The ways Zia Faruqui right has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster. Veronica Irwin vronirwin is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle.

Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc. One hundred percent electronic. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui. His rulings have made smart references to "The Big Lebowski," "Dr. Strangelove," and "SNL" parodies of the McLaughlin Group. Rather, before taking the judge position Faruqui was one of a group of prosecutors in the U. There, Faruqui prosecuted cases that involved terrorism, child pornography, and weapons proliferation.

But the ways Faruqui has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster. Crypto lawyers have drawn on his prior decisions in the context of the Tornado Cash sanctions, for example.

Faruqui spoke with Protocol about the power of his position, and what people in crypto should understand about the law. There was another prosecutor, Christopher Brown — you know, the other Chris Brown — and he had taken an interest in this when we were both working on financial crime in the Washington, D. Our U. attorney at the time, Jessie Liu, had this idea of using financial investigations in a way that was not limited to just white collar crime, or even narcotics cases, but also for cyber investigations, to national security investigations, and in civil cases.

A lot of what we were investigating was related to following the money and so she wanted us to be this multidisciplinary unit. But I have to say, we started with the goal of wanting to make T-shirts, and we never did that while I was there.

Your decisions have also gotten a lot of attention. We're public servants! And in order for the public to have faith and trust us, they need to understand what it is that we're doing and what we're saying.

Humor is one way, not using a lot of legalese is another way. But I think there are many judges who are trying to make the judiciary more accessible, and so people can see the work that we're doing and understand what we're doing and then make their own opinions about if it's right or wrong.

But at least, if it's understandable, then there's still some trust in the framework even if you don't agree with how our decisions are stated. We are ambassadors for the judiciary to the people in our courtroom — it's a very frightening proposition being in court if you've been federally charged, and people have perceptions of what they think can happen there in terms of fairness or unfairness.

But then it goes far beyond that. I do a lot of work with the Administrative Office of the Courts, our central body doing civic education and outreach to high schools, because I want college and high school students and law students to have an experience where they get a chance to talk to a judge. So my goal is certainly not just getting to one segment of the population, but it's making decisions accessible to whoever's interested in reading them. What has it felt like for you switching from that prosecutor role to magistrate judge?

Lawyers are trying to take different frameworks from one topic and apply them to another, and then convince you that that is or is not appropriate. Being a judge is very different because you're evaluating what the parties present to you as the applicable legal frameworks, and deciding how new, groundbreaking technology fits into legal frameworks that were written 10 or 15 years ago. But that's not really a place where judges get involved in saying how it ought to be regulated.

There was, famously, a judge in Florida that said cryptocurrency was not money because you couldn't put it underneath your bed, and that's what money is: something that is tangible. So different people are going to have different decisions. And that's not just true for crypto, but also other areas of the law. Your best-known crypto decisions strongly assert that crypto is traceable.

One way people try to make it less traceable is with mixers, and Tornado Cash was sanctioned by OFAC not too long ago. Do you think the legal reasoning was sound enough for similar sanctions to be applied to other mixers, or decentralized exchanges? I don't know. I think there's been some discussion that people may litigate some of these things, so I can't comment, because those frequently do come to our courthouse.

And I think there are certainly people opining on that, yes and no. So much of what judges do is that we rely on the parties that are before us to tell us what's right and what's wrong. And then, you know, obviously, they'll have different views, and we make a decision based on what people say in front of us.

Are you aware that some legal analysis of the Tornado Cash sanctions references your recent decision in a cryptocurrency sanctions case? That's what good lawyers will always do. Even legislators might look at that as they try to think about where the gaps are.

As a prosecutor I had a case where we sued three Chinese banks to give us their bank records, and it had never been done before. Afterwards, Congress passed a new law, using the decisions from judges in this court and the D. circuit court, the court above us. So I'm sure people look at prior decisions and try to apply them in the ways that they want to.

