| | | | |  | | By Dustin Gardiner and Lara Korte | | Presented by |  | | | HAPPENING TONIGHT! We’re hosting team trivia night at Manny’s in San Francisco’s Mission district. Join Playbook co-authors Lara and Dustin for an evening of tough questions and adult beverages. Winners will receive a Manny’s gift card and POLITICO swag bag. The games run 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. We have a few tickets left, so reserve yours here!
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San Francisco Mayor London Breed. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | THE BUZZ: STATS AND FEELINGS — San Francisco Mayor London Breed spent years railing about crime in her city. Now, ahead of a tough reelection bid, she wants voters to feel better about it. She’s pointing to stats that show reported crime is plummeting in areas that have long bedeviled city leaders. Car break-ins, in particular, are falling as the city beefs up policing and she adopts a more tough-on-crime approach. Reported vehicle burglaries have fallen to the lowest level in a decade, not counting the stretch early in the pandemic when most Californians stayed home (though San Francisco still has more car break-ins per capita than many major cities). But Breed has struggled to capitalize on positive crime trends, even a 50-percent year-over-year drop in smash-and-grabs in the first four months of 2024. Simply put, many voters say they aren’t feeling it yet — and her opponents want to seize on that sentiment. It didn’t help that just last week Rep. Adam Schiff had his car broken into and suitcases stolen during a visit, an incident that went viral and, to many, crystallized the city’s problems. On the campaign trail, Breed has repeatedly spoken about how voters’ feelings about crime don’t match the reality, a disconnect she blames on years of viral videos and headlines about brazen theft in the city. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor who remains deeply involved in the city's struggles, has also touted the latest figures, pointing to a partnership with state law enforcement officers. The sense that conditions haven’t notably improved, despite the numbers saying otherwise, could shape the November mayoral election as Breed tries to convince an angry electorate that change is underway. She must convince voters upset over the city’s decline that she’s the architect of its recovery. “People are starting to feel the difference, and we want them to feel it more consistently over the next months and years,” Joe Arellano, Breed’s campaign spokesperson, told Playbook. “There is much less broken glass in the typical hotspots.” But several of her opponents, including former interim Mayor Mark Farrell and non-profit executive Daniel Lurie, have dismissed Breed’s efforts as too little, too late — an unmistakable effort to appeal to voters on the city’s more centrist westside and within its powerful Chinese-speaking community. “Car break-ins are one of the most underreported crimes in San Francisco,” Farrell told Playbook on Tuesday, brushing off the latest stats. “And the fact remains that we’re down nearly 600 officers on Mayor Breed’s watch.” The challenge for Breed is arguably, in part, a narrative of her own making. For several years, Breed and moderate political advocacy groups funded by her allies were outspoken about crime in San Francisco as they funded the recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin and targeted progressive city supervisors. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, a progressive who’s running for mayor, said Breed is “struggling to put the genie back in the bottle” with voters after she spent several years amplifying reports of crime in San Francisco. “It just seems like too much of a pivot,” Peskin said of Breed’s messaging. “It doesn’t seem credible even though, objectively, people actually are safer and their car is less likely to be broken into.” Police say auto break-ins started to fall last summer, as the city rolled out new strategies to clamp down on organized theft rings: teams of plainclothes officers backed up by state and federal law enforcement; bait cars equipped with surveillance equipment; and more officers in tourist areas that are hot-spots for theft. There were 19,500 reported break-ins last year, compared with more than 31,000 at the peak in 2017. Peskin, whose district includes tourist hubs like Fisherman’s Wharf, acknowledged there have been noticeably fewer cars with shattered windows. Still, he quipped, “But does it only happen every four years, when the mayor is running for reelection?” Breed’s camp counters that the shift is the result of a yearslong effort to bring in support from state and federal agencies and to oust Boudin and install a new district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, who is more inclined to aggressively prosecute people arrested for property crimes. “It’s easy to say you want to do something,” said Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for Breed’s office. “But it’s hard to do the work persistently and overcome obstacles.” GOOD MORNING. Happy Wednesday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. Now you can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts now. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
