The owner of the Los Angeles Times defended himself after the editorial editor resigned after it was decided that the paper would not be endorsing a presidential candidate this year.

Owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, a high-tech billionaire who has been majority owner of the paper since 2018, said the paper’s editorial board was actually given the option “to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation.”

“In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years,” he wrote in an X post Wednesday. “In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years.”

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He said the editorial board decided not to go that way, and instead chose “to remain silent,” a decision which he said he accepted.

“Please #vote,” he added.

California’s largest and most influential paper has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate since it started making endorsements with Democratic candidate Barack Obama in 2008. The board endorsed President Biden last year before he dropped out of the race.

The Los Angeles Times Guild issued its own statement saying it was “deeply concerned” the paper was not making a choice in the race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican rival former President Donald Trump.

“We are deeply concerned about our owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement in the presidential race. We are even more concerned that he is now unfairly assigning blame to Editorial Board members for his decision not to endorse,” the Guild’s Unit Council and Bargaining Committee said in the statement posted on X Wednesday.  “We are still pressing for answers from newsroom management.”

“The Los Angeles Times Guild stands with our members who have always worked diligently to protect the integrity of our newsroom,” the statement said.

The non-endorsement was a blow to Ms. Harris: California is her home state and several major organizations that she expected to back her,  including some large labor unions, have failed to do so this year.

Times’ Editorials Editor Mariel Garza quit Wednesday, saying, “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

In a phone call with the Columbia Journalism Review, Ms. Garza said she had two concerns about the paper’s failure to take a stand, while making it clear she was preparing to endorse Ms. Harris.

“This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what,” she said. “And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”