California crime bills differ on law enforcement

Scheduling note: WhatMatters is taking Monday off to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and will be back in your inboxes Tuesday.

In a week dominated by Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiling his January budget proposal Wednesday, legislators were also busy introducing a stream of new bills.

Given that it’s also an election year, some Democrats are flagging their concerns about crime — but through a progressive lens that still looks to limit what law enforcement can do. 

For instance, now that a 2019 law barring police officers from using facial recognition software in their body cameras expired in January 2023, its author, Assemblymember Phil Ting, is hoping to put more guardrails around law enforcement’s use of the technology with a new bill. 

Though Assembly Bill 1814 does not outright ban the use of facial recognition software, it proposes to prohibit officers from using it “as the sole basis” to arrest, search or serve a warrant to a suspect. This is the San Francisco Democrat’s second attempt at expanding the 2019 law — a similar bill passed the public safety committee last session, but was held by the appropriations committee.

Another Democrat from San Francisco, Sen. Scott Wiener, introduced a bill Tuesday to prohibit police from using a certain drug test (known as a colorimetric, or color-based, field drug test) as the basis for arresting or filing charges against a suspect. 

SB 912 does not ban the use of the test altogether, but without confirmation from other tests, it can lead to wrongful convictions. A University of Pennsylvania study found that the test can have a false positive rate of 38% under certain circumstances (substances like cotton candy and sugar can trigger a positive result) and “a Black individual is three times more likely to experience a drug arrest with a false positive from a field test compared to a white individual,” according to the study.

Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to assist law enforcement by granting community service officers the ability to testify in preliminary hearings.

As CalMatters Digital Democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow writes, uniformed civilian employees are allowed to interview witnesses to crimes. But these officers, who also don’t have the authority to arrest people, can’t testify about what they were told.

Instead, police officers with arrest powers must reinterview witnesses and then testify in court — a process, law enforcement says, that pulls officers off their beats, and prevents them from patrolling the streets and responding to emergencies.

Redding Republican Sen. Brian Dahle’s measure aims to change that. Allowing community service officers to testify at preliminary hearings frees up sworn police officers, who are already understaffed, especially in rural areas. 

Despite opposition from the ACLU, police reform advocates and criminal defense attorneys who argue that SB 804 will lead to subpar testimony, the bill was approved Tuesday by the Senate public safety committee.

Sen. Nancy Skinner of Oakland, who abstained from voting and opposed a similar bill last year, said the newest measure does gives her “a little more comfort” now that it includes a few tweaks, such as mandating non-sworn officers undergo the same testimony training as a sworn officer, or have at least five years of experience on the job.

• Skinner: “I can see a role for these individuals…. This is still tricky, but I don’t have the same opposition.”

For more on Dahle’s proposal, read Ryan’s story.

The primary isn’t until March 5, but two Democrats in the crowded U.S. Senate race aren’t waiting to start their TV ad campaigns.

On Wednesday, Rep. Katie Porter launched an ad in the Bay Area that, you guessed it, highlights her famous whiteboard. The 30-second spot promotes her grilling of business CEOs and her pledges to fight corporate influence.

“Shake up the Senate with Katie Porter,” the narrator says. (Porter, herself, doesn’t speak.)

Today, Rep. Adam Schiff is also taking to the Bay Area airwaves. But he’s taking a decidedly different approach in his first ad, stressing his experience in office, including his role in the impeachment of then-President Donald Trump. The 30-second spot shows him speaking directly to voters.

• Schiff, in the ad: “This election is a choice between results or just rhetoric. Californians deserve a senator who is going to deliver for them every day, and not just talk a good game.”

Both Porter and Schiff, who represent Southern California districts, are targeting voters in the Bay Area, where turnout is typically high, but also happens to be the backyard of Rep. Barbara Lee, the third big-name Democrat in the race. 

Lee trails in recent polls, even in the Bay Area. She also lags in fundraising, which is needed to buy TV time. Last November, however, a super PAC backing Lee paid for an ad that emphasizes her “courage” growing up in segregated Texas, leaving an abusive marriage and casting the only “no” vote authorizing the U.S. war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Remember, it’s a top-two primary on March 5: The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, go on to the Nov. 5 general election. It’s possible it might be two Democrats, but recent history suggests only one Democrat will advance. 

From CalMatters deputy editor Adam Ashton:

Know anyone who can manage and grow $300 billion? How about $500 billion?

Both of California’s largest public pension funds now are on the market for someone to guide the investment portfolios that pay for the retirement dreams of hundreds of thousands of civil servants.

Chris Ailman, the longtime investment chief at California’s teachers’ pension fund, on Thursday announced his plan to retire this year. He got to enjoy a standing ovation at the CalSTRS board meeting celebrating his 23-year run leading the agency’s investment strategy. He plans to stay on through June 30.

CalSTRS now manages $317.8 billion, up from $109.6 billion when he joined the fund.

“The job’s not over,” he said, stressing that he’s determined to hit the fund’s 7% earnings target this year.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Sacramento River, the larger California Public Employees’ Retirement System is scheduled next week to begin interviewing candidates for the same job. It’s seeking a chief investment officer to manage its $480 billion fund. 

CalPERS has struggled to find a CIO with Ailman’s staying power. Six people have held that role at CalPERS in the last two decades. The last one, Nicole Musicco, led the fund for about a year and a half before stepping down for family reasons.

The positions pay well — Ailman earned about $1.7 million in 2022 — but they’re not easy jobs. Both CalPERS and CalSTRS are considered underfunded because their assets are worth about 75% of what they owe to all of their members, and each fund is under pressure to hit targets and close the gap.

Wednesday’s avalanche at Palisades Tahoe ski resort, which killed one Bay Area skier and buried several others, may be a sign of more unpredictable snow patterns and hazardous conditions to come, writes CalMatters’ Rachel Becker.

Fatalities at ski resorts are rare, with the last in Tahoe occuring four years ago. But as climate change makes Sierra Nevada snow patterns more unpredictable, understanding its effects on avalanches is tricky and “elusive,” as one team of scientists told Rachel. Factors such as steep slope, wind, rain, previous snowpack and temperatures all play into whether an avalanche happens or not.

But that doesn’t stop researchers from trying to make some predictions. As the future gets warmer, lower-elevation areas that see less snow may see fewer avalanches. But avalanches involving wet snow — which also increases a buried victim’s risk of suffocation — could increase as well. And as snowpacks dwindle and there is less snow to cushion blows from the terrain, the number of injuries among snow recreationists could also rise. 

Ski resorts in avalanche-prone terrain do have programs to reduce the dangers, such as using explosives to trigger avalanches before visitors arrive. But experts still acknowledge that Mother Nature is unpredictable.

• Jim Steenburgh, University of Utah professor of atmospheric sciences: “We are humans working in a natural world. And so everybody does the best they can.” 

For more about the effect climate change could have on avalanches, read Rachel’s story.