Capitol Briefs: Priorities, taxes and snakes, oh my!

Women’s Caucus unveils bill package: The bipartisan, bicameral California Legislative Women’s Caucus announced its 2025 priority bill package this week. The 11-bill package is focused on advancing equity and opportunity for women across California.

Legislative Women’s Caucus Chair Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) shared the stage with members of the Assembly and Senate who authored the endorsed bills. Each addressed issues such as protections for vulnerable women, improving early childhood education, strengthening women’s economic security, and promoting equity in maternal and menopausal care.

“I’m proud to stand behind this comprehensive legislative package focused on addressing the many inequities California women still face. I’m particularly excited to see a diverse package of bills like these that we are focusing on today—on equity, empowerment and opportunity,” Aguiar-Curry said.

California Legislative Latino Caucus announces legislative priorities: On Tuesday the California Legislative Latino Caucus unveiled a 12-bill package of priority legislation, with measures that ranged from health care and education to immigration and voting.

In a statement, caucus chair Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) said many of the bills are in direct response to “reckless political decisions at the federal level” that “create worry and uncertainty about our future.”

State libraries brace for cuts in the wake of a presidential executive order: The California State Library could lose employees and digital services due to a presidential executive order that the state is challenging in court, State Librarian Greg Lucas told Capitol Weekly.

In early April, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state had joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in lawsuit over the Trump Administration’s Executive Order 14238, which calls for the gutting of several federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The institute gives California libraries $15 million annually, which Lucas said the state library uses to fund about 30 employees, including workers who serve the blind and visually impaired and dyslexic children, as well as digital services, like a 300,000-title digital library, that offer important resources to rural and other underserved communities.

Lucas also said the money goes towards things like innovation grants that go to libraries up and down the state to try out new initiatives.

“It’s not really going to have a material impact one way or the other on the federal budget, the $15 million to California,” Lucas said.

But he said those funds are critical to state libraries.

“It’s the primary source of money the state of California spends to support libraries,” Lucas said.

In a press release announcing the state’s involvement in the lawsuit in conjunction with National Library Week, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the executive order “an attack on libraries” and said “California is fighting back.”

Lucas said he was grateful that the threat to California’s libraries was garnering attention, but lamented the angst the executive order was causing, including forcing the employees at risk of losing their jobs to already start filling out paperwork in preparation for their potential layoffs.

Such “awfulness,” he said, drives good people out of libraries and other government work.

Still, he vowed that California’s libraries would weather the storm, no matter what happens. He said libraries remain relevant in modern society thanks to their focus on responding to the needs of their communities.

He said they’ll continue to do that as the State Library tightens its belt in the wake of the president’s executive order, which also targets the Minority Business Development Agency and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, among other agencies.

“California libraries will endure,” Lucas said.

State tax revenue strong, but federal cuts loom: Assembly budget adviser Jason Siney reported in his Substack newsletter this week that state General Fund revenues are $6.4 billion over monthly projections as forecast in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal. But Sisney also cautioned that “state revenues to date mostly reflect the 2024 economy, stock market, and tech sector, not economic activity since Trump’s discretionary actions to increase the risks of a global recession.”

Sisney also presciently accounted for the possibility of President Trump’s sudden reversal on global tariffs – which came less than 24 hours after he had imposed them – saying “If Trump—with his chaotic decision making—reverses course, that could help the situation, but some economic losses may persist due to lack of trust in our national leadership by investors, employers, consumers, and other governments.”

Before we slither off…Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that the Senate Governmental Organization Committee on Thursday unanimously endorsed SB 765, authored by Sen. Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks), a bill that would make the giant garter snake the state of California’s official snake. There are assuredly jokes to me made there – and Niello and several members of the Committee definitely did so – the reality of the threat to the giant garter snake across California is no laughing matter. Niello noted that the snake provides crucial benefit to the state’s rice growing economy by keeping down rodent populations that harm crops, and that the snake’s population has declined by more than 90 percent over the last century. The Committee agreed, and the bill is on its way to the Senate floor.

Capitol Weekly reporters Brian Joseph and Leah Lentz contributed to this story.