Sacramento’s streets were flooded. In fact, much of California was. A 300-mile-long lake was created in the Central Valley from near Bakersfield to Red Bluff. At least 4,000 people were killed.

It was the largest flood in the recorded history of California, Nevada and Oregon, dumping 10 feet of water on this state over a 43-day period.

The Great Flood of 1862 followed a 20-year drought.

Gov. Gavin Newsom seems, in every other sentence, to blame the intensity of our current storms — or any drought or wildfire — on climate change. We’re getting drier and wetter and the cycles are becoming more frequent, he and experts warn.

OK, I’m no climatologist. But I do read history. And you can acknowledge history without being a climate denier. Burning fossil fuel has warmed the planet and appears to have mucked up our climate. But we’d still suffer terrible droughts and disastrous storms even if all the energy we used was carbon free.

Cycles of drought and flooding have been the California way — nature’s way — for eons.

Times columnist Gustavo Arellano recently wrote about the Great Flood of 1938.

“California has lots of extremes. We’ve always had more wet years and drier years than any part of the country,” Jay Lund, vice director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, once told me. “Every year we’re managing for drought and for floods, and we always will.”

Yes, and we’ve got lots of catching up to do on flood management with or without climate change.

But the state has added little to its once-prized water system since approval of Gov. Pat Brown’s then-controversial California Water Project in 1960.

One failure is we’re not capturing and storing nearly as much floodwater as we should. The primary example is in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the source of drinking water for 27 million Californians and irrigation for 3 million acres.

Ideally, we’d be grabbing big pools of nature’s gift and storing it for use in dry years. Instead, it escapes through San Francisco Bay and flows into the ocean.

One immediate reason we’re capturing less water than we could is a regulation agreed to by the former Trump administration.

Under it, the “first flush” of each season’s major storm is reserved for the bay. For two weeks, state and federal pumps at the southern end of the Delta have been permitted to pump at only about half capacity.

The main reason is to protect endangered fish. Aggressive pumping reverses San Joaquin River flow, sucking endangered tiny smelt and little salmon into the pumps or mouths of large predator fish. But fish aside, the reverse flows draw in salt water from the bay. And that gets pumped south into Southern California reservoirs.

“That’s why we’re so focused on the Delta tunnel. It’s going to allow us to pump large amounts of water during big winter storms without an environmental impact,” says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the state Natural Resources Agency.

Fresher Sacramento River water from the north Delta would be siphoned into a 45-mile-long, 39-foot-wide tunnel ending near the southbound aqueducts. If it had been in place, Crowfoot estimates that an additional 131,000 acre-feet of floodwater could have been captured during the current storm as of late last week.

But small Delta communities, local farmers and environmentalists worry that if the tunnel existed, water grabbers — meaning San Joaquin agriculture and L.A. — wouldn’t just be taking stormwater. They’d also be seizing water during dry summers and droughts, leaving the Delta saltier.

All that must be negotiated and litigated. If it’s ever built, the $16-billion project probably couldn’t be operational until at least 2040.

There also needs to be more storage room for floodwater. There’s a perpetual cry for additional costly dams. But we’re already dammed to the brim. There are nearly 1,500 dams in California. Practically every good site has been used.

But one sensible dam project is noncontroversial and headed for construction. It’s Sites in Colusa County, an off-stream reservoir that would hold 1.5 million acre-feet of water siphoned off the nearby Sacramento River. Construction on the $4.5-billion project could begin in 2025.

Some existing dams, including San Luis in Merced County and Los Vaqueros in Contra Costa County, probably will be expanded.

But the future of storage is underground in depleted aquifers. That’s a major focus of state and local governments.

Meanwhile, even with climate change, Newsom didn’t need to row a skiff to his recent second inauguration at the Capitol. He was driven to the outdoor ceremony in a big SUV as storm clouds briefly parted.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

Newsom was immensely lucky that fellow Democrats controlled the federal government the last two years. President Biden and Congress showered California with tens of billions in economic aid, enough for the governor to avoid a budget crisis this winter.

It’s doubtful the federal largess would have showed up if Biden had lost to then-President Trump in 2020 and if Democrats hadn’t controlled the Senate and House by razor-thin margins.

