Downey congresswoman backs Antonio Villaraigosa for governor
California farmworkers will have to undergo sexual assault prevention training
Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed legislation to ensure farm labor contractors train employees on how to prevent and report sexual assault, a response to a 2013 PBS Frontline investigation that found sexual violence against women was a pervasive problem in California fields.
Senate Bill 295 by Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel) makes sexual harassment training mandatory at all businesses that supervise farm employees or provide them with lodging, transportation or other services.
The training has to be conducted or interpreted in a language that employees can understand, the law stipulates, and farm labor contractors will have to provide proof of all of their materials and resources to the Farm Labor Commission as part of the license renewal process.
Under the new law, the state labor commission also will be able to charge a $100 civil fine for any violation of the new requirements.
The PBS Frontline investigative documenatory, “Rape in the Fields, The Hidden Story of Rape on the Job in America” found more than half a million women work in U.S. fields. Most do not have legal residency in the country, and sexual harassment and violence often go unreported. A 2012 Human Rights Watch survey found 80% of 150 women in California’s Central Valley had experienced some form of the abuse.
Los Angeles voters can cast ballots in Assembly race on Tuesday
The political dominoes from U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s retirement are almost done falling.
Her decision two years ago to forgo reelection led to a reshuffling that eventually left vacant a state Assembly seat in Los Angeles.
There are 13 candidates running in the special election, and the primary is Tuesday.
California Politics Podcast: Lawmakers say their focus on housing has just begun
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.
We also discuss Brown’s decision to move California’s presidential primary from June to March, and whether it has any hope of making the state relevant in the race for the White House.
Other topics on this week’s podcast include a push for a property tax proposal on next year’s statewide ballot, and a new poll showing a number of likely voters think Sen. Dianne Feinstein should step down when her current term ends.
I’m joined by Times staff writer Liam Dillon and Marisa Lagos of KQED.
Gov. Brown signs major housing legislation
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.
Watch live: Gov. Jerry Brown signs bills to tackle California’s housing crisis
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.
Businesses in California will be required to tell customers exactly how much their automatic renewal will cost
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.
Streaming services like Hulu and Spotify and the file-sharing site Dropbox have elicited lawsuits and consumer complaints about their automatic service renewals, according to Hertzberg’s statement.
The law goes into effect in July.
Antonio Villaraigosa wants to bring back an urban renewal program to fund low-income housing
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.
Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles, said a revived program would allow for greater state assistance to address housing problems.
Lawmakers passed a large package of housing legislation earlier this month, including a new real estate transaction fee and a bond measure for the November 2018 ballot. But even with that new spending, state subsidies will remain billions of dollars’ short of what’s needed to finance housing for its neediest residents, according to state and third-party estimates.
Will California Republicans in the House support a tax proposal that would hit their districts hard?
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.
Here’s why California’s early primary in 2020 is destined to pick the next president. (Nah, not really)
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!
Uh.
No more watching from the sidelines as small-fry states like Iowa and New Hampshire throw their weight around.
Um.
I’m already fluffing pillows and prepping the guestroom for all the 2020 hopefuls who’ll be camped out.
Er.
What? You don’t seem too excited.
Look, it would be great if California voted in a truly meaningful presidential primary. It’s been about 50 years since that happened. But it’s about as likely in 2020 as President Trump dumping Vice President Pence and running for reelection on a unity ticket with Hillary Clinton.
How can that be?
Lots of reasons, both political and practical.
Do tell.
Poll: Californians like Obamacare more than ever but are divided on single-payer healthcare
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.
Only 18% of Californians believe congressional Republicans should try again to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and 58% of adults want to see bipartisan efforts to improve the law.
Underscoring the GOP’s challenge in dramatically reducing government’s role in healthcare, two-thirds of the state’s adults believe it is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure that all Americans have health coverage.
But Californians are divided on whether to substantially increase government involvement through a single-payer system, such as the “Medicare for All” proposal recently introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).
A national single-payer insurance program such as “Medicare for All” gets support from 35% of Californians, according to the poll. Support is higher among Democrats — 44% — and independents — 34% — than among Republicans. Only 6% of Republicans back such a system.
But the current system, a patchwork of government and private insurance options, isn’t particularly adored by Californians.
Just under 30% of adults support continuing with a mix of private and public insurance options, while 36% of Democrats, 21% of Republicans and 31% of independents see that mixed system as the best way to provide health coverage.