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IN THIS ISSUE – “Every Election Official is Freaking Out”
- California’s 2022 Election Schedule Uncertain; Time Is Running Out
- Newsom’s Delicate Balance: Pandemic Re-Opening & Recall
- “Total Recall” Perspectives from Schwarzenegger
- The Snow Down-Low: One of Driest Years Ever
- State Water Board Begins an Historic Review of Water Rights
- Unemployment Insurance Fund Returns to Red Ink; No Solution in Sight
- New San Diego-Area Assemblywoman Elected
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week, tailored to your business and advocacy interests. Please feel free to forward.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!!
FOR THE WEEK ENDING APRIL 9, 2021
California’s 2022 Election Schedule Uncertain; Time Is Running Out
CalMatters
California election officials are running out of time.
Let’s work backwards through the process:
- Before the state holds its primary election in 2022, it has to give candidates the opportunity to file to run;
- Before that, it has to create district maps so that those candidates know who and what they’ll actually be running to represent;
- And beforethose maps can be finalized, the public has to be given an opportunity to weigh in;
- But first the state has to get population data from the most recent Census count.
And there’s the rub: California’s next primary election is set for June 7, 2022 and the 2020 Census data — that first step — is really, really late, partly due to the pandemic.
California can expect some preliminary information to trickle in later this month. That will let us know, for example, whether we as a state are due to lose at least one of 53 congressional seats, as is widely expected.
But the more granular data needed to start mapmaking won’t arrive until around August. The data wizards hired by the state will need another month to clean it up and, among other details, figure out where to place the prison inmates.
That means the state’s independent commission tasked with drawing California’s congressional and legislative maps won’t get the information they need until September — at the earliest. Nor will local elections officials, who carve up the turf for city council and water district races.
- Matt Rexroad, a political consultant:Based on the current schedule “there’s no way they can do a June primary.”
- Fredy Ceja, California Citizens Redistricting Commission:“If we’re still looking at a December deadline for candidate filing, that’s not going to happen.”
So what will happen? No one knows yet. Delaying the primary would require an act by the Legislature and no one has announced plans to do that. But there’s widespread agreement among redistricting experts that something has to give.
And lest we forget, Gov. Gavin Newsom will likely face a recall election later this year. Meanwhile, nine county registrars have announced that they’re retiring since November.
- Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation: “It is a perfect storm…Just about every election official in the state is freaking out about this.“
- Cathy Darling-Allen, Shasta County registrar:“I think I need an election fairy.”
Newsom’s Delicate Political Balance: Pandemic Re-Opening & Recall
CalMatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom is running two races this spring: The first is to clobber the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 60,000 Californians and devastated businesses and schools with unprecedented restrictions. The second is to keep his job, which could be threatened by a recall election later this year.
The two paths intersected today as Newsom announced plans to fully reopen California businesses on June 15 — if hospitalization rates remain low and the state has enough vaccines to inoculate all Californians who want a shot.
“We’re seeing death rates… go down. We’re seeing case rates stabilize. We have the lowest case rates in the United States of America,” Newsom said during a press conference in San Francisco. “On June 15, all things being equal, if we continue that good work… we’ll be opening up this economy (for) business as usual.”
At first blush, the political benefit seems obvious: The campaign attempting to throw Newsom out of office is fueled, in part, by anger over his decisions to close businesses, schools and churches amid the pandemic. His announcement that the state is planning to fully reopen could quell frustration and take some wind out of the recall campaign’s sails. The June 15 reopening happens to fall during a period when voters can remove their names from the recall petitions if they changed their minds.
But it’s not all upside. Newsom’s bold pronouncement about what he’ll do two months down the line — while infections are rising in other parts of the country, highly contagious coronavirus variants are spreading and the state says only 23% of Californians are fully vaccinated — also comes with a dose of political danger.
