News: A trip down memory lane

Thursday, December 22, 2022

A trip down memory lane

Dec 22, 2022

By Jeremy B. White, Lara Korte and Owen Tucker-Smith

THE BUZZ: Sen. Scott Wiener is ready to retake a legislative trip. He's not the only one.

San Francisco's ambitious state senator announced this week he is taking another crack at decriminalizing psychedelics, arguing the excessively penalized substances can treat conditions like PTSD. Wiener shepherded a similar bill out of the Senate last year and then saw it eviscerated by the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Unlike with safe injection sites -- a policy he's abandoning after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last year's attempt -- Wiener's trying again on hallucinogens.

That persistence reflects a basic lawmaking dynamic : The most challenging bills often take multiple legislative sessions. Failure can help proponents marshal more support – or at least neutralize opponents – and address vulnerabilities the next time. Legislators and governors change. The broader political social and climate may become more amenable to once-untenable ideas such as independently investigating when police officers kill suspects.

Several of the bills in the 2023-2024 pipeline are redos of previous attempts. Some may clear that final hurdle and become law; some may advance further than the last time, demonstrating some momentum and spurring yet another attempt. Among those we are watching:

— Legislative staff unionization is on the table again, and author Tina McKinnor now chairs the Assembly committee where last year's attempt perished on session's final night.

— Just one bill in Newsom's climate package failed to become law. Assembly member Al Muratsuchi will try again to raise California's 2030 emissions reduction target.

— Will organized labor opposition again stymie an effort to expedite housing construction on church land? We'll find out.

— Two failed gun restrictions are back: efforts to tax firearm and ammunition sales and to fortify California's concealed carry permitting rules after the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the former framework.

— Local tax votes are still on Assembly member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry's mind: after not getting a vote last year, she is trying again for a constitutional amendment that would lower the voter approval threshold.

— Whither Prop 47? Once again, a moderate-on-crime Democrat is pushing lowering the felony theft bar from its current $950 level to $400.

— What to do about crypto? Newsom vetoed last year's bill to regulate digital currency. Perhaps the stunning collapse of top trader FTX will buoy Assembly Banking chair Tim Grayson's followup effort.

BUENOS DÍAS, good Thursday morning. The right to an abortion is officially inscribed in California's constitution after Proposition One took effect yesterday. Final election results confirmed the initiative got the most votes of any statewide item on the November ballot, with nearly 7.2 million in favor — some 250,000 more than second-place arts funding measure Prop 28.

Programming note : There will be no California Playbook next week. We'll return Jan. 3.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Lying to the base is a red line for me, and that's what five of my closest colleagues are doing when they claim a consensus House Speaker candidate will emerge as they oppose Kevin McCarthy. Here's the reality: No one is running against Kevin McCarthy for Speaker." Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in an op-ed backing the Bakersfield Republican.

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Top Talkers

LAST SECOND STUNT — "Before leaving office, Alameda D.A. tried to transfer $20M to projects she founded," by the San Francisco Chronicle's Sophia Bollag: "In her final days in office, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley tried to persuade county supervisors to transfer $20 million from her office's budget to projects she started, county documents show."

— "Porn, Piracy, Fraud: What Lurks Inside Google's Black Box Ad Empire," by ProPublica's Craig Silverman and Ruth Talbot: "Google's embrace of publisher confidentiality means roughly 1 million publishers can remain anonymous to companies and individuals who buy ads on its network to reach customers. This opens the door to a range of abuses and schemes that steal potentially billions of dollars a year and put lives and livelihoods at risk due to dangerous disinformation, fraud and scams."

— "LAPD tells officers to celebrate responsibly after seven are arrested in DUI cases," by the Los Angeles Times' Libor Jany: "After the arrests of seven Los Angeles police officers on suspicion of drunk driving in recent days, LAPD officials are cautioning cops not to make the same mistake. In a department-wide bulletin, LAPD brass wrote that half of those arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence had a blood-alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit, and that several of the incidents resulted in crashes with injuries."

CAMPAIGN MODE

SISTER ACT: Riverside Council member Clarissa Cervantes is running for the AD-60 seat her sister, Assembly member Sabrina Cervantes, is giving up to run for Senate. If both Cervantes' prevail they could become the second set of sisters to serve concurrently, along with Assembly member Blanca Rubio and Sen. Susan Rubio. We could also see Assembly member Carlos Villapudua joined in the Legislature by his wife Edith, who is running to replace termed-out Sen. Susan Eggman, and Assembly member Freddie Rodriguez succeeded by wife Michelle.

PIGGY BANK — "Buried treasure: California politicians stash $35 million in leftover campaign cash," by CalMatters' Alexei Koseff and Ben Christopher: "Collectively, they hold about $35 million — funds that never got spent on the campaigns for which they were raised — ranging from $13.1 million that former Gov. Jerry Brown didn't need to win re-election in 2014 to $9.62 in the account for a failed Assembly run that same year run by investment manager Thomas Krouse."

DOMINO EFFECT — "How Nancy Pelosi's Big Retirement Decision Could Change 2023," by the San Francisco Standard's Josh Koehn: "The Standard spoke with current and former elected officials, political consultants and campaign experts across San Francisco to get a better read on what could happen if Pelosi resigns in the next year. That would trigger a special election, and—depending on who wins the speculative race—more elections and appointments could follow."

CALIFORNIA AND THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR

DAMAGE DONE — "Destruction, tears and tenacity in California towns battered by earthquake," by Los Angeles Times' Mackenzie Mays, Susanne Rust and Thomas Curwen: "By first light though, the devastation became apparent. Front porches had collapsed. A building caught fire. The beloved, multi-arched Fernbridge, a 1911 Humboldt County landmark and veteran of past earthquakes and floods — its guardrails bent, evidence of the fierce shaking — was closed by the California Department of Transportation."

