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IN THIS ISSUE – “It Was A Remarkable Session”

770 NEW LAWS

POLITICAL PEOPLE

EXIT POLL & WILDFIRE COSTS

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 service.

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FOR THE WEEK ENDING OCT. 15, 2021

 

Legislative Scorecard for 2021: Newsom Signs 770 New Laws, Vetoes 66

CalMatters

Gov. Gavin Newsom wrapped up the 2021 legislative year with a couple of big batches of bill signings last weekend.

“In a time when the state and country are more divided than ever, this legislative session reminds us what we can accomplish together. I am thankful for our partners in the state Legislature who furthered our efforts to tackle the state’s most persistent challenges – together, we took action to address those challenges head-on, implementing historic legislation and the California Comeback Plan to hit fast forward on our state’s recovery,” Newsom said in announcing his final bill signings. “What we’re doing here in California is unprecedented in both nature and scale. We will come back from this pandemic stronger than ever before.”

And with that, it’s time to start getting ready for the next state budget.

Signed into law:

A package of bills to help small businesses and restaurants continue to navigate the coronavirus pandemic.

Vetoed:

 

Newsom’s Likes – and Dislikes – Emerge in his Third Year

CalMatters

Gov. Gavin Newsom has now completed three rounds of the annual ritual of deciding what should become law in California by giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to hundreds of bills sent to him by the Legislature.

In year one, he used the routine to demonstrate differences from his predecessor, signing dozens of bills that Jerry Brown had vetoed — but also vetoing a greater proportion of bills than Brown typically did.

In year two, with the Legislature largely sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsom signed fewer new laws than any governor has in more than 50 years, instead governing through numerous executive orders.

And this year, his third, Newsom used his veto pen at about half the rate as he did in his first year as governor, saying “no” to about 8% of the 836 bills that hit his desk.

In doing so, Newsom largely demonstrated a traditional governing philosophy, using his veto power to block bills that cost more than the state budgeted for, clashed with work already under way in his administration or were repeats of ideas he’d already nixed. Essentially, Newsom’s vetoes in 2021 proved more about what he has in common with his predecessors than how he is unique.

While Newsom held celebratory public events with legislators to sign their bills, he announced vetoes by listing them at the end of press releases. So many of them flew under the radar. It required reading his veto messages to get explanations or justifications of why he didn’t believe the proposals should become law in California.

On some bills, he cited multiple reasons. Here are some key themes that emerged from Newsom’s 66 vetoes this year:

Some bills advancing causes that Newsom has championed in the past got his thumbs-down nonetheless. Why? Because, he argued in many veto messages, the proposal would cost money the state had not budgeted for, despite an unprecedented windfall of state revenue and federal aid.

That’s what Newsom said in nixing a bill to raise the amount of salary that workers can receive while taking paid family leave — even though he signed two expansions of the family leave program in years past. A spokesperson from Newsom’s finance department told CalMatters that the bill would have hiked the cost for both employees and the state, including millions in computer upgrades and public outreach.

Newsom also made the cost argument in vetoing a huge expansion of college financial aid. Just months ago, he signed a budget that includes an additional $3.3 billion for colleges and universities, including $1.5 billion in increases for student grants and work study opportunities. “Expanding access to financial aid has been a priority for my Administration,” he wrote in his veto. But, he told lawmakers, massive changes to the system need to be considered as part of the regular budget process.

As he’s becoming more seasoned as governor, a new theme is emerging in Newsom’s vetoes: Calling out the repeats.

“As I stated in a veto message on similar legislation in 2019,” Newsom wrote in nixing a bill that would prohibit paying petition circulators per signature gathered, “I appreciate the intent of this bill to incentivize grassroots support for the initiative, referendum, and recall process.”

But, he said, changing the way workers are paid to gather signatures could make the process more costly, giving wealthy interests even more influence over the initiative process.

Similarly, he vetoed legislation to let supervisors in state government settle disputes through binding arbitration by saying it could add costs and create conflicts with existing procedures, “the same concerns I had with a previous, nearly-identical bill… which I also vetoed.”

