THE BUZZ: The Legislature commences right this moment with many new members and the possibility to safe or deny Gov. Gavin Newsom a career-shaping victory.
Newsom has staked a lot political capital currently on pushing local weather wins previous California’s formidable oil trade. He prevailed in an end-of-session push to fortify local weather targets and ban new wells close to houses and faculties. During the controversy and subsequent victory laps, he has assailed the fossil gas trade for obstructing progress. “We won. They lost,” he informed a Climate Week crowd in New York, although he needed to “jam” a Legislature stocked with “wholly owned subsidiaries of the fossil fuel industry.”
Now the governor’s direct problem to grease corporations would require cultivating lawmakers. The governor has referred to as a particular session to curb what he calls trade profiteering by going after extra income from inflated gasoline costs. It was going to be a “tax,” however Newsom is now pursuing a “penalty” – a vital distinction that lowers the required margin from a two-thirds vote to a easy majority. Getting to 41 and 21 is way simpler than 54 and 27.
It will nonetheless be a heavy carry. Newsom has closely promoted the windfall earnings play, embracing the position of a local weather warrior position who’s additionally centered on peoples’ wallets. But the coverage is untested and requires Democrats to take powerful votes initially of a new session. The final result may bear straight on Newsom’s political standing as he makes local weather coverage a part of his nationwide profile.
SUPERIOR SHUFFLE: Dozens of freshman members will take the oath right this moment. Change can be coming on the high: Both Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins are serving their ultimate phrases. Assembly Democrats ended a months-long standoff in November with a deal for Assembly member Robert Rivas to succeed Rendon in the summertime. The Senate has been much less combative, however Democrats might want to substitute Atkins. Stay tuned.
BYTHE NUMBERS: Tracking legislative turnover was overwhelming this yr as incumbents retired, resigned, or ran for one thing else, usually prodded by redistricting. Here’s the place we stand:*
35: The variety of new legislators, together with Assembly members shifting to the Senate (or within the case of Janet Nguyen, returning), that means almost a third of seats characteristic recent faces.
62 and 32: The variety of Democrats within the Assembly and the Senate, respectively. That places Assembly Democrats 8 votes above the two-thirds threshold and Senate Dems 5 over.
51: The variety of ladies legislators — an all-time excessive however nonetheless in need of the 60 seats wanted for gender parity. Speaking of variety: We rely a minimum of 12 LGBTQ legislators; 12 African-American lawmakers; 37 Latino lawmakers; 13 API lawmakers.
*(notice: two races stay undecided. We are counting with present totals which have Democratic Sen. Melissa Hurtado surviving a problem from Republican David Shepard — Hurtado took a 12-vote lead on Friday — and Republican Greg Wallis edging Democrat Christy Holstege).
BUENOS DÍAS, good Monday morning. Today is the deadline for opponents of California’s new quick meals office legislation to submit signatures for a referendum overturning the labor precedence measure. The franchise restaurant trade has raised $20 million thus far to nullify AB 257, with California icon In-N-Out Burger contributing $2.7 million.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “They’re starting to call me to get ready for what is a massive campaign – truly, massively expensive and hard-fought. It will be a very crowded field.” Former California Sen. Barbara Boxer on the incipient contest to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein — extra under.
TWEET OF THE DAY
WHERE’S GAVIN? On hand for right this moment’s actions.
SENATE STRIVERS — The shadow race is on to succeed Feinstein, by POLITICO’s Jeremy B. White: Sen. Dianne Feinstein hasn’t stated if she intends to hunt one other time period in 2024 — however the competitors to succeed the oldest member of Congress is escalating. Reps. Ro Khanna and Katie Porter are fielding entreaties to leap into the race, and Rep. Adam Schiff has publicly declared he’s exploring a run. Rep. Barbara Lee is spending the vacations mulling her subsequent transfer. Three hopefuls have contacted former Sen. Barbara Boxer to hunt her recommendation, marking the incipient levels of a fierce struggle between California Democrats for a seat that has not been open for a technology.
