September 9, 2019

The bill would expand Medi-Cal to low-income undocumented immigrants age 65 and older starting next July — and would inch California closer to covering all immigrants in the state illegally.

Assemblyman Adam Gray, Democrat from Merced: The implications of Senate Bill 1 are profoundly disturbing, forcing the state to ignore evolving science. We’ve got until Sept. 13 to either kill or fix this wrongheaded bill. If we don’t, it very well could set back progress on our rivers for decades.

A bill that aimed to permanently keep police from using body cams with facial recognition now would ban it for only three years.

Dustin Weatherby, California Taxpayers Association. Thanks to a transparency law passed by a bipartisan vote, taxpayers receive important information about local tax and bond measures. But there’s a legislative attempt to effectively exempt local jurisdictions from this requirement to be honest and transparent with taxpayers.

Raphael J. Sonenshein, Cal State L.A.: Sheriffs are an anomaly in the system of checks and balances that is a hallmark of American government at federal, state, and local levels. Assembly Bill 1185 by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, a Sacramento Democrat, would authorize county governments to create an inspector general and a civilian oversight commission and vest either or both with subpoena authority.

Re: “A law intended to create more transparency misleads voters. This bill will fix it,” Sept. 5, 2019: Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblyman Mark Stone claim their bill will increase transparency for local bonds and parcel taxes. But the opposite is true. Their bill would relegate important taxpayer information to being buried deep in the […]

Jared Martin, California Association of Realtors: If our state is to continue leading the nation, we must address the housing shortage with policies that will actually lead to more housing. Simply put, a rent cap would be a bandage on a festering wound and would nothing to solve the root cause of higher rents.

Rent cap deal is far from done. Before Newsom, Reagan battled feds over automobile emissions rules. PG&E searches for a Plan B.

As California lawmakers start the last week of the legislative session, this year's to-do list includes some big issues — the future of work, for instance, and vaccine exemptions — and some arcane but high-stakes lobbying fights. 

Despite a voter-approved ban on public financing of campaigns, the Legislature passed a bill three years ago to authorize it. Now a state appellate court has invalidated the legislation.