Dan Jacobson, state director for Environment California. (Photo: Tim Foster)Dan Jacobson, Environment California’s state director, sits down with Capitol Weekly’s John Howard and Tim Foster to chat about the “straw law,” which would curb the proliferation of single-use plastic straws. Those ubiquitous little tubes damage the environment by ending up in the ocean and clogging waterways, among other things.
Migrant laborers work a Salinas, Calif., strawberry farm during harvest season. (Photo: David Litman, via Shutterstock) For the second time in recent months, the U.S. Department of Labor has extracted penalties from a California farm business blamed for the deadly crash of a vehicle transporting migrant field workers to their jobs. The Labor Department announced this month that Fisher Ranch LLC — a major produce farm near Calexico, close to the Mexican border — has agreed to pay $49,104 for violating the Migrant Seasonal Workers Protection Act. The case stemmed from a March 2017 van crash that killed one laborer and hurt six others.
A jail inmate in handcuffs awaits word on his case. (Photo: sakhorn, via Shutterstock)On any given day, thousands of jailed people are awaiting trial, sentencing or hearings in any of California’s 58 counties. Many are in custody because they cannot afford to post bail. Legislation to allow people to be free while their case is in the Legislature and its fate will be decided by midnight Aug. 31 when lawmakers adjourn.
A wildfire burns near Fallbrook in San Diego County on July 26. (Photo: Randy Miramontez) After two weeks straight of heavy smoke blanketing Northern California from multiple wildfires, some residents got a bit of a break this week. Blue skies began to reappear from Sacramento to the Sierra and “good” to “moderate” air quality ratings returned, replacing the previous alarming “unhealthy” ratings.
Welcome to the 10th running of Capitol Weekly’s Top 100 list, our annual look at people who aren’t elected to office but who wield decisive influence on California politics or policy — or both. Much has changed in the nine years since we started this exercise. We shifted from a Republican to a Democratic governor, emerged from the Great Recession to become the world’s fifth-largest economy and watched GOP voter registration dip to third-party status behind decline-to-state. Hardball politics got even harder.
Newly constructed homes waiting for owners. (Photo: Jennie Book, via Shutterstock)Brianne Tufts is exhausted. This is the third place Tufts has lived in as many years, and she’s worried she’ll have to move again because her apartment complex might increase the rent now that her lease has expired. It’s just after 11 a.m. on a Sunday in April, and the 24-year-old mother of two sits on the balcony of her cramped 2-bedroom south Sacramento apartment watching intently as her daughters play in the living room.
Firefighters cross scorched terrain in the Padres National Forest. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)Some were bank robbers, car thieves and burglars. Now they are on the front lines in the scary and dangerous job of saving California from raging wildfires. There are about 3,900 of them, all state prison inmate volunteers from 44 fire camps spread across California.
A Native American flag totem in rural Siskiyou County. (Photo: Zack Frank, via Shutterstock)A move to restore federal tribal recognition to a long defunct Siskiyou County Indian rancheria has received a major blow. Research done by a college professor indicates no Indian ever lived on the 441-acre Ruffey Rancheria outside Etna.
Mindy Romero of the Califorrnia Civic Engagement Project. (Photo: Scott Duncan, Capitol Weekly)Elections expert Mindy Romero of the California Civic Engagement Project joins Capitol Weekly’s John Howard and Tim Foster to chat about California’s primary election turnout and what we might expect to see in November.
Illustration by Chris Shary92. Roger Salazar
The San Francisco Chronicle once called him “a master of the soundbite” and Roger Salazar has the record to back up that description. He heads ALZA Strategies, a political communications firm with heavy connections to California’s Latino political community. The company just brought in as a partner veteran communications consultant Hilary McLean, who served