For Clients & Friends of The Gualco Group, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE – “It’s hard to leave this work”
Dana Williamson, Newsom’s chief of staff, as she abruptly resigned
- Newsom’s Chief of Staff – His “Political Assassin” – Abruptly Steps Aside
- Governor May Move Up State of the State Speech to Beat Trump Inaugural
- Brown Goes Candid On His 16 Years as Governor: Delights, Provokes Overflow Crowd
- State Water Managers Ready Contentious New Rules for Delta, Rivers
- Feds Support Newsom’s Vehicle Emission Mandates…for Now
- Public Employee Union Membership Slowly Decreases
The Gualco Group’s Capitol News & Notes (CN&N) curates California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique client service.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING DEC. 20, 2024
NOTE: Capitol News & Notes returns to your e-mail in box on Jan. 3. Enjoy a bountiful 2025!
Newsom’s Chief of Staff – His “Political Assassin” – Abruptly Steps Aside
Politico
Dana Williamson, who as chief of staff to Gavin Newsom served as his enforcer at the Capitol and a top liaison to powerful labor unions and business interests across California, departed the governor’s office with no advance notice Friday. No reasons for the departure were announced.
Williamson — described by Newsom aides and allies as his “political assassin” in Sacramento — will be replaced by Nathan Barankin, another veteran of California politics who recently joined the governor’s office after spending years as a political consultant and an adviser to Kamala Harris. His first day in the new role is Monday. He is the spouse of the Cabinet secretary.
Williamson was the third chief of staff to Newsom, who has two years remaining in his final term.
Blunt and unsparing, Williamson left little to interpretation. Within the governor’s broader orbit, where aides and advisers mostly play nice, she carried many of Newsom’s grudges for him, even as she continued to nurse some of her own.
At the same time, she avoided the spotlight, only occasionally sitting for on-the-record interviews.
Before joining his staff, she operated her own consulting firm in Sacramento, Grace Public Affairs, and was a senior aide to numerous California elected officials, including cabinet secretary to former Gov. Jerry Brown, whom she has remained close to, as well as former Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. Williamson also was a strategist on several ballot measure campaigns, including major criminal justice reform efforts.
Williamson was not particularly close with Newsom when she became his top aide, taking the reins from then-chief Jim DeBoo. But she quickly solidified her place in his inner circle thanks to her experience navigating complex Capitol battles on everything from major climate policy to labor rights.
“He’s a little bit of a celebrity governor, and that can be intimidating to some people. And she is not intimidated. She gives zero f**ks, which is part of what makes her so great,” said Anthony York, Newsom’s former communications director whose tenure overlapped with Williamson.
“Some in the Legislature may disagree, and some who end up on the wrong side of a text from Dana may disagree, but that’s what I love about her,” he added. “And that was really essential, that the two of them were able to build that relationship right away.”
Inside Newsom’s office, Williamson was at the center of nearly every major initiative since she joined nearly two years ago. In her earliest days, she helped wrangle legislation requiring oil market participants to submit vast amounts of data to a new division within the California Energy Commission that will decide whether to cap and penalize oil refiners’ profits. The following year, Newsom secured new authority to regulate oil refineries, requiring them to prevent price spikes caused by maintenance and low supplies.
And she was behind the whirlwind, 48-hour period when Newsom arrived at his selection to replace the late Dianne Feinstein, and how Laphonza Butler became a U.S. senator.
Her perennial assignment to “clean up” the statewide ballot made Williamson one of the most revered — and feared — figures in Sacramento.
Williamson, who is close to politically influential labor leaders like SEIU’s Tia Orr and Teri Holoman of the California Teachers Association, helped mediate a truce in 2023 between unions and fast food giants on worker regulations, defusing a long power struggle and looming ballot fight.
Indeed, on numerous occasions she sought to avert costly and internecine conflicts that appeared headed for the ballot but could be solved with legislation.
Last year, she helped broker another deal between business and labor on the Private Attorneys General Act, avoiding a pricey November battle. But not all negotiations were a success. Newsom and Democrats were unable to sidetrack or ultimately stop Proposition 36, the November ballot measure that increases penalties for some theft- and drug-related crimes.
Williamson’s most notable and far-reaching achievement alongside Newsom was Proposition 1, which narrowly passed in March and rewrote the state’s decades-old mental health law.
Williamson was involved from the inception of the effort, which authorized borrowing $6.4 billion for new facilities to house and treat the most severe cases. The issue was also deeply personal — she has spoken out about her own family’s challenges with mental health issues.
Williamson’s relationships were often front and center — sometimes via her biting (and now-defunct) Twitter feed where she sparred with lawmakers and advocates who had crossed her, including California Labor Federation leader Lorena Gonzalez.
When one Central Valley lawmaker, the sole Democrat to vote against Newsom’s oil profits bill, posted on social media about how she stood alone to oppose the measure, Williamson delivered a signature acerbic response: “Alone and confused you shall likely remain.”
Williamson did not specify what her immediate plans will be after leaving, but reflected fondly on working under her third governor.
