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Programming note: We’ll be recognizing Presidents’ Day, so WhatMatters will return to your inboxes on Tuesday.  In 2021, it was big news — the “California exodus.” Now, it just looks like the new trend: California’s population is still shrinking. According to the latest population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, California’s total population declined by […]

From CalMatters politics reporter Ben Christopher: In 2021, state lawmakers made a request: The newly convened California Interagency Council on Homelessness should put together a “comprehensive view of the homelessness response system.” In short, the legislators said: We’d like to know how much the state is spending to address its homelessness crisis, where the money […]

California Democrats want to change the state constitution to safeguard a right that is already firmly protected across the state, just in case the U.S. Supreme Court decides to do away with it.  Oh, and putting it on the ballot will probably help Democrats in the 2024 election. If that all sounds familiar, you might […]

From CalMatters political reporter Ben Christopher: In 2017, California lawmakers passed one of the state’s most controversial and consequential housing laws, but they included an expiration date — 2025 — to see how things panned out. Sen. Scott Wiener, the San Francisco Democrat who authored the bill, is pleased with the results so far. Monday, […]

From CalMatters California Divide reporter Jeanne Kuang: What’s one of the driving forces of poverty and inequality? When the cost of living outpaces the growth in wages.  In response, California over the last two decades has raised the minimum wage every few years, as have some local governments. New state Sen. Steve Padilla, a Chula […]

Update: The Internal Revenue Service announced today that California taxpayers do not have to report the Middle Class Tax Refund on their federal returns. From CalMatters economy reporter Grace Gedye: When gas prices were soaring in 2022 and Califorina’s state budget had a ballooning surplus, lawmakers decided to send relief payments to millions of residents […]

From CalMatters health reporter Kristen Hwang:  California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday announced a $215.3 million settlement against Centene Corp., a multi-billion dollar health care company that is the state’s largest commercial Medi-Cal insurer, with 20 contracts.  Centene is also the parent company of Health Net, which just won a lucrative contract for Medi-Cal, […]

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan says it’s time to let California prisoners vote.  To be clear, the Culver City Democrat who leads the Assembly election committee, isn’t talking about extending the franchise to people with felonies on their record. California and 21 other states already allow for that.  Bryan’s bill, which he introduced as a proposed amendment […]

If you want to see two diametrically opposed views of what California lawmakers have done and should be doing or not doing, look no further than a new poll and a new legislative scorecard. On one hand, a survey out Monday from the National Federation of Independent Business found that overwhelming majorities of California small […]

The latest sign that California is easing out of the pandemic and into the endemic phase: The state has dropped its plan to require the COVID-19 vaccination for K-12 students as the state of emergency comes to an end Feb. 28, after nearly three years. That said — “we continue to strongly recommend COVID-19 immunization […]