California vs. Florida on vaccines, again

If you don’t want to take your medical advice from U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., you’ll soon be able to consult with an alternate public health resource backed by the blue states on the West Coast. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said Wednesday that California is joining a West Coast Health Alliance with Oregon and Washington to provide residents with vaccine safety information.

They rolled out the plan on the same day that Florida officials went the other direction, pushing to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including requirements for school children to be protected against the measles, chickenpox and Hepatitis B.

The three-state group comes as high-profile oustings, resignations and policy changes roil the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more infectious and severe variants of COVID-19 surge through California and other states this summer.

The alliance echoes one California joined in 2020 to review COVID-19 vaccines during President Donald Trump’s first administration.

• Newsom, in a statement: “Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people. The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences.”

Eight left-leaning Northeastern states, including Massachusetts, New York and Vermont, have also banded together to create their own regional public health authority separate from the CDC.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UCSF professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases, raised some concerns about how different guidelines from various state-led coalitions could lead to confusion among the public and health insurance companies.

• Chin-Hong: “All of this assault on vaccines and turmoil at the CDC and turning science upside down couldn’t come at a worse time. The only people who suffer are community members who are confused as to how they can protect themselves. They can’t get protection even if they wanted to.”

Nevertheless, he welcomed the creation of the Western alliance. So did former Sen. Richard Pan, the Sacramento physician who authored a 2015 state law mandating stronger immunization protections for children. 

It’s important that state governments “step up” when “the federal government can no longer be trusted to provide unbiased, fact-based recommendations on protecting our health,” said Pan.

• Pan: “This is a fundamental public safety issue. You’re as dead from a germ as you are from a bullet or a fire. … We had one of the best public health organizations in the world and we decided to destroy it.”

From CalMatters politics and campaign reporter Yue Stella Yu: 

A former spokesperson to California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas sued the top Democrat Tuesday, arguing he fired her and publicly retaliated against her after she alleged a colleague sexually harassed her and after she raised complaints about Rivas’ brother’s influence over the lawmaker.

Cynthia Moreno was fired last month after an internal investigation found that she had made sexual remarks to “various employees,” according to redacted documents released from the Assembly. 

Moreno, who has denied the allegation, filed her lawsuit in the Sacramento Superior Court on Tuesday. She argued Rivas failed to address her sexual harassment complaint against a former colleague. She also claimed that the Salinas Democrat’s brother, political strategist Rick Rivas, exerted undue influence on his policy making — a claim that has followed the speaker’s career for years.

Rivas spokesperson Elizabeth Ashford dismissed Moreno’s claim as “an attempt by a former employee to force a payout.”

• Ashford: “The Speaker recused himself from all matters related to Ms. Moreno’s termination. … We will fight these false and defamatory claims aggressively, and we are confident they will be seen for what they are: absolutely meritness.”

Gov. Newsom in recent months has spent his time doing a number of things, including launching a podcast and visiting other states in an attempt, some say, to raise his national profile. So while many of his critics slam the governor for not focusing enough time and attention on California, how does Newsom spend his time exactly?

It turns out, the answer isn’t so clear, writes CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff.

In the past five months, Newsom’s office has not released any of his 2025 calendars, despite doing so in the past and CalMatters requesting them each month. The office has also ignored questions about possible timelines to release the records, which is required by law.

The last calendar his office provided to CalMatters was on April 1, which detailed the months of September through December 2024.

Though these calendars list only official events, which even then are sometimes redacted, they still offer the public the most information about who Newsom is speaking to and how he prioritizes his time.

• David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition: “We’re not talking hundreds and hundreds of records that need to be rounded up and redacted. It’s a pretty straightforward request. This is not difficult — or should not be difficult.”

Read more here.

Five months after a federal judge ordered the U.S. Border Patrol to stop making warrantless arrests in California’s Eastern District, the ACLU and United Farm Workers have filed a motion accusing the immigration enforcement agency of violating that order. Read more from CalMatters’ Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos.