On behalf of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board, welcome to The Take, your opinion-politics newsletter. Please sign up for it here.

Our take

Editorials

Pandering is no substitute for immigration overhaul: Rather than craft thoughtful legislation, which is hard, the administration seeks to conscript state and local authorities into the president’s crusade to deport undocumented immigrants. It’s legally suspect.

For extreme vetting, start with that “deportation force”: Sisters in Fresno say they were sexually assaulted by a Customs and Border Protection officer. With the Trump administration vowing to hire thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents, possibly lowering hiring standards, such stories have suddenly taken on a new level of urgency.

Trumpcare collapses under the weight of its own lies: Republicans have insisted the Affordable Care Act is a nightmare and that Americans hate it. So why couldn’t they find the votes to replace it? Maybe because their arguments were lies.

Columns

Foon Rhee: So far, so good for Mayor Darrell Steinberg. Sacramento’s mayor passed the 100-day mark with little drama, which is what happens with competent leadership. He’s made progress on his priorities but is still getting used to the job and faces bigger challenges.

Dan Walters: In seven of the 14 California congressional districts held by Republicans, Hillary Clinton outpolled Donald Trump, and Democrats hope that, coupled with such issues as immigration and health care, could translate into congressional gains next year. But turnout could be the key factor.

Marcos Breton: Sacramento’s interim police Chief Brian Louie’s clueless response at City Council signals greater problems for troubled department.

Op-eds

Rep. Adam Schiff: The opportunity for Congress to conduct a nonpartisan investigation into Russian hacking of the presidential election had two severe setbacks this week.

Susan Sward: The process of forming local entities to manage California groundwater basins is fueling anxiety among farmers and environmentalists.

Jessica A. Levinson: Voters in every California county should be worried about the decision of lawmakers in Sacramento to dictate that a redistricting commission must be formed, and how it should be formed in a single county.

Tom Scott: Regulations, taxes and employer mandates hold back California’s economic engine, small-business owners say.

Take a number: 33,091

The number of U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2015 blamed on prescription painkillers, heroin and other opioids hit 33,091. Foon Rhee’s latest Numbers Crunch looks at how opioids are driving the worst overdose crisis ever – and how that epidemic is hitting states won by President Donald Trump at the same time his plan to overhaul Obamacare would have slashed drug treatment.

Their take

Los Angeles Times: It’s not Neil Gorsuch’s fault, but we can’t support his ascension to a stolen Supreme Court seat. President Obama’s nominee was robbed of his right to a hearing, and the Senate Democrats have no obligation to be complicit in the theft.

San Francisco Chronicle: The Raiders belong in Oakland. As a place for investment, there is no comparison between the size, wealth and economic diversity of the Bay Area and the roller coaster of the gambling-dependent Las Vegas market. Without corporate welfare, in the form of a $750 million public subsidy in Nevada, this would be no contest.

East Bay Times: Blood is on the hands of Gov. Jerry Brown. And of state Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelley and the California Highway Patrol leadership he oversees. And of state legislators like Assemblyman Tony Thurmond.

San Diego Union Tribune: Is Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, a crook or merely utterly incompetent in managing both his campaign and family finances? Everyone’s going to find out, it appears, given the confirmation Thursday that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating the five-term congressman over his use of campaign funds for personal purposes.

Chicago Tribune: Proceed with the pipelines. They’re a better way to transport oil. The Keystone XL pipeline, which would stretch over 1,200 miles and cost $8 billion, is a big project that has faced many hurdles. One of those was removed Friday when President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for its construction.

Takes on Trump-Ryan-McCarthyCare’s failure

Miami Herald: Donald Trump is racking up the losses. The courts have smacked down two travel bans. If anyone pays for that wall it will be Americans. And now Obamacare. It’s most unfortunate that the president is acting like he’s a spectator in these defeats and not the architect.

Dallas Morning News: There is an excellent reason why Republicans failed Friday to keep their promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something better. Obamacare, it turns out, has never been nearly as bad as its critics have made it out to be.

Raleigh News & Observer: The GOP replacement was a mess that likely would have left 20 million-plus people without insurance. Republicans didn’t even seem to understand it. And though Trump was twisting arms – he wanted a victory, no matter how nonsensical the replacement was – he also seemed pretty eager to move on to the rest of his agenda while waiting for the ACA to “explode,” as he put it.

Kansas City Star: Neither candidate Trump nor President Trump ever provided any specifics, and that this was always magical thinking became even clearer with his recent exclamation that no one knew health care reform was so difficult.

Syndicates’ take

Dana Milbank: The taxpayer subsidization of Donald Trump’s rich-and-famous lifestyle is but one of the bait-and-switch maneuvers by Trump, who said during the campaign that “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.” The man ran as a populist and is governing as a plutocrat.

Maureen Dowd: Dear Donald, You got played. You sold yourself as the businessman who could shake things up and make Washington work again. Instead, you got worked over by the Republican leadership and the business community, who set you up to do their bidding.

Frank Bruni: Maybe Rosie O’Donnell will get the rap for killing Trumpcare. Republicans floundered in their attempts to come up with a replacement for Obamacare because the truth, which they know but refuse to say out loud, is that many of their constituents have benefited from, and have come to depend on, the changes wrought by Obamacare.

Kathleen Parker: President Donald Trump, who promised repeal and replace (as has nearly every Republican the past seven years), has no patience with process.

Ruben Navarrette: In the immigration debate, you don’t get called a racist by accident. You have to put in the effort.

E.J. Dionne: The United States is the only wealthy democracy in the world that doesn’t provide health coverage to all its people. Republicans used to recognize this as a problem. Now, their ideology forces them to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Ross Douthat: Here’s why cities should be broken up; Akron will rise again.

Trudy Rubin: The leaders of the Iraqi Kurds will hold a long-awaited referendum to endorse independence to create a sovereign state. The Kurds can’t succeed without U.S. support, and Washington still insists Iraq must remain one unified country. That position needs updating.

Paul Krugman: So how did Rep. Paul Ryan reach a position where his actions may reshape the lives of so many of his fellow citizens, in most cases very much for the worse?

David Brooks: The House Republican health care bill was not molded to the actual health care needs of regular voters. It does not have much interest in those voters. It was written by elites to serve the needs of elites.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: In a stunning move, Florida Gov. Rick Scott recently removed State Attorney Aramis Ayala after she announced she would not seek the death penalty in a highly publicized case. It’s a case of a governor leading the mob to the jail.

Mailbag

“Californians voted twice last November to support capital punishment for the worst murderers, by defeating Proposition 62 to abolish it, and passing Proposition 66 to speed its enforcement. I suspect the voters would be mad if their district attorneys put their personal views ahead of their duty to follow the law.” – Michael Rushford, Carmichael

And finally,

David Mas Masumoto: Our Valley lies in the middle of this national debate about belonging. We are filled with a broad spectrum of diverse peoples, cultures and religions. We have immigrants who are documented and undocumented. We have a history of exploiting new arrivals as cheap labor for our agricultural industry, yet many immigrants have planted roots.