FACING FTX — “11 Hours With Sam Bankman-Fried: Inside the Bahamian Penthouse After FTX’s Fall,” by Bloomberg’s Zeke Faux: “It’s a muggy Saturday afternoon, eight days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. He’s shoeless, in white gym socks, a red T-shirt and wrinkled khaki shorts. His standard uniform.”
AND THE WINNER IS… “A Dead-Heat Richmond City Council Race Will Be Decided by Drawing a Name From an Envelope,” by KQED’s Matthew Green and Katherine Monahan: “The move comes after District 2 candidates Andrew Butt and Cesar Zepeda both received the same number of votes — 1,921, to be precise — in a recount that Contra Costa County election officials performed by hand this week, ahead of Friday’s vote-certification deadline.”
— “By tenths, Republican John Duarte beats Democrat Adam Gray in close congressional race,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Gillian Brassil: “The back-and-forth race began with Gray, 45, ahead on election night. Duarte took over for almost a week. Then Gray led briefly. Duarte emerged on top and held his place through now.”
KAMALA BOOSTER? — DNC moves forward with dramatic change to presidential primary calendar, by POLITICO’s Elena Schneider: The revised proposal would see South Carolina host the primary 2024 presidential main on Feb. 3, a Saturday, adopted three days later by New Hampshire and Nevada.
— “Eloise Gómez Reyes announces 2024 run for California State Senate,” by the Sun’s Beau Yarbrough: “Reyes currently represents Assembly District 50, which includes the unincorporated community of Bloomington and all of Loma Linda and Colton, plus parts of Fontana, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto and San Bernardino.”
TURNING OUT — “California’s latest election was a bigger turnout success than you might have heard,” opines Political Data Inc. proprietor Paul Mitchell for the Sacramento Bee: “These are a lot of voting reforms — the most nationwide. And they were implemented largely within a relatively short period of eight years. More remarkably, the reforms have worked.”
— “Los Angeles City Council votes to ban oil and gas drilling,” by the AP’s Drew Costley: “The vote comes after more than a decade of complaints from city residents that pollution drifting from wells was affecting their health.”
A GROWING GAP — “Inflation is producing, and hiding, hunger in Southern California,” by the Orange County Register’s Andrew Mouchard: “Consider: This month, if recent trends hold, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank will help about 800,000 people. That’s down from the 1 million people a month who were helped during the peak of the pandemic, but more than double the 300,000 helped during each of the last months of pre-pandemic 2019.”
— “How close is L.A. County to a new COVID-19 mask mandate? Here is what we know,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Rong-Gong Lin II and Luke Money: “It is still far from clear how big a potential winter surge could be. Some officials are optimistic the wave will not be as bad as past seasons. But officials warn that continued spikes in COVID-19 could bring a return to an indoor mask mandate.”
SPACING OUT — “These maps show exactly where San Francisco says it can build 60,000 new homes,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sriharsha Devulapalli and Susie Neilson: “This means that even in the best case scenario — hundreds of existing apartments get new units, every vacant lot gets developed and every major project gets built — the city would still be 20,000-plus units short of its minimum goal. And it’s 34,000 units short of its “target” objective of over 93,500 houses.”
— “Column: New York will treat more mentally ill people against their will. Should California follow?” Opines the Los Angeles Times’ Anita Chabria: “California is in the process of setting up Care Courts, a system of legally monitored treatment for people with serious mental illness that has been erroneously described as involuntary.”
SEEKING SHELTER — “As Winter Arrives, Orange County Still Has No One To Run Its Cold Weather Shelter,” by LAist’s Jill Replogle: “For the first time in 15 years, Orange County may go without a cold weather winter shelter for people experiencing homelessness.”
FINDING NONE— “Scathing allegations against Mayor Breed and city in lawsuit filed over treatment of the homeless,” by Mission Local’s Annika Hom and Will Jarrett: “Former San Francisco employees, including a director who worked with the homeless, allege that the city routinely cleared encampments while knowing there were not enough shelter beds available, according to new testimony filed in court Friday.”
— “25 classmates were hurt in a horrific crash. The recruits who remain fight through pain,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Brittny Mejia: “The remaining classmates this week returned to the Sheriff’s Training Academy and Regional Services, or STARS, Center. The Sheriff’s Department granted The Times access to the academy Wednesday but requested that the recruits not be interviewed due to the ongoing investigation.”
SNOOZE BUTTON — “California accused dozens of CHP officers of overtime fraud. Their defense: Everyone does it,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Wes Venteicher: “California Highway Patrol officers stationed in East Los Angeles grew so accustomed to uneventful overtime shifts that they set up a room with six beds where they could sleep while on duty, according to investigative reports prepared by the department.”
UNDERSTANDING THE CRASH — ‘We want him here’: Maxine Waters urges Bankman-Fried to testify, by POLITICO’s Declan Harty and Zachary Warmbrodt: Bankman-Fried has not but responded to the invitation, Waters stated. She is open to letting him seem through video, as he did at this week’s New York Times DealBook Summit.
— “Rep. Ro Khanna pushed back on Twitter suppression of Hunter Biden laptop story,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mallory Moench: “Khanna’s email surfaced as part of a release of internal company documents published on Twitter by journalist Matt Taibbi and authorized by Twitter’s new owner and CEO, Elon Musk. The new CEO characterizes himself as a champion of free speech, a principle he has tried to honor by reinstating banned accounts and firing off controversial tweets.”
280 NEW CHARACTERS — “‘No one is going to kill Twitter except Elon’: As Musk’s blue bird reels, the arms race for an alternative is on,” by Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo: “ It feels kind of like a pre-post-Twitter gold rush, with journalists, celebrities, politicos, and other public-facing figures descending on platforms that may or may not replace the one they’ve needed like oxygen for more than a decade.”
WATCH WHAT YOU TWEET — “Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find,” by the New York Times’ Sheera Frenkel and Kate Conger: “Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back. Accounts associated with QAnon, a vast far-right conspiracy theory, have paid for and received verified status on Twitter, giving them a sheen of legitimacy.”
— “Former FTX Executive Brett Harrison in Talks With Investors for New Crypto Startup,” by the Information’s Aidan Ryan and Erin Woo: “While the scrutiny is focused on former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and people in his inner circle, including Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, Harrison’s efforts also come as venture capital funding for crypto startups has been slowing sharply.”
MOVING WEST — “Deplorable: How Kanye West went from beloved generational rapper to far-right Hitler apologist,” by the Los Angeles Times’ August Brown: “After decades at the vanguard of music and fashion, West has descended into the far-right fever swamps, following months of antisemitic, Christian nationalist ravings on social media and podcasts.”
— “Taking nude photo of incarcerated woman in her cell was an accident, says ex-Dublin prison warden charged with sex abuse,” by Mercury News’ Nate Gartrell.
— “Black Californians have long celebrated cowboy culture. We’re just catching up,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Tyrone Beason.
BITING DOWN — “Girl Scout cookie season is in danger. Again,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mario Cortez.
— “‘Just a Distraction’: SF Activists React to Reports Iran Will Close Its Morality Police,” by the San Francisco Standard’s Noah Baustin.
— “Billions flow to Orange County charities every year,” by the Orange County Register’s Teri Sforza.
— Robert Edmonson shall be chief of employees to Rep-elect Robert Garcia. Edmonson has beforehand served as chief of employees to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
MONDAY: Evan Burfield …
SUNDAY: Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) … Amazon’s Rachael Lighty … Jennie Westbrook Courts of the Information Technology Industry Council … Yana Mayayeva of Rep. Jackie Speier’s (D-Calif.) workplace … Sarah Schanz
SATURDAY: Assembly member Laura Friedman
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