State Watch

CALIFORNIA WATCH - California’s “tort wars” over the rules governing personal injury lawsuits are heating up again and dueling ballot measures may land on the 2022 ballot.

STATE OF WORK - California has the highest unemployment rate in the country. Several factors are contributing, including the state’s slow-to-rebound leisure and hospitality sectors.

LAW WATCH - If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.  That appears to be Gov. Gavin Newsom’s strategy for counteracting the U.S. Supreme Court’s Friday decision to let stand Texas’ ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

HOUSING POLITICS - A sustained campaign against CEQA, led by polluting industries, real estate developers, and other special interests, has repeatedly and falsely claimed that – despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary – California’s preeminent environmental law is somehow fueling the state’s housing crisis.

LEARNING POLITICS - If California’s local school board members won’t accept unfair criticism, submit to questionable recall votes, or tolerate verbal abuse at meetings, then California should do away with school boards entirely.

REDISTRICTING CALIFORNIA - California’s independent redistricting commission is taking a lot of heat for the congressional and legislative maps it’s drawing to beat a Dec. 27 deadline. 

GUN REFORMS - California has some of the nation’s tightest gun control laws and virtually no session of the Legislature ends without additional restrictions being enacted.

JUSTICE REFORM - It has been five years since California voters approved Proposition 66, a measure that ostensibly was going to speed up the time between handing down a death sentence and an execution.

DRUG MISUSE - As concern over the omicron variant mounts in California — with the state’s second case confirmed Thursday in Los Angeles County — another public health crisis is lurking in plain sight: the drug epidemic. 

GUN CONTROL - As California tries to crack down on crime, it secured a sizable victory for its strict gun control laws on Tuesday. 

CALIFORNIA POLITICS - During the most recent legislative session in California, at least three senators on powerful environmental and finance committees derived significant income from fossil fuel companies, according to financial disclosures obtained by Capital & Main.

Thank you, America, for always keeping California in your thoughts.

COMMENTARY - With this month’s U.N. climate conference failing to achieve key agreements that will limit global heating to the crucial 1.5° C goal, it’s vital that California step up our climate leadership. 

EDUCATION POLITICS  - Then-Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature overhauled California’s public school financing in 2013 with the stated goal of closing the “achievement gap” separating poor and English-learner students from more privileged children.

ENVIRONMENT WATCH - Deep in the oil fields of western Kern County, a little northwest of the century-old town of McKittrick, hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil and wastewater filled with toxic chemicals have been seeping out of the ground for two years, in an area where companies operate hundreds of wells.

CALIFORNIA WATCH - When it comes to California departures, I have no problem with the number of Californians moving out.

JOB FORCE - Officially, California has 1.4 million unemployed residents, but a new study that takes into account people who can’t find jobs that pay above poverty level says the number of “functionally unemployed” is three times higher at 4.8 million.

CALIF JOB FORECAST - Each month, federal and state officials release employment data for the preceding month, basically telling us how many Californians are employed and how many aren’t.

POLITICS - “I just took [my son] to our local Walgreens to buy him a toy. While there, a man shoved past me so firmly that he sent me into the shelving. Then he proceeded to fill a brown paper bag with Halloween candy and waltzed out of the store. This is one of five Walgreens stores in SF that will be closing in the next two months, in part because of rampant theft. And our city leaders all keep insisting crime is down.”

HOUSING CRISIS - The California Apartment Association, the landlord lobbying group, is one of the most powerful organizations in California.

CLIMATE WATCH - Nations convening at the United Nations climate conference pledged today to end the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in major markets by 2035 and globally by 2040, mirroring California’s plans.