| | | | A message from Uber: Drivers with Uber are leading EV adoption. Key fact to know this Earth Month: Drivers with Uber are switching to electric cars seven times faster than everyday drivers. That progress has multiplier impact because when one Uber driver starts using an EV, they deliver up to four times the emissions benefits compared to regular motorists. Learn more about this trend. | | | |  | SACTOWN | | MAJOR ACQUISITION: LUCAS SELLS THE FIRM — Lucas Public Affairs, the California-based public affairs firm headquartered in Sacramento and helmed by chief executive Donna Lucas and President Cassandra Pye, has been acquired by Public Policy Holding Company. PPHC, a bipartisan business and the parent company of nine public and government affairs firms across the U.S., will pay $7.5 million, including $6 million in cash and the rest in stock, according to terms outlined to Playbook. PPHC was founded in 2014 and is based in Washington. Its employee-owners remain as majority shareholders. The acquisition announcement — part of a broader shift to more investment in West Coast firms — is the third major acquisition since PPHC went public in 2021. It comes a year and a half after the company acquired KP Public Affairs, the Sacramento-based lobbying and public affairs firm, for an initial price of $11.4 million. Founded in 2006, Lucas Public Affairs will retain its brand identity and management team and operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of PPHC. The deal includes future payments up to a maximum of $22 million, based on more than 25 percent compound annual profit growth through 2028. Lucas and Pye are veterans of governor’s offices and numerous campaigns, and are fixtures of Sacramento’s political ecosystem, with their firm’s tentacles reaching deep into several corporate and nonprofit organizations throughout California. “This allows us to remain independent with our culture, but to leverage all of the talent and resources that PPHC brings to us,” Lucas said in an interview ahead of Wednesday’s announcement. “In California, we’re in the epicenter. This is where so much is happening. I see this as a real potential for growth for our firm, not only because it's going to strengthen our abilities to have partners in D.C. and globally, but they're going to have a really good partner here with us and KP California because we really know what’s going on.” PPHC subsidiaries like Lucas Public Affairs and KP collaborate where they can, but still operate independently and compete for clients. LPA has 28 employees and works on a range of policy areas, from energy and climate and K-12 and higher education to water, technology and biotech, housing, health care and insurance. “The fact that this legislative environment is so much ahead of where Washington is, I spend my time looking here and looking in Europe,” said Thomas Gensemer, the chief strategy officer at PPHC. He said the stalemate at the federal government level in Washington has supercharged the holding company’s interest in California and the capital of the European Union in Brussels. “Our need to sort of deepen the bench here and to start moving internationally is key because it's where our clients need us most.” Lucas and Pye said they and PPHC extensively discussed succession planning, and both committed to staying in their roles for at least another five years. “We’re not going anywhere,” Pye said. “We decided a long time ago that, as long as we still love what we were doing, and love doing it with each other, and we do, that we would just keep working. The question will be, at the five- or six-year mark, what our roles are, but I think we'll be engaged and involved in the business because we’re both really passionate about what we do.” — Christopher Cadelago
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | BAY AREA | | |  Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. | Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via AP | PRICE CHECK — Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price will face a recall election. We just don’t know when. After a three-hour-plus hearing on Tuesday, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors certified the signature count but punted a decision on holding a special election versus consolidating the vote with the November election. A higher-turnout November vote would likely be better for Price than a summer vote dominated by recall supporters, which was borne out by testimony as Price’s allies called for a consolidated election while her foes asked supervisors to call a vote as soon as possible. Supervisors will reconvene in mid-May. More than 100 people testified, many of them summoned by a Price campaign email denouncing the “illegal election.” Price and her allies argue the county registrar violated election laws by counting signatures too slowly and allowing signature-gatherers who are not county residents. The district attorney’s allies waved “Protect the Win” signs provided by the campaign and urged supervisors to either halt the election or schedule it for November. Opponents testified to a climate of fear spurred by carjackings, muggings, and burglaries. They urged the board to schedule a vote as soon as possible, saying the deteriorating situation requires urgency. “Alameda County is not for sale,” Price said at a press conference before the hearing. “We had a democratic election, the people spoke, and the people’s choice should be allowed to complete the job that I was elected to do.” — Jeremy B. White PANDEMIC FALLOUT — Evidence uncovered by a tiny lab in Oakland is expected to be at the center of what congressional Republicans hope will be a blockbuster hearing today on the origins of Covid-19. As our colleague Carmen Paun reports, Republicans are hoping to show once and for all that U.S. scientists, working with a Chinese lab, caused a devastating pandemic. To do it, they’re relying on a group called U.S. Right to Know and its founder, Gary Ruskin, who, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) recently put it, have proven “more successful than any of us in getting information from the administration.” Ruskin’s work this week will guide Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, as he questions Peter Daszak, head of the nonprofit research group EcoHealth Alliance, about whether research he proposed to the Defense Department in 2018 could be what led to Covid. Asked by POLITICO whether Ruskin’s efforts have helped his investigation, Wenstrup said “absolutely.” U.S. Right to Know uncovered EcoHealth Alliance’s draft grant application in January, prompting Wenstrup’s interest, as well as that of Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who until his resignation on April 19 chaired the House Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a story of how, in the politicization of the pandemic, unlikely alliances formed to turn public opinion on what caused millions to die of a mysterious new disease.
