AG Report 1.14.2025

Los Angeles Fires

The Free Press and others have extensively covered how local governance failures contributed to the unfolding calamity impacting Los Angeles. Not only did city and state officials fail to properly govern in the lead-up to these fires, which made the damage far worse than it should have been, but they also proved themselves to be incompetent once disaster struck.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass left for a taxpayer-funded trip to Africa while her city was clearly at risk. Then, when she returned, she proved herself embarrassingly incompetent over and over again. One of the best examples of good journalism over the last week was when a Sky News reporter confronted Bass about her failures. California Gov. Gavin Newsom wasn’t much better, constantly deflecting blame instead of leading.

I did a thread on X documenting some recent examples of California’s governance being a continuous disaster. The state is failing despite having every natural advantage. The way the state has been run and the backward priorities of those in charge are driving a lot of that.