“If it was up to, respectfully, the Republican Party, none of this would have happened. Not one dollar would have come our way,” Newsom told reporters Tuesday, referring to federal funding boosts as he unveiled a $297-billion state budget plan for the next fiscal year.

In all, Newsom said, California has received $48 billion from two major federal bills: the $700-billion Inflation Reduction Act and the $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Much of the money was distributed to local governments and private entities.

“We could receive an additional $48 billion,” he said.

That’s luck. But Newsom has been lucky for several reasons since taking office four years ago.

Both legislative houses have been controlled by supermajorities of Democrats. He can govern without Republican interference. He doesn’t need them for anything.

Newsom has had no significant political rival in either party. Republicans are too weak. Democrats don’t dare.

Thanks to voters in 2010, the legislative vote requirement for passing a budget is only a simple majority. Before that, a two-thirds vote was needed, resulting in summer-long deadlocks that tarnished the images of all Sacramento politicians. These days, it’s easy for a governor to get his spending plan passed.

Newsom also was lucky to govern in good economic times. Until very recently, the state treasury continually overflowed with tax revenue. Unlike predecessors Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newsom hasn’t had to gut popular state programs to balance the books, angering political allies.

Last year, a ridiculous $100-billion surplus was projected for the current budget. But because of the economic downturn, general fund tax revenues are running nearly $30 billion short, resulting in a projected deficit of $22.5 billion.

Except for brief fiscal jitters during the 2020 pandemic that turned out to be a false scare, this is the first time Newsom has confronted a real deficit.

The governor was justified in patting himself on the back and praising the Legislature for socking away nearly $36 billion in various piggy banks — so-called rainy-day funds — to be tapped during bad times. But he left them alone. Things could get worse, he explained, and they’d be needed then.

The governor called for delaying lots of planned programs for a year, but not outright eliminating them. He proposed paying for some public works projects with bond financing rather than cash. He reduced some planned expenditures but offered a “trigger” mechanism that would restore the funding if tax revenues picked up.

No slash and burn. Just a gentle touch as you’d expect from a liberal governor. But even with that, he’ll be under pressure from liberal lawmakers and interest groups to restore the cuts when he revises the budget proposal in May.

Newsom was asked by a reporter whether he thought the House leadership change would affect the state budget. His immediate answer seemed to contradict what he’d said a few minutes earlier about how Republicans wouldn’t have produced federal funding as Democrats did.

“Speed bumps,” Newsom replied. “I don’t see their agenda getting any traction whatsoever.”

He said House GOP legislation would be blocked by Senate Democrats and Biden.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “priorities … are not the agenda of the American people,” Newsom said. “It’s just noise.”

But then he seemed to think again and added, “They can be a roadblock. … Momentum will be disrupted.

“So, we have to step up our game. … We have the moral authority to push back, and I can assure you we will do that.”

And his relationship with fellow California native McCarthy? “To be determined.”

Regardless of how far their legislation advances in Congress, however, House Republicans are positioned to block additional funding for California. They’ve never been enthusiastic about climate programs, for example.

And one thing seems certain: There won’t be any additional federal funding for California’s practically broke bullet train while McCarthy is speaker. He’s one of the pokey project’s most adamant opponents.

Rare bad luck for Newsom.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

That was the tipping point for the Bakersfield Republican. It showed everyone — including future far-right opponents of his speakership — that he could be bullied into backing down. He had no hard and fast convictions. His words couldn’t be trusted. He lost respect among allies and enemies alike.

That’s how I figure it, anyway. And he disappointed some politicians, consultants and lobbyists who remember him as a trustworthy, straight-shooting Republican legislative leader in Sacramento.

McCarthy has spent six years kissing Donald Trump’s ring in an effort — now proved successful — to elect enough Republican House members to crown him speaker.

But in appeasing Trump and the far right, McCarthy lost credibility. That led to last week’s Republican debacle when four days and 15 ballots were required before the Californian could be elected speaker. Meanwhile, he was shoved around by “Never Kevin” hard-liners demanding and receiving concessions.

OK, hold on. That may be accurate, but it’s also simplistic. It’s not the whole story. The underlying truth is that the politics McCarthy grew up with and mastered in California is no longer as effective in polarized America as it was pre-Trump, pre-social media and pre-Fox News.

McCarthy climbed the political ladder from volunteer gofer for a hometown congressman to U.S. House leadership by building relationships and compromising.

