Home Podcasts California Underground: Your Sane Insight into California Politics
California Underground: Your Sane Insight into California Politics

California Underground: Your Sane Insight into California Politics

California Underground 363 Episodes Oct 7, 2026

California Underground is a podcast that provides clear, rational commentary on California politics. Each week, it features engaging interviews and roundtable discussions with political candidates and passionate Californians, tackling pressing issues facing the state. The podcast aims to help listeners stay informed about the complexities of California governance.

Episodes

The Debate Breakdown: What Becerra Didn't Answer
The Debate Breakdown: What Becerra Didn't Answer Oct 7, 2026 01:17:46 play-by-play of the CNN debate between Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, candidates for California governor. Phil goes through the debate exchange by exchange, tracking whether each answer included something checkable, whether it ended at Trump, and whether the question was answered. Hilton's numbers get checked too. This is Phil's opinion, with the documents behind it.Nothing here is a vot
Bonta Caves to Newsom on Paramount Deal
Bonta Caves to Newsom on Paramount Deal Oct 1, 2026 01:11:00 California's Attorney General sued to block a $111 billion media merger — then settled it after Newsom, Bass, and Becerra personally pushed him to fold. The deal is being sold as a win for California jobs. It doesn't actually require a single one of those jobs to be in California.This episode: the fine print behind the Paramount-Warner Bros. settlement and what it really protects; why Nith
Ghost Homeless: LA's $118M Fraud, the Rail Nightclub, and California's AI Land Grab
Ghost Homeless: LA's $118M Fraud, the Rail Nightclub, and California's AI Land Grab Sep 23, 2026 01:22:00 Three stories this week, one pattern: public money and public land moving to insiders through systems with almost no oversight.First — a Los Angeles nonprofit took in $118 million in public funds to house homeless people. Prosecutors say $12 million of it went to a nightclub, luxury travel, and vintage cars. But the detail that doesn't make the headline: some of the people the system reported
Voter ID and Recall Reform, Explained
Voter ID and Recall Reform, Explained Sep 16, 2026 01:00:21 Voter ID has passed in 36 states. California could be next — and the measure on this ballot is trailing in the polls even though the same policy wins by a landslide almost everywhere else in the country. Orange County GOP Chairman Will O'Neill joins Phil and Camille to make the case for Prop 39 (voter ID and citizenship verification) and Prop 5, a recall reform written by the one state legisla
LA County Cut Fire Relief in Half
LA County Cut Fire Relief in Half Sep 9, 2026 01:19:20 LA County set aside $10 million specifically for fire victims. A revised board motion, passed months later with little public notice, cut that fund in half — the same year the county filed a lawsuit publicly branding itself as fire survivors' defender.This episode also covers the one Napa winery that's been paid back after a 2025 fire that destroyed dozens of others' harvests — co-foun
Props 3 and 43: The Pension Math and the Author Voting No
Props 3 and 43: The Pension Math and the Author Voting No Sep 3, 2026 01:06:41 In 2012, California voters approved Proposition 30 — officially titled "Temporary Taxes to Fund Education." The new tax brackets were written to expire in 2018. Voters extended them in 2016. This November, Proposition 3 asks whether to remove the expiration entirely.Phil and Camille go through what those fourteen years actually produced. Funding did rise: per-student spending increased 1
Your Tax Dollars Fund Radical Nonprofits
Your Tax Dollars Fund Radical Nonprofits Aug 26, 2026 01:14:09 A California Assemblyman named his own nonprofit "Nonprofit of the Year" — three weeks before it received a $6 million line item in the state budget he helped pass. In this episode, we pull that exact page of the budget and show what else is on it: a group tied to last year's Los Angeles riots that helped write the law shielding organizations like itself from public scrutiny, and a g
LA Taxpayers Are Funding Karen Bass's Campaign
LA Taxpayers Are Funding Karen Bass's Campaign Aug 21, 2026 01:04:38 Los Angeles pays a qualifying mayoral candidate six dollars in public money for every one dollar an individual donates — and in the current mayor's race, challenger Nithya Raman has drawn more of that taxpayer match than Karen Bass. Phil and Camille break down how the public matching-funds program actually works, why the "isn't it a First Amendment violation to fund a candidate I oppo
Billionaire Tax Fight: Props 40, 41, 42
Billionaire Tax Fight: Props 40, 41, 42 Aug 12, 2026 01:00:46 California's billionaire tax is on the ballot this fall — and almost nobody fighting over it is who you'd expect. The state's own nonpartisan analyst won't back the $100 billion revenue number the sponsors are citing. A 1979 law from the same tax revolt that gave California Prop 13 has been rewritten as a legal kill switch aimed squarely at this measure. And the single largest dono
Newsom's High-Speed Rail Contradiction, Explained
Newsom's High-Speed Rail Contradiction, Explained Aug 5, 2026 01:07:19 In 2024, Governor Newsom hired a new CEO to run California's high-speed rail and said the state would "begin to lay track, design and build stations, and buy trains." Two years later: the trainset procurement line in the state's own 2026 Business Plan is blank. No trains have been bought. We pull the paperwork.We also get into California's Democratic Party convention — where
Newsom's Diaper Deal Wasn't Competitively Bid |
Newsom's Diaper Deal Wasn't Competitively Bid | Jul 29, 2026 01:11:58 Gavin Newsom said his administration's diaper deal with Baby2Baby — a nonprofit tied to his wife's own foundation — was competitively bid. California's own contract database says it wasn't.This week: the receipts on the $6.2 million diaper contract, Newsom's affair resurfaces, Sheng Thao crime story continues to expand, and why the Attorney General's rewritten ballot title
Comrade Newsom? Is Newsom Really Aligning with the DSA?
Comrade Newsom? Is Newsom Really Aligning with the DSA? Jul 22, 2026 01:02:34 Gavin Newsom says he'll campaign for any Democratic nominee heading into 2028 — but his team went quiet when asked if that includes candidates from a self-described "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" caucus. This week: what Newsom actually said, what he wouldn't answer, and what it means for his national ambitions.Also on the show: Katie Porter was a frontrunner for governor a year ago. S

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