| | | | A message from Uber:   | | | | | CLIMATE AND ENERGY | | LET'S TALK CAP AND TRADE — Lawmakers are banking on future cap and trade revenues to fill this year's budget deficit. But they're not rushing to reauthorize the program ahead of its 2030 expiration. Read more about the climate conversation that wasn’t and the budget headaches that are ensuing in last night’s California Climate newsletter.
| | TOP TALKERS | | — State Attorney General Rob Bonta could block hedge funds and private equity firms from acquiring health care facilities under a bill that’s coasting through the Assembly but has the health industry feuding. (CalMatters) — Tesla sales in California have peaked, an industry group predicts after the company’s vehicle sales in the state declined for the second straight quarter. (Los Angeles Times) | | | | GROWING IN THE GOLDEN STATE: POLITICO California is growing, reinforcing our role as the indispensable insider source for reporting on politics, policy and power. From the corridors of power in Sacramento and Los Angeles to the players and innovation hubs in Silicon Valley, we're your go-to for navigating the political landscape across the state. Exclusive scoops, essential daily newsletters, unmatched policy reporting and insights — POLITICO California is your key to unlocking Golden State politics. LEARN MORE. | | | | | | | AROUND THE STATE | | HUMBOLDT: Law enforcement arrested 35 pro-Palestinian protestors at Cal-Poly Humboldt, including an assistant professor and TV reporter. (San Francisco Chronicle) SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: The median price of Southern California homes peaked in March despite sluggish homebuying. (The Orange County Register) SOLANO: A campaign to build a 400,000-person city on Bay Area farmland submitted what it hopes will be enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. (The Associated Press) SILICON VALLEY: State lawmakers are tackling domestic violence by pressuring carmakers to up protections on internet-connected cars. (CalMatters) SAN FRANCISCO: The sea lion population at San Francisco’s touristy Pier 39 is booming, with as many as 1,000 of the lounging mammals. (KTVU)
| | | | A message from Uber: Uber Drivers Accelerate Electric Vehicle Shift
As Earth Month spotlights sustainability, a noteworthy trend emerges: Uber drivers are adopting electric vehicles seven times faster than the average driver. For every driver on the Uber platform who switches to an EV, the emissions savings are quadrupled compared to what typical drivers would achieve.
This shift didn’t just happen. It’s part of Uber’s commitment to ensuring that, by 2030, 100% of trips on its platform in the US are in zero-emission vehicles or through micromobility and public transport. Now drivers with Uber are leading the way in advancing clean energy transportation.
Discover more about how Uber is going green. | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | BIRTHDAYS — former Assemblymember Catharine Baker (favorite cocktail: "pro-G&T, might be known for margarita recipe") WANT A SHOUT-OUT FEATURED? — Send us a birthday, career move or another special occasion to include in POLITICO’s California Playbook. You can now submit a shout-out using this Google form. Disclaimer: All information will be verified. TRIVIA CLUE — Colma, city of the dead. CALIFORNIA POLICY IS ALWAYS CHANGING: Know your next move. From Sacramento to Silicon Valley, POLITICO California Pro provides policy professionals with the in-depth reporting and tools they need to get ahead of policy trends and political developments shaping the Golden State. To learn more about the exclusive insight and analysis this subscriber-only service offers, click here. Want to make an impact? POLITICO California has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Golden State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness amongst this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Rebecca Haase to find out how: rhaase@politico.com. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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