California Legislature

Update: The Internal Revenue Service announced today that California taxpayers do not have to report the Middle Class Tax Refund on their federal returns. From CalMatters economy reporter Grace Gedye: When gas prices were soaring in 2022 and Califorina’s state budget had a ballooning surplus, lawmakers decided to send relief payments to millions of residents […]

California’s housing market is less affordable after mortgage interest rates drove up costs for many potential buyers last year.

One in 10 state lawmakers is related by blood or marriage to other legislators past and present. How do spouses, siblings and children get into politics, and what does it mean for lawmaking?

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan says it’s time to let California prisoners vote.  To be clear, the Culver City Democrat who leads the Assembly election committee, isn’t talking about extending the franchise to people with felonies on their record. California and 21 other states already allow for that.  Bryan’s bill, which he introduced as a proposed amendment […]

If you want to see two diametrically opposed views of what California lawmakers have done and should be doing or not doing, look no further than a new poll and a new legislative scorecard. On one hand, a survey out Monday from the National Federation of Independent Business found that overwhelming majorities of California small […]

State legislators sometimes exempt themselves from the laws they pass, but this session, they could change course on an emblematic bill: To allow their own staffers to form a union.

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They’ve been back for nearly a month, so it’s time for California lawmakers to deliver on some of their campaign promises. That means the legislative session is starting to pick up steam.  Let’s get to the highlights from a busy Monday at the state Capitol (warning: prepare for quite a bit of déjà vu): Public […]

California’s first-in-the-nation task force on reparations agreed residents should qualify for compensation. But should certain “vulnerable” former residents, such as foster kids or ex-prisoners, be eligible?

Has California reached an upper limit on what it can do to regulate guns? Following a pattern as old as gun control itself, state lawmakers are responding to the back-to-back mass shootings that killed 18 people this week with more legislation: Democratic Sens. Catherine Blakespear of Encinitas and Nancy Skinner of Oakland announced Thursday they’re […]