Xavier Becerra Backs Out of Another Debate with Steve Hilton

October 14, 2026 By Katy Grimes 2 Comments

Why would Becerra not want to be seen by Hispanic voters in a Univision debate?

Republican Steve Hilton has reported that Democrat Xavier Becerra backed out of yet another debate in the California gubernatorial race.

Hilton is everywhere, criss-crossing the state every day. Becerra is taking a page out of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, and mostly running his campaign from an underground bunker.

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During the weekend, we learned that Becerra backed out of the Univision debate, citing a “scheduling conflict.” Univision? Why would Becerra not want to be seen by Hispanic voters in a Univision debate?

Hilton noted that his team offered to accommodate Becerra’s schedule, and tied it to Becerra’s recent claims, proven false about how his parents came to the U.S. with $12 in their pocket.

 

Even a serious candidate safely ahead in the polls would show up to convey his policies, and commitment to the job. Anything less is insulting to voters.

Refusing to show up to debate demonstrates a lack of sincerity, as well as obvious insecurity about being called on the carpet on policy issues.

Hilton and Becerra held one televised general-election debate, hosted by CNN in Burbank on September 30, 2026. Hilton went on offense from the start, pressing Becerra on his record as attorney general and as Biden HHS secretary, the Globe reported.

So far, it is the only actual face-to-face matchup before the November 3 election.

Polls at the time showed Becerra with a roughly 25 point lead – the Berkeley IGS/LA Times figured around 58%–33%.

Hilton has repeatedly pressed for more debates, and has done internal polling showing the gap closing between the two candidates.

Xavier Becerra’s lead over Steve Hilton shrunk to just 5.6 points in a poll conducted immediately after the their’ first and only debate.

“The poll, commissioned by Hilton’s campaign and conducted by pollster David Wolfson on Oct. 1-2, surveyed 1,020 California voters and found Becerra with 45.7% support to Hilton’s 40.1%, while another 14.1% remain undecided,” the CA Post reported.

Perhaps that, and he didn’t want to be asked why he lied to millions about his family’s immigration history, explains why last week Becerra pulled out of the scheduled Los Angeles Times debate.

Hilton posted the announcement on X Monday afternoon, calling the withdrawal a break from a pledge Becerra made in August to participate in multiple debates. 

“Becerra PULLS OUT of tomorrow’s LA Times debate,” Hilton wrote. “The move comes after a new poll found CNN debate viewers favored Hilton 74% to 20%. In August, Becerra promised MULTIPLE debates. Now after losing the first, he’s back in hiding—taking voters for granted. Pathetic!”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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How California’s insurance race became a race to the left

October 13, 2026 By SAQIB RAHIM 3 Comments

Progressives have spotted an opening to seize one of the most powerful regulatory posts in the country from establishment Democrats.

They’re bringing in Sen. Bernie Sanders to help.

“People are sick and tired of the greed of these billionaires, tired of them undermining democracy,” thundered Sanders (I-Vt.) at a Saturday rally in San Francisco, the first of three California stops to whip up support for a tax on billionaires and a clutch of progressive candidates. Among the headliners: Jane Kim, a Democrat and former San Francisco official running for state insurance commissioner.

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For progressives, the insurance post represents a chance to transform policy in an influential — if little-known — role in the nation’s most populous state. And it offers an alternative route to power for a wing of the Democratic Party that flopped in this year’s gubernatorial race after billionaire Tom Steyer lost in the primary.

“This is an industry that needs a transformative shift,” Kim said in an interview. Voters are “tired of any candidate that’s going to do more of the same … they want to see someone fight the insurance industry.”

Kim is up against state Sen. Ben Allen, marking the first time two Democrats have ever competed directly for the seat. A recent poll showed voters narrowly preferring Kim in the Nov. 3 contest, though most remain undecided.