Are there any misconceptions about how the law applies to crypto, or how your decisions should be interpreted, that you wish you could get across? One misconception is that the judges can't understand this technology — we can. People have these views in two extremes. The lawyer's fundamental job is to take super complex and technical things and boil them down to very easily digestible arguments for a judge, for a jury, or whoever it might be.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Financial technology is breaking down barriers to financial services and delivering value to consumers, small businesses, and the economy. Fintech puts American consumers at the center of their finances and helps them manage their money responsibly. From payment apps to budgeting and investing tools and alternative credit options, fintech makes it easier for consumers to pay for their purchases and build better financial habits.

Fintech also arms small businesses with the financial tools for success, including low-cost banking services, digital accounting services, and expanded access to capital. We advocate for modernized financial policies and regulations that allow fintech innovation to drive competition in the economy and expand consumer choice.

Spots are still available for this hybrid event, and you can RSVP here to save your seat. Join us as we discuss how to shape the future of finance. In its broadest sense, Open Banking has created a secure and connected ecosystem that has led to an explosion of new and innovative solutions that benefit the customer, rapidly revolutionizing not just the banking industry but the way all companies do business. Target benefits are delivered through speed, transparency, and security, and their impact can be seen across a diverse range of use cases.

Sharing financial data across providers can enable a customer individual or business to have real-time access to multiple bank accounts across multiple institutions all in one platform, saving time and helping consumers get a more accurate picture of their own finances before taking on debt, providing a more reliable indication than most lending guidelines currently do. Companies can also create carefully refined marketing profiles and therefore, finely tune their services to the specific need.

Open Banking platforms like Klarna Kosma also provide a unique opportunity for businesses to overlay additional tools that add real value for users and deepen their customer relationships. The increased transparency brought about by Open Banking brings a vast array of additional benefits, such as helping fraud detection companies better monitor customer accounts and identify problems much earlier.

The list of new value-add solutions continues to grow. The speed of business has never been faster than it is today. For small business owners, time is at a premium as they are wearing multiple hats every day. Macroeconomic challenges like inflation and supply chain issues are making successful money and cash flow management even more challenging.

This presents a tremendous opportunity that innovation in fintech can solve by speeding up money movement, increasing access to capital, and making it easier to manage business operations in a central place. Fintech offers innovative products and services where outdated practices and processes offer limited options.

For example, fintech is enabling increased access to capital for business owners from diverse and varying backgrounds by leveraging alternative data to evaluate creditworthiness and risk models. This can positively impact all types of business owners, but especially those underserved by traditional financial service models.

When we look across the Intuit QuickBooks platform and the overall fintech ecosystem, we see a variety of innovations fueled by AI and data science that are helping small businesses succeed. By efficiently embedding and connecting financial services like banking, payments, and lending to help small businesses, we can reinvent how SMBs get paid and enable greater access to the vital funds they need at critical points in their journey. Overall, we see fintech as empowering people who have been left behind by antiquated financial systems, giving them real-time insights, tips, and tools they need to turn their financial dreams into a reality.

Innovations in payments and financial technologies have helped transform daily life for millions of people. People who are unbanked often rely on more expensive alternative financial products AFPs such as payday loans, money orders, and other expensive credit facilities that typically charge higher fees and interest rates, making it more likely that people have to dip into their savings to stay afloat. A few examples include:.

Mobile wallets - The unbanked may not have traditional bank accounts but can have verified mobile wallet accounts for shopping and bill payments. Their mobile wallet identity can be used to open a virtual bank account for secure and convenient online banking.

Minimal to no-fee banking services - Fintech companies typically have much lower acquisition and operating costs than traditional financial institutions. They are then able to pass on these savings in the form of no-fee or no-minimum-balance products to their customers. This enables immigrants and other populations that may be underbanked to move up the credit lifecycle to get additional forms of credit such as auto, home and education loans, etc.

Entrepreneurs from every background, in every part of the world, should be empowered to start and scale global businesses. Most businesses still face daunting challenges with very basic matters. These are still very manually intensive processes, and they are barriers to entrepreneurship in the form of paperwork, PDFs, faxes, and forms.

Stripe is working to solve these rather mundane and boring challenges, almost always with an application programming interface that simplifies complex processes into a few clicks. Stripe powers nearly half a million businesses in rural America. The internet economy is just beginning to make a real difference for businesses of all sizes in all kinds of places.

We are excited about this future. The way we make decisions on credit should be fair and inclusive and done in a way that takes into account a greater picture of a person.

Lenders can better serve their borrowers with more data and better math. Zest AI has successfully built a compliant, consistent, and equitable AI-automated underwriting technology that lenders can utilize to help make their credit decisions. While artificial intelligence AI systems have been a tool historically used by sophisticated investors to maximize their returns, newer and more advanced AI systems will be the key innovation to democratize access to financial systems in the future.

D espite privacy, ethics, and bias issues that remain to be resolved with AI systems, the good news is that as large r datasets become progressively easier to interconnect, AI and related natural language processing NLP technology innovations are increasingly able to equalize access.

T he even better news is that this democratization is taking multiple forms. AI can be used to provide risk assessments necessary to bank those under-served or denied access. AI systems can also retrieve troves of data not used in traditional credit reports, including personal cash flow, payment applications usage, on-time utility payments, and other data buried within large datasets, to create fair and more accurate risk assessments essential to obtain credit and other financial services.

By expanding credit availability to historically underserved communities, AI enables them to gain credit and build wealth. Additionally, personalized portfolio management will become available to more people with the implementation and advancement of AI.

Sophisticated financial advice and routine oversight, typically reserved for traditional investors, will allow individuals, including marginalized and low-income people, to maximize the value of their financial portfolios. Moreover, when coupled with NLP technologies, even greater democratization can result as inexperienced investors can interact with AI systems in plain English, while providing an easier interface to financial markets than existing execution tools. Open finance technology enables millions of people to use the apps and services that they rely on to manage their financial lives — from overdraft protection, to money management, investing for retirement, or building credit.

More than 8 in 10 Americans are now using digital finance tools powered by open finance. This is because consumers see something they like or want — a new choice, more options, or lower costs. What is open finance? At its core, it is about putting consumers in control of their own data and allowing them to use it to get a better deal. When people can easily switch to another company and bring their financial history with them, that presents real competition to legacy services and forces everyone to improve, with positive results for consumers.

For example, we see the impact this is having on large players being forced to drop overdraft fees or to compete to deliver products consumers want. We see the benefits of open finance first hand at Plaid, as we support thousands of companies, from the biggest fintechs, to startups, to large and small banks.

All are building products that depend on one thing - consumers' ability to securely share their data to use different services. Open finance has supported more inclusive, competitive financial systems for consumers and small businesses in the U. and across the globe — and there is room to do much more. As an example, the National Consumer Law Consumer recently put out a new report that looked at consumers providing access to their bank account data so their rent payments could inform their mortgage underwriting and help build credit.

This is part of the promise of open finance. At Plaid, we believe a consumer should have a right to their own data, and agency over that data, no matter where it sits. This will be essential to securing benefits of open finance for consumers for many years to come. Mass culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of consumer culture that emerged in the 20th century.

Some schools of philosophy, such as Marxism and critical theory , have argued that culture is often used politically as a tool of the elites to manipulate the proletariat and create a false consciousness. Such perspectives are common in the discipline of cultural studies. In the wider social sciences , the theoretical perspective of cultural materialism holds that human symbolic culture arises from the material conditions of human life, as humans create the conditions for physical survival, and that the basis of culture is found in evolved biological dispositions.

