Only two days before President Trump’s hospitalization on Friday, October 2nd, the first presidential debate between President Trump and Vice President Joe Biden featured a chaotic exchange of insults and banter.  The debate consisted of the president repeatedly speaking over his Democratic counterpart and the moderator, Chris Wallace, struggling to mitigate a fire-induced 90-minute spectacle. However, the following two days after the memorable night an NBC News and the Wall Street Journal poll had concluded Joe Biden’s national lead over President Donald Trump to have approximately doubled after Tuesday’s presidential debate. While also finding that voters believe at a ratio 2-to-1 that Biden has the better temperament to be president.

Now it has been deduced that Biden is ahead of President Trump by 14 points through analysis of registered voters. Before the debate, Biden had sustained a national 8-point lead and has since climbed in numbers now representing Biden’s largest lead during his entire campaign. Yet, these numbers are yet reflective of President Trump’s recent hospitalization, which theorists believe will only hinder Trump’s campaign strategy and portrays the controversial handling of the pandemic as the commander-in-chief. Now, the question steadily arises as to how and whether the Commission on Presidential Debates will hold the second of three presidential debates on October 15th. 

A New York Times investigation published on Sunday shared that President Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. Trump declined this statement with his most familiar rebuttal: “fake news.”

The New York Times further reported that Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years as he reported massive losses to his business.

Here are other key findings from The New York Times:

• Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that are set to come due within the next 4 years.
• He’s currently battling the Internal Revenue Service over an almost $73 million tax refund he claimed a decade ago.
• He used the 427.4 million dollars made from his TV show, “The Apprentice” mainly on building his golf courses and putting more money into his business ventures than he was making.

Trump’s response to the detailed claims over the years is “I pay a lot, and I pay a lot in state income taxes”. He shared that he will release his tax statements once he is no longer under audit of the IRS.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, shared “The fact that you could have a sitting president who owes hundreds of millions of dollars that he’s personally guaranteed to lenders, and we don’t know who these lenders are,” she said, and suggested that Mr Trump may be indebted to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The first of three Presidential debates between Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, and incumbent Donald Trump begins tonight at 9p.m. Eastern time.

For more on elections and government relations, visit CIMA Law Group.

California Proposition 21, Local Rent Control Initiative, will be on the state’s ballot for the November 3, 2020 election as an initiated state statute.

• A “yes” vote for California Prop. 21 “supports this ballot initiative to allow local governments to enact rent control on housing that was first occupied over 15 years ago, with an exception for landlords who own no more than two homes with distinct titles or subdivided interests” (Ballotpedia, 2020).
• A “no” vote for California Prop. 21 “opposes this ballot initiative, thereby continuing to prohibit rent control on housing that was first occupied after February 1, 1995, and housing units with distinct titles, such as single-family homes” (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Enactment of Prop. 21 would allow cities to pass rent control measures on rental housing, providing that the housing is more than fifteen (15) years old. The ballot would also replace the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, passed in 1995, which allowed landlords to exercise rent control except on a) housing inhabited after February 1, 1995 and b) distinct-title housing such as single-family homes, condos, and townhouses. The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act also allows landlords exercise of vacancy decontrol, a policy allowing rent price increases to market rates when a tenant moves out. Under California Prop. 21:

• Local governments would be permitted to exercise rent control on a) housing more than fifteen (15) years old and b) distinct-title housing units (i.e., single-family homes, condos, townhouses, etc.) owned by individuals who own no more than two (2) housing units with separate titles
• Local governments would be sanctioned to allow landlords to increase rental rates by 15% for the first three years following a vacancy

Around this time in 2016, September 26th, approximately 9,500 votes had been casted for the Presidential election. Today, within the same point of the year as 2016, over 865,000 votes had already been casted for this years election. Michael McDonald, Professor at the University of Florida, runs the U.S. Elections Project and has reflected his model off of the 25 states whose early voting data is available. McDonald contributes the statistical results from the project as a sign for the excitement Americans have for the upcoming election combined with concerns stemming from both COVID-19 and the U.S. Postal Service Delay. This leaves one to wonder of the rampant rate 2020 vote casting will achieve with the consideration voting increases as election day steadily arrives.

