Backlash over data centers hits California, and the midterms

September 7, 2026 By Justine McDaniel Leave a Comment
  • Data centers are becoming the political flash point of the midterms as candidates race to respond to tanking public opinion.
  • A company’s pitch for small-scale data centers on fairgrounds has prompted outcry from some in Kings, Tulare and Ventura counties.
  • Democrats opposing data centers say it’s an affordability issue, while Republicans juggle public backlash with Trump’s pro-AI support.

HANFORD, Calif. — Darian Orduno bounced her baby boy on her chest, looking down at his thick black hair and bright eyes. What might pollution from a data center do, she wondered, to his growing lungs?

That question had brought Orduno, 25, to a community meeting opposing a possible data center here, and her fears, she said, likely would influence her vote in the midterm election too.

“I just had him, and now it’s concerning if he’s going to be able to grow up here,” Orduno said, or “if I’m going to have to relocate.”

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As about 100 residents filed into a church for the meeting in late August, under a Central Valley sky hazy with air pollution, many shared the same worries — that a facility pitched for the local fairgrounds could further worsen the area’s air quality and strain its water supply.

Nationwide, such concerns are fueling a backlash to data centers from both the left and the right as tech companies flood the country with thousands of proposals for the facilities in nearly every state from California to Maine.

Data centers have become an unusually bipartisan flash point in the midterm elections, as candidates race to delineate policy platforms and respond to public opinion. The issue stands to influence swing voters and motivate turnout at the polls.

Here in the 22nd District, home to the state’s most competitive congressional race, how significantly the issue will affect voters’ decisions remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: Anxiety about data centers is mounting.

“It’s a national concern, it’s now a state concern, and now it’s bled into the local concern,” Hanford Mayor Mark Kairis said. “It’s a very emotionally charged issue right now.”

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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Community colleges suddenly oppose plan to let them offer more bachelor’s degrees

September 6, 2026 By Mikhail Zinshteyn 1 Comment

California’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor’s degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation.

The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills, Senate Bill 960 by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and Assembly Bill 2694 by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

In recent years, Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” he said.

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Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer completion rates. No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree. That’s a claim the state’s labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes between the community colleges and the university.

The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor’s degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges either offer or will soon offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.

Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity.

“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”

Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.

“We’re being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that’s just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders.

Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious

The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil.

Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university.

Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, over the objections of the Cal State system, EdSource reported.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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Defense tech has unleashed a new weapons boom in Southern California

September 5, 2026 By Colin Lecher Leave a Comment

The business of military contracting is booming in Southern California.

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The total value of defense contracts won by companies in Los Angeles County more than doubled in the last 10 years after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis by CalMatters and The Markup. In the same period, the defense budget rose by about 19% in adjusted dollars.

The $15 billion in contracts won in LA County last year went largely to old-school defense contractors with headquarters elsewhere, like Boeing. But startups claimed a growing share of the pie, selling defense systems like low-cost missiles, drones, surveillance satellites, AI tools and much more. In 2025, 10 startups in the LA area were crowned “unicorns,” becoming companies valued by investments at more than $1 billion, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Most of those 10 companies were aerospace or defense businesses.

In 2015, 14 of the top 100 defense contracts won in California went to businesses focused on drones or space, according to the CalMatters and Markup analysis. By 2025, that share was up to 21. The shift is similar if measured by dollars, from 13%to 18%.

Details like whether you count obligations for where businesses are based or where the projects are launched all affect those numbers. By some counts the increases in contract dollars could be larger.

The contracts have been kindled by a surge of venture capital. Private investment in aerospace and defense since 2008 has fueled massive gains, according to a report from The Aerospace Corporation, a federally-funded nonprofit.

But all the new money is now causing awkward political tensions.

The war in Iran, which has depleted American munitions, is poised to drive demand even higher. The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal includes a record-setting $1.5 trillion for the military. Meanwhile, the Defense Department has signed off on the earliest contracts for the “Golden Dome,” a proposal to build a missile-defense system above the United States that may eventually cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Most of the Golden Dome winners are based in or have ties to the Southern California area.