When used as a count noun , a "culture" is the set of customs, traditions , and values of a society or community, such as an ethnic group or nation. Culture is the set of knowledge acquired over time. In this sense, multiculturalism values the peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between different cultures inhabiting the same planet. Sometimes "culture" is also used to describe specific practices within a subgroup of a society, a subculture e. Within cultural anthropology , the ideology and analytical stance of cultural relativism hold that cultures cannot easily be objectively ranked or evaluated because any evaluation is necessarily situated within the value system of a given culture.

The modern term "culture" is based on a term used by the ancient Roman orator Cicero in his Tusculanae Disputationes , where he wrote of a cultivation of the soul or "cultura animi," [6] using an agricultural metaphor for the development of a philosophical soul, understood teleologically as the highest possible ideal for human development. Samuel Pufendorf took over this metaphor in a modern context, meaning something similar, but no longer assuming that philosophy was man's natural perfection.

His use, and that of many writers after him, " refers to all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism , and through artifice, become fully human. In , philosopher Edward S. Casey wrote, "The very word culture meant 'place tilled' in Middle English, and the same word goes back to Latin colere , 'to inhabit, care for, till, worship' and cultus , 'A cult, especially a religious one. Culture described by Richard Velkley : [7]. originally meant the cultivation of the soul or mind, acquires most of its later modern meaning in the writings of the 18th-century German thinkers, who were on various levels developing Rousseau 's criticism of " modern liberalism and Enlightenment.

In the words of anthropologist E. Tylor , it is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

The Cambridge English Dictionary states that culture is "the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time. The word is used in a general sense as the evolved ability to categorize and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively. This ability arose with the evolution of behavioral modernity in humans around 50, years ago and is often thought to be unique to humans.

However, some other species have demonstrated similar, though much less complicated, abilities for social learning. It is also used to denote the complex networks of practices and accumulated knowledge and ideas that are transmitted through social interaction and exist in specific human groups, or cultures, using the plural form. Raimon Panikkar identified 29 ways in which cultural change can be brought about, including growth, development, evolution, involution , renovation, reconception , reform, innovation , revivalism, revolution , mutation , progress , diffusion , osmosis , borrowing, eclecticism , syncretism , modernization, indigenization , and transformation.

Rein Raud , building on the work of Umberto Eco , Pierre Bourdieu and Jeffrey C. Alexander , has proposed a model of cultural change based on claims and bids, which are judged by their cognitive adequacy and endorsed or not endorsed by the symbolic authority of the cultural community in question.

Cultural invention has come to mean any innovation that is new and found to be useful to a group of people and expressed in their behavior but which does not exist as a physical object. Humanity is in a global "accelerating culture change period," driven by the expansion of international commerce, the mass media, and above all, the human population explosion, among other factors.

Culture repositioning means the reconstruction of the cultural concept of a society. Cultures are internally affected by both forces encouraging change and forces resisting change. These forces are related to both social structures and natural events, and are involved in the perpetuation of cultural ideas and practices within current structures , which themselves are subject to change.

Social conflict and the development of technologies can produce changes within a society by altering social dynamics and promoting new cultural models , and spurring or enabling generative action. These social shifts may accompany ideological shifts and other types of cultural change. For example, the U. feminist movement involved new practices that produced a shift in gender relations, altering both gender and economic structures.

Environmental conditions may also enter as factors. For example, after tropical forests returned at the end of the last ice age , plants suitable for domestication were available, leading to the invention of agriculture , which in turn brought about many cultural innovations and shifts in social dynamics. Cultures are externally affected via contact between societies, which may also produce—or inhibit—social shifts and changes in cultural practices.

War or competition over resources may impact technological development or social dynamics. Additionally, cultural ideas may transfer from one society to another, through diffusion or acculturation. In diffusion , the form of something though not necessarily its meaning moves from one culture to another.

For example, Western restaurant chains and culinary brands sparked curiosity and fascination to the Chinese as China opened its economy to international trade in the late 20th-century.

