Newsom’s Expansive Health Care Promises To Californians Remain Elusive

Five years ago, while running for governor, Gavin Newsom pledged to transform California’s medical care to a single-payer system similar to those in Canada and western Europe.

Newsom backed single-payer legislation, which had passed the state Senate, saying there was “no reason to wait around.”

“I’m tired of politicians saying they support single-payer but that it’s too soon, too expensive or someone else’s problem,” Newsom said.

His position helped solidify support for Newsom among the proposal’s progressive advocates as he dueled with a fellow Democrat, Antonio Villaraigosa.

The bill stalled in the Assembly, and after winning the election, Newsom began edging away from the single-payer concept, citing difficult barriers. One is persuading the federal government to give California the $200-plus billion it spends on Californians’ health care – about half the state’s total medical expenditures.

Newsom segued into pursuing universal health care, meaning all of the nearly 40 million Californians would have some sort of coverage, and came close last year.

At the time, “About 3 million Californians reported being uninsured in spring 2022,” a report from the Public Policy Institute of California notes, citing census data. “Nearly seven in 10 (68%) are Latino, about 38% are noncitizens and 80% have low or moderate incomes (below 400% of the federal poverty line).”

Some of the gap was closed in the 2022-23 budget, drawing on what seemed to be a nearly $100 billion budget surplus, by extending Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented immigrants otherwise ineligible for federally subsidized insurance.

“Beginning no later than January 1, 2024, Medi-Cal will be available to all income-eligible Californians,” the final 2022-23 budget declared.

The expansion of Medi-Cal – California’s version of the federal Medicaid program – was made easier during the COVID-19 pandemic when federal authorities relaxed eligibility requirements. This year, enrollment topped 15 million, or nearly 40% of the state’s population.

Under his “California Blueprint,” universal health care is still Newsom’s professed goal. However, at the moment, coverage appears to be shrinking, and with the state facing chronic budget deficits, reaching it before Newsom’s governorship ends would be difficult, if not impossible.

The federal government’s “continuous enrollment” pandemic policy is expiring and hundreds of thousands of Californians who benefited from it will once again have to prove their eligibility.

Newsom’s revised 2023-24 budgetunveiled last month, projects that Medi-Cal enrollment will decline by more than a million people, still more than a third of the state’s population but moving away from the universal coverage Newsom has sought as a single-payer substitute.

Single-payer advocates are, unsurprisingly, annoyed by Newsom’s failure to deliver on his 2018 promise. They gave him some heat when he appeared at last month’s state Democratic Party convention.

Covering all Californians would be expensive. Medi-Cal coverage costs federal and state governments about $10,000 per enrollee. No one knows precisely how many Californians still lack coverage today but 2 million is as good a number as any, and including that many more in Medi-Cal could potentially cost another $20 billion a year.

Meanwhile, single-payer advocates haven’t given up. Last week, the California Senate passed Senate Bill 770, aimed at implementing a plan for single-payer coverage developed by the Healthy California for All Commission, which Newsom created in 2019.

The bill would direct state agencies to begin talks with federal officials about participating in a California single-payer system.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

Migrants’ Trip to Sacramento Aboard Private Jet Appears to Have Been Arranged by State of Florida, Officials Say

More than a dozen migrants from South America who were recently flown on a chartered jet from New Mexico and dropped off in Sacramento were carrying documents indicating that their transportation was arranged by the state of Florida, the California attorney general’s office said Sunday.

The documents appear to show that the flight was arranged through the Florida Division of Emergency Management and that it was part of the state’s migrant transportation program, according to a spokesperson with the attorney general’s office who did not want to be identified.

The contractor for that Florida program is Vertol Systems Co., which coordinated similar flights that took dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts last year, the spokesperson said. Also last year, eight Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to Sacramento.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta could not be reached for comment Sunday. Officials declined to comment further because the incident remains under investigation.

The 16 migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were initially transported by bus from El Paso to New Mexico, where they boarded the flight to Sacramento, officials said. They were dropped off at the doorstep of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento on Friday.

Their arrival, for which no politician or organization has yet to publicly claim responsibility, adds fuel to a controversy over similar ploys by conservative politicians in Republican-led states.

They and their supporters have said the efforts are aimed at raising awareness of the influx of migrants over the southern border and bringing the issue to the doorsteps of authorities in states led by Democrats. Opponents describe the moves as cruel political stunts that use immigrants as pawns and leave them many miles from family, resources and even the courthouses where they are often expected to appear to plead their cases for asylum.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement that he and Bonta, also a Democrat, met on Saturday with more than 12 of the migrants, who “were transported from Texas to New Mexico before being flown by private chartered jet to Sacramento and dumped on the doorstep of a local church without any advance warning.”

Newsom added that his office and the California Department of Justice are working together “to investigate the circumstances around who paid for the group’s travel and whether the individuals orchestrating this trip misled anyone with false promises or have violated any criminal laws, including kidnapping.”

Bonta confirmed that his office is “investigating the circumstances by which these individuals were brought to California” in a statement Saturday.