But for many of today’s demagogic politicians, relationships — even with leaders — aren’t as important as social media clicks and cable TV interviews that enable them to communicate directly with a monolithic, anti-Washington political base. They’re cheered for attacking a potential House speaker, not collaborating with him.

In this era’s polarized politics, compromise has become a dirty word among extremists on both the right and the left.

“For most of the 20th century, being a deal maker in Congress was considered to be a good thing. But during the speakership fight, ‘deal maker’ was an insult used against McCarthy,” notes Dan Schnur, a political science professor at USC and UC Berkeley and a former Republican operative in Sacramento.

“The national drumbeat is that McCarthy coveted the speakership so much that he surrendered much of its power to acquire the office.

But the rap on McCarthy for giving away too much could be off base. We don’t know yet how these rules will work. They may turn out to be relatively innocuous. In legislative bodies, there are always paths around rules if there’s strong-willed leadership.

The new speaker has been ridiculed for allowing far-right Freedom Caucus members more seats on the powerful Rules Committee. But coalition governing is normal in most democracies. What’s different here, of course, is that the coalition is solely within the GOP. Democrats are barred.

McCarthy is remembered in Sacramento as a pragmatic centrist, personable and down-to-earth.

When he was Assembly minority leader, Republicans still were relevant in the state Capitol. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. Democrats held a comfortable Assembly majority, 48 to 32, but it wasn’t a supermajority like today’s 62 to18. Unlike today, state budgets required a two-thirds vote, so the GOP was in play.

“He was very easy to work with, a straight shooter — not someone who would say one thing and do another,” recalls then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, a Los Angeles Democrat. “He was very likable. And incredibly competitive.”

Last week, Trump tried to help McCarthy by urging hard-liners to stop blocking “my Kevin.”

So, it’s a mixed bag. Crawling down to Mar-a-Lago two years ago made McCarthy look weak. But if he hadn’t, would the Bakersfield native have become speaker? We’ll never know. But he’d be more respected.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

These coveted Senate seats rarely open up in California.

Feinstein has occupied her office for 30 years — the longest Senate tenure in California history. She’s arguably the best California senator ever.

At 89, she’s also the oldest sitting U.S. senator. And age has caught up to her. There have been news stories about concerns regarding her cognitive agility.

Feinstein recently said she is still deliberating over whether to run for a sixth full term in 2024 and will decide “probably by spring.” But no one expects her to run. It’s inconceivable anyone close would encourage her to.

There has been speculation for two years that she might resign before her term expires. But the senator quieted that talk by also saying she “absolutely” intends to finish her term.

Good. The main reason I’d like Feinstein to stay put is that if she left, Gov. Gavin Newsom would name her replacement — all by himself. That’s undemocratic. California voters should decide.

Newsom already appointed one senator, pal Alex Padilla, to replace Kamala Harris when she became vice president. He also chose a replacement — then-Assemblywoman Shirley Weber — for Padilla’s previous elective office, California secretary of state. And he named then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta state attorney general to replace Xavier Becerra when President Biden tapped him to be secretary of Health and Human Services.

That’s too much one-man rule. Enable the electorate.

Newsom, 55, must soon decide whether he wants to remain in elective office after his second term expires in 2026 — and have a good launching pad for a potential presidential bid in 2028 or 2032. He has told Biden he won’t run in 2024 regardless of whether the president seeks reelection.

Feinstein’s seat is the only logical next elective office for Newsom. But he’d need to give up the last two years of his gubernatorial term to run in 2024 and wouldn’t want to — even if it is his only foreseeable opportunity to become a senator.

So let’s assume the 2024 Senate field does not include Newsom. Who does it include?

Right now, I narrow the field of most promising contenders to four Democratic U.S. House members. And I divide them into two tiers: Adam Schiff of Burbank and Katie Porter of Irvine are the best bets. Barbara Lee of Oakland and Ro Khanna of Fremont have some potential for competitive bids.

Schiff, 62, is the best known. He became a national Democratic star as the lead manager in former President Trump’s first impeachment trial. He has prominently chaired the House Intelligence Committee and sits on the panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol invasion by Trump-inspired insurgents.

A House member for 22 years, Schiff can grab attention without riling people. He’s articulate and cool — if short on flash.

Significantly, he has more than $20 million stashed in campaign seed money. He’s already quietly running behind the scenes, lining up potential support, but has been holding back publicly out of respect to Feinstein.

But veteran Democratic consultant Garry South offers this observation: “One political reality that may play into the race is gender. California was the first state in history to have two female senators” — Feinstein and Barbara Boxer elected in 1992. “That remained until 2021. The argument will be made that another woman should replace the only female senator remaining. I would be shocked if that doesn’t come into play.”

Enter Porter, 48, a rising star among Democrats.

Unlike Schiff, she is flashy and has gained national attention by taking apart chief executives during oversight hearings, often using visual aids such as whiteboards.

Porter says she’s “absolutely considering” a Senate race. One motivator is that her Orange County House district became more competitive when it was redrawn in 2021 and she barely beat her Republican challenger in November. She’s an unabashed liberal in a moderate district. A prolific fundraiser, Porter has around $7 million banked for a Senate race.

Lee, 76, a 12-term House member, would be on Newsom’s short list if he were the selector. The governor has promised to appoint a Black woman if given the chance. But Lee seems too liberal for a statewide electorate, even in this blue state.

Khanna, 46, is another liberal and popular among ardent supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Khanna also has his eye on a 2028 presidential race, but currently isn’t widely known outside his Silicon Valley district.

Other candidates probably will surface — including a politically inexperienced billionaire or two who foolishly think they can buy the seat.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist. 

Yes, it’s true that term limits rid California’s Capitol of some sorry political specimens. Fresh blood is infused, and that’s good. But they also boot out productive lawmakers who are valuable because of their dedication, legislative know-how and acquired knowledge.

Lawmakers like Hertzberg, a Van Nuys Democrat who was recently termed out after serving eight years in the Senate and, a decade earlier, six in the Assembly, where he was a successful speaker for two years.

What losing good lawmakers like Hertzberg does is create power vacuums that are filled by special interests. Because newer legislators are inexperienced and less sure of themselves, term limits have shifted more influence to interest groups — labor and business in particular — and enhanced the governor’s clout.

Voters should decide how long an elected official represents them — not some one-size-fits-all formula.

At least voters agreed in 2012 to relax term limits by allowing legislators to serve 12 years in one house, not just six in the Assembly and eight in the Senate.

But I’ve gone off on a rant here and didn’t mean to. This column really is about Hertzberg.

A lifelong political junkie who loves public office for the right reasons — the joy and challenge of trying to make government work better for the citizenry — Hertzberg ran for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

He narrowly lost in November to Lindsey Horvath, a West Hollywood City Council member. Don’t read this wrong: I’m not saying he should have won. I didn’t watch the race. Horvath obviously was a good candidate.

She’s 40 and now the only millennial on the board. He’s 68 and an old buzzard. Perhaps his political shelf life had expired. It also was a good year for female candidates across the state.

Hertzberg has always been intriguing to me, partly because I was largely responsible for his first significant political job.

I’d just gone to work for The Times in 1974 and was assigned to write about the contest for the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination. State Sen. Mervyn Dymally of Los Angeles was a candidate. When Dymally heard that a Times reporter was going to follow him around for a couple of days, he realized that a trip coordinator and driver was needed. He recruited Hertzberg, then a 19-year-old UCLA student.

Hertzberg did such a good job organizing and driving that Dymally hired him for the entire campaign at $400 a month.

Dymally was elected lieutenant governor, the first and only Black candidate to have won that office.

That campaign was an invaluable learning experience for the then-teenage Hertzberg.

“We went to all 58 counties,” he recalled years later. “No cellphones in the car. I got an opportunity to talk and listen to Dymally and the people who rode with us. And I was in the room during meetings. I really learned. I didn’t know what I was learning at the time, but it all became clear to me later. … I learned about listening and not taking people for granted.”

Hertzberg later did advance work for President Carter and got a law degree. In 1996, he was elected to the Assembly and became an energizer bunny in the Capitol, a perpetual caffeinated workaholic. If he had a fault, it was trying to do too many things rather than focusing on a few.

He worries that virtually all major bills these days are written by special interests and handed to legislators to introduce.

“It’s so brazen,” he says.

But he loves it all. “I’m an institutionalist.”

