A Riverside County Judge this week unsealed the search warrants the county’s sheriff, Chad Bianco, used to seize voting ballots from last year’s special election — enabling the public to see what evidence Bianco cited to justify what he described as a “fact-finding mission” on election accuracy.
So what do the warrants reveal?
As CalMatters reporters explain, the records show that the sheriff’s department was in contact with a citizens’ group that claimed that 46,000 more ballots were certified than were cast. That was enough for local Judge Jay Kiel — whom Bianco endorsed in 2022 when Kiel ran for the bench — to sign the warrants.
But days before Kiel signed the last two of the three warrants, the county’s registrar of voters told county supervisors that the activist group didn’t understand the data they were looking through.
Bianco’s investigators also did not cite any insider tips, witnesses or independent analyses from forensic experts to corroborate their want of a probe. Affidavits from the investigators did not have a signature from a prosecutor at the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, even though in California it’s typical for a deputy district attorney to review police search warrants to make sure they’re legally airtight.
Experts disagreed about whether Bianco, who is also a Republican gubernatorial candidate, had probable cause to justify the ballot seizures.
Paul Pfingst, a former San Diego County district attorney, says he believes the information in the affidavits “exceeds” the standards of meeting probable cause.
But Carl Luna, director of the University of San Diego’s Institute for Civil Civic Engagement, says the activist group was “the political equivalent of flat earthers who refuse to look at any facts that do not support their unsupportable views.”
- Luna: “The fact that Sheriff Bianco, an elected representative of the people of Riverside County, is using this group’s baseless allegations of fraud as what amounts to a campaign stunt is … evidence to question his fitness to lead the state.”
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Join CalMatters on April 22 in Pasadena for a conversation on rebuilding after the devastating January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Register.
Watch six of California’s gubernatorial candidates debate issues close to the heart of Latino and immigrant families on April 14 at 5:30 p.m. on YouTube.
Other Stories You Should Know
College students help rebuild LA after wildfires
In the absence of federal support, students at California community colleges are helping to rebuild homes after the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires, reports CalMatters’ Adam Echelman.
Following the wildfires last year, the city of Los Angeles is in need of over 100,000 new construction workers, electricians and other construction-related workers. Last year, the state awarded five L.A. community colleges $5 million total to train students and help address the labor shortage.
That includes Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, which has a four-semester carpentry program where students learn how to build concrete foundations, drill rebar and construct the frame of a building.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office is asking Gov. Gavin Newsom for $20 million more this year to support the region’s training efforts. Last May, the federal Environmental Protection Agency canceled remaining grant money meant, in part, to help fund the college’s construction programs.
- Brigit Hirsch, EPA spokesperson, in an email to CalMatters: “Maybe the Biden-Harris Administration shouldn’t have forced its radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ priorities on the EPA’s core mission. Thankfully, those days are over.”
Feds slam CA’s new law on oil drilling
In the latest finger-pointing over who’s to blame over the state’s high gas prices, the U.S. Energy Secretary visited Long Beach on Wednesday to lambast a recent California law, write CalMatters’ Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Alejandro Lazo.
Secretary Chris Wright traveled to an oil site owned by Synergy Gas & Oil, which is currently embroiled in a dispute with the state. Nearly a year ago, the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority and Synergy struck a deal to swap land. Land in Long Beach would transform from an oil field into public wetlands; the company took over more valuable land and gained environmental credits.
But Synergy has been struggling to get permits to drill due to a new state law banning new oil wells near homes and schools. President Donald Trump’s administration sued California earlier this year over the law, arguing that it illegally blocks business that the federal government oversees.
- Wright: “When you make energy expensive by … putting ridiculous regulations on it, you not only make it more expensive to pay your bills, but you make it so businesses that consume energy aren’t going to locate (in) your state.”
In response, Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for the governor, said gas prices are high because of Trump’s “reckless war on Iran” and that “Americans have paid $10 billion more on gasoline since the start of this war.”
And lastly: CA’s GOP convention kicks off
The California Republican Party’s annual convention starts today in San Diego. In addition to endorsing some congressional races in a post-Proposition 50 landscape, the GOP will consider who to back for governor following Trump’s endorsement of Steve Hilton. Read more from CalMatters’ Nadia Lathan and Maya C. Miller.
California Voices
CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: California has a history of featuring dueling measures on the same election ballot, and this year’s potential rival ballot initiatives related to health care, rideshare companies and taxes are no exception.
Rising premiums are a hidden pay cut for working families, and the targets set by the Office of Health Care Affordability to limit health spending growth is an overdue course correction, writes Glenn Melnick, Blue Cross of California chairperson of healthcare finance.
Addressing California’s rural healthcare crisis requires greater transparency of how discounts from the federal 340B program — which enables hospitals to purchase drugs at a lower rate — are used, writes Julie Gill Shuffield, executive director of Patients Come First-California.
Other things worth your time:
Medi-Cal immigrant enrollment is dropping. Researchers point to Trump’s policies // Los Angeles Times
Tom Steyer once managed $90M stake in firm now running CA ICE facility // The Sacramento Bee
CA insurance commissioner defends bill in face of strong opposition // The Sacramento Bee
Inside ICE detention centers, medical misdiagnoses and delays prove deadly // San Francisco Chronicle
CA’s truckers are buckling under country’s priciest diesel // Los Angeles Times
CA investigated a right-wing influencer’s hospice fraud claims. Here’s what it found // San Francisco Chronicle
Inside CA’s audacious bid to build the world’s deepest floating wind farm // Los Angeles Times
Silicon Valley is booming. So why does the system feel like it’s breaking? // The Mercury News
LA officials consider ‘mansion tax’ changes, but critics say proposed fixes don’t go far enough // LAist
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