“It’s a really risky decision, but with a high percentage of success,” said Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
“The risk is that the fourth wave may hit California, he’s going to have to backtrack, reinstitute some of the restrictions, and then it will reinforce the whole rationale for the recall.”
The effort to oust the Democratic governor began before the year-long pandemic upended life in California. It was driven by conservative activists who oppose Newsom’s progressive stances on immigration, gun control and criminal justice. But the pandemic gave their campaign a massive shot of momentum, as many Californians got fed up with the state’s constantly shifting restrictions — and a judge ruled that recall supporters could have more time to gather signatures because of last year’s stay-at-home order.
So the course of the pandemic and the course of the recall have become intertwined, making it impossible to separate whether Newsom’s decisions about one are driven by the other. A poll last week found that 56% of Californians would vote against the recall — enough for Newsom to keep his job. But polls capture the mood at a specific moment in time and public opinion could change depending on how the state recovers from the pandemic.
“You cannot help but see every decision that is made in the sense of the recall,” Guerra said. “The pandemic determines the fact that we have the recall, and how the recall is going to play out.”
Though Newsom has been projecting optimism about the end of the pandemic for several weeks, today’s announcement was a big move that seemed to go beyond what he previously forecast. Last month, Newsom said he’d speed up business reopenings — but didn’t promise a full-scale reopening — after 4 million vaccine doses had been administered in the state’s hardest-hit communities. The state hit that number today, he said, allowing him to set the June 15 goal.
Newsom said he’s monitoring the spread of variants, and that his decision to reopen is based on California’s low case rates and an expectation of sufficient supply of vaccines. A prominent epidemiologist said Newsom’s plan is prudent, and the president of the California Chamber of Commerce said it “is especially welcome news as we enter California’s peak tourism and recreation season.”
But supporters of the recall campaign cast it as a purely political move that still falls short of what Californians need.
“Gavin Newsom is making a political football out of reopening California; don’t be surprised when he moves the goalposts,” tweeted John Cox, the Republican businessman who lost to Newsom in 2018 and is running against him if the recall qualifies for the ballot.
Another GOP challenger, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, said in a statement that “Newsom has shown that he’s only motivated by his own political survival, not doing what’s best for Californians.”
“If he truly wanted to help families across this state, he would reopen all public schools for in-person learning now.”
Even with the low rates of infection, California lags the rest of the nation in the portion of kids who attend school in-person. And while many schools in the state have begun to reopen this spring, they’re generally on hybrid schedules that only allow kids on campus for a few hours a week — making it difficult for many parents to work.
“The economy cannot reopen without schools fully and safely reopening as well, otherwise working parents, especially working mothers, will be left behind,” said a statement from Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which represents the state’s largest companies.
“The schools must be a full partner in creating an equitable recovery and reopening, allowing all working families the opportunity to get back to work.”
Newsom said it’s his “expectation” that schools will fully reopen after June 15 and vowed that there will be “no barrier to having our kids back in in-person instruction.” But he did not commit to requiring that schools offer normal full-time schedules this fall — highlighting another political liability if the recall campaign is in full swing during back-to-school season and families are still scrambling to accommodate part-time class schedules and Zoom lessons from home.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/04/newsom-reopen-recall/?mc_cid=b311ce4640&mc_eid=2833f18cca
“Total Recall” Perspectives from Schwarzenegger
Politico
ARNOLD LOOKS BACK ON RECALL: Arnold Schwarzenegger captured lightning in a bottle in the 2003 ouster of Gov. Gray Davis. The world’s biggest movie action hero, a political neophyte, jumped in at the last minute and vowed to be the renegade candidate who could “blow up the boxes” of special interests and gridlock in Sacramento.
This time around, in 2021, there’s no Schwarzeneggeresque action hero waiting in the wings — at least, not yet — who could pull that off again. But that doesn’t mean the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom won’t be just as much of a political bloodbath.