The stakes are unusually high, because California is experiencing perhaps the most extreme insurance market crunch in the nation. A rash of wildfires, combined with price regulations insurers say are too strict, have prompted insurers to pull back en masse and left more than half-a-million people with no private insurer willing to cover them.

California’s top insurance official enjoys a formidable set of powers including the authority to tamp down on price hikes, investigate insurers for their claims practices and propose legislation to change the insurance code. And Sanders’ visit reflects the intensity of the contest between establishment Democrats and their left flank over whether the state can nurse the market back to health — or take a more muscular role in it.

Kim, a former civil rights attorney and Sanders campaigner backed by the California Democratic Socialists of America, intends to make the state a major provider of insurance against natural disasters for all homeowners — a sharp break from the state’s current private-led system. The program she’s proposing, which would need to be created through legislation, would be funded through a charge on home insurance policies.

Allen, a veteran lawmaker endorsed by the state Democratic Party, is proposing an extension of policies set by outgoing Commissioner Ricardo Lara, combined with efforts to reduce fire risk in communities that he says will attract insurers.

“Blowing something up with no plan is not going to help consumers,” Allen said of Kim’s platform in an interview. “I understand that people are mad. I’m angry, too … I’m putting a plan forward that’s bold, audacious, but also doable. I’m not going to lie to people about what’s possible.”

Lara, also a Democrat, has spent three years enacting policies meant to bring insurers back, like allowing them to set prices based on future climate risk, which they were previously barred from doing, and to pass on some of the costs linked to rising natural disasters around the world. He and insurers say the policies are helping the market recover, but some consumer groups have attacked the policies as too industry-friendly.

Click here to read the full article in Politico

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Becerra’s Baggage Would Have Taken Down Anyone Else

October 11, 2026 By Katy Grimes 1 Comment

How is media not hammering Becerra on the missing migrant children, the Awan brothers scandal, and $22.6 billion in grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024?

There are serious questions about Xavier Becerra’s long record in elected office that deserve answers. His tainted tenure as President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary, and the government’s handling of unaccompanied migrant children, which has been the subject of extensive investigative reporting, including by The New York Times. Migrant children are still missing and legacy media doesn’t seem too interested.

Whatever Becerra’s explanation is, shouldn’t California voters hear it directly from him? How is media not hammering Becerra on the missing migrant children?

The Globe has covered Becerra extensively for many years: Xavier Becerra as HHS Secretary doubled down on tyrannical COVID policies, including mandatory masking and vaccines for everyone including pregnant women and infants, as well as business and school lockdowns.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer recently accused Xavier Becerra when he was HHS Secretary of potentially hiding Anthony Fauci’s COVID-era diary and cellphone from Congress — documents that contained references to “COVID-19,” “gain-of-function,” and “Wuhan” that Republicans specifically requested in November 2023. Becerra either intentionally withheld the materials or failed to conduct an adequate search, according to Comer.

The California Post recently reported that Xavier Becerra disparaged migrant children as “little Juanitos and Juanitas” while leading former President Joe Biden administration’s health department, a former colleague alleges — fueling Democratic insiders’ fears about California’s would-be governor.

“I never heard a single person disparage immigrant children,” a former Biden administration official who worked with Becerra told the California Post. “He was the only person who brazenly said, ‘these little Juanitos and Juanitas.’”

But wait! There’s more!

Under HHS Secretary Becerra’s authority, “the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ramped up grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024 — which included cash assistance to buy cars, homes and even build credit for startup businesses, according to a shocking watchdog report that found taxpayers were left on the hook for $22.6 billion.

According to the OpenTheBooks report:

Robin Dunn Marcos, who led HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) under former President Joe Biden, oversaw $22.6 billion in grant distributions since 2020, with her former employers emerging as top beneficiaries. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), where she spent 23 years as a senior director, received $598 million, while Church World Service, her employer of four years, was awarded $355 million.

The corruption runs so deep it’s literally rinse and repeat.

