News
California has now reached an historic high of over 21 million registered voters. The current PDI voter file, after a full refresh of county files, puts total voter registration at 21,086,077. As a share of eligible voters, this puts the state at 83%, a higher rate of registration than we have seen since the presidential election of 1940.
Podcast
Lobbyist Jennifer Fearing operates Fearless Advocacy, a small “white hat” lobbying outfit that represents nonprofits, animal rights groups, environmentalists and other clients with feel-good causes. With clients like these, Fearing isn’t the highest-billing advocate on the block, but her record at the capitol is the envy of many of her peers.
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Landmark legislation to improve California’s notoriously fractured mental-health system has been passed and sent to the governor in the waning days of a chaotic legislative session disrupted by the COVID pandemic. “This package of legislation is a game-changer,” said Maggie Merritt, executive director of the Steinberg Institute.
Podcast
Republican political strategist Jon Fleischman has been a significant voice in California conservative circles for well over a decade; he formerly served as the Executive Director of the state GOP and his Flash Report blog, founded in 2005, was one of the first (and for a time, perhaps the most influential) insider political blogs in the state. He joined John Howard and Tim Foster for a wide-ranging conversation covering President Trump, the state of the GOP, pending legislation, Steve Bannon’s arrest – and who he voted for in the 2016 presidential election.
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Proposition 14, the fall ballot measure to save California’s stem cell agency from financial extinction, contains much, much more than the $5.5 billion that it is seeking from the state’s voters. Added to the agency’s charter would be research involving mental health, “therapy delivery,” personalized medicine and “aging as a pathology.“ That is not to mention a greater emphasis on supporting “vital research opportunities” that are not stem cell-related.
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California State University (CSU) is an engine of economic mobility for Californians, particularly those from historically underrepresented communities. The system’s 23 campuses are also vital in helping the state meet labor market demands for highly educated workers. But despite annual funding increases, CSU has struggled to enroll all eligible students in the face of increased financial pressures, including a lack of bond funding and ballooning costs for deferred maintenance.
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The patients at Dr. Eric Daar’s hospital are at high risk for serious illness from COVID-19, and he’s determined to make sure they’re part of the effort to fight the disease. He also hopes they can protect themselves in the process.
Podcast
August saw dramatic developments in the ongoing Dynamex/AB5/gig economy saga: following the August 13 ruling that confirmed an August 20 deadline for Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers as employees, the two companies announced that they planned to cease operations in California rather than comply. John Howard and Tim Foster of the Capitol Weekly Podcast reached out to Steve Smith of the California Labor Federation, one of the leading opponents of Proposition 22, to chat about this wild week and the issues behind AB5 and Proposition 22.
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The California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission has now seated all 14 members that will redraw the state’s legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization seats in 2021. This team is comprised of eight commissioners selected through a random draw among 35 finalists, and the remaining six are chosen through a selection process intended to balance out the commission on a number of factors, including race, ethnicity, gender, geography and skill sets.
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Tom Ammiano is a San Francisco icon. The first openly gay teacher in San Francisco, he served on the board of San Francisco Unified School District and in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, with future mayor, lieutenant governor and governor Gavin Newsom. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor several times and made his way to Sacramento, where he served in the Assembly from 2008 to 2014.
A potential voter fills out a voter registration form. (Photo: Rawpixel, com, via Shutterstock)