Schwarzenegger, speaking for the first time about the 2003 recall with Carla, explored its lessons — the similarities, the vibe, the voters’ frustrations. He said it’s not about parties, and it’s still not predictable — a Hollywood-type could still sneak in and upend everything. But he has some advice (and some praise) for Newsom, as the current governor faces down his opponents.
WHAT’S DRIVING IT? “It’s pretty much the same atmosphere today as it was then. … There was dissatisfaction, to the highest level. And it’s the same with the momentum. Something that sets it off to a higher level, kind of the straw that breaks the camel’s back … like an explosion. In Newsom’s case, it was the French Laundry thing. With us, it was the power outages in 2003.”
ON THE GOP ‘POWER GRAB’: “This is the crazy thing here, when they say it’s a ‘power grab’ of the Republicans. Let me tell you, the [California] Republicans couldn’t even get anyone elected. It’s ludicrous — the Republican Party doesn’t exist. These are the signatures of the ordinary folks that have signed on.”
“It had nothing to do then — and it has nothing to do today – with either party. People are dissatisfied. [The recall is] the people’s way of kind of letting off some steam, and then they decide: Do we want to follow through, or not follow through?”
ADVICE TO NEWSOM: “The only advice I have for him is that he’s doing a good job now. That he has improved his connection with the people, and that he should continue on being real, being himself, … and not about the unions, not about the party, not about any of that — just the people. And to solve the problems.”
ON THE IMPACT OF 2003: Schwarzenegger argued that the 2003 election, California’s only successful gubernatorial recall to date, promised voters a new kind of “post-partisanship” politics — and an outsider to fix Sacramento. Today, Schwarzenegger said, he’s still proud that it paved the way for the reforms that arguably became his most lasting marks on California’s political landscape: the top-two or “open” primary, which came with the passage of Prop. 14, and redistricting changes that took the responsibility for drawing district lines away from insiders and legislators and delivered that power to the citizens of California.
Schwarzenegger said he’s also convinced that his efforts to work with both parties aided the passage of cap-and-trade and workers’ compensation reform, as well as his appointment of diverse judges like California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the first Filipina American to serve in that role.
Full interview:
The Snow Down-Low: One of Driest Years Ever
Sacramento Bee & Dept. of Water Resources
California water officials reported the statewide snowpack is just 59% of average for this time of year as the state continues to experience one of the driest years on record.
It’s the second straight year of low numbers, after the Department of Water Resources recorded a reading of 53% on April 1 a year ago. The back-to-back low measurements could mean the return of summer drought conditions and water-use restrictions for the first time since 2016.
The April 1 survey is typically the most important of the year, when the snowpack is the deepest and has the highest snow-water content. It also marks the end of the wet season for California and is a key indicator for water supply.
The average snow water equivalent measured at 16.5 inches statewide, according to DWR’s April 1 report. The snowpack surveys help DWR officials determine how much snow will melt and runoff into California’s reservoirs. De Guzman said the latest snowmelt runoff forecast was 58% of average statewide. The number marks a second consecutive low point for the surveys. Last year the April 1 survey runoff forecast was at 60% after a relatively dry winter.
The snowpack has been a relative bright spot this winter as California has mostly not had heavy nor consistent storms. But the northern and central Sierra Nevada mountains collected a considerable amount of snow from this year’s winter storms, said Sean de Guzman, DWR’s chief of snow surveys.
Still, the snowpack total was also down from a month ago, when on March 1 it was at 61% of its historical average.
“The few storms that have impacted California have actually been colder storms which have brought a lot more snow than rain compared to a typical year,” de Guzman said. “As the snowpack starts to melt, the big unknowns are how dry are the soils beneath the snowpack? And how much water will absorb into those soils before running off into our rivers and streams?”
He said the next few weeks will be critical to watch to see how much to see how much of that snowmelt will actually enter the state’s reservoirs.
The next survey is scheduled for April 29.
“There is no doubt California is in a critically dry year,” Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement. “State agencies, water suppliers and Californians are more prepared than ever to adapt to dry conditions and meet the challenges that might be ahead.”