Diffusion of innovations theory presents a research-based model of why and when individuals and cultures adopt new ideas, practices, and products. Acculturation has different meanings. Still, in this context, it refers to the replacement of traits of one culture with another, such as what happened to certain Native American tribes and many indigenous peoples across the globe during the process of colonization. Related processes on an individual level include assimilation adoption of a different culture by an individual and transculturation.

The transnational flow of culture has played a major role in merging different cultures and sharing thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. Immanuel Kant — formulated an individualist definition of "enlightenment" similar to the concept of bildung : "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Against this intellectual cowardice, Kant urged: " Sapere Aude " "Dare to be wise!

In reaction to Kant, German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Herder — argued that human creativity, which necessarily takes unpredictable and highly diverse forms, is as important as human rationality. Moreover, Herder proposed a collective form of Bildung : "For Herder, Bildung was the totality of experiences that provide a coherent identity, and sense of common destiny, to a people. In , the Prussian linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt — called for an anthropology that would synthesize Kant's and Herder's interests.

During the Romantic era , scholars in Germany , especially those concerned with nationalist movements—such as the nationalist struggle to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire —developed a more inclusive notion of culture as " worldview " Weltanschauung. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures.

In , Adolf Bastian — argued for "the psychic unity of mankind. According to Bastian, all human societies share a set of "elementary ideas" Elementargedanken ; different cultures, or different "folk ideas" Völkergedanken , are local modifications of the elementary ideas.

Franz Boas — was trained in this tradition, and he brought it with him when he left Germany for the United States. In the 19th century, humanists such as English poet and essayist Matthew Arnold — used the word "culture" to refer to an ideal of individual human refinement, of "the best that has been thought and said in the world.

culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.

In practice, culture referred to an elite ideal and was associated with such activities as art , classical music , and haute cuisine.

Another facet of the Romantic movement was an interest in folklore , which led to identifying a "culture" among non-elites. This distinction is often characterized as that between high culture , namely that of the ruling social group , and low culture. In other words, the idea of "culture" that developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries reflected inequalities within European societies.

Matthew Arnold contrasted "culture" with anarchy ; other Europeans, following philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau , contrasted "culture" with "the state of nature. This contrast led to Herbert Spencer 's theory of Social Darwinism and Lewis Henry Morgan 's theory of cultural evolution.

Just as some critics have argued that the distinction between high and low cultures is an expression of the conflict between European elites and non-elites, other critics have argued that the distinction between civilized and uncivilized people is an expression of the conflict between European colonial powers and their colonial subjects.

Other 19th-century critics, following Rousseau, have accepted this differentiation between higher and lower culture, but have seen the refinement and sophistication of high culture as corrupting and unnatural developments that obscure and distort people's essential nature. These critics considered folk music as produced by "the folk," i. Equally, this view often portrayed indigenous peoples as " noble savages " living authentic and unblemished lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly stratified capitalist systems of the West.

In the anthropologist Edward Tylor — applied these ideas of higher versus lower culture to propose a theory of the evolution of religion. According to this theory, religion evolves from more polytheistic to more monotheistic forms.

This view paved the way for the modern understanding of religion. Although anthropologists worldwide refer to Tylor's definition of culture, [32] in the 20th century "culture" emerged as the central and unifying concept of American anthropology , where it most commonly refers to the universal human capacity to classify and encode human experiences symbolically , and to communicate symbolically encoded experiences socially.

Martin Lindstrom asserts that Kulturbrille , which allow a person to make sense of the culture they inhabit, "can blind us to things outsiders pick up immediately. The sociology of culture concerns culture as manifested in society.

For sociologist Georg Simmel — , culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history. Culture can be either of two types, non-material culture or material culture. The term tends to be relevant only in archeological and anthropological studies, but it specifically means all material evidence which can be attributed to culture, past or present.

Cultural sociology first emerged in Weimar Germany — , where sociologists such as Alfred Weber used the term Kultursoziologie 'cultural sociology'. Cultural sociology was then reinvented in the English-speaking world as a product of the cultural turn of the s, which ushered in structuralist and postmodern approaches to social science.