“We are also evaluating potential criminal or civil action against those who transported or arranged for the transport of these vulnerable immigrants,” he added. “While this is still under investigation, we can confirm these individuals were in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida.”

The situation in Sacramento is playing out against a backdrop of intense national debate over how to handle the influx of migrants who enter the U.S. across the Mexican border each year. That debate has come to a head in response to similar efforts championed and supported by Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida that have displaced thousands of migrants and generated widespread controversy in recent years.

In September, Abbott bused about 100 migrants to Washington, D.C., where they were dropped off outside the Naval Observatory, the home of Vice President Kamala Harris. That same month, DeSantis — who is now a top contender for the GOP presidential nomination — sent a group of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy liberal haven off the coast of Massachusetts.

Neither governor’s office responded immediately to requests for comment on Sunday.

Newsom has made a habit of attacking DeSantis and Abbott over a host of issues that divide the nation, routinely blasting their stance on immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, gun control and abortion. He launched a political action committee this year aimed at supporting Democrats running in red states. In a video announcing the effort, Newsom said “authoritarian leaders” are a problem for the country as images of DeSantis and Abbott flash across the screen.

Jaime Soto, bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento, said in a statement Saturday that the diocese is working with other groups to help the new arrivals.

“The urgency to respond was heard by Catholics and people of goodwill,” he said. “We are thankful to our partner organizations who took up the holy work of hospitality, dedicating their time and resources to ensure that every migrant did not feel alone and abandoned.”

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg called for an investigation into the latest incident in a Saturday statement.

“Human trafficking is not only despicable; it’s a felony. … Whoever is behind this must answer the following: Is there anything more cruel than using scared human beings to score cheap political points?” he said.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Orange County GOP Identified Former Republican Voters — And Now It Wants to Woo Them Back

More than 27,000 Republican voters in Orange County have switched to no party preference in the past six years.

That’s according to Orange County Registrar of Voters data obtained by the county GOP, said its executive director, Randall Avila. And in an effort to “bring these Republicans home,” Avila said, Orange Country Republicans will host a series of re-registration trainings for volunteers ahead of the 2024 elections.

The idea, he said, is to train volunteers who can find and meet with “these no party preference, formerly Republican, voters.” Volunteers will be given a rundown of the data, who the voters are and how to “re-register” them as Republican voters — both on paper and online.

“It’s not terribly difficult or complex; it’s more of just talking to your neighbors because we’ll assign most of the volunteers to their own neighborhoods,” Avila said. “Maybe they know the Joneses down the street, maybe they talk politics, maybe they walk their dogs together or see them at the park. Maybe they’re on the Little League team together. And maybe they didn’t even know that their friend was no longer Republican, but they know that they share conservative values.”

In Orange County, the largest withdrawal of Republicans from the party came in 2019, the year the voter registration advantage switched from a Republican to a Democratic plurality, Avila said.

Democrats have since widened the gap, accounting for 37.6% of the county’s registered voters, Republicans for 33.1% and no party preference for 23.5%, according to the Registrar of Voters.

Despite Democrats’ advantage, Republican candidates at the state and local level had a strong showing last year: Orange County voters chose Republican challenger Brian Dahle over incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom as well as Republican candidates for lieutenant governor, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, attorney general and insurance commissioner.

“I think we have a strong advantage on no party preference voters and independents,” Avila said. “And especially in a presidential year, that’s going to depend on who our nominee is.”

The county Republican Party has already sent volunteers to canvass some of these former Republicans, “not for the point of registration but more of a fact-finding mission,” Avila said.

“When we talked to these voters at their doors, we asked them if they were willing to share with us the reason for their party change,” Avila said. “And we found basically an even split in three ways.”

The first group, he said, are individuals who weren’t aware they were registered as no party preference.

In the rollout of California’s “Motor Voter” program, which automatically registers eligible Californians completing a driver’s license, state identification or change of address transaction through the DMV to vote, the DMV made processing mistakes with 23,000 Californians, including assigning some to political parties they didn’t choose.

The Orange County Republicans’ data showed that some 13,000 Orange County Republican voters switched to no party preference through the DMV. Some have told OC GOP volunteers, Avila said, that their party preference was incorrectly changed at the DMV.

The remaining two groups, Avila said, are voters who feel the Republican Party is “changing in the wrong direction.” While one group believes the GOP “isn’t supporting Donald Trump enough,” there is another that felt the party is headed “too far toward” the former president, said Avila.

Part of the latter group is former Westminster councilmember and one-term state Rep. Tyler Diep, a former Republican who re-registered as no party preference in 2021, shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection and attack on the Capitol.

“I was pretty appalled by what happened on Jan. 6 and then afterward when many of the leaders within the Republican Party downplayed the severity of that event,” Diep said. “It was the final straw for me as far as whether I belong in such a party anymore.”

Diep, who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, said he isn’t sure who he’ll back this year — but it definitely won’t be Trump, he said. For now, he hopes Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, does well in the early-voting states.

“We’ll wait and see if anyone can overcome Donald Trump’s personality within the Republican Party,” Diep said.