A few years earlier, then-Congressman Xavier Becerra chaired the House Democratic Caucus, from 2013 to 2017, when IT aides Imran Awan, his brothers Abid and Jamal Awan, and other family associates, worked for many Democratic offices, including Becerra’s.

The Awan brothers logged into the Democratic Caucus server thousands of times without authorization. Capitol Police also investigated procurement irregularities, equipment that did not appear on inventories, and unauthorized network access.

Imran Awan was later arrested on federal bank-fraud charges.

Becerra’s office and the Dem caucus paid the family more than other members, Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak reported.

When Becerra left Congress in 2017, he asked to have his server wiped while it was under investigation, I reported. It was also revealed that the Pakistani IT staffers were sending sensitive information to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 2017, I reported:

Becerra has his own troubles in D.C. as he was up to his eyeballs in the House Democratic Caucus Awan Brothers Congressional IT Scandal. Then-Rep. Xavier Becerra was the caucus chairman when he gave a fake server to the cops in order to obstruct their investigation. “The executive director of the Democratic Caucus was Sean McCluskie, who was Becerra’s chief of staff and is now chief deputy attorney general of California,” Daily Caller reporter Luke Rosiak reported in 2017. “The Awans and their associates collected more than $5 million in pay from congressional offices, often drawing chief-of-staff level pay though there is reason to believe many didn’t even show up. The House’s internal probe found they logged into servers they had no affiliation with, used members’ usernames, covered their tracks, and persisted even after being fired.”

Since the January 2017 appointment of Xavier Becerra to California Attorney General by California Governor Jerry Brown, I’ve questioned why Becerra was chosen out of all of the qualified Deputy AG’s and lawyers in-state, and suggested it was to provide distance between Becerra and DC, as well as a strong offense during the investigation into his leadership role in the Congressional IT scandal and cover up.

If the name Sean McCluskie, rings a bell, he is former chief of staff for the former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who pleaded guilty to stealing $225,000 from the former Biden Cabinet secretary’s campaign account in Governor Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson’s public corruption case.

The Congressional hacking suspects–the Pakistani born Awan brothers–ran the Information Technology (IT) for dozens of Democrat congressmen and women, and could read every email and communication sent or received. Members of the California Democrat House delegation also hired the Awan brothers, along with nearly 30 more House Democrats as a “shared employee,” according to Legistorm.

Click here to read the full article at the California Globe

 

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Gavin Newsom backs measure to kill the billionaire tax and ban future wealth taxes

October 11, 2026 By Jeanne Kuang Leave a Comment

Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.

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On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026 if Prop. 40 passes.

But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.

That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.

Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.

Proponents primarily argue that middle-class workers’ retirements and pension accounts should never be taxed as assets before the gains are later taxed a second time as income, even though there is no such proposal. Lawmakers have in the past proposed asset taxes but those bills went nowhere in the Legislature and any tax would require a two-thirds majority to pass. The proposed billionaire tax also exempts many kinds of retirement accounts.

“We all agree that Californians deserve to have their retirement and life savings protected from new state taxes so those savings are there when they need them,” Newsom said in a statement released by the proponents, who also include police and fire unions.

Proponents of the tax criticized his Prop. 42 endorsement as “in lock step with his billionaire backers.”

“By voting yes on Prop 42, he’s showing California his true colors,” said Debru Carthan, vice president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West in a statement. “He’d rather millions of children and families lose their healthcare than ask a couple hundred billionaires to finally pay their fair share.”

Newsom has not yet taken a position on Prop. 41, another Brin-backed, anti-billionaire measure that would nullify Prop. 40 by subjecting the tax revenues to certain state spending limits and audits, said spokesperson Izzy Gardon. The billionaire tax measure, funded by one healthcare union, would put 90% of the money it collects toward the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents, Medi-Cal.