De Guzman and his team conducted California’s fourth manual snow survey of the year Thursday at Phillips Station, the site of a former stage coach stop at an elevation of 6,800 feet near Echo Summit. The snow depth measured 49.5 inches, with an average snow water equivalent of 21 inches; this time last year it was 16.5. De Guzman said that’s 83% of the average for this time of year at that location.
The northern Sierra average snow water equivalent was measured at 18.4 inches, which is 66% of the average for April, according to DWR. The central Sierra had 18.8 inches, 63% of the average.
De Guzman said most of the this winter’s storms came from the north and didn’t drop as much snow on the southern Sierra mountains, which reported an average snow water equivalent of 10.2 inches. That’s only 41% of the average for this time of year.
While the snowpack in the northern and central sierra are decent, they’re still below average, de Guzman said. Also, rainfall statewide has been well below average. He said California has received about 50% of average precipitation for water year 2021, which currently ties for the third-driest year on record.
“With below-than-average precipitation statewide, California’s reservoirs continue to show the impacts due to dry conditions,” de Guzman told a group of reporters gathered at Phillips Station Thursday. “Statewide, California’s largest reservoirs are only storing about half of their total capacity.”
He said Lake Oroville is currently at 53% of average; Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface water reservoir, is at 65% of average. Folsom Lake is at 37% of its capacity, according to DWR, far below it’s historical average of 57% for this time of year.
The U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday, April 1, 2021, shows nearly 91% of the state of California under drought conditions with 64% of the state in “severe” drought. Areas of Northern California in “extreme” drought include all of Yolo and the counties along the Valley’s western tier.
In California, 64% of the state is already in a severe drought, with 5.3% classified as exceptionally dry, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Areas of Northern California in “extreme” drought include all of Yolo and the counties along the Central Valley’s western tier. A year ago, less than 2% of the state was in severe drought.
As of Wednesday, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor from NOAA and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, nearly 98% of the state is under dry conditions or worse. That accounts for about 33 million residents currently under drought conditions.
“Water conservation is always a way of life. Even though we have drought-like conditions, Californians as a whole have actually been conserving a lot more water compared to where we were before 2012, when the previous drought started,” de Guzman said. “A lot of the public has actually continued their efforts, which is a great sign.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article250368436.html#storylink=cpy
DWR information:
State Water Board Begins an Historic Review of Water Rights
Water Education Foundation
As California’s seasons become warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing climate could require existing rights holders to curtail diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
“California’s climate is changing rapidly, and historic data are no longer a reliable guide to future conditions,” according to the report, Recommendations for an Effective Water Rights Response to Climate Change. “The uncertainty lies only in the magnitude of warming, but not in whether warming will occur.”
The report says climate change will bring increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as atmospheric rivers and drought, prolonged fire seasons with larger fires, heat waves, floods, rising sea level and storm surges. Already, the state is experiencing a second consecutive dry year, prompting worries about drought. “The wet season will bring wetter conditions during a shorter period, whereas the dry season will become longer and drier,” the report said.
The State Water Board report catalogues 12 recommendations — inserting climate-change data into new permits, expanding the stream-gauge network to improve data and refining the means to manage existing water rights to ensure sufficient water is available to meet existing demands. At the same time, the report says, the State Water Board should build on its existing efforts to allow diverters to capture climate-driven flood flows for underground storage.
Because floods and the magnitude of the peak flows are expected to increase under many climate change projections, “there may be greater opportunity to divert flood and high flows during the winter to underground storage,” the report said. The State Water Board could build on the flood planning data used by the Department of Water Resources to help inform water availability analyses and to spell out conditions for the resulting water right permits for floodwater capture.
“The recommendations are a menu of options,” said Jelena Hartman, senior environmental scientist with the State Water Board and chief author of the report. The goal, she said, was to “clearly communicate what the water rights issues are and what we can do.”
