Photo by APLawmakers from D.C. to California are calling for tighter regulations on event ticket-selling giant Ticketmaster. But efforts to do so in California have into finger pointing and recriminations that leave those potential reforms in limbo.
Senator Steve Glazer. Photo by Joha Harrison, Capitol WeeklyPanelists at Capitol Weekly’s Covering California: The Future of Journalism in the Golden State conference on Thursday were blunt in their assessment of the news business these days – it’s not good, and it probably won’t get better anytime soon.
Andrea Amavisca, photo by Scott Duncan, Capitol WeeklyRaised as the child of immigrant parents in Imperial County, a rural agricultural region in Southern California nestled along the Mexico border, Andrea Amavisca always understood the value of immigrant rights. While she continues to work in that space, she is now working more closely on where LGBTQ+ rights and immigrant rights intersect.
Sacramento, California, United States. Image by Png-StudioFriday is the deadline for bills to get out of their house of origin, so this week lawmakers are addressing hundreds of bills in short order. Here is just a sampling of some of those measures.
Image by zimmytws via istockWhen the California Chamber of Commerce added Sen. Steve Glazer’s SB 1327 – a proposal to tax revenue from the sale of digital advertising as a way to help fund local newsrooms – to its annual list of “Job Killer” bills on May 7th, the measure became only the 14th this year to receive the designation. If that number doesn’t change, it would mark the fewest number of bills to receive the moniker since 2001, when only 12 bills were on the list.
The Capitol's Top power couple: Ann Patterson and Nathan Barankin. In just a few months, Capitol Weekly will unveil its 16th annual Top 100 list recognizing the most influential members of the Capitol community. As we began researching this year’s list, however, we realized that in all our years of the Top 100 we’ve overlooked a critical dynamic of Capitol clout: the Capitol power couple whose combined prominence and rolodex is greater than the sum of their parts. To rectify that, today we publish our first ever Capitol Weekly Top 10 Power Couples, along with three up-and-coming pairs to keep your eyes on.
Image by Serhej CalkaCalifornia’s Constitution provides the three branches of government, as well as the rights of direct democracy. Article III, Section 3 provides the separation of powers among the three branches of our state government: legislative, executive, and judicial.
Two connected puzzle pieces with the words politics and money, representing the influence of wealth in elections.Special interests, otherwise known as “lobbyist employers,” paid lobbying firms a little more than $76 million to lobby California state government in the first quarter of 2024, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of lobbying firm reports.
Flag of California in a mixed stack of coins. Image by eyegelbEagle-eyed readers of Capitol Weekly’s recent report on quarterly lobbying payments might have spotted an unfamiliar firm name among the top recipients for the first quarter of 2024: the Deveau Burr Group. Especially close readers also might have noticed that Strategies 360, a perennial top firm in Sacramento, was conspicuously absent from the list of top payees for the quarter.
Cancer cells. Cancer outbreak and treatment for malignant cancer. Image by Mohammed Haneefa Nizamudeencells in a human body. 3d illustrationA once-heralded research venture by the state of California that targeted “don’t eat me” signals that protect cancer cells has now ended. The potential treatment’s obituary boiled down to one phrase repeated six times and buried deep in a corporate document.