Newsom, along with many other leading California Democrats and most Republicans, has vocally opposed the billionaire tax and tried to negotiate to keep it off the ballot. In general during his two terms as governor he has opposed state-level taxes on assets, out of concern the wealthy will leave the state and deprive the state of their income tax revenue.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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Trump Casts Long Shadow Over California Campaigns

October 10, 2026 By Susan Crabtree Leave a Comment

Even before Donald Trump’s confusing gaffe Monday night in Nebraska about Iran bombing Los Angeles and San Diego, the president was looming large over nearly every hotly contested California election campaign.

In one Southern California race, Trump’s long shadow produced a disjointed two-step. Rep. Ken Calvert is attacking fellow Republican Rep. Young Kim for her anti-Trump stances, even as a Calvert-aligned PAC sent Democratic voters in the district mailers playing up her support for and from Trump.

Confused? That’s understandable. Under the new map, Calvert’s 41st Congressional District in Southern California was redrawn as a solidly Democratic seat, so the 33-year incumbent chose to run in the neighboring 40th, which stretches from the eastern edge of Orange County into a large chunk of western Riverside County.

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That move set up the cycle’s strangest California race: Calvert versus Kim in a solidly Republican district that Trump carried by 12 points. It has been one of the nastiest campaigns in the country, with both sides fighting over who is more loyal to Trump. During the primary, a pro-Calvert super PAC, Americans 4 Security, spent $2.9 million on anti-Kim ads. Calvert has called Kim a “backstabbing RINO” and a “Trump-traitor,” and the PAC’s ads paint her as a liberal who hates Trump, citing her past vote to censure the president while ignoring her votes against Democrats’ efforts to impeach him.

Yet the same pro-Calvert super PAC sent two deliberately deceptive mailers to Democrats, playing up Kim’s pro-MAGA record. One showed a photo of a smiling Kim with the words “Young Kim, 100% with Trump,” and “a proven fighter who will stand with President Trump to deliver a bold American First Agenda.”

The goal was obvious: Turn off Democratic households and discourage party crossover support for Kim.

Kim answered with an ad focused on Calvert’s old scandals. It cites a 2009 Orange County Register editorial that ranked him among the most corrupt members of Congress, calls him swampy and sleazy, and revives a 1994 Los Angeles Times story about police catching him with a prostitute in his car. The ad ends by calling Calvert a “sleazebag.”

For all their fighting over Trump, both Calvert and Kim carefully avoided the furor over his Iran comments early this week, even as the remarks set off a raging debate on social media and in campaigns across the state. The timing could hardly have been worse for Republicans: The comments landed just as most California voters began receiving their mail-in ballots.

Speaking before a cheering crowd in Grand Island, Nebraska, Monday night, Trump defended his war with Iran with a line that landed hard 1,500 miles west: “Let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego.” The White House defended the line, saying the president was clearly warning about what Iran could do with a nuclear weapon, not encouraging it.

Although the explanation clearly fits the context of the president’s remarks, it didn’t satisfy everyone in his own party. By Tuesday morning, the Republican running in Southern California’s most closely watched open House seat was publicly breaking with him.

Jim Desmond, a San Diego County supervisor and Navy veteran who is the GOP nominee in the redrawn 48th District, said he “vehemently” disapproved of what the president said. The district is currently represented by retiring Rep. Darrell Issa.

Desmond’s quick distancing is a measure of how worried Republicans are about Trump’s waning popularity even in precincts he carried in previous elections – a dynamic playing out beyond California’s borders as well.

The newly drawn 48th district is a hook-shaped swath that includes areas in San Diego and Riverside counties, including around Vista, San Marcos, Palm Springs, and Temecula. The current configuration changed a 12-point Republican voter registration advantage to a 4-point Democratic lead. That, of course, was done by design. Late last year, state Democrats redrew the state’s congressional map through Proposition 50, the ballot measure voters approved last November. Gov. Gavin Newsom sold the measure to voters as a way to fight Republican “fire with fire,” abandoning independent redistricting to redraw California’s congressional map in Democrats’ favor (in response to Republicans’ redistricting effort in Texas). The new map was designed to put five of California’s nine Republican-held seats either at a strong Democratic advantage or within Democrats’ reach. The question now is not whether Democrats gain seats here, but how many. And the answer turns on a handful of genuinely competitive races.

