POLITICO announces first-ever ballot measure team in California

Many states allow for citizens to bypass politicians and draft laws through direct ballot measures, but none quite like California. Ballot measures are, in essence, the fourth branch of government in the nation’s most influential state capital. The creation of this beat further demonstrates our commitment to informing our audience in California and beyond on how power is wielded in the Golden state.”

Julia Marsh, editorial director of POLITICO California

POLITICO, the global authority on the intersection of power, politics and policy, has announced a key pillar of its California expansion: a newly formed, specialized team dedicated to covering California’s deeply impactful ballot-measure campaigns.

Since the introduction of the ballot initiative process more than a century ago, many of the most significant and wide-ranging changes to state laws have been delivered directly through the ballot. California voters have settled broad cultural questions and changed obscure governance rules through the measure. The ballot initiative process has also become an industry in and of itself. In most election years in California, more money is spent on contesting ballot measures than on winning statewide offices.

To pull back the curtain on the strategies, policy ideas, personalities, and the money driving and influencing ballot measures, POLITICO’s California team will cover this beat the same way that it approaches reporting on the governor or legislature. A dedicated team of expert journalists will provide readers with year-in, year-out, indispensable reporting on the fusing of electoral politics and policymaking that ballot measures entail.

“Many states allow for citizens to bypass politicians and draft laws through direct ballot measures, but none quite like California. Ballot measures are, in essence, the fourth branch of government in the nation’s most influential state capital,” said Julia Marsh, editorial director of POLITICO California. “The creation of this beat further demonstrates our commitment to informing our audience in California and beyond on how power is wielded in the Golden state.”

POLITICO has added two reporters, Emily Schultheis and Will McCarthy, with a mandate to cover this new beat. Editor Sasha Issenberg will develop and lead coverage strategy, leveraging the expertise of 21 journalists in California and 400 nationwide that can go deeper on these topics than any other publication.

Issenberg is a nationally recognized expert on ballot measures which he first explored in his 2021 book “The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggles Over Same-Sex Marriage.” He teaches in the political-science department at UCLA is a veteran of campaign coverage at Bloomberg Politics and Businessweek, Slate and The Boston Globe. Schultheis has spent her career covering elections around the world including for POLITICO Europe, and at home for CBS News and National Journal. McCarthy previously wrote or the San Jose Mercury-News, where he covered Alameda County with a focus on enterprise stories and was a reporter at an NPR affiliate in rural Alaska.

This new unit will help readers better anticipate which measures are likely to succeed, illuminate why certain interests take positions on these initiatives and explore the resulting fights leading up to Election Day, and how they shape the policy choices put before voters. Collaborating closely with the rest of POLITICO’s California team and broader newsroom, they will cover ballot measures for both their direct impact and the way their presence, or mere threat, can influence the legislature, executive branch and local governments.

POLITICO is undergoing an ambitious expansion in California, nearly tripling the size of our editorial footprint in the state, growing our California audience and launching new editorial products that reflect the Golden State’s status as a national and international power center. The dedicated ballot measure team is the latest component of its growth strategy on the West Coast, which kicked off in 2023 with expanded political and legislative coverage in Sacramento and the launch of our California Climate newsletter — and continued this year with the rollout of live events. Ballot measure coverage will be an important addition for POLITICO Pro subscribers with outsized professional interest in politics and policy outcomes, who will now receive exclusive content through the “Let’s Make a Deal” series that obsessively tracks the legislative negotiations surrounding ballot measures.

POLITICO’s impressive growth in California and across the globe continues at a time when many in the industry are contracting, making its journalism more crucial than ever in the state with the world’s fifth largest economy.

Explore POLITICO’s coverage of California and sign up for California Playbook, California Playbook PM and California Climate.

About POLITICO:

POLITICO is the global authority on the intersection of politics, policy and power. It is the most robust news operation and information service in the world specializing in politics and policy, which informs the most influential audience in the world with insight, edge and authority. Founded in 2007, POLITICO has grown to a team of more than 1,100 across North America and Europe. In October 2021, POLITICO was acquired by, and is subsidiary of, Axel Springer SE.