If a candidate other than Trump seems to have a good chance, Diep said he won’t rule out the option of re-registering as a Republican to support that person.

“Like many other independents, we have to sit back and say, ‘What are our choices, and what other factors can influence our decision?’ I’m going to look at how President Biden handled the economy, inflation, the war in Ukraine,” said Diep. “Based on all of that, I’ll make my final decision sometime in October of next year.”

Despite the clear distinction between the two groups, Avila said, the county party isn’t planning on sending out differing messages to win voters back.

“We’re not going to go to folks who are highly supportive of President Trump, and tell them we’re pro-Trump, and then walk to their neighbor who’s anti-Trump and say something else,” said Avila. “Our singular message is you get to decide the direction of the party, and to do that, you have to participate to decide who’s going to be that standard bearer, who’s going to be our nominee going forward.”

Ada Briceño, chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County, said her party does voter registration year-round — whether that’s registering someone in a household who has not yet voted or ensuring an individual’s voter registration is as it was intended.

The Orange County Republican Party will kick off the first session of the training on Saturday, June 24, and continue on until next year’s March primary, Avila said. It will be a continuous effort, he said.

“Twenty-seven thousand is a big number,” Avila said. “It may not be that first knock on the door. It may be a phone call after building the relationship and the trust of that person to get them to change registration.”

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Fresno Cashier’s Crusade To Stop Alleged Thief with Colliding Vehicle Gets Her Fired

A Fresno cashier who was tired of watching people steal took matters into her own hands by chasing after a shoplifter.

But she ended up getting fired.

Jessie Sotto, formerly an employee at the Dollar General store in the area west of Highway 99, told TMZ that she’s upset about losing her job because she thought she was a good cashier and had her former employer’s best interests at heart.

The cashier’s quest to catch the alleged thief was caught on video and ended up going viral, with footage showing Sotto using a vehicle to collide into a man on a bicycle.

“Like I’m sick and tired of people getting away with crime,” Sotto said in her interview with TMZ. “Why are honest people that work so hard — like me, a hard working mom — not manipulating the system (and) working hard.

“And you’ve got this person just stealing stuff.”

Sotto said she’d seen the man steal in the Dollar General store before and warned him to stop stealing and not come back.

But when he showed up again last month and took more items without paying, Sotto said she’d seen enough.

“My thought process was to go after him, tell him to stop, get the stuff back,” Sotto said. “I felt like I had the right to go after him.”

So Sotto got into her vehicle and chased after the man, who was riding a bike.

A residential doorbell camera captured on video of what happened next: Sotto’s vehicle colliding with the man and his bike to the sound of screeching brakes, and stolen items flying in several directions, some splattering onto the driveway.

Among the items that appeared to come out of a laundry basket being held by the man toward the front of the bike were: milk, cereal, shampoo, chips, a few bottles of Gatorade and soda, and a small bouquet flowers (the incident happened three days before Mother’s Day).

The man falls forward from the crash but manages to use his hands to brace himself.

“I saw it happening live from my work,” said the Fresno resident whose doorbell camera captured the incident, and asked to remain anonymous. “I was just in total shock watching it all play out.

“She cut him off and he went flying forward. Honestly, I thought it was hilarious at first. That’s why I posted it. How often do you see an employee chase after a person who stole stuff? She went above and beyond. And I knew she was an employee because she was still wearing her smock.

“But,” the Fresno resident added, “I later started realizing how severe this situation could’ve been and someone could’ve really gotten hurt.”

Sotto said she drove alongside the man for a bit prior to what the video shows, and twice asked him to return the items and stop stealing.

“He said ‘Stop messing with my life. You don’t know me. No, I’m not going to give the stuff back,’” Sotto recalled the alleged thief saying.

From Sotto’s perspective, she did not crash into the man with the vehicle but instead abruptly stopped her car in the bike’s pathway.

“I stomped on my brakes and I was in no movement whatsoever in my car when I pulled in front of him,” Sotto said “I guess he couldn’t see that I had stopped because he had a basket full in front of the handles.

“Then he just ran right into my car.”

Following the collision, the man and Sotto curse and yell at each other.

Their encounter never gets physical with any punches or pushes.

But when Sotto tosses the man’s bike to the side with one hand, the man responds by aggressively throwing an item into her car, which had a window open.

It also becomes clear in the video that the front wheel of the man’s bike becomes severely bent from the crash.

“It ain’t that f****** seriously,” the man says to Sotto. “Who cares! Everybody steals all the f****** time.

“You going to jail for that.”

All the while during their heated exchange, the man and Sotto each pick various items.

“And I’m pressing charges,” the man says.

Click here to read the full article from the Fresno Bee

Judge Robbed at Gunpoint Near Oakland Courthouse, Deputies Say

An Alameda Superior Court judge was robbed at gunpoint in a parking lot near an Oakland courthouse Thursday morning, the county Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

The incident took place around 8:50 a.m. in a parking garage near 13th and Madison streets in Oakland, just a block from the Superior Court courthouse. The assailants were described as three males wearing masks, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The judge, whom law enforcement officials did not identify, was uninjured, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

Former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey Weighs U.S. Senate Bid

Former Los Angeles Dodgers icon Steve Garvey is considering running for the open U.S. Senate seat in California as a Republican, a move that would immediately upend the 2024 race, according to several GOP state party insiders and operatives who requested anonymity to discuss the former All-Star’s plans.