Former Gov. Brown — who saw plenty of repeats as California’s longest-serving governor — also had a habit of using his veto messages to highlight the rationale behind his prior vetoes.

Newsom blocked a number of bills that were not controversial as they moved through the Legislature, making his veto a surprise after proposals advanced for months drama-free.

An attempt to crack down on the use of “bots” to scoop up camping reservations at state parks, for example, passed the Legislature with sweeping bipartisan support and had no formal opposition. Newsom, however, said the bill is unnecessary because the state has added security measures on its camping reservation website.

A measure requiring police officers to be trained in “interpersonal communication skills and ethical science-based interviewing” similarly sailed through the Capitol without a single “no” vote. Newsom said he likes the idea but doesn’t want to create a mandatory cost for police departments. In vetoing the bill, he said he’ll direct the commission that trains police to create the training course and leave it up to departments to decide if their officers take it.

Patio umbrellas hardly seem like a controversial subject. Lawmakers overwhelmingly agreed that state law should allow alcohol manufacturers to give away promotional patio umbrellas to venues that sell their liquor. But Newsom — owner of the Plumpjack wine and hospitality business, who often talks about launching a small wine shop as a young entrepreneur  — vetoed the legislation, saying it would “increase alcohol signage and advertisements in public areas and disadvantage small alcohol manufacturers that cannot compete with the marketing budgets of multibillion dollar corporations.”

On two bills meant to address the scourge of drug addiction, Newsom just said no.

A bill allowing Yolo County to create a rehab program for drug addicts who commit certain crimes earned bipartisan support from lawmakers in both houses, but Newsom vetoed it saying it would lead to “forced treatment” which could hinder “participants’ long-term recovery from their substance use disorder.” Many progressive criminal justice reform groups opposed the bill, including the Drug Policy Alliance, whose board member George Soros donated $1 million to help Newsom fight last month’s recall.

At the same time, Newsom vetoed another bill that the Drug Policy Alliance supported, a measure to pay money to people recovering from drug addiction as incentives to stay sober. He wrote that the state is trying to launch a similar pilot project, the results of which he wants to evaluate before agreeing to any expansion. That bill cleared the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support, but was opposed by Newsom’s finance department.

Similarly, he blocked two proposals aimed at changing rules of the road for walkers and bicyclists. One would have decriminalized jaywalking and the other would have let bicyclists ride through stop signs.

Supporters of the jaywalking bill said people of color are unfairly targeted. Newsom agreed, but pointed out California’s high rate of pedestrian deaths and warned that the bill “will unintentionally reduce pedestrian safety and potentially increase fatalities or serious injuries.”

Likewise, Newsom said the bicyclist bill could backfire and increase collisions and deaths, especially among “children, who may not know how to judge vehicle speeds or exercise the necessary caution to yield to traffic when appropriate.”

https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/10/california-bills-newsom-vetoes/

 

Governor & Legislature in 2021 Made California A “Progressive Beacon”

Cal;Matters commentary by Dan Walters

Before celebrating his 54th birthday Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom closed out the landmark 2021 session of the California Legislature by signing the last of the 770 bills he decided should become law.

It was a remarkable session because a new wave of COVID-19 was hitting, Newsom was facing a recall election, he and legislators had many billions of dollars in federal pandemic aid and unanticipated tax revenues and, finally, because they spent much of that money on an array of new and expanded public services.

The new spending on health care, social services, public schools, early childhood education and increasing personal incomes of the poor makes California the national leader in advancing the European-style “social democracy” model that the Democrats’ left wing wants the federal government to embrace.

Before this year’s session began, for instance, 94% of Californians had some form of medical care coverage, thanks to Obamacare and a sharp expansion of the state’s Medi-Cal program for the poor to more than a third of the state’s population. This year’s additions push California very close to universal coverage, a long-sought goal of those on the left and Newsom’s oft-expressed ambition.

The leftward tilt of the session is also evident in other ways that do not spend money, such as making ethnic studies a requirement for high school education, banning gasoline-powered lawn equipment, imposing new restrictions on guns, or compelling department stores to have gender-neutral toy and child care departments.

