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OPINION – California’s overdose crisis has ignited fear in the hearts of parents across the state. The thought of our youth being exposed to substances like fentanyl causes anxiety and concern. While Governor Newsom and the California Department of Public Health have taken steps to address the overdose crisis through the statewide standing order for naloxone, it’s clear that this alone is not sufficient.
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Today is Election Day and while we won’t be certain who is moving onto the general until after the polls close this evening, there is one group of people we already know are big winners: the campaign consultants. Campaign consultants for state-level races have pocketed more than $10.7 million so far this election cycle, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of expenditure data downloaded last week from the California Secretary of State’s website, Cal-Access.
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After effectively rewriting the rules of American college athletics with her SB 206 in 2019 – a bill that made California the first state to give student athletes the right earn money from the use by their schools of their name, image and likeness (NIL) – Sen. Nancy Skinner has introduced new legislation (SB 906) seeking to bring some transparency to what has become a Gold Rush for some college athletes and their schools.
Rising Stars
Julie Cravotto, Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-San Luis Obispo), originally thought she would pursue a career in the public health field, but that ambition quickly came to a halt when she was assigned to a cadaver lab in high school as part of a medical school preparation program. Nonetheless, she learned the invaluable lesson that there are various avenues to serve people in this world besides attending to cadavers.
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California’s $12 billion stem cell agency is under “’unprecedented strain” and is ready to impose a five-month hold on applications for the key, $15 million research awards that support the final steps in bringing revolutionary treatments to patients.
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Lobbyist employers, otherwise known as special interests, paid firms a little more than $77 million to lobby California state government in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of lobbying firm reports. That figure doesn’t include all of the funds spent on lobbying during the fourth quarter. Lobbying firm disclosure reports don’t include wages and expenses for in-house lobbyists, for example.
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The man considered to be the father of the $12 billion California stem cell agency popped up in the news twice this month, once in a $38 million Sacramento lawsuit and then again as the host this month of a Biden campaign fundraiser whose tickets cost as much as $100,000.
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New Senate pro Tem Mike McGuire announced his Senate Democratic Leadership Team and committee membership assignments for the 2024 Legislative year. The Senate Rules Committee will ratify the committee memberships next Wednesday, February 14, 2024.
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Curt Pringle, who arrived in Sacramento as a brash 29-year-old conservative Republican in 1988, became the first Republican Assembly speaker in a generation, and likely the last Republican to hold that post for many years to come. In this newly published oral history interview, the former Assembly leader provides a first-hand account of the battle for the speakership following the 1994 election in which Republicans gained a shaky 41-39 seat majority in the 80-seat Assembly, but lost that majority when Republican Paul Horcher sided with Democrats to retain Willie Brown as speaker.
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Judy Yee, legislative director for Assemblymember Luz Rivas, isn’t just focused on her own career. She is looking to lift up those who have come behind her.
Image by Sonis Photography