The 74-year-old has never held elected office but has been meeting with GOP donors and leaders around the state as he weighs a bid and is expected to make a decision within the next month or so.

Republican strategist Andy Gharakhani, who is advising Garvey, confirmed that the Palm Desert resident is weighing a campaign.

“He is being contacted by leaders up and down the state. They’re recruiting him to run from both sides, Republican and Democrat, and he’s seriously considering it,” said Gharakhani, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of New Majority, an influential business-minded donor group. “We should have a decision made here in the next few weeks.”

Garvey did not respond to requests for comment.

If Garvey runs, he will focus on quality-of-life issues such as the cost of living and public safety in California, Gharakhani said.

California has a rare open Senate seat because long-time Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, who is facing significant health issues, has announced that she will not seek another term in 2024. Twenty candidates had filed to run for her seat by the end of March, according to the Federal Election Commission.

The three most prominent Democrats, who have each raised at least seven figures, are Reps. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland. Los Angeles attorney Eric Early, who ran unsuccessfully for California attorney general in 2022 and 2018, is the most prominent Republican who is officially running.

Given Democrats’ overwhelming voter-registration advantage in the state, any Republican running to succeed Feinstein faces an extremely tough challenge. No GOP candidate has won statewide office in California since 2006.

Garvey has reportedly told potential supporters that he is aware of his odds, but feels it is important for the party to have a prominent name at the top of the ballot, according to multiple people who have spoken with him.

Because of the state’s “jungle primary” system, Garvey’s entry into the race would be notable. The two candidates who receive the most votes in the March primary will advance to the general election in November 2024, regardless of party.

Normally, having multiple Republicans on the ballot would dilute the party’s chances of making the general-election ballot. But this calculus could be upended because of Garvey’s celebrity and name recognition in two of the state’s largest cities. The first baseman played for the Dodgers from 1969 to 1982 and for the San Diego Padres from 1983 to 1987. In addition to a 1981 World Series victory, Garvey was a 10-time National League All-Star and won four Gold Glove awards.

“Garvey was a sports legend a generation ago, but that’s who makes up the electorate,” said GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, a former advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who describes Garvey as “my childhood hero” but has no involvement in his effort. “And he was huge in two markets. He was a hero in Los Angeles as well as in San Diego for the Padres. He did a ton of advertising over the years. He’s a very well-known former athlete in California, and, assuming a strong and competent candidacy, I think he would absolutely have the opportunity to consolidate the Republican vote in the primary.”

A Garvey candidacy would excite long-suffering California Republicans, even though his odds of success would be low, Stutzman added.

“It’s very tough for any Republican to win statewide, and that’s probably more true in a U.S. Senate race,” Stutzman said. “However, he could possibly be a wild-card candidate that could really change the dynamic in a way we haven’t seen happen in well over a decade. It’s hard to predict victory, but it could certainly be a real boost for the party.”

Early, who lost to Schiff in a 2020 congressional contest, said he was not concerned.

“All I know about Steve Garvey is he was a ballplayer 40 years ago and he has more baggage than the Pacific Surf Liner,” Early said.

Among the controversies in Garvey’s past are fathering two children with different women shortly before he married a third.

Early also pointed to his strength in a recent poll by UC Berkeley co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Among voters likely to take part in the primary, Early has support from 18%, nearly all Republicans. Porter is close behind with 17%, followed by Schiff with 14% and Lee at 9%.

“Our campaign is solely focused on beating the three extremists I’m running against,” he said, adding, “regardless of who gets in the race, we’re going to beat him and get in the top two.”

Garvey’s age could also be an issue — it’s unclear whether voters concerned about an octogenarian senator’s capabilities would want to replace her with a septuagenarian.

Garvey has flirted with running for office for decades. In 1981, he told Playboy magazine that he had been approached about running for the Senate because he could “make this society a better place to live in for all of us” and that he may one day consider running for the White House.

Seven years later, Garvey attended the Republican National Convention in New Orleans as he raised money for future President George H.W. Bush, and spoke about his political ambitions.

“Precedents have been set,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune, adding that he might ponder a statewide run in 1990 or 1992. “We’ve had an actor in the White House. Why not a first baseman?”

Garvey has spent much of recent years unsuccessfully trying to win a spot in the baseball Hall of Fame, commenting on the sport and promoting the game in Ireland. But he has recently shown a renewed interest in politics, including meeting with California political donors and leaders.

In mid-May, Garvey attended a California GOP donor appreciation event for supporters who had contributed at least $45,500 at the Omni Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage.

His potential candidacy was “openly discussed at the event,” said a prominent Republican who attended the event, which was hosted by the state’s GOP legislative leaders as well as the leader of the state party. “He attended the receptions, played golf, interacted with the attendees. He was very engaging.”