Click here to read the full article in Real Clear Politics

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Newsom apologized to tribes for historic harms, but vetoed 2 bills that would have empowered them

October 9, 2026 By Melanie Henshaw, CalMatters-ICT Leave a Comment

Five days after signing a law formalizing a state apology for “harms and atrocities” against California’s Native peoples, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed two additional bills that California tribes had championed, one on water and the other on sacred sites.

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Tribal leaders say the vetoes leave them shut out of decisions about their ancestral waters and sacred places.

One of Newsom’s vetoes struck down a measure that would have compelled state agencies to address water shortages faced by tribes. Assembly Bill 2218 by Ash Kalra, a Santa Clara County Democrat, would have established a state policy to address water-related inequities and would have required a dispute between a tribe and any state water agency over water projects in the tribe’s ancestral territory to go through a mediation process, run by the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs. The Karuk Tribe and the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians co-sponsored the legislation.

Newsom also rejected a bill that would have barred state agencies from significantly interfering with tribal religious practices on state land unless the state showed a compelling reason and chose the approach that interfered least. Assemblymember James Ramos, a Democrat from San Bernardino and the Legislature’s only Native American member, authored AB 1881, which was called the California Indian Freedom Act of 2026. 

Only tribes could sue to enforce Ramos’ bill. Agencies would also have had to seek and document a tribe’s written consent before significantly changing a site they know is sacred, though an agency could ask for consultation if a tribe objected.

Ramos is a member of the Serrano/Cahuilla tribe and is a former chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.

Neither bill drew a “no” vote in the Assembly, though 23 members did not vote on the water bill and 15 on the sacred-sites bill, many Republican. Not voting counts the same as a no vote, and lawmakers are known to skip votes that might offend their supporters and donors.

In his veto message for the water bill, Newsom wrote that the bill was “not sufficiently clear about how its new policy will be implemented” and that “adding new sources of uncertainty will delay our urgent fight to secure Californians’ water supplies.”

About Ramos’ bill, Newsom wrote that he was “sympathetic to the goals of this measure” but that it could have “far-reaching impacts” on state government operations and management of state property, and that “this uncertainty calls for further discussion and review.”

The governor’s office referred to Newsom’s veto messages in response to a request for comment on this article.

Tribes criticize water bill veto

“Tribes need to be at the table when decisions are being made, not brought in after the important decisions have already been made,” said Russell “Buster” Attebery, chairman of the Karuk Tribe.

Shingle Springs Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba called the veto of the water bill a “backhanded betrayal of California tribes and a direct contradiction of his apology and promises of reconciliation.”

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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“I hate Trump” says ad funded by Carl DeMaio

October 8, 2026 By James V. Lacy 3 Comments

Donors to DeMaio’s Reform California may disagree

A vigorous campaign over California’s Proposition 39, to establish Voter ID at the ballot box, has kicked in with both the Yes and No sides airing expensive television commercials. The “No” side, funded by unions and the California Democratic Party, was first out with their ads, predictably blaming Trump for it as an effort to “rig” elections (such misdirection!). But in a state where the President’s approval rating sits at just 27%, it would be considered smart politics and part of the usual political playbook by the Democrats.

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The “Yes” side has responded with advertising aimed at independent voters who might not like Trump but still support the idea of showing an identification in order to vote, an idea that has majority support in polls. One of the named funders on screen per campaign finance rules of the ads in favor is San Diego County Assemblyman Carl DeMaio and his Reform California organization, which is funded itself by many small donors who respond to DeMaio’s incessant appeals for money through text, email and direct mail. The overwhelming majority of these small donors are “MAGA” and support President Trump.