It’s too bad he was termed out.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

That includes when you’re trying to construct a fancy new building for yourselves.

The politicians want to tear down most of the state Capitol complex and erect a significantly more spacious, luxurious and modernistic structure costing $1.2 billion-plus.

Last week, a state appellate court in Sacramento ruled that the Newsom administration and the Legislature had violated the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.

CEQA requires state and local governments and private developers to analyze their proposed projects’ environmental effects. They must issue a detailed Environmental Impact Report, or EIR, seek public comment and consider alternatives with less negative effects.

CEQA is often pesky and blatantly abused. But in this case, it’s a godsend.

The judges essentially said that the bureaucrats and lawmakers didn’t level with the public about the monstrous state Capitol construction project they’ve begun. They didn’t truthfully describe it or assess realistic alternatives, the jurists ruled in a 2 to 1 decision.

They never explained that the Capitol’s picturesque, majestic west front lawn and plaza — the site of protests, rallies and gubernatorial inaugurations over many generations — would be practically obliterated by installation of a visitors center.

Nor did they mention that a new east wing “annex” would have a glass exterior incompatible aesthetically with the 148-year-old granite Capitol.

The court voided the state’s approval of the project. It ordered the Legislature and administration to craft a new EIR with more candid details and to assess realistic alternatives.

“This case concerns significant impacts to a treasured historical resource, the Historic Capitol,” Justice Henry Hull wrote in a mostly unanimous ruling.

“It is difficult to conceive of an instance where the nature of a project would dictate a greater degree of specificity and analysis [of] visual impacts than this project.”

The lone dissenter didn’t dissent much, only on a relatively minor issue. He concurred on the rest of the opinion.

The political brass “thought no one would challenge them so they could get away with it,” says Stephen Cook, an attorney for Save Our Capitol, a preservationist coalition that sued. “They also thought [lawmakers] would get a great deal of deference from the court.”

The historic domed Capitol is safe from the wrecking ball. But the larger annex, where the governor’s and legislators’ offices were located before being vacated last year, is slated for demolition.

During construction, the governor and legislators have moved temporarily into a new $450-million, 10-story building one block away.

The original majestic Capitol was completed in 1874 at a cost of $2.6 million. It was modernized — without being demolished — for $72 million and reopened in 1982. It contains the Legislature’s ornate chambers and leaders’ handsome 19th century-style offices.

The condemned six-story annex, which looks like a typical government building, attaches awkwardly to the old Capitol. It was completed for $7.67 million in 1952 when Earl Warren was governor.

Everyone agrees the annex should have been remodeled long ago. Fire sprinklers don’t exist above the first floor. Asbestos and mold are everywhere. Plumbing leaks. Narrow hallways are often jammed and inaccessible to wheelchairs. And the legislators’ underground garage is a security hazard ripe for car bombs that could crumble the Capitol.

The project’s opponents argue that the annex could be gutted and updated for less than half the cost of a new structure. You’d think that would be a strong selling point with the state again falling into red ink, looking at a potential $25-billion budget deficit next year.

Demolition was supposed to start next month, but that’s on hold.

The politicians have acted as if the Capitol belongs to them and it’s solely their business.

The court reminded them in writing that it “is truly the people’s Capitol.”

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

There could be no gas at all to buy. Then there’d be long lines at stations that did offer gas. And you wouldn’t much care about the cost.

That’s not likely to happen under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to sock the “greedy” oil companies with a windfall profits tax. But it has in the terrible past so let’s hope our leaders have learned.

Correct the above: Newsom is now calling it a “penalty,” not a tax. Californians tend to rebel against taxes. And they’re harder to pass than a simple fine or penalty.

“I don’t care what he calls it,” says Catherine Reheis-Boyd, who heads the Western States Petroleum Association. “It’s a bad idea.

“Is the governor of this state going to partner with our industry to continue to provide reliable, affordable fuel as we evolve into an alternative transportation system? Does he want to figure it out? Or does he just continue to demonize us?”

The gas supply has been reliable, no question. But has it been affordable? Not for lots of folks.

If Newsom and lawmakers aren’t careful in crafting their legislation to cap oil industry profits, they could end the reliability of gas supplies by discouraging production. Without the prospect of a reasonable profit, why bother?

