For months, lawmakers in Sacramento said that their effort to pass a package of bills aimed at California's housing woes was only the beginning.

They repeated that pledge on Friday, even after acknowledging the heavy political lift it took just to pass the simple steps signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.

On this week's podcast episode, we discuss the political and practical impact of the new housing laws, as well as what might be in store for 2018.

At a signing ceremony in San Francisco on Friday morning, Gov. Jerry Brown signed 15 bills aimed at addressing the state's mounting housing problems. 

"It is a big challenge," Brown said. "We have risen to it this year."

The bills could add nearly $1 billion in new funding for low-income housing developments in the near term as well as lessen regulations that slow growth.

Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are gathered in San Francisco for the signing into law of a package of proposals designed to tackle some of the most pressing parts of California's housing crisis.

California will require online businesses that offer free trials to tell customers exactly how much an automatic renewal will cost under a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday. 

The law's author, Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys), thinks the bill, known as SB 313, will make it easier for customers to cancel service.

“Consumers need to know what they are signing up for and that they can just as easily cancel any service or subscription online as when they started it online," Hertzberg said in a statement. 

California candidate for governor Antonio Villaraigosa wants the state to bring back an urban renewal program to fund low-income housing.

"Solving our state's growing housing crisis will take a sustained commitment and creative thinking," Villaraigosa wrote in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. "But when it comes to giving local governments the tools they need, we don't need to reinvent the wheel."

Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers eliminated a state redevelopment program in 2011 as a cost-cutting move aimed at saving nearly $2 billion during the state's budget crisis. The program allowed cities to target run-down neighborhoods for investment and use a share of property tax dollars generated by development to fund improvements, including financing low-income housing. But doing so required the state to spend more to support public schools, and Brown derided the agencies as being rife with abuses of taxpayer dollars.

One-third of Californian taxpayers could be forced to pay thousands more in federal taxes from the repeal of one deduction under a GOP proposal released Wednesday, setting up another political dilemma for California Republicans facing tough reelection battles next year as Democrats work to win back the House of Representatives.

The potential repeal of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, which allows taxpayers to write off those taxes on their federal returns, would hit especially hard in wealthier areas, some of which are on the exact turf Democrats are trying to win over in Southern California.

Details of the overall tax reform plan have yet to be worked out, but so far, vulnerable California Republicans are not joining GOP colleagues in other states who have said they won’t accept the repeal of the deduction, and some of them seem willing to negotiate.

Today we answer questions.

Woo-hoo! Now that Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the bill, it looks like California is moving up its 2020 presidential primary. Finally!

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Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles) is raffling off a set of tickets to "Hamilton" in Los Angeles as a campaign fundraiser.

According to the small print in an email the campaign sent to supporters, one winner will be randomly selected among donors by 11:59 p.m. PST on Oct. 3. The tickets are for the Oct. 19 showing of the hit musical and have an approximate retail value of $824. Entries for the raffle can also be made without donating to the campaign.

Cardenas is friends with the father of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning creator of "Hamilton." When the show opened in Los Angeles in mid-August, Miranda spoke to nearly 1,000 students in Cardenas' largely Latino San Fernando Valley district.

As the latest attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act fizzles, the law has reached its highest popularity in California in four years, according to a new poll released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Nearly 60% of the Californians hold a generally favorable view of the healthcare law, and just over a third of Californians see it unfavorably — the highest approval rating since PPIC began tracking the law's popularity in 2013.

But while Democrats and independents back the law, known as Obamacare, with strong majorities, three-quarters of Republicans have negative views of it.

As Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein contemplates a 2018 bid for reelection, a new poll has found that 50% of California’s likely voters think she shouldn’t run again.

Just 43% of likely voters support Feinstein running for a sixth term, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll released Wednesday. The results are similar among all California adults, not just likely voters, with 46% saying she should not run for another term and 41% saying she should run.

Feinstein, 84, has come under increased pressure from members of California’s left, many of whom were infuriated when earlier this month she called for “patience” with President Trump and refused to back demands for his impeachment.