“You saw this huge rise in capital and now you’re seeing just much, much bigger government budgets for space,” said Sam Wilson, a researcher at the Aerospace Corporation.

The collision of venture capital and military spending has alarmed some advocates, who see a frightening trend toward privatization and the risk of a space arms race. Even Congressional Democrats are pushing back against the spending.

That’s noteworthy because it has tended “to be a bipartisan, equal effort to increase the budget” of the military, said Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project, which tracks defense spending. “I think we are maybe seeing the limits of that now.”

Despite the pushback, some of the congressional districts that saw the largest defense contract increases in recent years are beneficiaries of signature Trump-era projects. Many are in solidly blue Los Angeles County, and among the most Democrat-leaning districts in the country.

California’s 36th Congressional District includes El Segundo, a high-tech defense hub outside Los Angeles. In the district’s 2024 House race, incumbent Democrat Ted Lieu took nearly 70 percent of the vote over a Republican challenger. The increase in defense contracts between 2015 and 2025 in that district alone was more than $3.3 billion.

Another district, California’s 43rd, is represented by Maxine Waters, who in 2021 signed on to the proposed No Militarization of Space Act, which described the Space Force as an unnecessary waste of resources and sought to abolish it.

Trump recently proposed to double the budget of the Space Force, another potential boon to the area. Meanwhile, Waters’ district has seen its share of obligated defense department spending grow over the last decade by more than $1.6 billion, or more than 500%, adjusted for inflation. Waters’ office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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‘An imperfect solution’ gains traction in data center fight

September 3, 2026 By Kinnia Cheuk Leave a Comment

Governors are turning to community benefit agreements as they scramble to address data center blowback without alienating tech giants.

Democratic governors have a new message for data center developers amid community backlash: Cut a deal.

Community benefit agreements are increasingly appearing in state strategies for handling the data center boom. In recent months, three Rust Belt governors — Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer — have called on project developers to enter into legal agreements with communities that can cement pollution limits, hiring commitments and local investment promises.

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“My message to data center developers is clear: if you can’t agree to our strict requirements and get the community where you want to build to say ‘yes,’ you’re not going to have the Commonwealth’s support either,” Shapiro said in a statement when he signed an executive order last month that features CBAs. “These are some of the biggest companies in the world — they can afford to be good neighbors, follow the rules, and do this right.”

Policymakers are now mulling mandates for such agreements. Shapiro signed an executive order last month ordering his state’s Department of Environmental Protection to only review permit applications for data center developers that have agreed to sign a CBA with their local community, among other requirements. Otherwise, DEP will not begin review until after all local approvals, including for zoning and land use, are secured.

The move was the latest sign that Shapiro, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has gone from a data center cheerleader to a vocal skeptic. He’s not alone. Both Democrats and Republicans are grappling with how to address a growing public backlash to the energy- and water-guzzling facilities, which are cropping up faster than political leaders and regulators can keep up.

CBAs appeal to moderate Democratic governors who are scrambling to address data center blowback without alienating the tech giants they hope can provide a much-needed boost to their local economies. But even progressives who support moratoriums on data centers, like Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, have referenced CBAs as a way to protect communities from data centers’ possible impacts.

Click here to read the full article in Politico

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Legislature passes slew of bills as end of session approaches

September 3, 2026 By Madeline Shannon 1 Comment

The California Legislature met Sunday afternoon in a rare weekend session to pass bills still waiting for a vote, only one day before the deadline.

The final day of the 2026 session is Monday, and lawmakers were expected to be back on the floor during late morning.

On Sunday, several bills – including those regulating education, immigration, election security, insurance and competitive business practices – passed the Senate.

