Will California Legislature fix police, farmworker laws?

From CalMatters investigative editor Andrew Donohue: 

In 2021, Lorena Gonzalez authored the law that was supposed to stop police from using less-lethal munitions on protesters. 

The former Assemblymember spoke up Tuesday after reading our investigation into how California Highway Patrol handled the pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA, calling the police response “a total training failure by CHP.”

“Our bill was a first attempt to ensure that crowd control in protests didn’t result in unnecessary and vicious injuries,” she told CalMatters. “It seems to me at first glance that the training that the CHP deployed to these officers wasn’t sufficient, because it appears that there are both violations of the law and the violations of the spirit of law.” 

Gonzalez, who now heads the California Labor Federation, said the law might need to be reexamined. 

• Gonzalez: “If the CHP is suggesting that all of these officers were properly trained, then it seems like there needs to be an adjustment of the law.”

CalMatters investigative reporter Sergio Olmos recorded video from inside the police raid and documented at least 25 instances in which CHP officers regularly aimed or fired their less-lethal weapons at protesters in ways that appear to go against training guidelines or state law. 

Farmworker safety: CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang just wrote how laws passed after 13 farmworkers were killed in a single collision in 1999 have lost some of their impact because farmworkers are being transported in smaller vans that aren’t required to be inspected and certified by the state. In February, seven were killed when an unregulated van collided with a pickup in Madera County.

Tuesday, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, a Merced Democrat, told Jeanne that after that incident in her district, she started initial discussions with the Highway Patrol to identify possible legislation that could include strengthening policies to reflect how farmworkers are now being transported and “ensuring our farmworkers are up to date on driving, roadway and vehicle safety standards.”

• Soria, in a statement: “As a daughter of farmworkers, this is personal, and I look forward to continuing this conversation and finding solutions to ensure these accidents are avoided in the future.”

Current laws only cover vans or buses that carry nine or more farmworkers, other than the driver — a number chosen because that was the standard farm labor vehicle at the time.

• Dean Florez, who authored the law while in the state Assembly: “Things do change, and people find a way around regulations. Hopefully (the Legislature) will tweak the rule to include a lower number. Anything that can protect workers in any number, that’s the key point.”

From CalMatters mental health reporter Jocelyn Wiener:

The first $3.3 billion of bonds approved by voters in March to build and rehab housing and treatment beds for people with mental illness will be available to counties months ahead of schedule, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday.

And counties, he emphasized repeatedly, had better get to work.

“You’re either part of the problem or you’re not. Period,” he said at a press conference in front of Cordilleras Mental Health Center, in Redwood City. 

“Let’s move out of the way. Let’s do the right thing. And let’s have the sense of urgency that people in the state of California demand.”

The funding, slated to come online July 1, is more than half of the $6.4 billion in bond money promised under Proposition 1, one of Newsom’s signature mental health initiatives. Prop. 1 also requires that counties spend more of their existing mental health funds on people who are chronically homeless. Despite early expectations that it would sail through, Prop. 1 barely squeaked by.

The announcement comes at a politically tricky moment for Newsom, who last week announced more than $30 billion in one-time and ongoing cuts as he seeks to close a sizable state budget deficit.

Newsom noted Tuesday that his administration is rolling out the money much faster than has been the case with past bonds, including a similar measure known as No Place Like Home. The process of distributing the funds for that $2 billion 2018 housing bond took years, and has yielded much less housing than voters were promised.

Prop. 1 comes coupled with several other major mental health initiatives, including conservatorship reform and CARE Court. 

The announcement was part victory lap for Newsom and part frustrated exhortation of the counties to move faster. 

• Newsom: “It’s time to do your job. It’s time to get things done. You asked for these reforms. We’ve provided them. Now it’s time to deliver.”

Undocumented college students in California often face hurdles securing financial aid and finding jobs. Two measures would allow undocumented students to get on-campus jobs. But the UC is reluctant to fully support the proposals, which are limited in scope, explain CalMatters higher education reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn and community college reporter Adam Echelman.

Assembly Bill 2586 would exempt California’s public colleges and universities from a federal law banning employers from hiring undocumented workers. Another proposal, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 20, would amend the state constitution to allow undocumented UC students to work on campus. The bills are priorities of the California Legislative Latino Caucus, the Legislature’s largest ethnic caucus.

The UC does not formally oppose the measures, but its government relations office wrote a letter in April warning lawmakers that AB 2586 could open UC employers to civil and criminal prosecution — a risk one legal scholar says is “vanishingly small.”

The impact of the legislation on undocumented students may also be limited. The majority of undocumented students in California attend community college, and they are the least likely to work on-campus jobs. Still, if AB 2586 passes, an estimated 60,000 undocumented students could benefit — including Fatima Zeferino, an undocumented Cal State Long Beach student.

• Zeferino, at an Assembly hearing in April: “I fear that all of you do not understand how disappointing and gut-wrenching it feels to be denied my humanity and my right to access the same opportunities as my peers.”

For more on this issue, read Mikhail and Adam’s story.

The Inland Empire’s economy can be more than massive warehouses. At least that’s the hope of business and education leaders. Find out what they say from CalMatters’ Deborah Brennan.