The California Legislature’s long, busy and contentious session drew to a close this weekend. Here’s what you need to know:
- Lawmakers delivered Gov. Gavin Newsom one of the most sweeping overhauls of California’s energy and climate policies in decades. The six-bill package that passed over the weekend was framed as a way to ease gas and electricity bills while preserving the state’s signature climate programs. “Ratepayers are expected to get some relief through measures to cut the cost of building transmission lines, and an expanded cap-and-trade energy credit aimed at blunting rising energy bills,” Alejandro Lazo and Jeanne Kuang report.
- Lawmakers paved the way for a building boom near transit stations in many of the state’s most populous areas. The new bill overrides local development decisions, allowing apartment developers to construct residential buildings as tall as 75 feet regardless of local zoning maps or outcry. “In a legislative year teeming with controversial housing bills designed to kick-start more construction in California,” Ben Christopher writes, this new bill “has been among the most controversial.” Like the energy package, Newsom is expected to sign the legislation into law.
- The effort to regulate when AI makes consequential decisions about your life will have to wait yet another year. The three-year-old campaign would have required businesses and government agencies to tell you when AI is used to make important decisions about you, such as housing approvals, school admissions, hiring and firing and a host of other decision on things like health, criminal justice, government benefits and others. Khari Johnson reports that while California has passed more AI regulation than any other state, the European Union and Colorado have already passed these kinds of disclosure laws.
The Legislature is now out of session until January.
For a review of the entire session, read Yue Stella Yu and Jeanne Kuang’s rundown of how lawmakers delivered major wins on climate, housing and labor for Newsom.
Watch your legislators like a hawk: Sign up for beta access to My Legislator, your weekly report on what your state legislators said, voted on, introduced and more. Our beta version runs weekly until Sept. 15, and we’d love your feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and what you want to see.
CalMatters events: CalMatters, California Forward and 21st Century Alliance are hosting a Governor Candidate Forum Oct. 23 in Stockton at the California Economic Summit. Top candidates for governor will address pressing economic challenges and opportunities facing California. The will also field questions on why they are best suited to lead the world’s fourth-largest economy. Register here.
Other Stories You Should Know
CalMatters recognized for ‘General Excellence’
On Friday, the Online News Association gave us its annual award for General Excellence.
The judges were impressed with our body of work over the last year, including Digital Democracy, our comprehensive Voter Guide and our investigative reporting on homelessness. “These useful, hands-on tools and their stories that led to real-world impact stood out as fulfilling their mission to demystify California government,” they said.
Congrats to the finalists in the medium-sized newsroom category, who we consider friends and inspiration: ProPublica, the Texas Tribune and Mother Jones/The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Cost of Covered California to rise in 2026
Premiums for Covered California will rise by an average of 10.3% next year, the first double-digit increase since 2018. CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a segment on the reasons why as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.
SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.
California Voices
Some 75,000 homes remain standing where the Eaton and Palisades fires left so much destruction. While they appear safe, they are embedded with toxic residue that can make you seriously sick, writes Nicole Kolinsky, the executive director of the Coalition for Insurance Accountability. Yet insurers are telling families it is safe to reinhabit the homes, she says.
Other things worth your time:
California has the nation’s worst poverty rate, tied with Louisiana // Mercury News
Nancy Pelosi quietly shaped the redistricting fight that California is leading // New York Times
Western states must urgently cut water to avert Colorado River crisis, experts say // LA Times
Bill passed to give descendants of slavery college admission preference in California // LA Times