rob bonta

As California’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Rob Bonta has plenty of leeway for his to-do list. This week, he’s using his powers widely on some hot-button issues. NFL sexual harassment: Saying that no company is too big or powerful to be “above the law” Bonta announced a joint investigation on Thursday with New […]

From CalMatters criminal justice reporter Nigel Duara: California’s first-in-the-nation program to take guns away from people prohibited by courts from owning them continues to tread water: A backlog of cases numbering between 23,000 and 24,000 people has stubbornly persisted, even as Attorney General Rob Bonta insisted on Monday that the program is making progress.  “That’s […]

California doesn’t really need 2,600 new laws, right?  Nevertheless, state lawmakers proposed 500 new bills on Friday, the 2023 session’s introduction deadline, bringing the total to about 2,600. That’s the most in more than a decade, according to veteran Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli. More than 1,000 are “placeholder” bills without specific language. Reminder: More bills […]

From CalMatters health reporter Kristen Hwang:  California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday announced a $215.3 million settlement against Centene Corp., a multi-billion dollar health care company that is the state’s largest commercial Medi-Cal insurer, with 20 contracts.  Centene is also the parent company of Health Net, which just won a lucrative contract for Medi-Cal, […]

Maybe the governor called a special legislative session for the wrong type of gas price. In the face of wallet-busting gasoline prices across the state last summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom convened a special session of the state Legislature in December to tax the “excessive” profits of California oil refiners. But since then, prices at the […]

Last Friday, the Memphis Police Department released its videos of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, prompting an outpouring of protest, grief and commemoration across the country, including in California where Nichols spent much of his life. One day earlier — and initially receiving little public notice — Anthony Lowe Jr., a 36-year-old Black man […]

On Sunday, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a man suspected of stabbing an elderly woman near a gas station in Altadena. Both the Sheriff’s homicide unit and its Internal Affairs Bureau reportedly launched investigations. On Wednesday, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state Department of Justice launched its own probe, […]

President Biden signed a law banning nearly 4 million federal employees from having TikTok on their government phones, over national security concerns. This week, New Jersey and Ohio joined at least 20 other states in restricting access to TikTok, amid fears that the Chinese government could use the app to spy on Americans.   Will California […]

California has a police problem. In some parts of the state, particularly rural areas, there aren’t enough of them. Tehama County, population 65,000, made national headlines last month when the sheriff announced he would be ending daytime patrols due to the agency’s “catastrophic staffing shortage.” But the two main challenges facing Tehama County are also […]

California’s new program to police the police has produced few results so far.  That’s according to a new project from CalMatters justice reporter Nigel Duara, who is today launching the state’s most comprehensive public tracker of police shootings of unarmed civilians under investigation by the California Department of Justice. The department has opened 25 such […]