Nevertheless, Carl DeMaio’s name appears in the disclaimer as a funder of the main TV ad supporting Yes on 39, which includes a man who looks into the camera and says “I hate Trump.” There is irony in the fact that DeMaio is using funding provided by grassroots Trump supporters to fund an ad that says “I hate Trump.”

Click here to read the full article at James V. Lacy’s Substack

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Newsom’s signing saga is over

October 7, 2026 By NOAH BAUSTIN, ALEX NIEVES and RILEY RAMIREZ 1 Comment

PENS DOWN: Gov. Gavin Newsom wrapped up his last bill signing and vetoing marathon in office Wednesday evening.

The 2026 legislative session was largely defined by the major proposals that never made it to Newsom’s desk, such as the push to reshape the state’s wildfire liability system (and don’t forget the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant extension that never was).

Nonetheless, the Legislature passed 1,160 bills, and Newsom signed 1,040 of them — and vetoed 120, according to his office.

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Many of those decisions will have far-reaching impacts on California’s energy and climate policies, so, now that the dust has settled, we bring you our totally-unofficial-but-hopefully-informative take on the winners and losers of this year’s legislative session.

Winner: Wildfire policy advocates

Megafire Action, a wildfire policy organization, declared a victory for wildfire resilience and home hardening after Newsom signed all of the organization’s sponsored bills.

Those include Sen. Ben Allen’s SB 894, which establishes a loan program to provide low-interest financing for home hardening and defensive space improvements, and Assemblymember Steve Bennett’s AB 1934, which requires state fire officials to develop a home hardening certification program to make buildings more wildfire resistant. The nonprofit’s CEO, Matt Weiner, said the bill package represents a huge shift in how the state is approaching wildfire and climate risk.

Winner: Bike industry

Newsom also signed Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1167, a bill to clamp down on the sale of high-powered vehicles resembling electric bicycles.

The measure clarifies that look-alikes that exceed state speed limits can’t be sold or advertised as e-bikes and creates new manufacturer labeling requirements to make it easier for parents and law enforcement to know if a bike is legal. The bill emerged earlier this year amid a rash of headlines about children killing or injuring themselves or others riding high-speed devices.

The bigger win for the bike industry this session was the bills that didn’t pass. That includes AB 1942, which would have created new license plate rules, a step advocates say would have disrupted the e-bike market because California doesn’t have a system for registering the devices.

Loser: California’s utilities

It was a tough year to be a power company. The state’s investor-owned utilities were poised to be the biggest beneficiaries of Newsom’s signature proposal to reduce how much money they have to shell out if they cause a wildfire. When that deal failed, it sent their stock values tumbling.

Then, Newsom signed a slew of bills cracking down on utility finances. That included SB 905, by Sen. Josh Becker, which requires the California Public Utilities Commission to consider reducing the profit rate the state’s utilities are allowed to collect for some types of investments, like burying power lines, and evaluate alternative methods of financing projects that could save money.

Becker told POLITICO that outcome was “not at all certain” given stiff opposition from the utilities.

Newsom also signed other measures targeting power company finances, including AB 2463, by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, which requires the CPUC to disclose the financial models it relies upon in determining utility profit rates, and AB 2065, by Petrie-Norris, which requires the CPUC to financially penalize utilities that charge customers for costs they weren’t supposed to, as well as SB 1098, by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, which requires the CPUC to discourage utilities from unnecessarily racking up expenses outside of their primary budget.

To Becker, those decisions indicated a Newsom attitude of “we’re not going to be afraid to look at some of the fundamental economics of utilities, even while we still work on utility issues and wildfire issues going forward,” he said.

Loser: Fossil fuel industry

Newsom signed AB 2313, by Assemblymember Marc Berman, which requires the CPUC to establish a program where the state’s natural gas providers must offer an incentive to customers whose service lines are scheduled for a replacement to instead discontinue their gas service.

