Lynn La

Newsletter Writer

Lynn La is the newsletter writer for CalMatters, focusing on California’s top political, policy and Capitol stories every weekday. She produces and curates WhatMatters, CalMatters’ flagship daily newsletter with more than 150,000 subscribers.

In the newsletter, Lynn analyzes the state’s policy issues for a broader audience, through original reporting and by summarizing and compiling stories from CalMatters and other news sources. Recently, she has reported on bills to address California’s worsening fentanyl epidemic, tackle retail theft and legislate happiness. She also reveals more about lawmakers by interviewing them for an occasional series on first-term legislators in 2023 and new committee chairpersons in 2024.

Through WhatMatters, Lynn also plays a crucial role in CalMatters election coverage, helping to keep track of daily developments in key campaigns, including legislative and congressional races and ballot measures.

Prior to joining CalMatters in March 2023, she wrote for the education technology startup Guild and was a senior editor at CNET. She also covered public health at The Sacramento Bee as a Kaiser media fellow and was an intern reporter at Capitol Weekly.

Lynn is based in the Bay Area. She graduated from UC Davis and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Other languages spoken: Vietnamese (basic)

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Latest Stories

WhatMatters

Is California’s organic waste recycling a failure?

Reuse, reduce… recalibrate? According to one watchdog agency, California is “falling short” in its ambitious organic waste recycling efforts and may need to hit the pause button until state agencies and local governments can sort themselves out. But that rankled the state officials in charge, who considered the very suggestion, well, garbage — prompting a […]

Lynn La

• May 24, 2023

WhatMatters

AG Bonta: California police shooting cases will move faster

Although he’s eyeing to one day become California’s governor, for now Rob Bonta is still the attorney general. Today, that means preserving reproductive rights, preventing gun violence, enforcing housing laws — and investigating fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians. CalMatters’ criminal justice reporter Nigel Duara is tracking these cases and recently talked to families who […]

Lynn La

• May 23, 2023

WhatMatters

Will California make it easier to build big projects?

If the Legislature approves the sweeping proposals to reform a landmark environmental law that Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed Friday, industry groups and developers may have one less roadblock to face in constructing ambitious projects, including affordable housing and critical infrastructure. But if the concerns of environmentalists go unaddressed, the state may set off a new […]

Lynn La

• May 22, 2023

WhatMatters

How big will Newsom go on California housing change?

From CalMatters’ housing reporter Ben Christopher: Ever since a California court ruled earlier this year that UC Berkeley violated the state’s premier environmental protection law by failing to account for “student-generated noise” at a proposed housing development, we knew this was coming. In response to that ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the state’s environmental review […]

Lynn La

• May 19, 2023

WhatMatters

What the public doesn’t know about California legislative travel

Japan, Portugal, Switzerland — this is just a small sample of the many far-flung locations where California legislators travel, paid for by interest groups and nonprofit organizations. For the sake of transparency, lawmakers must submit trip reports to the Fair Political Practices Commission every year. The groups that pay for the travel, on the other […]

Lynn La

• May 18, 2023

WhatMatters

The long wait for California families on police shootings

Spurred by public outcry for more police accountability following the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Legislature ordered the California Department of Justice to investigate police killings of unarmed civilians. At the time, legislators who introduced the bill — including then-Assemblymember and current Attorney General Rob Bonta — pledged that investigations would be […]

Lynn La

• May 17, 2023

WhatMatters

Why thousands of Californians are in limbo for jobless benefits

Many Californians who lost jobs during the pandemic have been facing ongoing battles to receive unemployment benefits. During the first few months of the COVID shutdown, the state Employment Development Department became inundated with 29 million jobless claims. Since then, it has paid out $188 billion in unemployment benefits. But as CalMatters’ investigative reporter Lauren […]

Lynn La

• May 16, 2023

WhatMatters

Winners and losers in Newsom’s California budget deficit plan

What are the big takeaways from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s updated 2023-24 budget proposal, the so-called May revise? The impact of climate change. Fiscal restraint with a looming recession. And almost certainly, no tax increases to cover the growing budget deficit. The spending plan Newsom unveiled Friday anticipates a $31.5 billion deficit, up from $22.5 billion […]

Lynn La

• May 15, 2023

WhatMatters

Supreme Court backs California’s pigs proposition

Because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, California’s Proposition 12 can stand — which means the pigs can, too. In 2018, California voters approved the ballot measure to ban the sale of meat and egg products from farms that did not raise their “veal calves, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens” in spaces that […]

Lynn La

• May 12, 2023

WhatMatters

What Title 42’s end means for California

From Wendy Fry of CalMatters’ California Divide team: A pandemic-era public health policy known as Title 42, used to turn away asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border, is coming to an end just before 9 p.m. tonight, prompting concerns about unprecedented migration flows. Meanwhile, hundreds of migrants have been waiting outside between border walls in […]

Lynn La

• May 11, 2023