One bill, Senate Bill 259, authored by Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Fremont, would create a new misdemeanor for anyone tasked with the care of vote-by-mail ballots if they interfere with the ballot delivery to a voter. The bill would also apply to anyone in charge of vote-by-mail ballots, who oversees someone working under them for ballot delivery or a ballot’s return to local elections officials, according to a legislative analysis.

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“This bill largely is to defend the vote,” Wahab said on the Senate floor on Sunday afternoon.

“SB 259 is a response to the federal and local actors that have interfered with elections by undermining or obstructing the vote-by-mail process,” said Wahab, who was recently elected to serve the rest of former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s term in Congress. Swalwell, a Democrat, resigned from the U.S. House and the California gubernatorial race amid allegations of sexual assault and harassment. Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, Wahab said on the floor, the federal government issued a new rule that aimed to rewrite the rules of federal elections, directing the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver vote-by-mail ballots to voters on a Postal Service-managed list.

“Federal courts have deemed this executive order unconstitutional, and warned that implementation will cause confusion and disenfranchise eligible voters,” Wahab said. “Regardless of party affiliation, our democracy is strongest when every eligible voter can cast a ballot freely, securely and with confidence that it will be counted.”

Republican opposition focused on the California Legislature’s lack of jurisdiction over activities of the U.S. Postal Service.

“Once again, we’re trying to do something here in the Legislature that’s not within our authority,” Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, said on the Senate floor. “The mail system is a federal issue. In my understanding, the Supreme Court actually ruled against a provision like this from happening, and I believe the federal Supreme Court supersedes the California state Legislature when it comes to federal mail rules.”

Click here to read the full article in the Center Square

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California lawmakers vote to change childhood sex abuse law

September 1, 2026 By Dakota Smith Leave a Comment

SACRAMENTO — The California state Legislature voted Sunday to amend a 2019 law that extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims but was blamed for draining the coffers of municipalities and school districts.

Senate Bill 577 by John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) follows years of heated debate over the state law, which resulted in scores of lawsuits against cities, counties and schools.

Since the law was enacted, L.A. County has agreed to pay nearly $5 billion to settle more than 11,000 claims stemming from alleged sexual abuse committed by government employees in foster homes and juvenile halls.

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The bill passed by the Legislature on Sunday requires victims older than 40 to provide evidence that the public entity was aware of the misconduct that resulted in the assault and failed to take reasonable steps to avoid it.

It also states that attorneys who file fraudulent sex abuse lawsuits can be fined $25,000 per violation. The Times reported last year on nine plaintiffs who said they were paid to sue the county over sex abuse, some of whom said they were told to fabricate their claims.

Consumer attorneys, counties and victims rights groups jostled over the elements of the proposed bill over the last few months.

Lawmakers stopped short of capping payouts in the bill, a change sought by some local governments and school districts.

The legislation follows multiple attempts to change the law in recent years. Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) tried last year to increase the burden of proof for sex abuse cases, but pulled the bill after outrage from victims rights groups.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

 

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CAIR Sponsored Bill to add Muslim Holidays to California’s Official State Holidays Headed to Gov’s Desk?

August 31, 2026 By Katy Grimes 3 Comments

It is selective accommodation, while traditional American Christian holidays get watered down

A mere 25 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by nineteen Islamic extremists, and the California Legislature appears ready to adopt two Muslim holidays.

Are Democrats following in the footsteps or one-upping a Minnesota school district, which recently approved a Muslim holiday to its academic calendar?

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Public schools are public institutions meant for foundational academic learning, literacy, numeracy, reading comprehension and mathematical problem-solving, history, geography, science, and the arts, and the ability to use them fluently, not centers for religious or ideological indoctrination.

AB 2017, sponsored by CAIR, authored by Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) would add the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to California’s list of official state holidays, authorizing schools to close along with 11 other state recognized holidays.

The bill was put on the suspense file August 3, and appeared it would not make the cut. But Friday, the Senate read the legislation for a second time and ordered it to a third reading, meaning it could be on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk Monday morning.

