near courthouses, impose a 25% tax on private immigration detention operators' income to fund immigration services, and let individuals sue federal agents over alleged civil rights violations. Republicans and immigration-restriction groups criticized the measures as legally vulnerable and politically motivated. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bills.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a package of bills establishing California's first statewide standards for testing and remediating smoke damage from wildfires, aimed at speeding recovery for survivors of the January 2025 Los Angeles County fires. Nearly two years later, many homeowners whose houses did not burn remain displaced amid disputes with insurers over who pays for smoke-damage testing and cleanup; the state Insurance Department estimates more than 13,000 such claims stemmed from the fires.

Assembly Bill 1642 directs the Department of Toxic Substances Control to set lead and asbestos testing standards by 2028 and broader contaminant standards by 2029, with existing federal and state rules applying in the interim. AB 1795 creates a legal presumption that smoke damage in a fire zone originated from the fire, requiring insurers to cover testing, remediation and alternative living expenses until a home is confirmed safe to reoccupy. Additional bills establish a statewide mortgage forbearance program for homes deemed uninhabitable after disasters and extend forbearance to 24 months for fire survivors. Advocacy group Eaton Fire Residents United, whose testing found lingering contaminants even after professional cleanup, backed the changes. Insurers and local governments remain in separate disputes over smoke-damage claim handling.