On Tuesday, Garvey headlined a fundraiser for Rep. Michelle Steel at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach where he autographed baseballs.

Garvey is also scheduled to headline the Orange County Republican Party’s signature Flag Day salute on June 14.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Davis Killings Renew Focus on Death Penalty

In Yolo County, just west of Sacramento, the decision on whether to pursue the death penalty rests with one man, Dist. Atty. Jeff Reisig.

Of course, the same is true in California’s other 57 counties, where district attorneys ultimately make the call. But, as Reisig told me when I sat down with him recently, “It’s absolutely fair to say that in 58 counties in California, every D.A. probably does it differently.”

Reisig may soon be facing that decision yet again, for about the 30th time in his more than 16 years in office, in the case of the young man accused in a series of stabbings that terrorized the nearby college town of Davis. Over the course of a few days in April, two men were killed and a woman was knifed through the fabric of her tent, leaving her alive but in critical condition.

The suspect in the unexplained spate of violence is 21-year-old Carlos Reales Dominguez, a former UC Davis student who has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody in the Yolo County jail.

It’s the kind of frightening and inexplicable case that leaves many of us split on what justice could look like if Dominguez is eventually found competent to stand trial — especially in a state where the death penalty remains on the books but is impossible in practice since Gov. Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on it with an executive order in 2019 and shuttered the state’s death chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

So I asked Reisig how he’ll decide — and why.

Reisig can’t speak in specific terms about the Dominguez case, of course, but he was willing to walk me through the process he uses in general, and how both the law and the sentiments of Yolo residents weigh into it.

First off, he told me he doesn’t care about Newsom’s executive freeze.

In fact, Reisig said he considers it an authoritarian overreach for the governor to insert himself into the death penalty debate after voters in both 2012 and 2016 decided to keep the option on the books.

He points out that another governor could reverse Newsom’s order, though in dark-blue California, that is unlikely.

The moratorium “has no basis, no influence on whether or not I’m going to do my job,” Reisig said. “If the voters, you know, are given another chance on an initiative and they reject [the death penalty], so be it. That’s democracy. But what we’re living through right now, with the governor’s self-imposed moratorium, I think, is really not democracy.”

Reisig pointed out that only a few types of cases qualify for the death penalty — most commonly first-degree capital murder cases with a narrow set of special circumstances such as lying in wait or killing a police officer. So the first part of his decision is just running though the law to see if a case qualifies.

On the surface, this case could, given the charges. But at a recent hearing, a judge ordered a mental competency evaluation for Dominguez, who unsuccessfully asked to represent himself. That first competency hearing is set for June 20 and will likely begin a lengthy process of determining his fitness for trial.

For Reisig, if a suspect is determined to have a mental illness that played a significant role in the commission of the crime, he won’t pursue capital punishment.

He considers it “profoundly” wrong to seek the death penalty for someone who can’t understand their actions, which seems obvious.

But I promise you some D.A.s would contest a finding of mental incompetency no matter what.

If the mental competency is there and the case qualifies legally, Reisig begins his own internal investigation that looks not just at the crime, but circumstances that make it worse than the average capital murder (aggravating factors), as well as mitigating factors such as whether the person was under duress that may offer some explanation.

He also considers the “special K” evidence, named after its position in the applicable penal code, that’s basically a catch-all for anything else that’s relevant.

“And for that, you literally go back to birth,” he said. “You look at, has this person demonstrated violence throughout their life? Are they a Charles Manson kind of guy? Or is it just like a one and done?”

Interestingly, while a D.A. can consider age in the final decision, age isn’t considered a mitigating factor — meaning suspects don’t get a break just because they’re youthful.

“Just the fact that somebody is young, in their 20s or whatever, does not mean by law that [they’re] not eligible for or not appropriate for the death penalty,” he said.

Once all that evidence is gathered, he brings together his top advisors and they hash it out. “We talk about it, we debate it,” he told me. “We dig, we ask more questions. Sometimes those conversations can take hours, sometimes it’s days, sometimes we’re thinking about it over, you know, weeks.”

But once that team makes a recommendation, “I make the decision,” he said.

Part of that final call is whether he thinks he can win at trial.

Reisig calls Yolo “the most liberal county from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.”

That’s one of the reasons that in his nearly two decades as its top prosecutor he has chosen to pursue the death penalty only one time: in the 2008 murder of Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Jose Antonio Diaz (though he inherited a death penalty case from his predecessor too).

“That’s come up a lot, where the case on its face, we all can look at it and say, ‘Yeah, this guy is really the extreme. Like he’s a psychopath. This is terrible. He meets all the statutory elements.’ But will a jury of Yolo County folks go for that? And that, I mean, that changes county to county, right?”

Reisig said that because “people have such entrenched views” on the death penalty, it can be hard to even seat a jury on a capital case.

He points out that, legally, a juror has to be willing to consider either life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. “Well, good luck,” he said of finding jurors open to weighing both.