He also signed Assemblymember Gregg Hart’s AB 1448, which will block offshore oil producers from using pipelines to transport their product to the California shore. That will make it far more difficult to get product to market for any offshore drillers the Trump administration might lease offshore drilling territory to in the future.

Loser: High-speed rail accountability

One of Newsom’s more surprising vetoes Wednesday came over a bill that would have given an independent watchdog — whom the governor appointed — more power over the state’s high-speed rail project.

The rejection of Assembly Transportation Chair Lori Wilson’s AB 1608 came after it received bipartisan support during the final days of session. The bill would have allowed Inspector General Ben Belnap to hire under new job classifications and sign contracts of up to $1 million without needing approval from other state agencies first.

Belnap has argued that he’s been unable to fill positions because the job classifications it can hire for are too low-level and don’t meet the skills needed for the job. The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Office of the Inspector General has also reported delays in acquiring needed goods and services, like a whistleblower hotline.

Click here to read the full article in Politico

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A little-known provision in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill has created a major dilemma for California

October 6, 2026 By Sophia Bollag 3 Comments

SACRAMENTO — California faces a new potential health care crisis precipitated by Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill.

Democrats across the country have been campaigning against the massive tax and spending law also known as HR1, particularly because of its cuts to healthcare. The Congressional Budget Office estimates at least 7.5 million people will lose health coverage because of the law.

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But beyond the projected health insurance losses, the law has created an additional problem in California. The new federal rules and state lawmakers’ response to them could create a state budget deficit or increase health insurance premiums for Californians, and some healthcare groups say time is running out to avert a crisis. On Friday, associations representing California doctors and health insurance plans sued the state to try to resolve the situation in time.

At issue is a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that forbids states from taxing public health plans at a higher rate than private health plans. California has for years imposed a higher tax on health plans that provide coverage through the state’s Medi-Cal program, which provides healthcare coverage to low-income residents. The plans actually support paying the tax, known as the Managed Care Organization tax, because it allows them to leverage federal matching funds. In other words, the tax is a win for them because it helps them access more money and generates more funding for public health providers.

Healthcare groups, including the California Medical Association, went to the ballot in 2024 and secured voter approval to enshrine the current structure of the tax in state law.

The new federal rules, however, forced Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to rework the tax. Lawmakers were in a bind. If they eliminated or reduced the MCO tax, public health providers would face a significant reduction in funding. But if they raised taxes on private health plans to match the taxes on public providers, that would raise private insurance costs.

California must seek federal approval for its healthcare tax structure. Through the state budget, Newsom and lawmakers approved a version of the tax that complies with federal law by raising taxes on private insurers. That sparked massive backlash from those insurers, which say they will raise annual premiums by about $100 per person.

“It’s the Trump admin that was advocating HR1 in the first place, which is what necessitated this change,” H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance, said in June. “We hope and expect it will be approved.”

The Newsom administration also plans to submit another version of the tax that would essentially maintain the status quo — in violation of federal law but in compliance with the voter-enacted state law. Administration officials do not expect the Trump administration to approve that version of the tax, Palmer said.

The strategy is a gamble. If the Trump administration rejects the waiver request, state lawmakers and the governor would need to fill a multibillion-dollar hole in the state budget.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

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Steve Hilton’s most disgusting campaign ad

October 5, 2026 By James V. Lacy Leave a Comment

“Bud Light” style ad blunder, sexualization and reasonless voting are the theme.

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A social media promotion between Bud Light and transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April 2023 triggered a major conservative boycott, a steep drop in sales, and widespread media debate.

And in the same vein as the Bud Light advertising wreck, now Steve Hilton has a far more explicit and frankly disgusting, sexualized advertisement of his own, ending with a tight camera shot of an attractive young woman holding an envelope to her mouth who is told by another attractive young woman to…. “Lick It!”

Click here to read the full article at James V. Lacy’s Substack

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