This type of cultural sociology may be loosely regarded as an approach incorporating cultural analysis and critical theory. Cultural sociologists tend to reject scientific methods, instead hermeneutically focusing on words, artifacts and symbols.

As a result, there has been a recent influx of quantitative sociologists to the field. Thus, there is now a growing group of sociologists of culture who are, confusingly, not cultural sociologists. These scholars reject the abstracted postmodern aspects of cultural sociology, and instead, look for a theoretical backing in the more scientific vein of social psychology and cognitive science.

The sociology of culture grew from the intersection between sociology as shaped by early theorists like Marx , [42] Durkheim , and Weber with the growing discipline of anthropology , wherein researchers pioneered ethnographic strategies for describing and analyzing a variety of cultures around the world.

Part of the legacy of the early development of the field lingers in the methods much of cultural, sociological research is qualitative , in the theories a variety of critical approaches to sociology are central to current research communities , and in the substantive focus of the field.

For instance, relationships between popular culture , political control, and social class were early and lasting concerns in the field. In the United Kingdom, sociologists and other scholars influenced by Marxism such as Stuart Hall — and Raymond Williams — developed cultural studies. Following nineteenth-century Romantics, they identified culture with consumption goods and leisure activities such as art, music, film, food , sports, and clothing.

They saw patterns of consumption and leisure as determined by relations of production , which led them to focus on class relations and the organization of production. In the United Kingdom, cultural studies focuses largely on the study of popular culture ; that is, on the social meanings of mass-produced consumer and leisure goods. Richard Hoggart coined the term in when he founded the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies or CCCS.

From the s onward, Stuart Hall's pioneering work, along with that of his colleagues Paul Willis , Dick Hebdige , Tony Jefferson, and Angela McRobbie , created an international intellectual movement. These practices comprise the ways people do particular things such as watching television or eating out in a given culture.

It also studies the meanings and uses people attribute to various objects and practices. Specifically, culture involves those meanings and practices held independently of reason. Watching television to view a public perspective on a historical event should not be thought of as culture unless referring to the medium of television itself, which may have been selected culturally; however, schoolchildren watching television after school with their friends to "fit in" certainly qualifies since there is no grounded reason for one's participation in this practice.

In the context of cultural studies, a text includes not only written language , but also films , photographs , fashion or hairstyles : the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture.

Culture, for a cultural-studies researcher, not only includes traditional high culture the culture of ruling social groups [50] and popular culture , but also everyday meanings and practices. The last two, in fact, have become the main focus of cultural studies. A further and recent approach is comparative cultural studies , based on the disciplines of comparative literature and cultural studies. Scholars in the United Kingdom and the United States developed somewhat different versions of cultural studies after the late s.

The British version of cultural studies had originated in the s and s, mainly under the influence of Richard Hoggart, E. Thompson , and Raymond Williams , and later that of Stuart Hall and others at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. This included overtly political, left-wing views, and criticisms of popular culture as "capitalist" mass culture ; it absorbed some of the ideas of the Frankfurt School critique of the " culture industry " i.

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Supported with funding from the Arjay and Frances F. Miller Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation. California voters have now received their mail ballots, and the November 8 general election has entered its final stage.

Amid rising prices and economic uncertainty—as well as deep partisan divisions over social and political issues—Californians are processing a great deal of information to help them choose state constitutional officers and state legislators and to make policy decisions about state propositions. The midterm election also features a closely divided Congress, with the likelihood that a few races in California may determine which party controls the US House.

These are among the key findings of a statewide survey on state and national issues conducted from October 14 to 23 by the Public Policy Institute of California:.