“People come in and they’re like, ‘No, I will never vote for the death penalty,’ or ‘This guy, this person should always get the death penalty,’” he said. “And so I don’t want to pursue a death sentence on somebody that I know, based on my experience, I have no chance of getting 12 people to agree.”

In the case of Diaz’s murder, Reisig won a death penalty conviction in 2011 against Marco Topete after a jury deliberated for days. Reisig said he and the defense team screened more than 600 jurors before seating their panel — a tough task in a county of about 200,000 people.

In the case he inherited from a previous district attorney, the 2005 killing of CHP Officer Andy Stevens, the jury took only two days to decide on death for Brendt Anthony Volarvich, then 22 and a member of a white pride gang called the Peckerwoods.

Before I left, I asked Reisig if he is for or against the death penalty, and he told me it’s not about his personal beliefs, though “if the people voted to do away with the death penalty, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

Personally, I am against it precisely because there’s so much discretion in how it is applied. How can we ever feel confident it’s fair, regardless of the moral debate?

Support for the death penalty has fallen dramatically across the country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, as have the number of executions and death sentence convictions.

In 1999, executions reached their highest annual number with 98 people put to death.

Death sentences peaked a few years earlier in 1996, with 315.

Click here to read the full article in LA Times

Facing Sweltering Summers, California’s Newsom Floats Plan for State to Buy Energy

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — For most of the year, California’s quest to rid itself of fossil fuels seems on track: Electric cars populate highways while energy from wind, solar and water provides much of the power for homes and businesses.

Then it gets hot, and everyone in the nation’s most populous state turns on their air conditioners at the same time. That’s when California has come close to running out of power in recent years, especially in the early evenings when electricity from solar is not as abundant.

Now, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to buy massive amounts of renewable energy to help keep the lights on. The idea is to use the state’s purchasing power to convince private companies to build largescale power plants that run off of heat from underground sites and strong winds blowing off the coast — the kinds of power that utility companies have not been buying because it’s too expensive and would take too long to build.

“We laid out the markers on solar and wind, but we recognize that’s not going to get us where we need to go,” Newsom said during a news conference last week. “The issue of reliability has to be addressed.”

There’s a lot at stake, not just for the future of clean energy, but for Newsom himself. The Democratic governor, now in his second term and widely seen as a future presidential candidate, insists California will be carbon neutral by 2045. But this goal is often mocked in the summer when, to avoid rolling blackouts, state officials turn on massive diesel-powered generators to make up the state’s energy shortfall.

Demand for electricity in California has increased as the state takes step to move away from fossil fuels, including banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. California will need to add about 40 gigawatts of new power over the next 10 years, according to the California Independent Systems Operator, which manages the state’s power grid. One gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 homes.

If the state buys lots of power from offshore wind and geothermal sources, it could mean they don’t need those emergency diesel-powered generators anymore. Wind is typically strongest in the evenings, and geothermal energy is available all the time.

This would be a big change for California, where up to now utility companies have been responsible for buying their own power. Customers would have to pay for the new power the state buys through a new, still undetermined, charge on their electric bills.

Californians already pay some of the nation’s highest energy bills. But one consumer advocacy group said Newsom’s proposal could be better for customers in the long-run. State regulators would not decide what the charge will be until the power projects are up and running — potentially several years away.

“There’s nothing free here, it’s just a question of what’s the most efficient way to develop resources,” said Matthew Freedman, staff attorney with The Utility Reform Network, a group that advocates for affordable and reliable energy. “It’s our hope that this arrangement will result in lower total costs across the state.”

Newsom’s proposal has the support of some of the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric. PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo called Newsom’s proposal “likely the most efficient way to achieve a clean energy future,” saying that the state should make sure the power it buys is distributed fairly among utilities in the state.

Publicly-owned utilities, like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, fear the state’s entrance into the energy market will create new competition, potentially increasing prices for everyone in a market already struggling with a lack of supply.

Patrick Welch, legislative director for the California Municipal Utilities Association, said if California starts buying power the state would be competing with utilities “and that could further drive up prices.”

“In the past two or three years, the market for new resources has gotten incredibly tight,” he said. “That tightness is really impacting the price of energy and particularly during the summer months.”

Democratic lawmakers have changed Newsom’s proposal to ease some of those concerns. While Newsom wanted the state to buy any type of power, lawmakers say it should be restricted to offshore wind and geothermal — two power sources that the utility companies currently aren’t buying. The proposal is pending in the legislature.

“When you leave stuff vague, then it creates uncertainty. And at this point in time, uncertainty is not good in the investment world,” said Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat and chair of the budget subcommittee that is vetting Newsom’s proposal.

Advocates say California is in a prime position to try something like this. Last year, five companies spent more than $750 million to lease areas off the California coast for offshore wind projects. These projects could collectively generate close to 5 gigawatts of energy, according to Alex Jackson, director of American Clean Power Association, which represents these companies. That’s enough to power more than 3.5 million homes.

If approved, the next step is getting the permits and building the turbines and the infrastructure necessary to transport the power to the grid. It would be easier for these companies to sell all of their power to the state instead of selling pieces of it to multiple utilities.

