Top Ten Winners & Losers In California Politics This Week

Each week we pick ten people or groups that had a particularly good or bad week, and label them winners or losers! This is for the week ending 9/26/25!

Below is our Top Ten List of Winners and Losers for the Week. This feature available to all of our subscribers, free and paid. However, at the bottom of the column, past the firewall is something extra, just for paid subscribers as a thank you!

⏱️ 6 minute read

This is where we look over state and local politics (or national with a California angle), and highlight people (or groups) that have had some solid wins, or who have just had a really rough week. Of course anyone who knows me would know that I tried hard to make the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers winners here, but hard to make the California politics nexus. But my boys in blue did clinch the NL West, again, yesterday! If you want to make your own suggestions for this list — just send in an email (you can just hit reply to any of these e-mails) and suggest away! I promise to keep confidential the people making suggestions! Here we go…

Top Ten Winners & Losers This Week in California Politics

⬇️ LOSER: FORMER VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS

Kamala Harris is watching her much-touted book tour unravel into a political fiasco. The memoir generated controversy for trashing Gavin Newsom, admitting private concerns about men in women’s sports she never voiced publicly, and confessing why she didn’t pick Pete Buttigieg as her running mate. Harris wrote, “We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man… knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” Instead of cementing her legacy, Harris exposed damaging contradictions, reignited old rivalries, and deepened divisions within her own party at the very moment Democrats hoped for unity.

⬆ WINNER: ERIC TUNG – TRUMP JUDICIAL NOMINEE

Eric Tung just earned a major win: President Trump nominated him to fill a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A Woodland Hills native, Tung is known as a staunch conservative, pro-crypto, pro-gun, and originalist legal voice. With a résumé that includes clerking for Justices Scalia and Gorsuch and leading high-stakes corporate litigation, he’s now poised to reshape the California bench for decades to come.

⬇️ LOSERS: PEOPLE WHO WANT TO MARRY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Couples in Los Angeles County just got hit with a steep “marriage tax.” The Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to raise marriage license and ceremony fees across the board, with public license costs nearly doubling and confidential licenses soaring even higher. For many, especially lower-income couples, the increased costs make saying “I do” a lot more expensive.

⬆️ WINNER: ALL OF US NOT DRIVING AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE

California’s special carpool-lane privilege for solo EV drivers ends this month, closing the chapter on a policy that unfairly rewarded government-favored vehicles (although CHP won’t enforce the end of this goody until December 1 - boo). All of us pay for the highways, and it never made sense to let EV drivers jump ahead while the rest of us sat in traffic. Worse, many of those highways are funded by gas taxes — so drivers who don’t even buy gas were enjoying a perk at everyone else’s expense.

⬇️ LOSER: THE CALIFORNIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The California Chamber of Commerce, which claims to be the voice of business in Sacramento, is a loser for officially taking no position on Proposition 50, the legislative power grab that would hand redistricting authority back to politicians. By sitting it out, the Chamber gives cover to left-wing legislators who champion higher taxes and heavier regulations — abandoning the very businesses they pretend to represent.

⬇️ LOSER: SANTA BARBARA COUNTY D.A. JOHN T. SAVRNOCH

At a time when gas and energy prices are off the charts — and two California refineries are scheduled to close — Santa Barbara County District Attorney John T. Savrnoch chose to file criminal charges against Sable Offshore for its efforts to restart oil pipelines. At best, Savrnoch is catering to the granola, eco-crazy crowd — or worse, he may be one himself. Either way, he cements his rank among officials driving unaffordable energy costs and diminishing human flourishing. Right now all focus should be on getting more oil production online.

⬆️ WINNERS: SMALL TRUCKING FLEETS & DELIVERY OPERATORS

California officially repealed its private-fleet electric-truck purchasing mandate after legal setbacks and the loss of federal waiver authority. The Advanced Clean Fleets rule would have forced operators to phase in zero-emission trucks on an aggressive schedule, but trucking companies and allied states challenged its legality. With the mandate scrapped, small fleets and delivery operators won immediate relief from crushing costs and compliance risks. The rollback slows California’s imprudent push for rapid electrification. We’re all winners of a sort, as the costs of these regulations ultimately would be borne by we, the consumers.

⬇️ LOSER: JIMMY KIMMEL (AGAIN)

Jimmy Kimmel once more proves he hasn’t learned — he came back to TV unrepentant after his remarks about Charlie Kirk, refusing to apologize despite backlash. His first night back mixed regret with defiance as he decried attempts to silence satire, all while critics accused him of crocodile-tears and doubling down on the original offense. Kimmel also earns the dubious distinction of being the first to get Loser Honors two weeks in a row.

⬇️ LOSER: COUNTY OF ORANGE

Orange County now has national infamy — not for bankruptcy, but for letting a dog vote. A Costa Mesa woman allegedly registered her dog, Maya Jean, to vote in two elections and cast ballots in its name. The county’s registrar system failed. In the meantime, the dog’s owner, Laura Lee Yourex, is facing multiple felony charges — way to go OC!

⬆ WINNER: RILEY WALZ

Riley Walz just secured Genius of the Week status after launching Find My Parking Cops — a viral app that reverse-engineered San Francisco’s parking ticket system to map in real time where officers are issuing citations. His script scraped sequential ticket data and visualized officers’ patrols, attracting massive public attention before the city abruptly cut off access hours later.

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Now that you see what this column is all about, keep your eyes peeled. If you have someone to suggest to be considered for featuring in this column next week, drop me a note. I will keep confidential the names of those who make the suggestions!

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