In summary
Highlighting all of CALmatters’ work over the past week
Recent Articles
Who could bring cops and critics together to change California’s use-of-force standard? Episode 3 of Force of Law
By Laurel Rosenhall
For more than a year, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber has been working on a bill meant to curb police shootings by limiting when police can use deadly force. She persevered through political setbacks and failed attempts at compromise before landing on a version that now appears likely to become law. Episode 3 of Force of Law is about Weber and the lawmakers she must convince to help her pass a tougher standard for police to use lethal force.
California just passed a $215 billion budget. Here’s what’s between the lines.
By Judy Lin
Less tax-and-spendy than expected, California’s $215 billion budget delivers more for working and poor families, but avoids most new taxes and stops short of health care for all.
In California, a blue wave and progressive governor: So why are so many leftist plans going under?
By Ben Christopher and Laurel Rosenhall
As the Capitol passes the halfway point for making new laws this year, the progressive policies that are advancing amount to less of a torrent than a trickle.
‘Clean’ freight traffic is elusive as California rolls toward zero emissions
By Julie Cart
For carbon-free transportation, California must cover a lot more ground soon. But by some estimates, electric truck fleets could still be a decade away.
As Newsom rethinks juvenile justice, California reconsiders prison for kids
By Charlotte West
Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking California’s shrinking juvenile detention system away from the adult corrections bureaucracy and shifting it into the system for social services.
Should community colleges build housing?
By Felicia Mello
Matthew Polamalu was spending 1.5 hours each day commuting back and forth to community college along Southern California’s congested freeways when he decided he’d had enough. He sat down at his computer and Googled “community colleges with dorms.”
Commentary
Slavery in 21st-century California? Yes
By Dan Walters
California is a 21st-century slave state. Hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings are being kept in slavery.
AT&T got a tax windfall and gave me a lay-off notice
By Darren Kelly
AT&T told 368 technicians throughout California, including me and many of my coworkers in Sacramento, that we need to move to the San Francisco Bay Area or lose our jobs. AT&T knows it wasn’t giving us any real choice at all: The company laid us off, even though it receive a tax windfall when Congress passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
How Trump administration undermines reproductive and LGBTQ rights in California
By Lori Freedman and Rebecca Griffin
We’re facing an unprecedented sweep of abortion bans across the country, a frontal attack that we must fight back. A new Trump administration regulation puts the full force of the government behind individuals and institutions that refuse to provide care in the name of religious beliefs. This unnecessary overreach emboldens people to discriminate and has dangerous implications for people’s health. California is not immune.
How to reduce the risk of wildfire and other climate-change-related disasters
By Karen Baker
California’s emergency planning in the traditional sense is held up as a model. But we face many barriers, given our size and diversity. We must change our approach by investing in people power to complement traditional emergency services, which is why a new grassroots strategy has been adopted to connect people to each other and build inclusive resiliency.
In California, people help guarantee fair elections. The process begins today
By Elaine M. Howle
California voters took the job of redistricting out of the hands of politicians and gave it to a first-ever citizens commission. The result is a process that ensures fairness and equity in campaigns. And we’re about to take our second walk down that very important road.
Budget expediency overwhelms logic
By Dan Walters
Two expedient state budget deals undermine their rational legitimacy.
Implicit bias legislation
By Sydney Kamlager-Dove and By David A. Lehrer
A point-counter point on Assembly Bills 241, 242 and 243, which would mandate that lawyers and judges, physicians, nurses and physicians’ assistants and virtually all peace officers in California undergo periodic training regarding “implicit bias.”
Los Angeles school tax flunks out
By Dan Walters
L.A. voters rejected a new tax for schools in a test of sentiment for a similar statewide measure.
Helping to define what it means to be ‘Made in California’
By Lenny Mendonca
Government officials don’t do a good job of engaging the public as we grapple with big, complex challenges. Today, my team at the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development is launching a new podcast called Made in California to change that dynamic.
Most ‘job killer’ bills already dead
By Dan Walters
All but five of the 31 bills given the “job killer” epithet by the California Chamber of Commerce have already died.
California could finally regulate high-interest lenders. It’s up to the Senate
By Tom Dresslar
By setting a 36% annual rate cap on such loans, Assembly Bill 539 by Assembly Banking and Finance Committee Chairwoman Monique Limon, a Santa Barbara Democrat, would provide Californians with protections against high-cost loans similar to safeguards now enjoyed by an estimated 232 million Americans. AB 539’s fate is in the state Senate’s hands.