California Legislature: Big tests ahead

Now comes the laborious half.

That was the primary takeaway from Monday’s largely ceremonial flurry of exercise within the state Capitol.

Joined by their households, newly elected lawmakers have been sworn into workplace after opening speeches that at occasions ventured into the metaphysical, with Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon at one level evaluating the problem of political change to that of postmodern architecture: “Although you can tear down what came before you, you still need a structure in which to live.”

Lawmakers additionally convened Gov. Gavin Newsom’s special session on oil company profits, after which simply as shortly adjourned it: In the Assembly, group of the particular session lasted three minutes.

Newsom, in the meantime, unveiled the text of his proposal to enact a worth gouging penalty on oil firms about two months after first floating the idea — however many blanks, actually, nonetheless need to be stuffed in.

According to the Newsom administration, the invoice would allow the state to nice oil refiners with “excessive profit margins” and funnel the penalty a refund to Californians. But a number of the invoice’s most contentious features — together with the dimensions of the penalty and the definition of “excessive” margins — stay unclear and must be labored out in negotiations with the Legislature.

Some lawmakers have been hesitant to embrace the half-formed proposal, CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff and Sameea Kamal report: “It would certainly be problematic if in the short term it leads to higher prices for consumers,” mentioned Democratic Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin of Thousand Oaks.

• Newsom told reporters: “I hope it never goes into effect because these (companies) will change the way they’ve been doing business. We want them to make extraordinary profits. I’m not opposed to profits. They just can’t take advantage of you.”
• Kevin Slagle, a spokesperson for the Western States Petroleum Association, told the Los Angeles Times: “To … see no details on thresholds or what this penalty is and looks like … it makes us wonder if this is a real public policy discussion or more of the politics we’ve seen from this governor.”

Public coverage discussions aren’t likely to start until Jan. 4 at the earliest, when state lawmakers will reconvene each the common and particular legislative classes. Meanwhile, strain will probably maintain constructing on all sides: Greenpeace USA activists, for instance, unfurled banners in the state Capitol demanding lawmakers “make Big Oil pay.”

Other legislative news you must know:

• The speakership deal is official: The Assembly approved a resolution formalizing a management transition plan greenlighted by Democratic members last month: Rendon will stay speaker by way of June 30, 2023, at which level Assemblymember Robert Rivas of Hollister will take over.
• The Senate will get a brand new minority chief: Republican Sen. Brian Jones of Santee will replace Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita as chief of the Senate Republican Caucus.
• Lawmakers launched a torrent of new bills — although, once more, the laborious half will come subsequent 12 months, after they’ll face votes and debates. Key proposals embrace:
  • The newest try to permit legislative employees to unionize. “We ask our staff to write legislation and staff bills that expand collective bargaining rights for other workers in California, yet we prohibit our own employees from that same right,” Democratic Assemblymember Tina McKinnor of Inglewood, the invoice’s creator, mentioned in an announcement.
  • The newest try and impose new excise taxes on weapons and ammunition, authored by Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of Woodland Hills.
  • A invoice to specify a timeline for colleges to implement LGBTQ+ cultural competency trainer coaching underneath improvement by the state schooling division, authored by new Democratic Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur of West Hollywood.
  • A invoice to push California closer to its goal of offering debt-free college by permitting income-eligible UC and CSU college students to obtain expanded monetary support awards to assist cowl such non-tuition prices as housing, books, meals and transportation — authored by Democratic Assemblymembers Kevin McCarty of Sacramento and Sabrina Cervantes of Riverside.
  • And Assembly Republicans unveiled a package of bills called the “California Promise,” which name for suspending the state fuel tax, providing property tax bonuses to native governments that approve extra housing, banning homeless encampments close to colleges, rising penalties for fentanyl sellers, giving working households a tax credit score and increasing the renters’ tax credit score, selling transparency in class curriculum, and expediting environmental assessment for water storage initiatives, amongst different issues.

Make your voice heard: If you’ve all the time questioned how precisely California state authorities works, now’s your probability to ask: CalIssues is placing collectively an explainer and is in search of inquiries to reply and complicated processes to make clear. Submit your questions here.

Other Stories You Should Know

1
California election updates

Ahead of the Friday deadline for county elections officers to undergo the California secretary of state their ultimate results from the Nov. 8 election, let’s dive into the newest updates:

• Two legislative races are nonetheless too near name: As of Monday evening, Democratic incumbent Melissa Hurtado and Republican David Shepard every had 50% of the vote for a state Senate seat looping round east Bakersfield — and Democrat Christy Holstege and Republican Greg Wallis every had 50% of the vote for an Assembly seat straddling Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The contests have been just about neck-and-neck for days.
• Vice President Kamala Harris will swear in Rep. Karen Bass as Los Angeles mayor on Sunday: Bass requested the vp to manage the oath of workplace in recognition of their place as two of California’s strongest Black girls, according to the Los Angeles Times.
• Crypto meets Congress: Groups related to Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder of FTX — a cryptocurrency trade that was valued at $32 billion earlier than it abruptly went belly-up — spent closely on two Southern California congressional races, backing the profitable candidates Sydney Kamlager in Los Angeles and Robert Garcia in Long Beach, the Los Angeles Times reports. Kamlager, who as a state senator launched an unsuccessful invoice that may have allowed state companies to simply accept cryptocurrency as fee, told the Times she didn’t know the teams have been related to Bankman-Fried. “I wouldn’t know the person if he walked up and sold me a Snickers bar,” she mentioned.
• Will a Californian lead the Republican National Committee? Harmeet Dhillon, California’s Republican National Committeewoman, is making ready to launch a management bid, marking probably the most severe problem to this point for present chairperson Ronna McDaniel, Politico reports. Dhillon has lengthy performed a distinguished position in California GOP politics, and her profile grew amid the pandemic because of her regulation agency representing plaintiffs in many of the lawsuits against state COVID restrictions.

2
First public sale for California offshore wind

Imagine a future the place huge wind generators float within the ocean off California’s coast, with their blades — every larger than a soccer discipline — spinning within the air and producing sufficient electrical energy to energy tens of millions of houses. Today marks step one in a years-long journey to attain that aim: Starting at 7 a.m., federal officers will public sale off leases for parcels of ocean water about 20 miles off Morro Bay and Humboldt County — providing a vital first take a look at how sturdy the market is for producing offshore wind off California, a very difficult market, CalMatters’ Nadia Lopez reports.

• Habib Dagher, government director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, who helps develop the nation’s first offshore floating wind generators: “California has deeper waters than any other areas with these floating turbines so far in the world. … That adds costs and risks because no one’s building anything this big or this deep yet.” Dagher mentioned the generators could be in waters 2,490 toes deep off Humboldt County and three,320 toes in Morro Bay. The deepest venture to this point: 721 toes in Norway.
• Dagher added: “How do you protect the environment, protect local stakeholders, protect the fisheries, protect Indigenous communities, while also speeding up permitting so we make a difference with global climate change?” 
• The state doesn’t have a lot time to determine these thorny issues out if it desires to succeed in its goal of producing at least 25 gigawatts of energy from offshore wind sources by 2045 — sufficient to produce 25 million houses.

3
Real ID deadline delayed — once more

If you continue to haven’t gotten your Real ID, you’ll be able to relaxation just a little simpler: Citing pandemic-induced backlogs at state driver’s licensing companies, the federal authorities on Monday announced a two-year extension of its Real ID enforcement deadline, pushing it from May 3, 2023 to May 7, 2025. This marks at least the fourth extension since October 2020, the unique deadline for Americans to current a Real ID or different federally approved document assembly heightened safety and identity-verification necessities as a way to fly domestically or enter sure federal buildings.

• In March 2020, simply days earlier than California shut down on account of COVID-19, DMV Director Steve Gordon warned state lawmakers of an impending “untenable situation”: To meet the deadline, the DMV estimated it will must course of greater than 8 million Real IDs in just a little over six months, greater than triple its previous quantity.
• But the additional time has helped the DMV catch up. Gordon said in a Monday statement that just about 14.8 million Californians had a Real ID as of Dec. 1, a rise of greater than 2.6 million because the similar date final 12 months and up almost 200,000 from final month.
• Gordon: “If a Real ID is on your holiday wish list this year, we’ve made it easy for you to get one. All you have to do is fill out an online application, upload your documents and make a quick trip to the DMV.”

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