The result of a 2017 State Water Board resolution detailing its comprehensive response to climate change, the report could be the first step toward a retooled permitting system for new water rights applications. (The Board has averaged about a dozen newly issued permits per year, mostly for small diverters, since 2010.) The State Water Board is seeking public comments on the report through March 31.
And while the report does not call for reopening existing permits, it does sound a warning for those permit holders: With droughts projected to become longer and more severe, the State Water Board may need to curtail water diversions more often and in more watersheds.
During a March 18 webinar on the report, Erik Ekdahl, the State Water Board’s deputy director for the Division of Water Rights, said it may be time to “reset expectations” regarding curtailments for water use permits, given that curtailments have only been implemented by the state in 1976-1977 and 2014-2015.
“That’s not an overuse of curtailments,” he said. “If anything, it’s an underuse. We may need to look at curtailment more frequently.”
Some water users fear the report could be the beginning of a move to restrict their access.
“To the extent climate change is incorporated into water rights administration, it should be to respond to a changing hydrology in a manner that is protective of existing users … and not to turn back the clock on water rights or to service new ambitions for instream flows that aren’t in the law,” said Chris Scheuring, senior counsel with the California Farm Bureau Federation.
The report notes that many of California’s existing water rights are based on stream gauge data drawn during a relatively wet period (since about 1955). Although California has had some of its most severe droughts on record since the 1970s, annual flow on many streams is highly variable due to California’s Mediterranean climate. Fluctuations in year-to-year precipitation are greater than any state in the nation, ranging from as little as 50 percent to more than 200 percent of long-term averages.
If climate conditions swing drier overall, the report says, it will be difficult for those existing water right holders to divert their permitted volume. Expanding the network of stream and precipitation gauges will be critical, the report says, to improving the accuracy of water availability analyses.
But the report’s focus is on new water rights applicants and the need to weave climate change data into their permits to provide a clear description of projected water availability. “We take the long view in asking if there is sufficient water available for a new appropriation,” Hartman said.
State Water Board leaders said the water rights response is part of the umbrella of actions needed to confront climate change.
“Water rights can either be something that helps us adapt and create resiliency … or it can really hinder us,” Chair Joaquin Esquivel said at the Board’s Feb. 16 meeting where the report was presented.
The fingerprints of climate change are increasingly evident in California’s seasonal weather. Extreme conditions are on the upswing. Peak runoff, which fuels the state’s water supply, has shifted a month earlier during the 20th century. The four years between 2014 and 2017 were especially warm, with 2014 the warmest on record. Annual average temperatures in California are projected to rise significantly by the end of the century.
More:
State’s Unemployment Insurance Fund Returns to Red Ink; No Solution in Sight
CalMatters
Amid the chaos at the state’s Employment Development Department, another big problem has largely been overlooked: The state is out of unemployment money, and nobody is doing much about it. California has a history of going deep into the red to pay for jobless benefits during recessions, but the stakes are especially high this time as businesses hit hard by unprecedented pandemic shutdowns look to restart hiring. California’s unemployment rate fell in February to a pandemic-low 8.5% as employers added 141,000 jobs, but the rate is still twice as high as in February 2020.
The state’s unemployment trust fund financed by employer taxes ran out last spring, which economists attribute to an outdated tax system that has gone largely untouched for the last four decades. So far, California has borrowed $21.2 billion from the federal government to keep benefits flowing to the jobless. Employment Development Department officials expect the deficit to balloon to $48 billion by the end of the year.
In response to a question from CalMatters about how the state plans to address that debt, department officials said Friday that the next forecast for the unemployment fund is due around late May. “Information will be further forthcoming as developments occur,” spokesperson Loree Levy said.
In the meantime, employers have been required to keep paying a 15% emergency surcharge on unemployment taxes due to the fund’s insolvency. Even before the coronavirus shut down much of the economy, California’s unemployment fund was the most unstable of any U.S. state, well behind financially repressed Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
The state’s descent during the pandemic to poster-child status for unemployment dysfunction could make this year a prime opportunity for reform. One option favored by economists at Stanford is to cut unemployment taxes for employers in lower-wage sectors while raising taxes on higher-paying businesses to reduce the state’s debt.