Some of us remember severe fuel shortages and cars lined up for blocks back in the 1970s, waiting to get gas.

“I was 16 and had just gotten my license,” recalls Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the UC Berkeley Energy Institute.

“I’m concerned — worried we could wind up going down that road if we don’t design this legislation very carefully.”

It was a very bumpy road. Motorists began lining up at gas stations before dawn. There were fistfights. Pumps ran dry. Gas prices surged — the law of supply and demand. You could fill up only on certain days. The national speed limit was reduced to 55 mph.

Panic buying arrived in 1973 when Arab nation producers led by Saudi Arabia proclaimed an oil embargo on the United States and other countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

But Borenstein says the biggest problem was that President Nixon imposed price controls on domestic oil and wouldn’t let them rise.

“Refineries had less incentive to produce gas,” he says. “That’s the lesson for today.”

Yes, Newsom is proposing to regulate refinery profits.

Gas lines returned in 1979 during the Iranian revolution. Iran drastically cut oil production, there were gas shortages and prices rose sharply.

President Carter suffered politically. Bumper stickers read: “Carter, Kiss My Gas.”

Borenstein says there are two ways we could suffer a return of the 1970s nightmares.

One is if the governor and Legislature set allowable refinery profits that are too low.

“That would actually discourage the production of gasoline,” he says. “I’m guessing that won’t happen. But it will play out in the political process.”

The other way, the energy scholar says, is if refineries cut back on production because they fear being convicted as lawbreakers. Raising their prices to meet costs and paying a higher tax might be acceptable, he says. But it could be considered bad PR to be convicted of a crime — even if it’s only for making what the state considers an excessive profit.

“If there’s not enough gasoline, there will be a shortage and there will be gas lines,” Borenstein says. “And as much as people don’t like high prices, they really don’t like gas lines.”

The Newsom administration asserts that speculation about production rollbacks and gas shortages is nonsense.

“This is the biggest market in the country,” says Newsom spokesman Alex Stack. “Why would the industry give up billions of dollars in profit every year?

“The [profit] threshold will be set high enough so it will not remotely lead to supply shortages or lines. It just won’t happen.”

“I wasn’t alive in the ’70s, but we all learned a lot,” says Lauren Sanchez, the governor’s chief advisor on combating climate change. “We’re very focused on setting the [profit] threshold high enough.”

By calling it an excessive profits “penalty” rather than a tax, that means the bill can pass the Legislature on a simple majority vote, rather than a supermajority.

“If it’s a majority vote bill, this Legislature is progressive enough that you could get a statue of Karl Marx erected in the rotunda,” says Democratic consultant David Townsend.

Perhaps. But the gas gouging bill may well generate the biggest legislative fight of 2023.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist. ©2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

He claims mailed ballots and extended voting periods are rife with fraud. But there’s no evidence anywhere of significant election cheating.

And it shows how out of touch he is with America’s voting systems.

Twenty-seven states allow what’s called “no-excuse” absentee voting, meaning citizens can cast a ballot by snail mail for any reason they want. Eight of these states — including California, Oregon and Washington — mail ballots to all active registered voters.

Every state permits some form of absentee voting.

Based on tabulations so far, roughly 88% of California’s votes in the November election were cast using mail ballots. That percentage will probably rise when counting is complete.

California has warmly embraced mail balloting. In the gubernatorial election 20 years ago, only 27% voted by mail; 40 years ago, it was a mere 6.5%.

Even this state’s Republican leaders use mail ballots.

“I have voted by mail in California for years,” California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson told me in an email. “And each time, my ballot was received and counted. It’s easy, it’s convenient and it works for me.”

But Patterson led the California GOP when it and the national party sued to block Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to send all registered voters a mail ballot during the 2020 pandemic. The suit became moot when the Legislature replaced the order with a law. She then promoted early voting using mail ballots.

“Voting by mail is only growing in popularity across our state,” Patterson emailed. “Democrats utilize this method effectively and have the results to show for it. Whether it’s voting by mail, voting early in person, ballot harvesting or voting on election day, California Republicans need to embrace that there is no right way or wrong way to cast a ballot…. (We need) to make sure no votes are being left on the table.”

Demagogue Trump isn’t listening. Severely scaling back voting options is part of his MAGA comeback platform.