The Legislature and Newsom also continued to move the state’s criminal justice system leftward, reducing punishment for some crimes and cracking down on police officers who misbehave by lifting the licenses, called “certifications,” they need to be employed.

Interestingly, while Newsom endorsed 770 bills that the Legislature sent to his desk, he also vetoed 66 of them, in some cases because, he said, they went just a bit too far.

One of his more significant – and surprising – rejections was the latest of many years-long efforts by Democratic legislators to help the United Farm Workers Union expand its tiny foothold among the state’s agricultural workers.

Assembly Bill 616 would have allowed pro-union workers to sign cards rather than having an election on whether the UFW should be recognized as a contract bargaining agent. It faced stiff opposition from farmers and Newsom said in his veto message that the bill contained “various inconsistencies and procedural issues related to the collection and review of ballot cards.”

The UFW had backed Newsom in his successful victory in a September 14 recall election, and he vetoed the union’s bill eight days later, earning a denunciation from the union’s leaders, who likened the measure to the all-mail state election process that Newsom and legislators have decreed.

AB 616 was just one of two bills on the California Chamber of Commerce “job killer” listto reach Newsom’s desk intact. While he vetoed it, he signed the other, Assembly Bill 62, also a union-sponsored measure than bans piecework pay in the garment industry.

Legislative leaders tout this year’s session as one of the most expansive in history, and they are correct. The state is now a beacon for the national progressive agenda that President Joe Biden is trying, so far unsuccessfully, to move through Congress.

There’s every reason to expect that Newsom and the Legislature will continue to paddle California’s canoe to the left. Republicans are powerless and the influence of Democratic moderates has waned. The only question is whether the economy will continue to churn out enough money to pay for the new benefits without tax increases.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/10/newsom-legislature-push-the-state-leftward/?utm_source=CalMatters+Newsletters&utm_campaign=64641c1e2b-WHATMATTERS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_faa7be558d-64641c1e2b-150181777&mc_cid=64641c1e2b&mc_eid=2833f18cca

 

Legislature’s First Sisters: “Politics is Brutal. At the End of the Day, It’s All Worth It”

Fox40TV

The first-ever set of sisters to serve in the California Legislature started out as undocumented immigrants from Mexico.

Long before the Rubio sisters settled into their offices at the State Capitol, they were met with many obstacles.

They first moved from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico to Texas.

“Juarez is the capital of the cartels,” said Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park. “There’s a whole bunch of tragedies happening not just to the community but to women. Our parents were adamant about us not growing up there.”

Assemblywoman Rubio was 6 years old at the time. Her sister, Sen. Susan Rubio, was 5.

Their father had worked as a bracero. The Bracero Program granted temporary permits to field workers to work in the U.S. in order to help with labor shortages.

After the program ended, he and his wife ultimately decided to move Blanca, Susan and their two other siblings to the U.S. full time.

“The reality is we had never heard the word undocumented,” Susan Rubio said.

But while in Texas, their visitor visas ran out and their father was confronted at a carnival.

“We saw men in uniform talk to my dad. My dad’s expression was one of distress because it was Immigration, and at that point what happened is we were deported,” Blanca Rubio said.

Their father soon returned to the U.S. by himself, but this time to Los Angeles County where he found work at a carpet manufacturer.

Two years later, by the time the Rubio sisters were in elementary school, the entire family reunited in Southern California.

“My mom and dad sacrificed so much for us to be here, my dad going back and forth,” Blanca Rubio said. “My mom also went back and forth. My mom was a housekeeper for 30-plus years.”

While Blanca and Susan quickly learned English and thrived in school, Susan’s twin brother did not.

“In the ‘70s, children were allowed to be tested based on their language deficiencies, but because he didn’t learn, they segregated him Put him in a school with mentally handicapped people. My brother … literally, that decision back in third grade took his future away from him,” Susan Rubio said.

Years later, a high school counselor would eventually become an obstacle for Blanca and Susan, discouraging them from going to college.