“In two short years, we’ve made a lasting impact — two special sessions, workplace reforms that hadn’t been touched in decades, a minimum wage increase for fast food workers, and mental health reforms that will be felt by every Californian,” she said of her time under Newsom.
“It’s hard to leave this work,” Williamson added. “I’ve had the honor of serving under three governors and when asked what I will miss the most, my answer is always the same — the privilege of working with some of the smartest and most committed people I’ve ever known. I’m grateful for every day that I’ve had.”
Governor May Move Up State of the State Speech to Beat Trump Inaugural
Sacramento Bee
Newsom told reporters Monday that he may “collapse” his state of the state speech and Jan. 10 budget presentation in order to “hit the ground running” before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
The governor, who has dyslexia and avoids speaking from teleprompters, has delivered non-traditional addresses in each of the last two years. In 2023, he toured a series of California cities and made policy announcements in each of them, and last year, his office posted a video of him delivering the state of the state speech.
Brown Goes Candid On His 16 Years as Governor: Delights, Provokes Overflow Crowd
CalMatters
Jerry Brown, California’s longest-serving governor (1975-83, 2011-2019), had a lot to say in an hour-long conversation hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).
He was typically blunt before an overflow crowd at the Downtown Sheraton’s grand ballroom last Thursday as he answered thoughtful questions from Tani Cantil-Sakauye, PPIC president and retired California Supreme Court chief justice:
State budget
Brown pointed out how voters often blame governors for budget shortfalls, even though the economy is influenced by factors outside of what governors or even U.S. presidents control. Regardless, hammering out a budget plan is no easy task.
“Most of what government does is good. So if you want to cut budgets, you’re going to cut ‘good.’ That’s the dilemma.”
Prop. 36
Though Brown did not reveal whether he voted for the anti-crime measure that overwhelmingly passed in November, he did say he did not support 2014’s Proposition 47, which Prop. 36 seeks to overhaul. Brown acknowledged that voters are frustrated with drug crime and retail theft, but added that more rehabilitation is also needed.
Prop. 36 “brought back a little bit of the hammer and hopefully we’re going to still extend the hand because a lot of people don’t have what they need to overcome the terrible situation they’re in.”
Donald Trump
Brown anticipates that the incoming president’s pledges to dismantle environmental policies will, “in a very paradoxical way,” help climate change efforts by galvanizing both advocates and those who may not yet prioritize environmental issues. “He’s going to prove the environment is really important. … It’s called reductio ad absurdum — take something far enough, you demonstrate it’s absurd and people want the opposite.”
When did he govern best – during his first 8 years or second terms?
Pointing out he was young, only 35, at the start of his first stint, he said, “When you’re young, you’re more creative…because you don’t know consequences.”
As the crowd chuckled, he said his second terms were more successful because he and his team of loyal aides were more experienced and could get more done, faster.
Though Brown said he remains hopeful about the future, he also said that some issues — such as poverty and crime — should be considered more like “conditions” that continue in perpetuity, instead of “problems” to be solved.
“You got to work to make it better. But it’s really not going to get better. It’s going to reoccur — and you’re going to die anyway.”
If you miss Brown’s unsparing opinions and philosophical musings, watch the entire event here.
https://calmatters.org/newsletter/jerry-brown-american-dream-trump/
State Water Managers Ready Contentious New Rules for Delta, Rivers
CalMatters
The Newsom administration is refining a contentious set of proposed rules, years in the making, that would reshape how farms and cities draw water from the Central Valley’s Delta and its rivers.
Backed by more than $1 billion in state funds, the rules, if adopted, would require water users to help restore rivers and rebuild depleted Chinook salmon runs.
The administration touts its proposed rules as the starting point of a long-term effort to double Central Valley Chinook populations from historical levels, reaching numbers not seen in at least 75 years. But environmental groups have almost unanimously rejected it, saying it promises environmental gains that will never materialize and jeopardizes the existence of California’s iconic salmon and other fish.
Dubbed Healthy Rivers and Landscapes but better known as “the voluntary agreements,” the proposal is one of two pathways for state officials as they update a keystone regulatory document called the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan, which was last overhauled in 1995.
The State Water Resources Control Board is the agency with the authority to approve the rules. A public hearing and vote could come in 2025.
The water board’s other option would require strict minimum flows in rivers. Water users say those rules would have unacceptable impacts on farms, hydropower and communities — including planned housing projects — while environmentalists and tribes laud it as more protective of fish. It would ensure that rivers contain an average of 55% of the total water available in the watershed at a given time — a measure called unimpaired flow.
With the ecosystem of the Bay-Delta in the throes of collapse, the set of rules is critical to determining how much water flows through the Delta for salmon and other species and how much is available for growers and cities in the Central Valley and Southern California.
Newsom administration officials have worked on these rules for years during negotiations with the San Joaquin Valley’s Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest agricultural water provider, the giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and other water users.
California Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot described the proposal as “a new and strengthened approach” that will protect both the environment and the water supply.
Crowfoot told the water board that the proposed rules would do “a good job working to balance all of (Californians’) needs, and ultimately help the environment to recover in ways that’s workable for communities across our state.”
Such a balance has long eluded state officials.
