http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/us/california-today-senate-kamala-harris-loretta-sanchez.html 2016-09-29 15:34:52 California Today: A Snooze of a Senate Race Thursday: The two candidates running for Senate don’t have a lot to argue about, a once-in-a-lifetime music festival in the Coachella Valley, and a rare reverse pay gap in Los Angeles County. === Good morning. Welcome to California Today, a Tell us about the Want to receive California Today by email? Let’s turn it over to The race to succeed Senator Barbara L. Boxer of California was supposed to be one of the marquee contests of the year. It is a contest to fill the first open Senate seat in the nation’s largest state since 1992. It offers a window into the ethnic kaleidoscope that is California: Pitting a Latino, Representative It also is the beginning of the changing of the guard in a Democratic political leadership that is decidedly on the old side. (Ms. Boxer is 75, her fellow-senator, Dianne Feinstein, is 83, and Gov. Jerry Brown just turned 78.) Instead, the race has turned into something of a snooze. For one thing, it has been almost completely overshadowed by the presidential contest. For another, the electoral system in place — where the top two winners of a primary face each other in a general, regardless of party — means that both candidates are Democrats. As a result, in a year when Democrats are hoping to take over the Senate, California is not going to make a difference. And the fact that both candidates are of the same party means that Ms. Sanchez and Ms. Harris don’t have a lot to argue about — and that Democratic donors don’t have much reason to write them checks. “This is the first open Senate race in the nation’s largest state in almost a quarter of a century and nobody cares,” said Dan Schnur, the director of the Ms. Sanchez does not have the money to finance the large-scale television campaign needed in a state as vast as California. Her campaign has been marred by missteps, such as when she appeared to Polls shows Ms. Harris with a significant lead over Ms. Sanchez. That has only encouraged the tendency of the attorney general to play it safe. ‘She’s deliberately tried to make sure there wasn’t any interest in the race,” said Bill Carrick, who is the chief campaign consultant for Ms. Sanchez. Nathan Click, the communications director for Ms. Harris, disputed that suggestion. “We’re not taking anything for granted,” he said. “We are competing for every vote.” See reporting in The New York Times on the Nov. 8 ballot initiatives: And dig into analyses of all 17 statewide measures by the Protesters The police said the man, identified as Alfred Olango, 38, had pulled a vape smoking device from his pocket and took “what appeared to be a shooting stance.” The shooting came after recent fatal police shootings of black men in • Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure that will allow • He also signed a bill that • If you live in California, the value of your vote • A • Hidden treasures: • Despite pressure to resign, the arts patron • Citing Wells Fargo’s “ • Yahoo insiders say • We dug up the • Brian Anderson, a skateboarding star with ties to San Francisco, recently became the sport’s An analysis this month that found a place in California with essentially no gender pay gap The American Association of University Women Of California’s 53 congressional districts, it was the only one with a reverse pay gap, however slight. Statewide, the earnings ratio was about 86 percent, the study said. It turns out, however, that this rare distinction may have had little to do with the shattering of glass ceilings. The 37th district, which includes Culver City and neighborhoods in the south and west of Los Angeles, is made up of a combined majority of African-Americans and Hispanics with only roughly a quarter of residents who are white. Researchers say that because black and Hispanic men earn much less on average than white men, the gender pay gap within those groups is much narrower. Among Hispanics nationally, for example, women earn 92 cents for every dollar earned by men, The relatively small white population in the 37th district, along with other contributing factors like minimum pay rules and a slightly younger work force, combined to level out wages across genders, said Catherine Hill, a vice president for research at the American Association of University Women. “So, unfortunately, that’s not the good news, right?” she said. “The good news would be we see higher women’s wages, not that this is an area we see lower male wages.” California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a third-generation Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U.C. Berkeley.