But so far, lawmakers from both parties are proposing much more limited reforms: new oversight boards, a direct deposit payment option, better language access and stronger checks on inmates filing for benefits. Some measures call for the Employment Development Department to develop a new recession plan or to keep paying expanded benefits as the pandemic drags on, but they don’t address the underlying debt or tax system at the agency ultimately controlled by the governor.
The cumulative effect, political analysts say, is that unemployment is poised to lose out to competing priorities such as vaccines, adding to a long history of neglecting safety-net programs in a year further complicated by messy recall politics.
“If the governor and the legislative leadership wanted to make this a top priority, the timing could be perfect,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican campaign veteran and a professor at the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley. “This could end up being the single worst financial scandal in the history of California government. But the irony is it’s so big and so sprawling, it’s difficult for voters to understand.”
Unemployment is what Stanford economist Mark Duggan calls an “invisible tax.” While Social Security is run by the federal government and deducted directly from workers’ paychecks, each state oversees its own unemployment system funded by employer taxes.
Despite California’s reputation for a progressive tax system, the state’s unemployment taxes hit businesses with lower-paid workers harder. That’s because businesses are taxed on only the first $7,000 a worker makes — the lowest amount allowed by federal law, and a figure that hasn’t been updated in 39 years, said Duggan, who studies unemployment at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Each business then pays a payroll tax rate ranging from 1.5% to 6.2%, depending on how many of its workers have filed for unemployment benefits in past years. That often penalizes hotels, restaurants and other high-turnover industries slammed by the pandemic. Unemployment taxes max out at $434 per employee, per year, or up to about $4,340 for a 10-person company paying the highest rate, before any emergency fees.
Since the state partially insures wages up to a much higher limit, $46,800 a year, the result is that businesses pay very similar unemployment taxes for a worker who makes $8,000 a year and another who earns $40,000. But the higher-paid worker gets $400 a week in state jobless benefits if laid off, compared to $80 for the lower-paid worker.
While the costs of those benefits add up for the state, it’s often not enough for out-of-work Californians to pay for housing, food and other necessities. That’s made extra federally funded unemployment payments during the pandemic — $600 a week last spring, $300 under more recent stimulus measures — a lifeline for many.
“It’s the worst. The most regressive. Appalling. I don’t know what adjective to use,” Duggan said of the state’s current unemployment financing system. “And it’s not some stupid little narrow program. As we just saw in the pandemic, this was the most important part of the social safety net.”
What happens when that safety net breaks down is all too clear for Lauren Taylor-Mayweather. The 41-year-old mother of four lost her job as a home health aide in the Inland Empire in January, and she’s still out $490 after reporting a string of fraudulent charges on her state-issued Bank of America unemployment debit card in February.
All payments stopped for more than a month after her unemployment account was frozen, she said. Her husband was able to cover rent for the family, but they fell a month behind on their car payment, their auto insurance lapsed and groceries were sparse as she waited hours to plead her case to customer service workers.
“I was pretty much down to my last dollar,” Taylor-Mayweather said, and yet, “I’m being made the criminal.”
One silver lining of the past few months is that she’s been able to attend online classes for a bachelor’s degree in health care administration, giving her hope of moving up in her next job. But it’s fast-growing jobs including home health aides and other service industry positions that Duggan says would benefit most if California took on more ambitious unemployment reform.
He favors raising the $7,000-per-worker base on which employers are taxed to align with the $46,800 insurance limit. This would likely raise taxes on high-paying employers, but lower them for employers who hire more lower-wage workers. States including Utah, North Dakota and Washington have changed the rules and required employers to pay taxes on $36,000 in wages or more, and they’ve so far avoided unemployment debt during the pandemic.