“Even in the ‘80s, the counselor looked at me and said, ‘Honey, you’re just going to have children and get married. Maybe you should go into a home ec program?’” Blanca Rubio said. “So, stuck me in home economics instead of college track. Maybe that ruined or maybe that gave us the fire we have today.”

“I didn’t start college until I was 25 and the assemblymember didn’t until she was 26, but the message is it’s never too late,” Susan Rubio said.

With U.S. citizenship and college degrees in hand, their determination, passion for education, and influence from what happened to their brother propelled both Rubio sisters into careers as teachers.

“I feel like we always continue to chase my brother’s life,” Susan Rubio said. “We couldn’t help him, but we continue to try to help, as much as we can, families, low-income families, those with immigration issues, housing.”

After teaching for 17 years each, Blanca and Susan leaned into public office but were once again met with hurdles.

“It was terrible. People were like, ‘What do you think? You can’t do it,’” Blanca Rubio said. “We weren’t part of the establishment.”

Blanca Rubio was first elected to a local water board, later a school board, and then the state Assembly in 2016.

Susan Rubio was first elected as a local city clerk and eventually, went on to the city council. She was elected to the state Senate in 2018.

“It was brutal. Politics is brutal, the attacks are brutal, the misinformation is brutal. But at the end of the day, it was all worth it,” Susan Rubio said.

The Rubio sisters continue to advocate for families like theirs, noting work still needs to be done to help families in Black and brown communities.

“I think we’ve done great work in California as legislators in trying to provide those resources, but still, we need to work harder to go deep into the communities that don’t normally come out and see how we can help them,” Susan Rubio said.

“Resources mean information. I don’t mean handouts. I have to state that because the rhetoric is immigrants are coming here to take something,” Blanca Rubio said. “Trust and believe what Susan and I have accomplished, nobody gave to us.”

https://fox40.com/hispanic-heritage-month/first-ever-pair-of-sisters-in-state-legislature-recall-the-obstacles-journey/?utm_source=CalMatters+Newsletters&utm_campaign=1e9e6a8e91-WHATMATTERS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_faa7be558d-1e9e6a8e91-150181777&mc_cid=1e9e6a8e91&mc_eid=2833f18cca

 

Powerful State Employee Union Leader Indicted for Theft & Tax Evasion

Sacramento Bee & Politico’s California Playbook

SEIU California Executive Director Alma Hernández and her husband, Jose Moscoso, are facing 13 felonies in a criminal complaint filed Oct. 4 in Sacramento County Superior Court. Hernandez and her husband, Jose Moscoso, are accused of theft and tax evasion worth about $236,000.

Charges listed in the 49-page indictment include grand theft, perjury, filing false income taxes and failing to pay unemployment and disability insurance taxes, according to the complaint.

The union announced that Hernandez resigned from her position on Wednesday.

Her transfers from a political action committee to Moscoso in 2014 caught the attention of a Fair Political Practices Commission investigator during a routine audit in 2018, setting off an investigation into the couple’s LA-based HVAC business, according to the complaint.

Hernandez is accused of making $11,400 in fraudulent payments to Moscoso from a political action committee when she was the committee’s treasurer and SEIU California’s political director, according to the complaint. The committee supported a state Senate bid by former Democratic Assemblyman Jose Solorio, of Santa Ana.

Hernandez identified the payments, which were quickly transferred to an account shared by the couple, as reimbursement for catering services for campaign volunteers, when in reality Moscoso didn’t provide any food, the complaint says.

The couple allegedly under-reported income by $1.4 million for their business, LA Duct Company, from 2014 through 2018, dodging $143,000 in taxes, according to the complaint. And Moscoso allegedly paid his employees under the table, avoiding paying about $80,000 in unemployment insurance taxes and about $3,100 in disability insurance, the complaint says.

The charging documents include a white collar crime enhancement that would require the couple to serve time in state prison, saying the couple’s pattern of felony conduct resulted in a loss to the state Franchise Tax Board of more than $100,000.

