California lawmakers must weigh long-term consequences before granting tribe a state park 

Four years ago, with the state budget seemingly providing a cornucopia of new revenues, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature extended state-paid health care to undocumented immigrants of all ages.

Newsom declared that the state had a $97.5 billion surplus and could easily afford an expansion that would, at least on paper, result in all of California’s nearly 40 million people having some form of health insurance, the first state to do so.

“I campaigned on universal health care,” Newsom said. “We’re delivering that.”

The expanded coverage of the state Medi-Cal program began in 2024, but by then Newsom and legislators already knew that the $97.5 billion surplus was a mirage, the result of a $165 billion error in projecting revenues. In fact, the state was facing multibillion-dollar annual deficits.

Nevertheless, the Medi-Cal expansion took effect and in 2025 the administration revealed that its costs were running $6.2 billion beyond projections, mostly due to larger-than-expected enrollment by immigrants who had become eligible. In response, Newsom and legislators backtracked, freezing enrollments.

Legislators readily accepted the too-good-to-be-true declaration of a $97.5 billion surplus, a number that came from Newsom’s mouth but never appeared in a budget document. Nor did they question the administration’s projected costs for the Medi-Cal expansion.

Either the administration was horribly wrong on both or it was cooking the numbers. We’ll never know which.

The Medi-Cal debacle was not an isolated case but rather illustrates the eagerness of California’s politicians to make far-reaching declarations and commitments without fully exploring potential consequences.

Many similar blunders have been recorded in years past, including arguably the worst example, a disastrous decision three decades ago to overhaul how electricity was produced, distributed and priced. At the time it resulted in electricity shortages, blackouts and PG&E filing for bankruptcy.

A new bill in the Legislature is another potentially calamitous situation if enacted without grasping potential consequences.

Assembly Bill 2356, carried by Assemblymember James Ramos, a San Bernardino Democrat, would give Tolowa Dunes State Park, which contains 4,301 acres of coastal land in Del Norte County, to the Tolowa Dee-ni Nation, a local tribe.

The tribe says it is ancestral land that should rightfully return to its ownership, citing California’s historic maltreatment — some of it deadly — of the state’s Native American people.

“AB 2356 returns the Center of the World to the Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni’ and fulfills the state’s commitment to demonstrate respect for its original governments and people, while honoring its commitment to redress the state’s historical depredations and wrongs against California Indian People, including the Nation,” a document being circulated by the tribe declares.

The abuse of California’s Native tribes, beginning with the first Spanish explorers, is inescapably true. California even once offered bounties for American Indian scalps.

However, a bell once rung cannot be unrung. And the potential consequences, were the Tolowa Dee-ni Nation to be given a state park, are immense.

It could be said that all 100 million acres of California were, at one time, the homes of the 100-plus tribes that are recognized now and the 50 or so seeking federal recognition. And that includes, of course, the 280 state parks which cover 1.6 million acres.

Were this proposed reparation to be granted, how could the state refuse any other demand of any other park by any other tribe?

AB 2356 contains language that the land, if granted, would be maintained as open space and not developed commercially, such as having a casino. However, it would be virtually impossible to enforce such assurances once the land changed hands.

The state has ceded some undeveloped state-owned lands to various tribes already. But transferring state parks could result in unique parklands being altered or closed to the broader public.

Does the Legislature really want to risk that outcome?