Politics

Single-payer healthcare is once again up for debate in Sacramento, as two state senators push a bill to establish a plan before the federal government repeals the Affordable Care Act. Supporters say this bill may have a better chance given the anxiety created by the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Obamacare, insisting "we’ll never get 100 percent health care in California unless we lead.”

In response to President Trump's campaign to build a wall along more of the southern border, one California Democratic lawmaker is trying to throw up a barrier of his own: a bill that would require state voter approval of any federally funded project worth more than a billion dollars, and prohibit the state from contracting with any company that also provides goods or services to the federal government in its efforts to construct a new wall.

The federal government widened its reach for the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants in two memos issued Tuesday, while California leaders continue to scramble to create some protections for those who may get arrested.

President Trump is a big booster of the country’s fossil fuel sector, pledging to revive the coal industry and advance oil and gas drilling. But given his outspoken skepticism about the dangers of climate change, questions abound about whether he'll be inclined to keep allocating federal dollars to either support large scale renewable energy projects or to incentives consumers to buy electric cars and install rooftop solar system. California is depending on this kind of federal support to meet its clean energy goals.

The California Assembly passed a symbolic resolution rejecting President Trump's controversial executive order temporarily banning immigration and travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.

With the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress gearing up to make America's tax code great again, one of California's biggest tax breaks might be on the chopping block: the deduction on state and local taxes.

Infrastructure may be one of the rare opportunities for the Trump administration and California to clinch each other. Trump has signaled support for spending up to $1 trillion on an infrastructure initiative and already, California officials have sent a $100 billion wish list of 51 projects for federal funding to repair roads and bridges, improve transit and water storage, and update military and emergency facilities.

Included in the president’s proposed infrastructure priority list is $250 million for the Cadiz water project in the Mojave Desert. The controversial project would pump groundwater from the Mojave Desert and deliver it via pipeline to Southern California customers. It has so far been blocked by the federal Bureau of Land Management. That might change.

Planned Parenthood is prepping for a battle. The organization, which has 115 centers in the Golden State and serves 850,000 people annually, receives Medi-Cal and Title X family planning funding and attributes about 40 percent of its revenue to federal dollars. But Congress and the Trump administration are vowing to strip the organization of hundreds of millions of federal dollars.

A three-judge federal panel blocked President Trump’s controversial executive order banning travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, was celebrated by prominent Democratic leaders across California. Today’s action is a positive one. It allows for the […]