Hernandez was a regular on the Capitol Weekly’s Top 100 list of biggest influencers. More recently, she was a frontline soldier for SEIU in the fight against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recall. Unions put up $10 million to fight the recall, and SEIU led the charge with a hefty $6 million check. By vocally backing Newsom, she broke with the SEIU’s new president-elect, Richard Louis Brown, who vowed that Newsom “will not get any help from us” and was “on his own” in beating back the recall. She’s also been a major backer of Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, and was this year honored as a “Badass in Green” by EnviroVoters. 

Hernandez had been the focus of an investigation since June 2019, after the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission spotted questionable payments made to her husband, according to the timeline laid out in the court documents. Search warrants were served on their home, businesses and tax preparers’ offices in October 2020, the documents show.

Nevertheless, despite the gathering clouds, Hernandez chose not to step down — or even warn of the coming storm, Sacramento insiders note. The news left labor leaders feeling completely blindsided, sources told POLITICO: “Nobody knew this was coming,’’ said one person familiar with the case.

According to court documents, the investigation was assisted by the Tax Recovery in the Underground Economy task force to “determine if there was any additional fraud” conducted by the couple. They found Moscoso “did not disclose to EDD that he employed multiple individuals to work in his air duct cleaning business, resulting in more than $300,000 in unreported wages.

“The irony — that they got done by the underground economy task force that organized labor pushed for — is rich,” one labor leader told POLITICO. Unions “fight every single day” to “protect workers from that underground economy,” they added. “That was her job. It’s crazy.”

The investigation was years in the making, but Bonta’s bombshell came more than a month after the Sept. 14 recall election. That’s noteworthy because, given Hernandez’s high-profile and generous support of Newsom, these allegations would have been a national story — had they been in the headlines prior to the recall election.

Hernandez’ sister Mari issued a statement Wednesday saying that Hernandez “doesn’t wish to comment” on the case. But she defended her sister as one who has “devoted her entire working life to the cause of justice and dignity” for working people. “In the end, we know their family will clear their name, and they will both return to raising their children and fighting for the future of our family and community,’’ she said.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article254978062.html#storylink=cpy

 

Moving On: More than Half of the Bay Area Looking for the Exits

Silicon Valley Poll

According to the Silicon Valley Poll, Bay Area residents (65%) feel a strong sense of belonging to their region. Yet the majority believe the quality of life has grown worse. More than half (56%) plan to move out of the Bay Area in the next few years. The poll was placed in the field by the Institute for Regional Studies in partnership with the Bay Area News Group.

71 percent feel that the quality of life in Silicon Valley has grown worse over the past five years. We’re split (48 to 52) on whether the Bay Area is headed in the right direction.

On this basis, we probably shouldn’t be surprised that 56 percent of us are mulling plans to leave the region, 9 points higher than last year and a higher percentage than any previous polling we’ve seen. Even our tech workforce (53 percent) is wondering if the grass is greener someplace else.

https://jointventure.org/images/stories/pdf/sv-poll-2021-report.pdf

 

“You Can’t Come Up with a Number”: Wildfire Costs Unknown

CalMatters

Not a single structure burned down in the city of South Lake Tahoe. And yet, the threat of the fast approaching Caldor Fire cost surrounding El Dorado County tens of millions of dollars, if not more.

In South Lake Tahoe, Domi ​​Chavarria, co-owner of Verde Mexican Rotisserie, felt the devastation of the Caldor Fire even before the city was evacuated in August. Smoke had blanketed the city, and the tourists had mostly left. When the evacuation orders came down, Verde was stocked with food, almost all of which went bad during the more than two weeks the restaurant ultimately remained closed. Produce wilted; proteins went bad; prepared sauces couldn’t be used.

“All that stuff, none of that’s made to last weeks — it’s all made last days,” says Chavarria. He estimates the lost inventory was worth between $10,000 and $13,000. None of it was covered by his insurance.

Losses like Chavarria’s add up — to at least $50.3 million in lost economic activity for El Dorado County, according to an initial estimate shared with CalMatters.

Knowing the true cost of wildfires could spur more ambitious action from both government and the private sector, experts say. For instance, tracking the costs systematically over several years could help policymakers figure out which fire prevention and mitigation strategies are most cost effective.

But right now, California has an incomplete understanding of how much wildfires cost the state each year.

