For Clients & Friends of The Gualco Group, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE – “We have your back. We’re on the front lines. We’re out there — use us.”
Gov. Newsom’s message to the White House last week in Washington DC
- Newsom’s Summer Vacation Trip to DC Proliferates “He’s Running” Talk
- Truckers Shut Port of Oakland in Independent Contractor Law Protest; Newsom Pushes Back…Disruption Could Widen
- Legislature May Weaken Opening Meeting Laws for State & Local Governments
- Farmers Fallowing Record Acres – Double Last Year
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests 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 JULY 22, 2022
Newsom’s Summer Vacation Trip to DC Proliferates “He’s Running” Talk
Politico’s California Playbook
Whatever his innermost motives, Gov. Gavin Newsom sure seemed comfortable in D.C.
“Is he running?” has become the inescapable question hovering over California politics these days. Newsom’s consistent insistence that he isn’t notwithstanding (“I’ve tried to say ‘no, no way,’ in every way I possibly can,” he lamented), the answer depends on interlocking contingencies — principally what President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris do — that mean the truth is closer to “unlikely, not impossible, let’s see.” Nevertheless, the “he’s running” assertions proliferated last week as Newsom made the rounds on Capitol Hill, chatted with national reporters, and continued excoriating red states. Images of Newsom strolling around the White House read to some people like a tryout. A fellow San Francisco pol tested his name (and very unscientifically found Newsom leading Harris and Biden).
Whether Newsom is cracking the presidential door or promoting California progressivism is almost beside the point. The fundamentals are the same. Newsom has long sought to extoll California’s agenda — and his — by contrasting it with that of populous red states. He pummeled the point during the pandemic. He has stepped it up as a series of conservative Supreme Court decisions and Republican state laws have deepened the distinctions and disillusioned Democrats. That could lay the foundation for a White House bid. Either way, it elevates Newsom’s profile and helps him influence the national conversation.
Some highlights, with a big hat-tip to Fox L.A.’s Elex Michaelson, who trailed the governor:
Proclamations of loyalty abounded — often packaged with some California-boosting. Newsom dutifully deflected criticisms that Biden was failing on inflation (“they’re doing everything they possibly can”) and questions on a potential federal abortion emergency. He then touted California’s work on inflation relief and abortion.
Newsom’s message for the White House, via Michaelson : “We have your back. We’re on the front lines. We’re out there — use us. Let us support you.” Newsom wrapped up his trip by lunching with Harris, after which the governor’s office made sure to note they had discussed Newsom’s “unwavering support” for the Biden administration.
The governor didn’t meet the president himself, but he did discuss issues like homelessness and wildfires with White House chief of staff Ron Klain, domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, First Lady Jill Biden, and other federal officials.
Newsom also made time to expand beyond the California delegation and delve into major issues like guns and abortion with Senators Chris Murphy (to whom he talked up California’s firearms bounties bill), Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, and went on record as being “ deeply disappointed” that Sen. Joe Manchin torpedoed climate legislation.
Newsom used his education award acceptance speech to take seething shots at Texas and Florida, favorably contrasting both with California. There was some overlap with Harris here. The Veep was in Orlando the following day, where she repeatedly assailed “so-called leaders” who are restricting abortion rights, as Newsom was racking up attention for calling potential POTUS rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a bully.
Republicans remain unimpressed. The California Republican Party mocked Newsom for “measuring the drapes in the West Wing and accepting an award for state innovation in education” even as California lags other states in a variety of scholastic indicators.
The more Newsom elbows into the national scene, the more you can expect to hear about that — along with homelessness, cost of living, a shrinking population and other California problems — even as Newsom promotes the positive.
Truckers Shut Port of Oakland in Independent Contractor Law Protest; Newsom Pushes Back…Disruption Could Widen
Wall Street Journal excerpt
Gov. Gavin Newsom is digging in against protesters who this week shut down most operations at the Port of Oakland, saying truckers “should focus on supporting this transition” to a new employment law, even as shippers warned the impasse was hurting their businesses.
Mr. Newsom’s administration indicated Thursday it wouldn’t bow to the protesters’ demands to pause the implementation of the new state law, known as AB5, that will make it harder for tens of thousands of independent truckers to operate in the state.
“Although it has been the subject of litigation, AB 5 was enacted in 2019, so no one should be caught by surprise by the law’s requirements at this time,” a spokesman for the Governor’s office said.
The protesters have given no indication that they plan to give up. Hundreds of men and women, who started protests Monday, are preventing trucks from carrying cargo into and out of Oakland, the West Coast’s third-busiest container port. They are also stopping dockworkers from reaching their posts for loading and unloading ships.
The stoppages are particularly hurting the region’s agricultural exporters who use Oakland as a hub.
Nina Solari, vice president of food safety and quality control at Avanti Nut Co., a family-owned walnut processor in Stockton, Calif., said two shipments scheduled to go out this week are delayed and customers are canceling orders.
“If this carries on, I don’t know what we are going to do,” Ms. Solari said. “We will literally be sitting on the last of our 2021 crop and not being able to ship it.”
The stoppages at Oakland flared unexpectedly. Shippers recently have been more concerned about labor talks at the West Coast’s 29 ports as well as contract negotiations between freight rail workers and their employers. Both labor talks are ongoing.
Steve Lamar, chief executive of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said although only 1.5% of his members’ cargo arrives through Oakland, disruptions there ripple up and down the coast.
”Protests in Oakland divert cargo to other congested ports and come at a time when we are tracking not one but two labor negotiations in this space,” Mr. Lamar said.
