Top California Democrats vow to reduce cost of living

I hope everyone had a restful Thanksgiving break because the state Legislature is already raring to go. Today, the Assembly and Senate are swearing in lawmakers and kicking off a special session called by Gov. Gavin Newsom to prepare for the incoming Trump administration.

For the new two-year legislative cycle, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire of Santa Rosa told CalMatters Capitol reporter Alexei Koseff that their top concern is addressing the state’s rising cost of living. That includes advancing legislation to build more housing, lower energy prices and improve public infrastructure.

• Rivas: “Our only way forward is to acknowledge that we have to do better. It’s clear — we haven’t done enough.”

One issue that does not seem to be a major priority for Democratic leaders, however, is crime. Though the overwhelming approval of Proposition 36 appears to demonstrate voters’ frustrations with shoplifting and drug offenses, McGuire did not commit to any further legislation beyond the 10 retail theft measures lawmakers passed in August.

But perhaps the most notable difference between the new session and last year’s is that Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office on Jan. 20 — a Republican president with a history of holding antagonistic views toward California and making repeated threats to withhold emergency aid. 

To “Trump-proof” the state, legislators at the special session will consider Newsom’s proposal to allocate as much as $25 million to California’s Department of Justice and other state agencies for potential legal battles against the Trump administration on issues related to abortion access, water resources and more.

• Newsom, in a statement: “We will work with the incoming administration and we want President Trump to succeed in serving all Americans. But when there is overreach, when lives are threatened, when rights and freedoms are targeted, we will take action.”

As a sanctuary state for immigrant communities, California is also expected to come to blows with Trump over his pledges to deport undocumented immigrants. Immigration advocates plan to rally today at the state Capitol to protest mass deportations and urge lawmakers to protect immigrant families.

Learn more about the top Democrats’ legislative priorities in Alexei’s story.

Legislative makeup: While Democrats again control a supermajority in both chambers — giving them the power to pass budgets without any Republican votes and control the flow of legislation — Republicans did increase their numbers. 

In the state Senate, Democrats will control 30 seats, three more than a supermajority, but Republicans flipped a key seat. For the first time, the GOP caucus has a majority of women, with three of the six being Latina. 

In the state Assembly, with one contest still up in the air, Democrats will win at least 60 seats again, seven more than a supermajority.

Bakersfield Democratic Sen. Melissa Hurtado plans to try again on a measure to ban the use of pricing algorithms that are trained with nonpublic data provided by competing businesses after her bill this year went nowhere.

As CalMatters’ Wendy Fry explains, it’s the latest development in the saga between California and rent pricing software that officials say artificially drives up housing costs.

California, along with seven other states, has joined the U.S. Department of Justice in suing RealPage, a Texas-based company that operates one of the most popular rental pricing management software tools. The antitrust lawsuit alleges that the company “collects, combines, and exploits landlords’ competitively sensitive information … at the expense of renters who pay inflated prices.”

Some California cities are also pushing back: In July, San Francisco enacted a first-in-the-nation ban on selling or using “algorithmic devices to set rents or manage occupancy levels” for residences. San Jose and San Diego are considering similar measures as well.

A RealPage spokesperson told CalMatters that the lack of housing supply, not its software, is the real issue, and that the “misplaced focus on nonpublic information is a distraction.” And in a statement about the federal lawsuit, RealPage said the lawsuit “seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years.”

While few state legislators are renters, California has passed a handful of laws recently that strengthen renters’ rights, including one to give tenants more time to respond to eviction notices.

Read more about California cities’ battle against RealPage in Wendy’s story.

Unless you’re an election nerd, you’ve probably never heard of “ballot curing.” But it could very well determine the winner of the last undecided congressional races in California — and how narrow the Republican majority in the U.S. House ends up being.

The term refers to fixing ballots so they can be counted, usually because the signature on the mail-in envelope doesn’t match the one on file when the voter registered, or is missing altogether. As of Monday, about 96,500 ballots could still be cured.

But time is running out: Voters only have until 5 p.m. Tuesday (two days before county elections offices have to certify their results) to verify their signatures. Campaigns and their political allies can get involved, but no votes are changed or added and the volunteer “curers” don’t necessarily know which candidates the voter chose. 

In the 13th Congressional District, Democrat Adam Gray took the lead over incumbent Republican John Duarte on Nov. 26 — three weeks after Election Day — in part thanks to ballot-curing efforts by Democrats. 

So the National Republican Campaign Committee is joining with the state GOP and others to launch what it calls the largest ballot-curing operation in California history to try to boost Duarte to victory.

As of Sunday, Gray led Duarte by 227 votes. As of Friday, there were about 11,800 ballots eligible to cure in the district’s five counties (Fresno, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus).