California Donor Table

More than a dozen organizations assign a grade to each member of the state Senate and Assembly, distributed on an annual scorecard. Some assessments have already been published; others will be released in early 2018. It's important to call them what they really are: an electoral litmus test, one that fuels campaign donations and is later splashed across mail sent to voters — "Jane Smith is a champion/destroyer of the environment," for example. It can be effective for voters who have little other information on the job their legislator has been doing in Sacramento.

Democrats in the California Senate are planning to write legislation to lessen the effects of the elimination of popular tax breaks in the GOP’s overhaul of the federal tax system.

Moore’s defeat is part of a larger pattern we’ve seen in special elections so far this year, one in which Democrats have greatly outperformed expectations. If history holds (and, of course, it may not), the special election results portend a Democratic wave in 2018.