How we cover politics

Politics is the contest for office and the use of power once the office is won. This desk covers elections, legislatures, parties, lobbying, and the budgets that follow a vote.

We will name parties, candidates, and office-holders when they are on the record. We will not invent a local race to look busy, and we will not pretend we have a beat reporter in a city we do not staff. A campaign press release is a campaign press release.

What counts

A vote, a filing, a debate transcript, a donor declaration where the law requires one, a court challenge to a result. Polls are published with the pollster, the dates, the sample, and the margin — or they are not published. We do not launder an opposition research dump as news.

Signed argument about politics belongs on Opinion. The news report stays on this desk and on News.

Tips: tips@lapress.org.