“We do think there is real advantages of having a single buyer,” Jackson said.

Another area ripe for new energy development is the Salton Sea, a large saltwater lake in Southern California that has been slowly drying up. Beneath the surface of the lakebed, heat from the Earth warms underground water. Geothermal power plants use steam from this water to spin turbines that generate electricity. The water also contains lots of lithium, which is used to make batteries that power cell phones and electric cars.

There are only a few companies capable of building these large, complex power plants that take many years to build.

Click here to read the full article in AP News

Tax on Short-Term Rentals Like Airbnb Could Fund California Affordable Housing

California lawmakers are considering a measure this session that would tax short-term rentals to fund affordable housing projects, a proposal that has revived dormant tensions at the state Capitol over the rise of companies like Airbnb and Vrbo and their responsibility for the state’s constrained housing supply.

Senate Bill 584 by state Sen. Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, would impose a 15% tax on short-term rentals — the homes and rooms that owners rent out like hotels for 30 days or less at a time — starting in 2025. This statewide surcharge, an addition to the local transient occupancy taxes that most communities already require, could generate an estimated $150 million annually to build or rehabilitate low- and middle-income housing.

“One of the things that I get asked very often by my local cities and counties is: ‘Where is the money to build the housing?’” Limón told CalMatters. “I see this bill really saying everyone has a role to play.”

The Senate passed the measure today, with the bare minimum of 27 votes needed and sent it to the Assembly.

While legislators have made a few unsuccessful attempts to regulate vacation rentals over the past decade, these fights largely played out at the local level, where the effects of their surging popularity with travelers is more immediate.

But the prospect of a tax that rental platforms worry would put them at a disadvantage to hotels has sent them scrambling, with Airbnb rallying its hosts in recent weeks to oppose a bill it argues would “hurt the local tourism economy.”

“While the bill aims to boost housing affordability, it does so at the expense of regular Californians who are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of living,” the company wrote in an email alert last week urging hosts to reach out to lawmakers.

Limon’s proposal already faced higher hurdles as a tax measure, requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature. Now it must contend with a shaky economy, which has stoked apprehensions about increasing taxes among even some Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“It doesn’t mean that we don’t raise the difficult question of what is the solution,” Limón said.

An invitation to invest

Limón unveiled her bill in March as a way to create a steady stream of money to help local governments meet ambitious housing development targets set by the state.

The short-term rental tax would fund grants for public entities and nonprofit providers to create affordable housing projects — primarily through new construction, but also by fixing up existing buildings — that would be permanently set aside for low- and middle-income renters.

The measure, which is sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella organization for construction worker unions, would also require certain wage and labor standards for projects.

Limón said she is not villainizing short-term rentals, but rather inviting them to be a part of fixing a statewide housing crunch they have exacerbated. If the industry has ideas, she said she’s open to alternatives to the 15% tax rate, which was suggested by a Senate committee where the bill passed earlier this month.

“This is a conversation about investment. And I think it’s unfortunate that those that are being asked to invest in solving a problem for the communities where they do work or business, see it as” a punishment, Limón said. “So if a 15% investment, you know, is not the number, then what is?”

Another vacation rental boom over the past few years, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, has reignited debates across California about whether locals are being priced out of their communities, leading to a wave of new bans, permit caps and other restrictions.

Recent research has found a reallocation of long-term housing units into short-term rentals, leading to an upward pressure on prices. A 2020 study by a team from the National Bureau of Economic Research; California State University, Northridge; and the University of Southern California pegged the number at an annual increase of $9 in monthly rent and $1,800 in home prices in the median neighborhood. That is often driven by large-scale operators from outside of the communities; a 2017 analysis of short-term rentals in New Orleans found that nearly half of permitted units were registered to fewer than a fifth of operators.

But the industry disputes that vacation rentals comprise enough of California’s housing stock to have a significant effect on affordability.

2022 report by the Milken Institute, an economic think tank, noted that only about 1% of housing units in the state are short-term rentals — though it’s far higher in some popular tourist destinations — which it concluded “cannot be considered a meaningful driver of California’s housing shortage.” The report was backed by the Travel Technology Association, an industry group that includes short-term rental platforms among its members.

Falling behind the competition

Alongside opponents such as the California Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, Airbnb and Vrbo have raised concerns that Limon’s proposal would give hotels an unfair advantage over mom-and-pop vacation rental operators who rely on hosting for supplemental income. Local transient occupancy taxes, for stays at hotels and short-term rentals, can exceed 14% in some places.

“SB 584 would harm California’s travelers, its vacation rental community, and the network of small businesses that depend on them,” Alyssa Stinson, California government and corporate affairs manager for Vrbo’s parent company, Expedia Group, said in a statement. The state should “find sustainable, balanced solutions to address California’s housing needs without threatening its tourism economy.”

Airbnb declined to discuss its position on the bill. In its alert to hosts, the company claimed the tax would “make vacations more expensive” and burden “everyday Californians who rely on the income from home sharing to afford everyday costs or stay in their home.”