— "'The most frightening thing': Northern California residents assess damage caused by powerful quake," by the Mercury News' Jakob Rodgers: "[Patti] Toroni was among the hundreds of residents left bereft — and on edge — after a powerful 6.4 earthquake rocked Humboldt County early Tuesday, destroying dozens of buildings in the small logging towns of Rio Dell and Fortuna."

DEBIT DRAMA — "California lawmakers want answers on Middle Class Tax Refund debit card issues," by KCRA's Ashley Zavala: "Some California lawmakers have confirmed what KCRA 3 Investigates first reported last week: several people have complaints and concerns of fraud with the state's Middle Class Tax Refund debit cards."

CAMPUS CONTROVERSY — "At Berkeley Law, a Debate Over Zionism, Free Speech and Campus Ideals," by the New York Times' Vimal Patel: "The controversy, pushed along online by conservative commentators, hits two of the pressure points in campus politics today. The bylaw was adopted as antisemitism is rising across the country. And some critics of academia have cast left-wing students as censors who shout down other viewpoints, all but strangling, they say, honest intellectual debate."

— "As Hatred Spiked, Asian Americans Raised Their Voices," by the San Francisco Standard's Matthew Kupfer and Han Li: "Behind the protests and politics is a quieter, also important story: Ordinary Asian Americans who sprung into action to push back against the hateful incidents striking terror in their community… community leaders say recent events represent a new and important wellspring of activism and civic engagement."

THE TAX ROUTE — "400 Million Guns Aren't Going to Just Go Away. In San Jose, We're Trying Something New," Opines Sam Liccardo for the New York Times: "Recent mass shootings have spurred renewed calls from President Biden for a national assault weapons ban. Sensibly so. But for even the most ardent gun control advocates, it's hard not to ask whether, in a nation with an estimated 400 million firearms, restrictions on new gun purchases accomplish too little without something more."

FLIP SIDE — "S.F. land values are sinking to rock bottom prices, but there could be a silver lining," by the San Francisco Chronicle's J.K. Dineen: "Land values in San Francisco appear to have hit rock bottom, which could create a rare opportunity for the city as it scrambles to acquire sites in order to meet the state-mandated housing goals of creating 46,000 affordable units between 2023 and 2031."

— "Here's what you need to know about California's new pay transparency law," by CalMatters' Grace Gedye: "The goal of the California law is to reduce gender and racial pay gaps. But New York City's measure had a bumpy start, with some employers posting unhelpfully wide ranges the first day the law was in place. When Colorado rolled out its law at the beginning of 2021, some companies posted remote jobs that they said could be done from anywhere in the U.S. — except Colorado — dodging the requirement."

TACTIC TENSION — "Pro-oil petition drive in California under question," by the AP's Drew Costley: "Several California residents who spoke to the AP allege they were misled by signature gatherers over the last two months as a campaign, Stop the Energy Shutdown, sought to gather enough signatures to get a referendum on the 2024 statewide ballot to overturn SB 1137."

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BIDEN, HARRIS AND THE HILL

JUDGY: President Joe Biden has nominated three California judges to federal benches, tabbing San Diego Superior Court Judge Marian Gaston for Southern California District Court; L.A. Superior Court Judge Wesley Hsu for Central California District Court; and Public Counsel President Mónica Ramírez Almadani for Central California District Court.

PELOSI'S LEGACY — "After Pelosi attack, Congress set to provide security for House speakers who leave office," by the San Francisco Chronicle's Shira Stein: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could continue to receive protection from U.S. Capitol Police after stepping down under a provision in a federal funding bill, a measure that comes on the heels of the attack on her husband at their San Francisco home Oct. 28."

— Zelenskyy comes to Washington and pulls neither punches nor asks, by POLITICO's Jonathan Lemire: Making his first trip beyond Ukraine's borders since Russia invaded, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy undertook a perilous, secret journey from the war's front lines to Washington, D.C. He traveled first by train to Poland and then flying abroad under the cover of night to make an urgent in-person appeal Wednesday to the nation most able to continue helping his war-weary homeland.

SILICON VALLEYLAND

NOT JUST TWITTER — "Elon Musk's Distraction Is Just One of Tesla's Problems," by the New York Times' Jack Ewing, Daisuke Wakabayashi and Melissa Eddy: "A growing list of problems at Tesla, the world's most valuable car company, is puncturing its mystique as the segment's technology leader, leading analysts and investors to question whether it can continue to dominate the market for electric vehicles."

POWER PLAYS — "The Year Silicon Valley Bosses Reclaimed the Power," by VICE's Maxwell Strachan: "Compared to what came before, 2022 hit like an earthquake to the thousands of people who made their names and fortunes working in Silicon Valley—a shocking wake-up call that the party is ending, if not over, and that the industry's bosses are in the process of overhauling the social contract in a way that best befits themselves."

MIXTAPE

TACO TALK — "In Anaheim, taco vendors and officials play a game of a cat-and-mouse," by the Los Angeles Times' Gabriel San Román.

— "How a $370 million project will improve the Sacramento area's worst commute," by the Sacramento Bee's Darrell Smith and Ryan Lillis.

— "Carlos Correa's agent on Giants losing shortstop to Mets: 'We gave them ample time,'" by the San Francisco Chronicle's Susan Slusser.

— "Once a Santa, always a Santa: An L.A. set decorator and seasonal Santa tells all," Opines Mary McNamara for the Los Angeles Times.

— "LA Mayor Bass Releases New 'Inside Safe' Plan to Combat Homelessness," by LAist's Frank Stoltze.

Transitions

— Mariana Perera is now D.C. scheduler for Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.). She most recently was a Fulbright research fellow and is an Eric Swalwell alum.

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