Today, there is a wide partisan divide: seven in ten Democrats are optimistic about the direction of the state, while 91 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents are pessimistic. Californians are much more pessimistic about the direction of the country than they are about the direction of the state. Majorities across all demographic groups and partisan groups, as well as across regions, are pessimistic about the direction of the United States. A wide partisan divide exists: most Democrats and independents say their financial situation is about the same as a year ago, while solid majorities of Republicans say they are worse off.

Regionally, about half in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles say they are about the same, while half in the Central Valley say they are worse off; residents elsewhere are divided between being worse off and the same.

The shares saying they are worse off decline as educational attainment increases. Strong majorities across partisan groups feel negatively, but Republicans and independents are much more likely than Democrats to say the economy is in poor shape. Today, majorities across partisan, demographic, and regional groups say they are following news about the gubernatorial election either very or fairly closely.

In the upcoming November 8 election, there will be seven state propositions for voters. Due to time constraints, our survey only asked about three ballot measures: Propositions 26, 27, and For each, we read the proposition number, ballot, and ballot label. Two of the state ballot measures were also included in the September survey Propositions 27 and 30 , while Proposition 26 was not.

This measure would allow in-person sports betting at racetracks and tribal casinos, requiring that racetracks and casinos offering sports betting make certain payments to the state to support state regulatory costs. It also allows roulette and dice games at tribal casinos and adds a new way to enforce certain state gambling laws.

Fewer than half of likely voters say the outcome of each of these state propositions is very important to them. Today, 21 percent of likely voters say the outcome of Prop 26 is very important, 31 percent say the outcome of Prop 27 is very important, and 42 percent say the outcome of Prop 30 is very important.

Today, when it comes to the importance of the outcome of Prop 26, one in four or fewer across partisan groups say it is very important to them. About one in three across partisan groups say the outcome of Prop 27 is very important to them.

Fewer than half across partisan groups say the outcome of Prop 30 is very important to them. When asked how they would vote if the election for the US House of Representatives were held today, 56 percent of likely voters say they would vote for or lean toward the Democratic candidate, while 39 percent would vote for or lean toward the Republican candidate.

Democratic candidates are preferred by a point margin in Democratic-held districts, while Republican candidates are preferred by a point margin in Republican-held districts. Abortion is another prominent issue in this election.

When asked about the importance of abortion rights, 61 percent of likely voters say the issue is very important in determining their vote for Congress and another 20 percent say it is somewhat important; just 17 percent say it is not too or not at all important. With the controlling party in Congress hanging in the balance, 51 percent of likely voters say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting for Congress this year; another 29 percent are somewhat enthusiastic while 19 percent are either not too or not at all enthusiastic.

Today, Democrats and Republicans have about equal levels of enthusiasm, while independents are much less likely to be extremely or very enthusiastic. As Californians prepare to vote in the upcoming midterm election, fewer than half of adults and likely voters are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the United States—and few are very satisfied.

Satisfaction was higher in our February survey when 53 percent of adults and 48 percent of likely voters were satisfied with democracy in America. Today, half of Democrats and about four in ten independents are satisfied, compared to about one in five Republicans.

Notably, four in ten Republicans are not at all satisfied. In addition to the lack of satisfaction with the way democracy is working, Californians are divided about whether Americans of different political positions can still come together and work out their differences. Forty-nine percent are optimistic, while 46 percent are pessimistic. Today, in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, about four in ten Democrats, Republicans, and independents are optimistic that Americans of different political views will be able to come together.

Notably, in , half or more across parties, regions, and demographic groups were optimistic. Today, about eight in ten Democrats—compared to about half of independents and about one in ten Republicans—approve of Governor Newsom. Across demographic groups, about half or more approve of how Governor Newsom is handling his job. Approval of Congress among adults has been below 40 percent for all of after seeing a brief run above 40 percent for all of Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to approve of Congress.

Fewer than half across regions and demographic groups approve of Congress. Approval in March was at 44 percent for adults and 39 percent for likely voters. Across demographic groups, about half or more approve among women, younger adults, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos.

Views are similar across education and income groups, with just fewer than half approving. Approval in March was at 41 percent for adults and 36 percent for likely voters.

Across regions, approval reaches a majority only in the San Francisco Bay Area. Across demographic groups, approval reaches a majority only among African Americans. This map highlights the five geographic regions for which we present results; these regions account for approximately 90 percent of the state population. Residents of other geographic areas in gray are included in the results reported for all adults, registered voters, and likely voters, but sample sizes for these less-populous areas are not large enough to report separately.

The PPIC Statewide Survey is directed by Mark Baldassare, president and CEO and survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California. Coauthors of this report include survey analyst Deja Thomas, who was the project manager for this survey; associate survey director and research fellow Dean Bonner; and survey analyst Rachel Lawler. The Californians and Their Government survey is supported with funding from the Arjay and Frances F.

Findings in this report are based on a survey of 1, California adult residents, including 1, interviewed on cell phones and interviewed on landline telephones. The sample included respondents reached by calling back respondents who had previously completed an interview in PPIC Statewide Surveys in the last six months.

Interviews took an average of 19 minutes to complete. Interviewing took place on weekend days and weekday nights from October 14—23, Cell phone interviews were conducted using a computer-generated random sample of cell phone numbers. Additionally, we utilized a registration-based sample RBS of cell phone numbers for adults who are registered to vote in California. All cell phone numbers with California area codes were eligible for selection.

After a cell phone user was reached, the interviewer verified that this person was age 18 or older, a resident of California, and in a safe place to continue the survey e. Cell phone respondents were offered a small reimbursement to help defray the cost of the call. Cell phone interviews were conducted with adults who have cell phone service only and with those who have both cell phone and landline service in the household.

Landline interviews were conducted using a computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers that ensured that both listed and unlisted numbers were called. Additionally, we utilized a registration-based sample RBS of landline phone numbers for adults who are registered to vote in California.

All landline telephone exchanges in California were eligible for selection. For both cell phones and landlines, telephone numbers were called as many as eight times. When no contact with an individual was made, calls to a number were limited to six.

Also, to increase our ability to interview Asian American adults, we made up to three additional calls to phone numbers estimated by Survey Sampling International as likely to be associated with Asian American individuals.

Accent on Languages, Inc. The survey sample was closely comparable to the ACS figures. To estimate landline and cell phone service in California, Abt Associates used state-level estimates released by the National Center for Health Statistics—which used data from the National Health Interview Survey NHIS and the ACS.

The estimates for California were then compared against landline and cell phone service reported in this survey. We also used voter registration data from the California Secretary of State to compare the party registration of registered voters in our sample to party registration statewide. The sampling error, taking design effects from weighting into consideration, is ±3. This means that 95 times out of , the results will be within 3.

The sampling error for unweighted subgroups is larger: for the 1, registered voters, the sampling error is ±4. For the sampling errors of additional subgroups, please see the table at the end of this section. Sampling error is only one type of error to which surveys are subject.

Results may also be affected by factors such as question wording, question order, and survey timing. We present results for five geographic regions, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the state population. Residents of other geographic areas are included in the results reported for all adults, registered voters, and likely voters, but sample sizes for these less-populous areas are not large enough to report separately.

We also present results for congressional districts currently held by Democrats or Republicans, based on residential zip code and party of the local US House member. We compare the opinions of those who report they are registered Democrats, registered Republicans, and no party preference or decline-to-state or independent voters; the results for those who say they are registered to vote in other parties are not large enough for separate analysis.

We also analyze the responses of likely voters—so designated per their responses to survey questions about voter registration, previous election participation, intentions to vote this year, attention to election news, and current interest in politics. The percentages presented in the report tables and in the questionnaire may not add to due to rounding.

Additional details about our methodology can be found at www. pdf and are available upon request through surveys ppic. October 14—23, 1, California adult residents; 1, California likely voters English, Spanish.

Margin of error ±3.

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