There had been other interesting statistics uncovered with the results of McDonald’s US Elections Project. With extracting information from three states reporting party registration data; Florida, Iowa, and and North Carolina – Democrats are understood to make up the majority of early voting. With Republicans making up around 17%, Democrats consisting of approximately 54%, and Independent voters compromising 29%. Also in regards to mail-in voting, Democrats are far more likely to vote by mail largely due to the coronavirus pandemic and the risk of exposure in polling locations. With all this information in mind, it would be interesting to see the days leading up to November 3rd, and witnessing historical records with the culmination of a number of negative and unpredictable factors.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, legal and feminist icon, passed away peacefully at her Washington D.C. home on September 18th, 2020 due to complications of metastatic cancer.

“Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature,” Chief Justice John Roberts said. “We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”

During her time at Harvard Law as a young woman, she was one in nine women out of a class of over 500 students. This sparked her passion for breaking the glass ceiling.

Ginsberg never stopped fighting for equality and justice from decades before she was appointed in the Supreme Court up until her last day of life. She worked her whole life to break down the glass ceiling and other barriers holding women back from being decision makers. As a relatively new Supreme Court justice, Ginsburg wrote the court’s 7-1 opinion declaring that the Virginia Military Institute could no longer remain an all-male institution. 

Ginsberg wore many hats in her lifetime and career. She was a mother, a wife, a student, a teacher, an advocate for women and minority rights, a cancer fighter, a Supreme Court Judge, and so much more. She is survived by her two children, Jane and James.

For more information and advocacy for minority representation, visit CIMA Law Group.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into effect SB-145, an amendment to existing state law that gives judges discretion regarding “whether an adult convicted of having vaginal sexual intercourse with a minor should register as a sex offender in cases in which the minor is 14 years or older and the adult is not more than 10 years older than the minor” (Willon, 2020). The bill has been met with controversy surrounding the widespread, yet false, belief that the amendment legalizes pedophilia. Many others have made the claim that the bill is a political tool serving to drive a wedge between Democrat and Republican voters.

Prior to the enactment of SB-145, California law mandated that adults convicted of oral or anal sex with a minor be automatically added to the state’s sex offender registry. SB-145 eliminates such automation and allows judges discretion in deciding such matters. A major facet of the amendment to state law prior to SB-145 regards sexual relationships between people close in age. For instance:

The intent of SB 145…is to address cases in which two people close in age — an 18-year-old and 17-year-old dating in high school, for example — are in a sexual relationship. The 18-year-old can still be convicted of a sex offense but should not automatically be registered as a sex offender, a lifelong designation that is an impediment to finding employment, a place to live and other necessities of life.”

Phil Willon, Staff Writer of Los Angeles Times

SB-145 is also said to combat and end discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community from being convicted at a higher rate for similar sex crimes committed by heterosexual individuals. The bill addresses the disparity in California’s anti-sodomy laws, which were constructed to criminalize sex between homosexual men. As for claims that SB-145 legalizes pedophilia, such comes from the portion of the bill that allows the maximum ten (10) year age gap between the adult and the minor in the sexual relationship. Many political figures have spoken out against SB-145, one of which is Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, who declared,

I cannot, in my mind, as a mother, understand how sex between a 24-year-old and a 14-year-old could ever be consensual, how it could ever not be a registerable offense. I challenge everybody: Give me a situation where a 24-year-old had sex with a 14-year-old, any kind of sex, and it wasn’t predatory.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez during debate on the bill on the Assembly floor, Aug. 31, 2020

Despite the criticism and backlash, advocates of the bill, including Gov. Newsom, assert its critical importance in equalizing the treatment of heterosexual and LGBTQ individuals in regards to sex crimes.