The costs of business disruption, the cost of damage to uninsured homes, the cost of ecosystem damage, and the cost of secondary health impacts — such as those caused by wildfire smoke — aren’t being tracked.

Right now, we don’t have a comprehensive picture of the economic harm wildfires cause each year, according to Teresa Feo, senior science officer at the California Council on Science and Technology and lead author of a 2020 report from the council on the cost of wildfires in California.

“There isn’t a statewide systematic tracking effort to figure out these costs,” says Feo. She said it took only about a month of digging into the question to realize: ”Oh no, you can’t come up with a number, this is actually impossible with the existing data.”

The state does not track or estimate the cost of wildfires in a way that accounts for public health costs or ecological damage on a regular basis, confirmed Heather Williams, communications director for California Natural Resources Agency. “Those would always be a moving target since health impacts can occur years later. But with more research being funded, this may be more feasible to help the state better understand the economic and ecological impacts so we can continue to make science-based informed policy decisions,” Williams wrote in an email.

The initial analysis of the Caldor Fire’s economic impact was prepared by Tom Harris, an economist at the University of Nevada, Reno, for the Tahoe Prosperity Center, an economic development organization for the Lake Tahoe Basin. It estimates the combined losses of El Dorado and Nevada’s Douglas County at $93 million. And, says Harris, that preliminary estimate is low: It doesn’t include the losses in sectors like rental homes or recreation businesses. Nor does it include the lost economic activity caused by residents evacuating, and it doesn’t take into account the healthcare costs associated with wildfire smoke exposure.

Some costs are more immediate — the cost of Chavarria’s rotted food, for instance, and the fact that the fire took place over Labor Day weekend.

“That’s not a slow weekend in Tahoe,” says Chavarria. Tourism is about 63 percent of the Tahoe basin’s economy, according to a 2018 report from Tahoe Prosperity Center.

Between the slowdown in business due to smoke and the evacuation, Verde lost several weeks of revenue. Chavarria says that a month of sales for the restaurant is more than $100,000. Verde’s employees also went without paychecks for the two weeks the restaurant was shut down.

Nicole Smith, co-founder and taproom manager of South Lake Brewing Company, said her business fared better than many, partially because none of the beer went bad. But between the loss of sales in the company’s own taproom and the beer it sells to other local businesses, the brewery lost somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000 of revenue during the evacuation, estimates Smith.

In addition to lost business, some figures are easier to pin down, like the amount Cal Fire spends on fire suppression.

But the state, for example, does not systematically track deaths and health conditions linked to wildfire smoke exposure. The costs associated with smoke may be the largest costs we’re missing, says Feo.

One study produced by public health department researchers and academics tracked the use of Medi-Cal services during San Diego’s 2007 fall fire season. It found that during the peak fire period, emergency room visits for respiratory conditions increased by 34% and visits for asthma increased by 113%. Especially concerning was a 136% increase in ER visits for children four and younger for asthma. That finding, the authors wrote, “is cause for particular concern because of the potential for long-term harm to children’s lung development.”

A systematic effort to track wildfire smoke effects would be especially profound, says Feo, because it reaches so far beyond the location of the fire. In 2018, for example, smoke from the Camp Fire clogged San Francisco, a city more than a 100 miles away. If you can put figures on the impact of smoke across the whole state, “who’s impacted by the fire suddenly changes very dramatically, and therefore who benefits from the prevention and mitigation changes,” she said.

The current approach to assessing the aftermath of wildfires is a hodgepodge of research looking into different aspects that is not led by any one agency.

A smattering of data collection efforts includes:

  • The California Air Resources Board is funding a study of the health impact of wildfire smoke statewide for 2017, 2018 and 2020, which will be ready in three or four years;
  • The board is also funding a study of lost work days due to wildfire smoke, which will be ready in a couple of years;
  • Cal Fire is also increasing funding for research into forest health;
  • The Department of Insurance tabulates the damage toinsured homes for some major wildfires, but does not track damage from all wildfires each year;
  • And a variety of academic studies.

More:

https://calmatters.org/economy/2021/10/california-wildfires-economic-impact/