Bill sponsors, the Council on American-Islamic Relations California (CAIR-CA), the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs (CAPIAA), and the recently formed Muslim Impact Council, claim the measure is a matter of “equity” so Muslim students and workers do not have to choose between religious observance and school or work, Haney said.

The Globe reported on Haney’s bill in July, noting preferential formal recognition plus curriculum celebration for one minority faith, while majority Christian cultural markers are often generically renamed, is not strict neutrality. It is selective accommodation. Similar optional recognition already exists or is expanding for other non-Christian observances (Diwali, Lunar New Year etc.). Pure consistency would either secularize all religious holidays uniformly or treat major faiths even-handedly without privileging celebration of one.

However, Christians remain the largest religious group in California, with Pew reporting 55% of adults identifying as Christian, and Catholics form a large plurality within that. Muslims are a small minority – only 1%.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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California Paid 250 State Workers More Than $600,000—One Took Home $2.3 Million

August 30, 2026 By Megan Barth Leave a Comment

The top 10 CalPERS and CalSTRS pay packages alone totaled about $15 million in 2025—nearly double the inflation-adjusted total from seven years earlier

While Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration talks tax hikes and “budget gaps,” new state payroll records show California spends like Jordan Belfort with a CalPERS badge.

About 250 state employees collected more than $600,000 in total compensation in 2025, according to California State Controller data compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle. The highest-paid civil servant, CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Stephen Gilmore, took home more than $2.3 million, including a performance incentive of more than $1.5 million, despite CalPERS holding $563 billion in assets against $716 billion in liabilities.

Economist Stephen Moore put the numbers in blunt terms Friday. “If you are wondering where California’s tax dollars go and why the state is drowning in debt, here is a hint: 250 state employees were paid more than $600,000 last year,” Moore wrote. “California does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.” 

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Gilmore’s paycheck is roughly nine times the governor’s $245,929 statutory salary and more than five times the $400,000 paid to the president of the United States. The 2025 controller files, released in late July, cover state department employees. University of California coaches and hospital physicians sit on a separate UC payroll and are not in this ranking.

Even without them, the civil-service list is staggering.

These are the best-documented top earners from the 2025 records and CalPERS’ own compensation disclosure:

  1. Stephen Gilmore, chief investment officer, CalPERS — about $2.3 million (roughly $721,000 salary and more than $1.5 million in “other pay,” booked as a 2024-25 incentive award). 
  2. Arnold Phillips, managing investment director, CalPERS — $1.73 million, including about $1 million in other pay. 
  3. Daniel Bienvenue, deputy chief investment officer, CalPERS — about $1.6 million. 
  4. Marcie Frost, chief executive officer, CalPERS — about $1.6 million. 
  5. Vernon Steiner, president and CEO, State Compensation Insurance Fund — about $1.2 million. Steiner is the highest-paid civil servant outside the two giant pension funds. 
  6. Sarah Corr, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.33 million in fiscal 2024-25 total pay. 
  7. James (Sterling) Gunn, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.27 million. 
  8. Anton Orlich, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.26 million. 
  9. Daniel Booth, deputy chief investment officer for private markets, CalPERS — about $1.24 million. 
  10. Simiso Nzima, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.17 million. 

More than 15 pension investment officers and executives cleared $1 million last year. In 2019, only two civil servants did. The top 10 CalPERS and CalSTRS pay packages alone totaled about $15 million in 2025—nearly double the inflation-adjusted total from seven years earlier. 

Just below that club: retired CHP Chief Tai Vong at $914,554, including a $398,000 lump-sum payout; prison psychiatrists Samita Gandhi ($873,872), Olivia Del Pilar ($841,878) and Damon Walcott ($822,971); and sitting CHP chiefs James Mann ($838,272) and Donald Goodbrand ($824,122). CHP Sgt. Leonard Tomboc, the state’s overtime king, collected $414,599 in overtime on top of a $223,438 salary. 

