News
Odds are, in coming months you’ll become keenly aware that sportsbook operators and gaming tribes are waging a high-stakes ballot battle for control of sport gambling in California, and you may well get sick of it. That’s because both sides have $100 million war chests, ready to deliver their messages on every imaginable platform.
Podcast
CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: Last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade and allowing states to set their own abortion rules is nothing short of an earthquake in American life. Constitutional Law Professor Courtney Joslin joins us to talk about the Dobbs decision itself, the implications of the decision and Justice Thomas’ comments that other decisions, including Obergefell, legalizing Gay Marriage, may also need to be reconsidered.
News
The clerks, receptionists, and those who get the coffee in the Capitol have historically been “at will” employees – meaning the legislators who employ them can fire them whenever they wish. That may be about to change.
News
The “bubble babies” saga and a California-financed cure for their life-threatening affliction has hit another snag, more than two years after a British company abandoned the effort. It is a story that involves more than $40 million from California’s stem cell agency, federal regulators, the University of California, the agonizingly slow pace of science and 20 children who have been denied care — not to mention a company called Orchard Therapeutics PLC.
Podcast
CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: A Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast, recorded live, Thursday May 26 at CALIFORNIA VOTES, A 2022 Election Preview. This episode explores a proposed Ballot Initiative that would require CalRecycle to adopt regulations reducing plastic waste, including requirements that single-use plastic packaging, containers, and utensils be reusable, recyclable, or compostable, and prohibit polystyrene container use by food vendors.
News
The Northridge earthquake in 1994 killed people and damaged property. That is not all. That disaster also created the California Earthquake Authority, a public entity that oversees earthquake insurance coverage and makes it available to those who want it.
Podcast
CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: Sacramento lobbyist David Quintana joins us to talk about The Bash – the blowout party formerly known as the Back-to-Session-Bash – that will happen Wednesday, June 29.
News
California Community Colleges are hanging out the “help wanted” sign, as Chancellor Eloy Oakley steps down from the helm of the country’s largest college system to head an education advocacy group.
Podcast
CAPITOL WEEKLY PODCAST: Amy Chance, the longtime political editor of The Sacramento Bee, announced her retirement at the end of last month. We invited her to talk about her career, the biggest stories she’s covered, and the advice she gave to her reporters once she reached the editor’s desk.
News
A crack opened last week for the first time in 17 years in the firewall between state politicians and the $12 billion California stem cell agency. It involves only $600,000 — at least for now — and is buried deep in the 1,069-page state budget bill that was introduced June 8. But its implications are far-reaching. They range from opening the agency to major changes — wanted and unwanted — to creating a basis for the agency’s currently dubious, long-term financial sustainability.
Photo illustration of gambler using cell phone to place bets. (Image: WPadington, via Shutterstock)
