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    Setting Brushfires of Freedom by Don Jans

    A day of surprises at the Capitol

    With a midnight Friday deadline to determine the fate of hundreds of bills on his desk, Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a busy man.

    On Wednesday, Newsom unexpectedly showed up at the vigil that members of the United Farm Workers union have been holding outside the state Capitol since late August, when they completed a 355-mile march to Sacramento urging him to sign a bill that would make it easier for farmworkers to vote in union elections — and signed it.

    The move came as a surprise to many Capitol onlookers, given that Newsom’s office had repeatedly said the governor was opposed to the bill as written. But strong pressure from President Joe Biden and prominent Latino labor leaders may have helped change his mind, along with a deal Newsom struck with key unions to pass legislation next year containing “clarifying language” to address some of the governor’s concerns around implementation and voting integrity. CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang has more on what that means and the significance of Newsom’s signature.

    Newsom’s Sacramento bill signing came after a morning trip to San Francisco, where he gave his stamp of approval to a package of housing bills that includes two complementary proposals to make it easier to build housing on land zoned for commercial use. Before signing the bills, Newsom described housing affordability as California’s “original sin,” vowing that this marked the moment “not to give the same speech and expect the same applause, but to begin to do something about it.”

    That’s not all: Newsom signed additional stacks of bills Wednesday, including a host of water and drought-related proposals. But Wednesday night, he announced a veto of a bill to provide more aid to low-income Californians in paying water bills, saying that “no sustainable, ongoing funding” for the program had been identified.

    He also vetoed bills to extend jobless benefits to undocumented immigrantsrestrict bee-killing pesticidesoffer a $1,000 tax credit to Californians without carsboost salaries for unionized, non-faculty California State University staff members and expand the scope of practice of optometrists.

    Late Tuesday night, after greenlighting proposals related to pay equity and reproductive justice, he acted on yet another ream of legislation mostly related to health care. Here’s a look at the outcome of some particularly interesting bills:

    A controversial bill to reform California’s problem-plagued nursing home licensing system — which splintered advocacy groups that usually align, CalMatters’ Jocelyn Wiener reports.
    A bill to create non-hospital settings for low-income youth suffering from mental health crises, after vetoing a similar proposal last year.
    A bill to expand California’s bottle recycling deposit program to wine and liquor bottles, which will cost 10 cents more starting Jan. 1, 2024. However, you can get the money back by returning the empty bottles to a recycling center.
    A bill to require state agencies to report to lawmakers by Jan. 1, 2024 on the status of California’s behavioral health workforce and how best to address the shortage of employees.
    A bill to require the state public health department to evaluate the adequacy of local public health departments’ infrastructure and workforce for future public health needs
    A bill to ban foreign governments from purchasing, acquiring, leasing or holding an interest in California agricultural land.

    In other surprising Capitol news: California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye announced Wednesday that she will assume leadership of the Public Policy Institute of California on Jan. 1, 2023, when she steps down from her role leading the state’s highest court. (Voters will decide in November whether to confirm Newsom’s nominee, Associate Justice Patricia Guerrero, as the next chief justice.) “I understand this role will be different from my current one and yet I believe my skillset and experience have prepared me well for this task,” Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement. “I am fully committed to PPIC’s nonpartisan mission and efforts to improve public policy in California through independent research — without a thumb on the scale. After all, who can say ‘no’ to facts?” Cantil-Sakauye will replace PPIC President and CEO Mark Baldassare, who announced his retirement plans in March.


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    C E Voigtsberger
    C E Voigtsberger
    1 year ago

    Good luck on finding some place to take your wine bottles for the 10¢ per bottle refund. Maybe the boy scouts could start collecting wine bottles to finance their scout troops. When I was scout age, long, long ago and far, far away, collecting soda bottles on Saturday morning and newspapers was how we raised money for our troop. Now they just sell stale popcorn in front of grocery stores.

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