CALMATTERS

• What’s holding back California students? A new report urges stronger state oversight
  May 7, 2026
  The state’s shift to a funding system that gave school districts control has left big gaps in student performance and questions over who’s accountable for what, according to a new report.
• CalMatters spent two years researching Homekey. Here’s what we found
  May 7, 2026
  Gov. Gavin Newsom created Homekey in 2020 amid the peak of COVID-19 and pressure to do something about the state’s persistent homelessness crisis. The state program sought to get money into the hands of local […]
• Latinos in California are mad at Trump. Their votes for Democrats’ gerrymandering show it
  May 7, 2026
  Proposition 50, which Democrats framed as a referendum on the Trump administration, attracted far more support from California Latinos than Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign did just the previous year, a CalMatters data analysis has found. […]
• Did Newsom’s $3.8 billion hotels-to-housing program pay off? We filed 100 records requests to find out
  May 7, 2026
  The records provide a first-of-its-kind look into how a historical investment in homeless housing played out.
• For the lone woman left in the California governor’s race, it’s all about ‘temperament’
  May 7, 2026
  Onetime progressive darling Katie Porter’s campaign for governor stalled over viral videos that critics say showed temperament issues. Seven months later, they’re still her biggest liability.
• Latino voters shifted towards Democrats on Prop. 50. Here’s how we analyzed it.
  May 7, 2026
  Voters in Latino-majority precincts had the largest shift toward supporting Prop. 50 compared to 2024 election results .
• Housing-averse Coastal Commission gets wings clipped in two key lawsuit losses
  May 7, 2026
  For more than 50 years the Coastal Commission has superseded most local and state rules affecting housing and land on the coast — until now.