“This is just the beginning of our national greatness agenda,” he proclaimed during his rambling, hour-plus candidacy announcement last month.

“To eliminate cheating,” Trump vowed, “I will immediately demand voter ID, same-day voting and only paper ballots. … So simple.

“And we want all votes counted by election night. … They end up (counting) two weeks later, three weeks later. By that time, everyone forgot there was even an election. It’s horrible. …

“I’ll get that job done. That’s a very personal job for me.”

Yes, he’s still a denier — claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, despite no legitimate evidence to back it up. At least he claims to believe that.

Trump is under the false impression it hurts Republicans.

The guy hasn’t done his homework.

Republicans used to thrive on absentee balloting in California. Republican Richard Nixon narrowly carried his native state over John F. Kennedy in 1960 on the strength of absentee ballots. They also provided the tiny margin of victory for Republican gubernatorial candidate George Deukmejian over Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in 1982.

“Nothing has ever been shown to indicate any major issues of fraud,” says Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan.

But there’ll be no early voting if Trump has his way. Many states — including red Texas and Florida — now permit it.

And vote counters won’t be allowed to carefully add it all up. They’ll need to rush and finish by Trump’s bedtime.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist. ©2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

It’ll be Assemblyman Robert Rivas, 42, a San Benito County Democrat who grew up in farmworker housing on a vineyard in John Steinbeck country.

The lawmaker was raised by a single mom and Mexican immigrant grandparents in a dwelling so small he didn’t have his own bed — another American Dream story, the kind that’s becoming increasingly familiar in California.

Other than governor, there’s no more powerful elective state office than Assembly speaker.

The speaker and the Senate president pro tem — Toni Atkins, D-San Diego — have extraordinary influence over how much money the state spends and on what. They can pretty much control our state tax burdens, business regulations, what’s illegal and penalties for breaking the law.

The speaker appoints the chairs and members of all Assembly committees and can determine the fate of any legislation. In addition, the speaker fills scores of seats on state boards and is a University of California regent.

So, this is a job worth fighting for. And every few years a nasty brawl erupts between rivals reaching for the post. Sometimes there’s a coup attempt when a speaker refuses to voluntarily surrender the prestigious position.

Assembly Democrats just went through a bitter battle over who would replace Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, and — the sticky issue — precisely when.

Rendon, who has been speaker for 6½ years, won’t be termed out of the Legislature until the end of 2024. And he flexed every muscle he had to hold onto the leadership for as long as he could.

After a heated six-hour Democratic Caucus meeting, a compromise was reached: Rendon can stay speaker until June 30, immediately following passage of the state budget. Then Rivas will take over. The final vote was unanimous.

Someday, Rivas may well be in the same position Rendon is now — forced by an ambitious upstart to begin packing.

By necessity, speaker wannabes start jockeying for the job long before it’s due to be vacant. And once elected, they never last quite as long as they’d like.

Last spring, as Rivas buttonholed colleagues soliciting speakership pledges, he was threatened by a rival: North Hollywood Assemblywoman Luz Rivas (no relation), whom Rendon was helping. So, Robert Rivas stepped up his pursuit of the job.

He walked into Rendon’s office before Memorial Day and showed him 34 pledge cards from Democrats, a majority of the caucus. He asked the speaker to agree on a timetable for transfer of power. Rendon told him to buzz off.

Rivas had enough votes to replace Rendon when the post became open. But the challenger apparently didn’t have enough to boot the speaker and create a vacancy.

That escalated a Democratic civil war that played out through the Assembly election campaigns.

Rendon and Rivas financially backed Democratic candidates who promised to vote for them when the new legislative session convenes on Dec. 5. Rivas collected donations from supportive colleagues and funneled about $900,000 into at least a dozen races.

After the election, Rivas’ side believed it had accumulated a two- or three-vote edge over Rendon. A caucus meeting was held at the Sacramento convention center. All incoming Democratic Assembly members were invited, along with some whose races were still undecided.

“Things got ugly,” says one insider, who asked for anonymity.

They fiercely argued over rules. Two parliamentarians were summoned.

Rendon apparently wanted to hang on until he could beat Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh’s record of having been the second longest-serving speaker, behind only San Francisco Democrat Willie Brown. That would require him to hold the job through June.