“That would, overnight, lower the cost of hiring part-time and low-wage workers, and it would act as a powerful stimulus,” Duggan said. “Yeah, it would raise a little bit the cost of hiring engineers and accountants. But it would rationalize it, because right now the accountants and the engineers are getting free insurance.”
This wouldn’t be the first time California policymakers have passed on overhauling unemployment during a crisis. After the Great Recession ended in 2009, it took until 2018 for the state to pay back billions borrowed from the federal government through business taxes and interest payments from the state general fund.
Duggan argues that such a drawn-out approach again risks creating a “a drag” on economic recovery after the COVID recession. Other policy researchers contend that the explosion of unemployment fraud in many states during the pandemic should also be a wake-up call to rethink who runs benefit programs, since most other countries administer similar programs at a national level.
“Are we long past due for moving this to a federal system?” asks Jody Heymann, a UCLA professor of health policy. “I don’t actually think it’s realistic that all 50 states will be good at preventing fraud. And if they are, why would you set up that much redundancy?”
Still, such prospects seem far removed from proposals favored by business groups including the Tax Foundation, which are pushing states to steer clear of tax hikes and “avoid penalizing hiring.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he won’t raise taxes this year, but the alternatives are limited. EDD officials have stressed that upwards of 90% of fraud appears to have targeted federal emergency programs, so it’s unclear how much the state would get to keep of any money clawed back from fraudsters.
There’s also the possibility that the federal government could forgive some loans, though bailing out California and other insolvent states might not go over well in places that have kept their programs in order. California could also follow more conservative states and tighten eligibility or cut unemployment benefits for workers to save money.
The most likely scenario politically may be doing very little, given the hyper-polarized climate surrounding the recall. After assembling and disbanding an unemployment “strike team” last year, Newsom and his surrogates have largely avoided the issue since installing new leadership at the Employment Development Department, often referring questions to labor and employment officials as he navigates the pandemic and other turmoil.
“Newsom has probably been hurt politically much more by one silly birthday dinner than by a multibillion-dollar employment benefit scandal,” Schnur said. “That’s probably because he’s kept himself at such a distance from it. The problem is that may have created a disincentive for him to engage more forcefully on a solution.”
https://calmatters.org/economy/2021/03/california-unemployment-crisis-reform/
New San Diego-Area Assemblywoman Elected
San Diego Union-Tribune
La Mesa Councilwoman Dr. Akilah Weber won more than half the votes cast by the end of Election Night, making a run-off election unlikely.
If her lead of just over 52 percent of the votes holds, after all remaining mail-in ballots and provisional ballots are counted, then Weber wins the seat her mother, Shirley Weber, held for a decade before recently becoming California’s Secretary of State.
By midnight, with all precincts counted and more than 55,000 early, mail-in and in-person votes cast, Akilah Weber won 28,834 votes.
In total, the county mailed out more than 300,000 ballots to the 79th Assembly District voters and as of midnight a fraction of them — 55,578 ballots — had been cast and counted. The overwhelming majority were delivered by mail.
In second place was Republican business owner Marco Contreras with about 33 percent of the vote. His campaign manager Corey Uhden said he did not have a comment Tuesday night.
Labor organizer Leticia Munguia held about 8 percent, teacher Shane Parmely had 5 percent, and community organizer Aeiramique Glass Blake held just over 1 percent.
The 79th District includes parts of Southeast San Diego, Bonita, Chula Vista, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and National City.
In a special election if no candidate wins a majority, the race goes to a runoff between the top two vote-getters.
Weber, an obstetrician/gynecologist, significantly outpaced her opponents in fundraising. She collected more than $380,000 in her candidate account, while a political committee supporting her raised $545,000.
Contreras raised about $146,000 in his candidate fund. Among the other three Democrats running, Munguia raised just over $74,000, Parmely brought in nearly $23,000, and Blake trailed with $6,320.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2021-04-06/79th-assembly-election