The Latest
Tom Steyer wants to fix American politics by making it Californian
The newest (and 26th) declared Democratic presidential contender Tom Steyer—a billionaire hedge fund manager-turned-impeachment pushing money faucet for progressive causes—has a plan to fix our nation’s politics.
In short: make Washington D.C. look more like California.
In a new video released today, Steyer, who lives in California and has spent millions in support of Democratic candidates and progressive causes in the state, introduced a “Democracy Agenda” to combat the disproportionate political influence of corporations by giving voters "the tools they need to fix our democracy."
These new tools include:
If that all sounds familiar, you might be a Californian.
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Introducing a new look for CalMatters
CalMatters is your organization, created to serve you and funded by your donations. I'm proud to report that we're taking your nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom to a new level this week with a number of changes you can see. And some you can't:
Please explore our new site and let me know what you think.
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Please join us a member, if you haven't already, by visiting our signup page and then subscribe to our newsletters to follow our work. Thank you for being part of this important mission.
Neil Chase is Chief Executive Officer of CalMatters.
State may push cities and counties to draw “fairer” districts
Rhonda Shader is tired of looking at maps of Placentia.
First as a councilmember and now as the mayor, Shader has seen the 7-square miles of her north Orange County town sliced and diced at least a dozen ways to satisfy the demands of good governance groups who accuse the city’s leaders of gerrymandering and discrimination.
“We’ve really made an effort to stay out of court because quite honestly our city can’t afford it,” said Shader.
Easier said than done.
In 2016, the city agreed to ditch its at-large election system and adopt a new map with five distinct districts. That came after the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund threatened to sue the city, arguing that the old system, with each council member representing the entire city, made it all but impossible for Placentia’s minority Latino community to elect a representative of their choosing.
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Teacher credentials come in for tough grading as CA rethinks charter school rules
Heather Williams knew as a kid that she wanted to be a piano teacher. She earned her music degree with a piano emphasis from Brigham Young University and spent decades honing her craft.
Today she not only runs her own academy near Sacramento, offering private lessons with a special certification in the Suzuki Method of instruction, but also teaches in public schools, though she lacks a state teaching credential.
How? Via a loophole that lets charter schools skip some of the credentialing required of teachers in traditional public school classrooms. The exception has allowed Williams to offer music instruction to homeschool charter students and to group classes in brick-and-mortar charters such as the Sacramento-based California Montessori Project network.
Proponents say it encourages enrichment in that privately-run sector of the public school system. In recent months, however—like many state rules that apply to charters—it has drawn legislative attention. And influential lawmakers say it could be on its way out.
Whether all teachers should need a state credential to teach has long been debated. In California, the answer has been “yes” for teachers in traditional public schools.
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New CA rules for deadly police force go to governor’s desk
Aiming to reduce police shootings in a state that has more than 100 of them each year, the California legislature passed a bill Monday setting a tougher standard for police to use deadly force, allowing officers to fire their guns only “when necessary in defense of human life.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said he intends to sign Assembly Bill 392, likely putting an end to more than a year of emotional debate in the Capitol that began after Sacramento police killed an unarmed black man in his grandparents’ backyard. The heated testimony revealed the anguish of Californians whose relatives have been killed by police, as well as the energy of a national civil rights movement drawing attention to the disproportionate impact of police shootings in communities of color.
“Race matters, and to suggest otherwise is a blatant denial of the obvious,” said Sen. Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles Democrat who presented the bill on the Senate floor.
“It’s obvious to so many that the current ‘reasonable standard’ of using force… does not protect people’s fundamental human rights.”
Civil libertarians celebrated the bill’s sweeping passage in the Senate but expressed concerns that the measure might be weakened by another bill still moving through the Legislature with the support of police.
Read MoreBring back blanket primary
RE: "A million independent voters risk being irrelevant in California's presidential primary," June 19, 2019.
CALmatters’ Ben Christophe reports that Chad Peace wants a presidential primary ballot that lists all the presidential candidates.
Ironically, California had a presidential primary like that in 2000. There was one presidential primary ballot that listed all the candidates of all six qualified parties. Election officials tallied up the votes separately for each party’s voters. So the Statement of Votes has fascinating data about how the registered members of each party voted on that unitary ballot.
We had a blanket primary in 2000, and people seemed happy with it. I urge Chad Peace to advocate a return to the blanket primary, which could be made constitutional if it were made voluntary for each party that participates.
Richard Winger, San Francisco
If L.A. won’t raises taxes for schools, will Californians vote to overhaul a Proposition 13?
Newsom’s biggest budget win? Lawmakers didn’t break his heart
Love was in the air early this year when the newly-inaugurated Gov. Gavin Newsom first proposed his first-ever state budget. Pacing the stage of a packed auditorium, he unveiled his ambitious, $209 billion plan with the studiousness of a policy wonk and the charm of an eager politician. He praised lawmakers by name, tossing verbal valentines at fellow Democrats whose majority party support he needed to approve the budget.
“I love this Legislature,” the governor declared.
As budget negotiations heated up over the spring, however, lawmakers weren’t as easily wooed as it may have seemed at the outset.[infoembed size=”half” override=”” align=”right” padding=”light”]
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They pushed back against some of Newsom’s key proposals—to tie transportation funding for cities to their pace of housing development; add a new tax on water to cover the cost of toxic clean-up; tailor an existing health care council to focus only on developing a single-payer system; align California tax law with changes in federal tax law to pay for larger refunds for low-income residents. Outside the budget, lawmakers killed housing bills that would have helped build more homes and protect tenants from eviction or steep rent increases—complicating more Newsom campaign promises. Read More
A million independent voters risk being irrelevant in California’s presidential primary
Presidential challengers hoping to glide to victory through California’s newly relevant primary, a heads-up: Your electoral fate may hinge on convincing enough left-leaning millennials to send postcards over the holiday season.
Welcome to the quirk-filled world of California election law. Here, voters without a registered political party can participate in the Democratic Party’s “open” presidential primary—but only if they ask for the right ballot.
Those who vote the old-fashioned way, in person at the polls, can simply request their presidential ballot of choice on the spot. But for those who vote by mail (now a majority of the state’s electorate), that request takes a remarkably analog form: a postcard signed and sent to the county registrar of voters.
If voters skip that step, the section of their ballot reserved for presidential candidates will be blank.
“Very few independent voters know that they have to do something to get the presidential ballot,” said Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc., which analyzes electoral data for campaigns. He predicts the status quo could disenfranchise a million would-be presidential voters in California. Read More
Poll: To tackle housing crisis, most Californians would limit local control
A majority of California voters want state lawmakers to aggressively address an ever-worsening housing crisis, even if that means strong-arming uncooperative local governments, according to a new poll.
But given the Legislature’s recent track record, they’re probably in for a disappointment.
A new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found that 57% of likely voters (and 62% of all adults) favor a policy that would force local governments to allow denser development “near mass transit and job centers.” That includes half of all the homeowners surveyed, a powerful constituency in the Capitol who are often presumed to oppose zoning reform.
But the odds of the Legislature meeting that demand this year are virtually non-existent. A bill by to do so by San Francisco’s Sen. Scott Weiner was quietly shelved in the Assembly appropriations committee last month.
The poll found similar-sized majorities of Californians want the state to get even tougher: They favor withholding from cities and counties new state transportation dollars raised from a gas tax increase, unless those local governments approve a certain amount of new housing. Read More