Dan Johnson, who rents out the first floor of his San Diego home as a suite for visitors, said he was “pissed off” when he found out about the tax proposal last week from the Airbnb email and he has reached out to more than half a dozen senators asking them to vote against it.

Johnson, 62, an environmental consultant who also develops infill housing on formerly contaminated sites, said he started hosting through Airbnb and Vrbo a year and a half ago as he and his wife prepare for retirement.

“As you move away from a steady paycheck, it’s nice to have a supplemental income,” he said. “It gets a little scary, right?”

Though he supports Limon’s goal of addressing housing affordability, Johnson said he believes that short-term rental owners are being picked on to solve a problem they didn’t create because they don’t have a powerful lobby at the Capitol.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

The Supreme Court’s Warning About Prop. 13

A decision in a Minnesota case revives questions about injustice and California’s tax revolt law.

Late last week, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a decades-old Minnesota property tax law was unlawful when it allowed the government to seize wealth from an elderly Black homeowner. The decision in Tyler vs. Hennepin County serves as a warning about legal defects in other property tax laws that unfairly harm communities of color, including California’s own Proposition 13.

The Minnesota case began when Geraldine Tyler failed to pay the taxes on her longtime Minneapolis home. Over several years, the tax debt accumulated to $2,300, exploding to $15,000 when penalties and fines were added. The county seized her condominium and sold it, keeping the entire proceeds — $40,000 — not just the $15,000 she owed.

The Supreme Court proclaimed that this money grab was unjust and unconstitutional under the 5th Amendment’s takings clause. It rejected Hennepin County’s legal reliance on the 13th century Statute of Gloucester, a law that Justice Neil M. Gorsuch characterized during oral arguments as being “about lands owned by the feudal lord and what happens when a vassal fails to provide enough wheat to his lord.”

The court’s determination that what happened to Tyler didn’t meet constitutional standards echoes and revives a concern raised in the 1990s about Proposition 13.

California’s tax-assessment limits demand radically different property taxes from owners of similar properties, based only on their time of purchase. Thirty years ago, Stephanie Nordlinger balked at paying nearly five times in property taxes for her Los Angeles home as longer-settled neighbors. An unmoved Supreme Court majority held that the differential treatment had a rational basis, but Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed.

In his dissent, Stevens concluded that Proposition 13 created “a privilege of a medieval character: Two families with equal needs and equal resources are treated differently solely because of their different heritage.”

The Supreme Court’s blessing in Nordlinger vs. Hahn upheld Proposition 13’s legality and established its feudal — and unfair — nature.

Proposition 13 raises race discrimination concerns. Assessment caps benefit long-standing homeowners — who are often white — at the expense of their more diverse neighbors who arrive later. The effects of such property taxes on homeownership’s demography suggest violations of the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act. Recent estimates show that Proposition 13 gives the average homeowner in a white neighborhood of Oakland, for example, a tax break of nearly $10,000 each year — more than triple the break provided to average homeowners in Latino neighborhoods, and about double those in Black and Asian neighborhoods in Oakland.

Ironically, people just like Tyler were the original faces of the battle to enact Proposition 13 in California and similar measures around the country. Activists in the 1970s and 1980s invoked stories of elderly widows losing their homes to convince voters that property taxes should be based on a home’s purchase price and allowed to rise just 2% a year from there, regardless of market value.

But such assessment limits have not lived up to their promise to protect homeowners. Michigan also limits the amount that an owner’s assessment can rise. Yet as real estate values declined in Detroit, those limits did not ensure that assessments fell to match, leaving low-income Black homeowners with inflated, unaffordable taxes. Like Tyler in Minnesota, many residents were forced out of their homes through tax foreclosures.

In California, Proposition 13’s overbroad system protects the propertied at a high cost to more diverse, first-time buyers. People may stay put to hold on to a tax advantage, limiting inventory and driving up home costs. Parents can also pass low tax assessments on to their children, exacerbating the problem.

The California Housing Finance Agency notes that “for the entire 2010s, California’s Black homeownership rate has been lower than it was in the 1960s, when it was completely legal to discriminate against Black homebuyers.”

While Proposition 13’s precise inequitable effects are complicated, more inclusive and less legally tenuous alternatives exist.

There are other tax reforms that could protect low-income and elderly homeowners without hamstringing cities’ tax bases and enriching wealthy owners.

Philadelphia allows low-income senior citizens to freeze their property taxes, and low-income families to spread rapid assessment increases over several years. In Massachusetts and some Connecticut towns, low-income homeowners can defer part of their property tax bill, which is paid off upon the home’s sale. California has its own property tax postponement program, which it should expand, instead of relying on Proposition 13.

The Supreme Court’s rejection of Minnesota’s greediness reminds us that the courts are watching as states tighten the vise of property tax systems on the poor and racially diverse. To be sure, Proposition 13 does not result in unconstitutional “takings.” But the concerns that motivated the court in Tyler vs. Hennepin County also apply here. And given the court’s willingness to reverse long-held constitutional precedent, perhaps the Nordlinger decision itself will be due for reconsideration.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times