Posts Tagged: interview

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Interview: Environmental lobbyist Heidi Sanborn

Environmentalist Heidi Sanborn.(Photo: Screen capture via YouTube, from California insider)

California recently approved three sweeping environmental laws: SB 54, SB 343, and AB 1201. Hopefully, this game-changing legislation will shape national policy about recycling, composting, plastic pollution, and human health. We have many people to thank for the recent measures to reduce plastic pollution and increase plastic recycling, but we citizens rarely know who. Heidi Sanborn is one of those people.

News

CW Interview: The odyssey of Tom Ammiano — and a memoir

Tom Ammiano at a gay rights rally in 2011. (Photo: Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Wikipedia Commons)

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.

News

Capitol Weekly Interview: Jodi Hicks

Jodi Hicks at her office in Sacramento in November 2017. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)

Jodi Hicks is co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs’ Sacramento office. She is the first woman and the first Asian-America to serve in that role and is regarded as one of the Capitol community’s foremost advocates of quality health care. Capitol Weekly’s Chuck McFadden caught up with her recently for a chat.

News

Cannabis revenue coming up short

A flowering marijuana plant in a California destined to be used for medicinal purposes in California. (Photo: PRO Stock Professional

The California cannabis conundrum: A lot more weed, a lot less money. Since Proposition 64 took effect earlier this year, the cannabis industry has raked in nearly $135 million of revenue for the state through sales taxes, not including local jurisdiction taxes. Even with increased sales each quarter, some officials are calling the revenue “substantially below projections.”

News

Survey: GOP’s Cox hitting 2nd place in gov’s race

Illustration of casting a ballot in California. (Image: Niyazz, via Shutterstock)

Democrat Gavin Newsom has surged ahead of Antonio Villaraigosa in the state’s gubernatorial race, and Republican John Cox has made headway among the state’s likely voters. Senator Dianne Feinstein maintains her double-digit lead over fellow Democrat Kevin de León. These are among the key findings of a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

Analysis

Trump a template for future CA campaigns?

Presidential contender Donald Trump speaks at a Costa Mesa rally on May 25. (Photo: Mike LeDray)

The fact is, he won. He tweeted and bragged and insulted his way into the White House while Democrats talked about 23-point plans and fumed. Politicians, despite the beliefs of many Americans, are not stupid They saw what happened. So now the question that may soon to be bandied about in offices in and around the Capitol is this: in the light of Donald Trump’s victory, will California campaigns now begin to look Trumpesque?

News

Motor voter: An electorate in flux

As rush hour approaches, traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo: Frontpage)

To political experts up and down California, California’s new Motor Voter law is a question mark that likely will involve rethinking some practices and require a great deal of new effort. To Democrats, it’s the long-overdue removal of a barricade to full participation in California’s civic life. To Republicans, it poses a danger that a flood of illegal immigrants will start participating in political decision-making.

News

2014: A look back at key stories

UC Davis students protest occupy Mrak Hall to protest tuition increases. (Photo:: Sacramento Bee, via Associated Press)

Californians started 2014 the way they ended the previous year – parched by drought, hoping for an improved economy, outraged at Capitol corruption scandals and, finally, looking some relief at the fuel pump. Compared with the drought, the rest of the top stories of 2014 seemed almost trivial. Almost, but not quite.

News

Rejecting no-tax pledge was key moment for Olsen

When Republican Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen recently refused to sign the no-tax pledge, she drew fire from many in the GOP and skepticism from Democrats.

 

But whatever the political fallout, it didn’t have much impact on Election Day: She easily carried the 12th AD, which covers most of Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.

 

Drawing

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