“This is progress,” Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said at a November water board workshop. “It’s gone on so long. It’s time.”
But environmentalists aren’t sold. Some have even refused to call it by its formal name, saying it’s a euphemism with no bearing on “healthy rivers.” They say the rules would favor water users, allowing cities and farms to draw so much water from the Delta and its tributary rivers that salmon will continue their long decline. They say the proposed rules simply don’t offer fish the water they need, let alone support the state’s salmon rebuilding mandate.
“If you’re diverting more than half of a river’s flow, you are guaranteeing negative population growth” of salmon, said Gary Bobker, Friends of the River’s program director.
The complex flow rules could even allow growers to entirely drain some rivers in critically dry years, according to Barry Nelson, a water policy analyst with the Golden State Salmon Association who spoke at a recent board workshop.
Feds Support Newsom’s Vehicle Emission Mandates…for Now
CalMatters commentary from Dan Walters
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decree that by 2035 all new cars sold in California must be powered by batteries or other zero-emission systems has received a double dose of legal and political support.
Last Friday the U.S. Supreme Court blocked an effort by red states to declare California’s zero-emission mandate unconstitutional. And on Wednesday the outgoing Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency granted the state’s request for a new waiver, which it needs to deviate from federal emission standards.
Renewal of the waiver makes it more difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to make good on his campaign promise to block California’s 2035 decree, a major chunk of the state’s effort to become carbon-neutral by 2045.
“Clean cars are here to stay,” Newsom said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris administration reaffirmed what we’ve known for decades — California can rise to the challenge of protecting our people by cleaning our air and cutting pollution.
“With more makes and models available than ever before, millions of Californians have already made the switch to clean cars. Automakers and manufacturers have made it clear they intend to stick with California and consumers as we move toward clean cars that save people money.
“Naysayers like President-elect Trump would prefer to side with the oil industry over consumers and American automakers, but California will continue fostering new innovations in the market.”
Newsom’s celebratory statement and political dig notwithstanding, whether California actually enforces the ban on selling gasoline- and diesel-powered cars in 2035 remains legally, politically and tactically unsettled.
While the Supreme Court didn’t allow Ohio and other states to pursue their case against California, it left open a challenge by fuel manufacturers, who contend that the state’s Clean Air Act waiver doesn’t empower it to ban sales of cars with internal combustion engines. The court will take up that issue next year.
Despite the EPA action, it’s likely that after taking office, Trump will attempt to cancel it, either directly or through legislation from a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses.
Assuming that California’s mandate survives those potential roadblocks, there’s still the matter of escalating the sales of battery- and hydrogen- powered cars, plus plug-in hybrids, from their 39.4% of auto purchases so far this year to 100%.
There are about 13 million cars on the road in California; about 2 million meet the state’s definition of zero-emission now. Californians purchase between 1.7 million and 2 million new vehicles each year.
After surges in recent years, sales of ZEVs, as they are dubbed, have recently flattened out. Trump has pledged to eliminate the $7,500 federal tax credit for zero-emission vehicle purchases, but Newsom has promised to keep it going with state funds.
That issue aside, there are other impediments to the sharp escalation of ZEV sales needed to meet the state’s deadline, such as the lack of convenient and functional recharging stations, purchase prices that are beyond the ability of low-income families, and concerns about how far zero-emission vehicles can travel between charges, particularly in rural areas.
Moreover, even if only zero-emission vehicles can be sold after 2035, there will still be millions of gas- and diesel-fueled cars on the road. And the state faces a balancing act of maintaining the availability of fuel for those cars as it indirectly compels refineries to reduce their output, perhaps to the point of closure.
Finally, California must generate enough electricity to recharge the many millions of zero-emission vehicles it envisions, while at the same time shifting to zero-emission power production from wind and solar arrays, backed up by massive battery banks.
With all of those factors in flux, there’s precious little wiggle room if the state is to achieve its 2035 goal.
Public Employee Union Membership Slowly Decreases
Sacramento Bee
In the six years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public employees are not required to pay monthly dues, unions representing state workers have been tasked with convincing members that representation is worth the monthly deduction.
Labor leaders regularly cite the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision as one reason for declining rates of dues-paying members. Though for some unions, like those that represent peace officers, the landmark court decision has made little impact on membership.
But across labor groups representing state employees, the rate of dues-paying members continues trending down, according to the latest numbers from the State Controller’s Office, which is responsible for deducting union dues for most eligible state employees.
The number of rank-and-file employees increased by 4,538 between October 2023 and 2024, according to payroll data. The number of dues-paying members increased by 367 state workers.
The percentage of dues-paying members — which stood at 65% last year — decreased by one percentage point this year. In 2021, 66% of rank-and-file employees paid dues.
The overall decline in dues-paying membership was unevenly felt. Some of the state’s 21 bargaining units increased membership, while others lost dues-paying workers.
At SEIU Local 1000, 456 fewer members paid dues in October 2024, compared to the previous year’s payroll period. Meanwhile, the state hired nearly 3,000 more employees among the nine units represented by SEIU Local 1000, which resulted in a two point decrease in the union’s due-paying membership.