News
Qualifying a proposition for the ballot – much less convincing millions of voters to support it – is always a Herculean task. In the best of times, it requires a near limitless supply of money, talent and luck. Nobody right now thinks we are in the best of times. Many months now into the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of people instead feel trapped inside a George Orwell novel.
Podcast
Mark Guillen, the West Region public affairs manager for Crown Castle, a large telecommunications infrastructure provider, joins us to talk about the challenge of providing more robust and widespread internet access – and how long it might take.
News
Police response to mental-health calls often ends – again and again – in chaotic, noisy hospital emergency rooms, where staff is stretched thin, and a heart attack is likely to take precedence over someone in the throes of a mental-health crisis. “Traditionally, people would be dropped off at the ER, and the only option was to transfer them to a psychiatric facility,” says Dr. Scott Zeller, a nationally known emergency psychiatrist and former president of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry.
News
Kidney dialysis may sound like an odd topic for a California ballot proposition, but voters will tangle with the issue on Nov. 3 — for the second time.The basic fight over Proposition 23 is between organized labor, which favors the initiative, and the dialysis clinic industry, which is opposed. Surrounding the debate are questions of medical care quality, clinic staffing, access, and costs.
News
On the afternoon of May 8, 2017, the family of 32-year-old Mikel McIntyre called 911 for help in dealing with his increasingly erratic and threatening behavior. The former high school and college athlete, who lived in Antioch and had briefly played baseball in the minor leagues, had been showing signs of serious mental illness, and his mother was concerned. She hoped a visit with family in Sacramento might help. The first call, shortly after 3 p.m., indicated a possible mental-health crisis: McIntyre had locked himself in a vehicle and was being “slightly combative,”
News
The 2021 redistricting has begun in earnest with the seating of the first eight members of the California Citizens Commission, the so-called “Lucky Eight” because they were seated after a random draw of ping-pong balls. In the quarantine era, this drawing, carried live, likely qualified as riveting entertainment.
Podcast
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented heretofore-unseen challenges to students and teachers who have suddenly found themselves the “guinea pigs” in a massive distance learning experiment. California Teachers Association President E. Toby Boyd joins Capitol Weekly’s Tim Foster and John Howard to give an update on expectations for the upcoming school year and discusses another big CTA priority: passing Prop. 15, the “Split Roll” initiative that would decouple large commercial properties from Prop. 13.
News
California’s most heavily populated counties are drawing the most attention as COVID-19 spikes and spreads, with Los Angeles reporting more than 140,000 cases and nearly 3,900 deaths since March. But California’s rural counties also face immense challenges. And while their populations are less dense and the infection levels lower overall than the larger counties, the available health services often are scant.
News
Proposition 209, the constitutional amendment intended to prevent discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex in areas like public education and contracting, was approved by California voters a generation ago. In November, they will decide whether to get rid of it.
News
In recent months, mystery has surrounded the ownership of a controversial e-cigarette company that has reaped millions of dollars in sales of flavored, kid-friendly nicotine products by exploiting a loophole in federal regulations.
Photo illustration of a voter's reminder for the Nov. 3, 2020 general election. (Image: Prostock-studio, via Shutterstock)