A supporter moved that Rendon be allowed to remain speaker until June 30, then replaced by another one-time contender: Assemblyman Evan Low of Campbell. Anyone but Rivas, apparently. That idea fell flat.

No one wanted to continue the chaotic power struggle into the next legislative session. So, they compromised.

Rivas was a San Benito County supervisor before being elected in 2018 to the Assembly, where he has been Agriculture Committee chairman. The Hollister lawmaker has focused on improving farmworker housing.

His elevation to legislative leadership will represent a geographical power shift. Seven of the last eight speakers have been from Los Angeles County. He’ll be the first Northern California speaker in 25 years and the first from a rural district in 53.

But his promotion will continue the ascendance of Latinos in California politics. He’ll be the sixth Latino among the last 10 speakers.

His performance will affect the lives of nearly 40 million Californians. It was a big election.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.

“These are just eye-popping results,” says Garen Wintemute, who heads the university’s Violence Prevention Research Program.

“I have never seen [survey results] like this. We decided we had to get this paper out right away.”

And to think, most of us grew up proudly believing that one great thing about America was that we settled our political disputes at the ballot box — not with bombs or guns or a hammer.

That’s what distinguished our relatively peaceful democratic system from brutal authoritarian regimes.

But now we have many millions of Americans who don’t believe in the ballot box, our pillar post of democracy.

A poor loser president — a spoiled, rich brat bully — whines that the election was stolen from him. And millions of lemmings believe him. Republican leaders who surely know better accommodate the “Big Lie” because they’re scared of Donald Trump’s political hold on his worshippers.

The defeated president incites fellow Americans to attack the U.S. Capitol — a historic, shameful first — in an attempted insurrection aimed at overturning the election. It’s political violence taken to a new frightful level.

Here’s an example of how great America became after four years of Trump’s presidency: A right-wing conspiracy theorist is charged with breaking into the U.S. House speaker’s San Francisco home and bashing her 82-year-old husband’s head with a hammer, fracturing his skull. David DePape told investigators he planned to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and break her kneecaps, calling her the “leader of the pack” of supposed “lies” told by Democrats.

In July, Wintemute’s research team queried Americans on political violence, race and threats to democracy and found that, among the more than 8,600 surveyed, 51% believe there’ll be a civil war in the next several years.

Remarkably, 42% said it was more important to have a strong leader than a democracy.

And 19% agreed strongly that violence or force is needed to protect democracy “when elected leaders will not.”

Wintemute found that roughly 2% of those surveyed would be “very or completely willing” to kill someone to “advance an important political objective.”

Think about it: There are roughly 258 million adult Americans, Wintemute says. That means roughly 5 million people are willing to settle a political dispute by killing their opponent.

Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies violence, read the UC Davis report and observed:

“When 3 to 5 million Americans voice willingness to consider concrete acts of violence such as assassination, America is at risk of stochastic terrorism — the idea that if MAGA leaders call for a target, it’s impossible to know who will answer the call or where or when, but [it’s] very probable that someone will.”

Wintemute found that MAGA Republicans aren’t any more inclined to personally use violence than other Americans, but they are much more likely to view political violence as justified.

“Support for political violence, even by people who won’t engage in it themselves, creates a climate of acceptance that makes it easy for people to go ahead and commit violence,” says Wintemute, a longtime firearms researcher and emergency room physician who treats gun wounds.

“I’m concerned about the possibility of violence next [election] week and in 2024,” he says.

“I’m worried about the people who aren’t willing to abide by the election results and at the same time are willing to try to force the results they want.”

MAGA Republicans are much more likely than other voters to believe that “armed citizens should patrol polling places,” the survey found.

They’re also more likely than other Republicans to think that having a strong leader is more important than having a democracy.

And there’s this one: They’re more likely — 27% of them — to strongly agree that “the government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”

More of them, 51%, also strongly believe that “native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.” And 72% strongly believe that “discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against Blacks and other minorities.”

“There’s a growing group of disaffected — almost always white men — that truly believe the country is being stolen from them and their patriotic duty is to take back this country,” says UC San Diego political science professor Barbara Walter, an expert on international security.

“They see violence as a legitimate way to do that.”

A hammer attack should be a wake-up call for all political leaders, especially Trump puppets.

George Skelton is a Los Angeles Times columnist.