Your guide to California policy and politics
Emily Hoeven BY Emily Hoeven October 18, 2022
Presented by Climate-Smart Agricultural Partnership, New California Coalition, Dairy Cares and California Land Recycling Conference

Jane Fonda blasts wealthy Prop. 30 foes

Actress and activist Jane Fonda has a message for wealthy Californians who oppose Proposition 30, a November ballot measure that would hike taxes on millionaires to subsidize electric vehicles and fund wildfire response and prevention:

“People who would choose to get rich and stay rich, as opposed to helping create a livable future, have to really seriously examine their priorities.”

Fonda, who acknowledged that her own taxes would go up if voters approve Prop. 30, shared her stance on the controversial ballot measure for the first time in an exclusive interview Monday.

Fonda spoke with me on Zoom from Los Angeles in between trips to Michigan, New Mexico and Texas to stump for candidates endorsed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, an organization she founded this year to help elect leaders who “care about people and the planet and the environment and the future more than corporations.”

The PAC has so far directly contributed $60,800 to 29 California candidates at the federal, state, county and city level, said Ariel Hayes, the PAC’s executive director and former national political director for the Sierra Club. Hayes said the PAC is still determining how much more it plans to invest before the Nov. 8 election.

  • Those figures don’t include money contributed to “independent expenditure” committees — which don’t coordinate with the campaigns they’re trying to help — or money raised through online or in-person joint fundraising drives, Hayes said.

The PAC is just the latest climate endeavor for Fonda, 84, a two-time Academy Award-winning actress with a decades-long history of activism. Although Fonda announced in September that she had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, “this f—–g cancer is not going to keep me from doing all that I can,” she told me, adding that the climate crisis makes her “so scared I can’t sleep.”

After the November election, the PAC plans to zero in on California and the Gulf states, where the oil industry holds significant sway, Fonda said.

Other key takeaways from my interview with Fonda:

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1 COVID emergency to come to an end

A commuter sits in a Los Angeles Metro train in Los Angeles on July 13, 2022. Photo by Jae C. Hong, AP
A commuter sits in a Los Angeles Metro train in Los Angeles on July 13, 2022. Photo by Jae C. Hong, AP Photo

California plans to end its COVID-19 state of emergency on Feb. 28, 2023, nearly three years after Newsom first declared one to help curb the spread of the virus, senior administration officials announced Monday. Here’s a closer look at some of the public health and political ramifications of the news, via CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang and Ana B. Ibarra:

2 Reports raise concern over greenhouse gas emissions

The Carmel Fire burns at the Georis Winery near Carmel Valley on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. Photo by Nic Coury, AP Photo
The Carmel Fire burns at the Georis Winery near Carmel Valley on Aug. 18, 2020. Photo by Nic Coury, AP Photo

Monday greeted Californians with a mixed bag of climate news:

  • Increasingly extreme wildfires could threaten California’s ability to reach its ambitious climate goals. That’s according to a new study led by University of California researchers and published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Pollution, which found that wildfires in 2020 — California’s worst wildfire year on record — resulted in more than double the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions slashed by the state from 2003 to 2019. In other words, “Wildfire emissions in 2020 essentially negate 18 years of reduction in greenhouse gas emission,” said Dr. Michael Jerrett, a UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of environmental health sciences and a lead author of the research, in a statement. David Clegern, a spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board, told the San Francisco Chronicle that “wildfire emissions and fossil fuel emissions are not the same” because forest fires can have regenerative properties. But the study’s authors noted that forest regrowth wouldn’t happen quickly enough to avert “highly dangerous levels of increased pollutions, temperatures and climate change.”
  • Greenhouse gas emissions also skyrocketed at California’s two largest ports in 2021, rising 39% at the Port of Los Angeles and 35% at the Port of Long Beach, the Los Angeles Times reports. Although emissions are still far below levels in the mid-2000s, the increase has infuriated environmental justice advocates and residents of nearby communities. It’s also raised concerns about the long-term environmental effects of global supply chain issues exacerbated by the pandemic, which led to a massive backlog of cargo ships at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and may have helped cause a 2021 oil spill off Huntington Beach.
  • Homeowners in areas at high risk of wildfires could see some relief after rules proposed by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara went into effect. But, as CalMatters’ Grace Gedye has reported, the regulations won’t be a silver bullet for Californians: They would require insurers to take homeowners’ efforts to reduce wildfire risk into account when setting premiums, but would still allow policy non-renewals.

3 How politics influence the ‘California Exodus’

A moving truck with COVID-19 aware messaging outside of an apartment building in Oakland on Nov. 7, 2020. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
A moving truck outside an apartment building in Oakland on Nov. 7, 2020. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters

Ah, the California Exodus: The myth that keeps on giving. A Monday report from the Public Policy Institute of California was the latest to take a crack at the much-discussed and much-debated phenomenon through the lens of political ideology. A few particularly interesting findings:

  • Asked if California’s high housing costs have led them to seriously consider moving out of state, 26% of very liberal respondents said yes, compared to 39% of those who self-identified as middle-of-the-road, 45% who described themselves as very conservative and 56% of those who disapprove of Newsom’s performance of governor. And 51% of Californians who said they pay much more than they should in taxes answered in the affirmative, compared to 23% who don’t think they pay too much.
  • But, although 1 in 3 Californians has thought about leaving the state, only about 1 in 10 actually did so from 2016-20, according to the report.
  • The takeaway: “A large share of Californians feel like they want to live somewhere else, and dissatisfaction with the state’s politics is at least part of the reason why. This dynamic probably pushes a few who might otherwise stay to leave the state. The result may be a politically skewed departure that nudges the state’s politics ever so slightly to the left.”

And personal finances may matter just as much, if not more, than political ideology. As income inequality gaps grow, the Public Policy Institute of California has found that people leaving the state are less wealthy than those moving in — including from Republican-led states such as Texas. And although new U.S. Census data showing a drop in median household income in metropolitan areas such as San Francisco suggests that wealthy Californians are leaving, many may simply be moving to cheaper regions within the Golden State. Indeed, the San Francisco Chronicle found that a growing share of city employees live in other Bay Area counties.

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Other things worth your time


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Judge blocks California law allowing gun owners’ personal information to be shared with researchers. // San Francisco Chronicle

California’s pro-abortion rights ballot measure is poised to pass. So why are Democrats spending so much time and money on it? // CapRadio

What we’ve lost playing the lottery. // New Yorker

Nury Martinez’s resignation sets off scramble for mid-San Fernando Valley seat on City Council. // Los Angeles Times

He wanted to blow up Sacramento’s Democratic HQ; judge now questions his mental state. // Sacramento Bee

State can’t cut off Medi-Cal payments to Borrego Health, judge rules. // San Diego Union-Tribune

California doctors are warned about Ebola outbreak in Uganda. // Los Angeles Times

Yes, S.F. could turn empty downtown offices into housing. Here’s what it would take. // San Francisco Chronicle

The cities where most rich (and poor) kids end up as adults. // Washington Post

California drought is squeezing tomato farmers as growing costs continue to rise. // CNN

As Orange County becomes overrun with cats, local rescues struggle to keep up. // Voice of OC

He rescued her from a drug den as a baby. Now 22 years later, he pins a deputy badge on her. // San Diego Union-Tribune

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