Jailed women, L.A. County settle strip-search suit

The largest payout in county history — $53 million — ends a 2010 class-action claim over the treatment of female inmates at the Sheriff ’s Department’s detention facility in Lynwood.

The money race reinforced the tiers in the Democratic presidential contest on Monday, as candidates released their fundraising figures for recent months.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris — the five candidates who have been atop recent polls — raised and spent millions of dollars more than their Democratic primary rivals between April 1 and June 30, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Iowa caucuses are over 200 days away, but political experts say the fundraising totals reported Monday by a sprawling field of roughly two dozen candidates reinforce the narrative in the Democratic primary.

“This is the political version of income inequality. The gap between the very rich and the very poor keeps growing, and it’s only going to get harder for one of the second-tier candidates to create enough excitement to catch up to the front-runners,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley.

Buttigieg raised the most of the Democrats — $25 million — and had $22.7 million in the bank entering the summer, a crucial time for wooing voters in the early-contest states by holding house parties, visiting fairs and building ground teams in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Sanders raised $18 million from donors and has $27.3 million cash on hand after transferring $7.6 million from his Senate reelection account. Biden took in $22 million and has $10.9 million in the bank, and Warren raised $19.2 million and has $19.8 million to spend, according to the reports.

Harris, who has surged in recent weeks, raised nearly $12 million, significantly less than the other top candidates. Her donations likely spiked after the June 27 Democratic debate, when she used her experience as a young girl who was bused to school to attack Biden’s past opposition to certain forms of desegregation. The debate took place just before the fundraising quarter closed. California’s junior senator has nearly $13.3 million in the bank.

President Trump bested all of the Democratic candidates, reporting $26.5 million in fundraising and $56.7 million in the bank. However, that includes $17.6 million in transfers from prior campaign committees, and is eclipsed by the $47 million then-President Obama raised during the same period in his reelection bid in 2011.

Trump’s lone Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, reported anemic numbers — less than $700,000 from individual donors and $299,000 in his coffers.

These figures are all for candidates’ campaign committees and do not include political party or outside groups, which are gearing up to spend millions of dollars on the 2020 campaign.

Sanders, Warren and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro had considerable donations of $200 or less — a sign of grass-roots support.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Castro’s Texas rival who dazzled Democratic donors during his unsuccessful 2018 Senate run, reported raising an underwhelming $3.6 million with $5.2 million in the bank.

Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney reported $7.4 million in cash on hand, more than many of his better-known rivals. The founder of two banks, Delaney is self-financing his campaign and raised a scant $285,000 during the reporting period.