A third of the 250 workers above $600,000 worked at CalPERS or CalSTRS, which together manage hundreds of billions for public employees and teachers. About half of the highest earners were at those funds or the Highway Patrol. 

Executives made up roughly half the top of the list; the rest were investment managers, psychiatrists, physicians and sworn officers. 

Base pay is only part of the story. 

Controller records dump bonuses, incentive awards, overtime, and cash-outs of leave into “other pay.” For Gilmore, that bucket was larger than the salaries of entire agency executive leadership teams.

CalPERS told the Chronicle the $1.5 million was an incentive award tied to fiscal 2024-25 fund performance. The fund reported an 11.6 percent return that year and now oversees more than $600 billion. Defenders will say Wall Street would pay more to run a portfolio that size. 

Taxpayers do not get to opt out of the bill. California still owes tens of billions toward unfunded pension and retiree-health benefits. 

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Legislature passes bill making it easier for Californians to sue ICE agents

August 29, 2026 By Sara DiNatale, Bob Egelko 1 Comment

Legislation that makes it easier for Californians to sue federal officers, including immigration agents, is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk after the Senate overwhelmingly passed it Thursday.

The bill, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, passed the Senate in a 28-10 vote after passing 54-17 in the Assembly on Tuesday. Wiener told the Senate the bill creates a pathway for residents to sue any federal, state or local official “who violates their constitutional rights.”

“The only way to end ICE’s violent, lawless behavior is accountability,” Wiener said following the vote. “Today, the California Legislature stood up to hold them accountable.”

Wiener has said the bill would allow people harmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to file a lawsuit over their mistreatment by closing loopholes that made it difficult to sue federal law enforcement in California state courts. Allegations could now include freedom of speech violations, unlawful searches, racial profiling — or wrongful death.

Wiener, who is now running for a congressional seat, first introduced Senate Bill 747, also known as the No Kings Act, in September 2025. But attention on the bill picked up earlier this year in the wake of the violent confrontations in Minnesota, where ICE agents shot and killed 37-year–old Alex Pretti and 37-year-old Renee Good.

“Today’s vote means Californians harmed by a federal agent’s misconduct are one step closer to a real day in court,” Cameron Kistler with nonprofit Protect Democracy said in a statement. “We urge Governor Newsom to sign it into law without delay.”

If signed into law by Newsom, the bill will make California the fifth state this year to give residents a remedy when federal law enforcement violates their constitutional rights, according to Protect Democracy, which co-sponsored the bill. The other states are New York, Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Amendments made to the bill clarify that it does not apply to cities, counties or public entities but, rather, to individuals, Wiener told senators Thursday. He said it does not expand liabilities beyond what federal law already permits.

Despite criticism from Republicans that the legislation goes outside the state’s jurisdiction, Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean at UC Berkeley and an expert in constitutional law, told the Chronicle it’s likely that California will be able to enforce a law allowing lawsuits to be filed against federal agents in state court over violations of constitutional rights.

“I do not believe that the supremacy clause automatically protects federal officers from state tort or criminal liability,” Chemerinsky said, referring to the section of the U.S. Constitution that declares federal law to be the supreme law of the land, overriding any conflicting state laws.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

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Three arrested for assault during Nick Shirley-related political rally at State Capitol

August 28, 2026 By David Aguilar Leave a Comment

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Three people were arrested on assault charges during a political rally at the State Capitol on Wednesday.

Conservative influencer Nick Shirley and his supporters gathered to oppose a law designed to protect the information of immigration workers, claiming it limits public access to government information.

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Tensions were high as California Highway Patrol officers stood between protesters and counter-protesters on the west steps.

CHP announced one arrest and Sacramento police announced two arrests. Officers have not disclosed who was arrested or which group they were affiliated with.

The event opposed a new law that keeps the home addresses of immigration workers confidential, with penalties for sharing that information. Critics have dubbed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” arguing it could make it harder for journalists and the public to hold government officials accountable.

Click here to read the full article at KCRA

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