The employment law, aimed at toughening definitions of independent contractors in the “gig economy,” was due to be implemented in 2020 but was held up as part of a lawsuit filed by the California Trucking Association.
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 declined to review the case, allowing the law to be implemented while the legal challenge continues.
Supporters of the law say it is designed to protect workers by securing for them wages and benefits similar to those enjoyed by employees. In California, an estimated 70,000 independent owner-operator truckers supplement the employee-driver workforce.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is trying to organize drivers in California, says trucking companies have misclassified drivers as independent contractors to deprive them of fair wages and benefits.
Many owner-operators say they like being independent. They say the new law will require them to secure their own permits and insurance, making it more difficult and costly to stay in business. They say the law forces them to seek work as employees or leave the industry.
The Newsom administration says it has provided information to help drivers comply with the law and offered truckers tax incentives and small-business financing.
“California is committed to supporting our truck drivers and ensuring our state’s truck drivers receive the protections and compensation they are entitled to,” said a spokesman for the Democratic governor.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents West Coast dockworkers, supports AB5. But union officials say their members can’t pass through the protests safely.
ILWU Local 10’s president, Farless Dailey III, said Thursday that 450 dockworkers have been dispatched to jobs at the port this week but haven’t been able to reach their posts.
“ILWU workers want to work and move cargo,” Mr. Dailey said. “But we’re not going to put our members in harm’s way to pass through the line of truckers.”
Legislature May Weaken Opening Meeting Laws for State & Local Governments
CalMatters commentary by Dan Walters
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected virtually every aspect of our lives, mostly in the negative, and one effect is disconnecting California’s public officials from their constituents.
Local and state agencies, including the Legislature, shifted meetings from in-person venues to on-line substitutes, having received permission from Gov. Gavin Newsom, in one of his many pandemic-related decrees, to ignore portions of California’s long-standing open meeting laws, such as the 1953 Ralph M. Brown Act.
In theory, digital governance is just as accessible and responsive as the physical version, but in reality it isn’t. Not only is the technology cumbersome and sometimes inoperable, but it assumes that everyone has access to computers and the internet, which is not true.
However, it appears that California’s elected officials like putting physical distance between themselves and those they serve with the power to more easily limit or even shut down public comment on the issues before them.
That’s why many local agencies are supporting legislation that would modify the Brown Act and extend their ability to meet remotely with little or no physical access to their sessions.
Their primary vehicle for that extension, Assembly Bill 1944 by Assemblyman Alex Lee, a San Jose Democrat, passed the Assembly but after receiving harsh criticism from media and civil rights groups, has seemingly stalled in a Senate committee.
“It would allow local bodies to conduct all public business from private locations — not identified, or accessible to the public, or even within the state — without need or justification,” a coalition of media, civil rights and taxpayer groups declared.
However, a more limited version of institutionalizing electronic meetings, Assembly Bill 2449 by Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, a West Covina Democrat, also has passed the Assembly and is close to reaching the Senate floor.
Another measure pending in the Senate, Assembly Bill 2647, would also amend the Brown Act to soften its requirement that written background materials for local government meetings be made available to the public on a timely basis. The bill, carried by Assemblyman Marc Levine, a San Rafael Democrat, was introduced to overturn a court ruling that posting materials on-line does not satisfy the law.
While local governments are busily trying to escape some provisions of the Brown Act, the Legislature has — somewhat sneakily — eased open meeting requirements of the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, which was enacted in 1967 to extend the Brown Act’s philosophy to state agencies.
Assemblyman Bill Quirk, a Hayward Democrat, had introduced Assembly Bill 1733, to give state agencies wider authority to conduct meetings by teleconference, but the measure never moved past its first committee. Instead, a revised version of Quirk’s bill was folded into Senate Bill 189, one of the many budget trailer bills enacted and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom late last month.
It was not only questionable policy but another example of misusing trailer bills to enact major policy changes that bypass the usual legislative processes, including public hearings.
These are important issues. Newsom and other Democratic politicians have been highly critical of how red states such as Florida and Texas conduct themselves but are clearly not above punching loopholes in the state’s time-honored sunshine laws.
When the Bagley-Keene Act was passed in 1967, it declared, “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
Amen.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/07/politicians-punch-holes-in-californias-sunshine-laws/
Farmers Fallowing Record Acres – Double Last Year
Bloomberg
California’s historic drought may leave the state with the largest amount of empty farmland in recent memory as farmers face unprecedented cuts to crucial water supplies.
The size of fields intended for almonds, rice, wine grapes and other crops left unworked could be around 800,000 acres, double the size of last year and the most in at least several decades, said Josue Medellin-Azuara, an associate professor at University of California Merced.
The figure is preliminary as researchers continue to look at satellite imaging and other data. An official estimate remains a few weeks away, said Medellin-Azuara, who is leading an economic study on farm production and droughts with funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Much of the idle land is in California’s Central Valley, which accounts for about a quarter of US food production. Mile after mile of farmland reveals whithered crops next to fields of lush green plants, a testament to the tough decisions growers are forced to make on how much and what to produce, and whether to keep farming at all.
Surface water rights are seeing sharp cuts amid the drought and reserves are declining because of critically low snowmelt and depleted storage from last year.
“What’s really concerning is for the first time we are fallowing at least 250,000 acres in the Sacramento Valley,” Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said in an interview. “Those are the most senior water rights holders.”
New regulation of the use of groundwater is also complicating the supply picture in the state, Medellin-Azuara said.
California has roughly 9 million acres of irrigated land. Drought last year directly cost the local agriculture industry and state about $1.7 billion, according to UC Merced researchers.