THE BUZZ: It was one other 12 months for the history books.
War, a battle for the Senate and global oil crisis captured much of the world’s attention in 2022. But, as usual, California repeatedly got the highlight — though not at all times for the very best reasons.
Here is our non-comprehensive list of the stories that we expect shaped and shook California politics this 12 months:
#11 — A farewell to Madam Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco’s very long time leading daughter relinquished the gavel this 12 months, ending an era in Democratic politics and cementing her place in history as the primary and only woman (for now) to function Speaker of the House.
#10 — Villanueva’s political feud got personal
The now-former-LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva raised eyebrows when his office abruptly searched the house of one in every of his most noted political opponents, County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who retired this 12 months.
#9 — Homelessness continued to dominate
Feeling the pressure, more Democratic mayors backed aggressive measures to clear streets and sidewalks. Gov. Gavin Newsom withheld billions until cities promised higher progress. And in LA, Mayor Karen Bass has vowed to maneuver 17,000 people indoors by the tip of the 12 months.
#8 — The large bet that flopped
Gambling giants DraftKings and FanDuel poured nearly $170 million into Proposition 27, which might have legalized online sports betting, simply to give you lower than 18 percent of the vote. It was the largest losing margin for a ballot measure in 18 years.
#7 — A record state budget
Lawmakers enjoyed an almost $100 billion surplus this 12 months, with the whole budget clocking in at a record $300 billion.
#6 — California’s big swing on climate change
Lawmakers passed a sweeping, $54 billion package of climate change bills aimed toward shoring up the state’s energy supplies and slashing carbon emissions. Amongst them was an extension for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
#5 — Gavin Newsom’s national tour
Newsom spent much of 2022 bathing within the national highlight after taking jabs at red state leaders — most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He bought ads on Fox News, took out full page ads in Texas, and erected billboards across several states. He repeatedly insisted it’s not a trial run for 2024, but fairly a mission to ward off against Republicans’ narrative on gun control, abortion and LGBTQ issues.
#4 — The fallout from Roe
California responded almost immediately to the Supreme Court overturning the landmark abortion ruling with greater than a dozen bills and a measure to enshrine the proper to abortion and contraception within the state structure.
#3 — A battle for the speaker’s gavel
Some thought Assemblymember Robert Rivas was finished after his first try to take the speakership from Anthony Rendon failed. However the Salinas Democrat triumphed ultimately, securing the boldness of the caucus and the title of Speaker-elect heading into 2023.
#2 — The attack on Paul Pelosi
A conspiracy-fueled assault on one in every of America’s most famous political families drew condemnation from either side of the aisle, and highlighted a rise in against public officials.
#1 — The LA City Council tapes
It is a story that won’t be left in 2022. The leaked audio of a conversation between three city council members and a labor leader, through which they made crude and racist jokes, continues to dominate the discourse around city government, and, most notably, Councilmember Kevin de León, who refuses to resign.
BUENOS DÍAS, good Friday morning. Wishing a really Merry Christmas and a Joyful Recent Yr to our California Playbook readers. Thanks for sticking with us this 12 months, and godspeed to those of you heading East and right into a polar vortex this weekend.
Programming note: There might be no California Playbook next week. We’ll return in 2023, on Jan. 3.
Got a tip or story idea for California Playbook? Hit us up: [email protected] and [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @JeremyBWhite and @Lara_Korte.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “As you are preparing for the thrill of the upcoming winter holidays, now’s the right time to exit and get your Covid booster shot and your flu shot. It is also an excellent time to be certain that you will have an ample supply of Covid tests.” California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly in a PSA Thursday.
TWEET OF THE DAY:
WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
CRUSHED BY CANNABIS — “Dying on your high: The untold exploitation and misery in America’s weed industry,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Paige St. John and Marisa Gerber: “For tens of millions of consumers, the legalization of cannabis has brought a multibillion dollar industry out of the shadows and into brightly lit neighborhood dispensaries. But California, birthplace of each the farm labor movement and counterculture pot, has largely ignored the immigrant staff who grow, harvest and trim America’s weed.”
IT’S HERE — Extremists on the vanguard of a siege: The Jan. 6 panel’s last word, by POLITICO’s Nicholas Wu and Kyle Cheney: The primary wave of rioters to enter the Capitol throughout the siege, in keeping with the Jan. 6 select committee’s final report released Thursday night, was disproportionately comprised of members of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, QAnon fanatics and so-called “Groypers” loyal to Nick Fuentes, the previous president’s racist and antisemitic recent Mar-a-Lago dinner guest.
RECOUNT RESERVES — “California recounts shouldn’t rely on candidate wealth,” Opine the Mercury News and East Bay Times Editorial Boards: “In last month’s election, a City Council race in Richmond resulted in a tie. One other in Sunnyvale was decided by one vote. And one in Antioch was determined by a three-vote margin. There are recounts ongoing in all three races. There needs to be. However the candidates and their backers have needed to pay to be certain that the outcomes are right. That’s morally flawed.”
POPULATION DROP — Recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show California lost 343,230 residents attributable to domestic migration last 12 months, the biggest of any state. Florida, meanwhile, gained 318,855 residents in net domestic migration.
AFTER THE QUAKE — “It’s going to be a red-tagged Christmas for those whose homes were wrecked in 6.4 quake,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Mackenzie Mays, Susanne Rust and Jessica Garrison: “Sooner or later after a 6.4 earthquake rocked these rural, redwood-canopied towns, leaving two dead and no less than 17 injured, it was clear that Mcniece’s community of Rio Dell, a lumber town built upon the cliffs of the Eel River, had taken the brunt of the damage.”
AFTER THE TAPE — “Racist audio leak raises a tricky query: Why don’t Latinos vote more in L.A.?” by the Los Angeles Times’ Brittny Mejia: “Nearly 1,000,000 Angelenos turned out to vote in essentially the most recent mayoral election, a big increase from the roughly 401,000 who forged ballots in 2013 when Eric Garcetti was first elected mayor. But while the whole variety of voters increased significantly across all demographic groups, the share of the electorate that was Latino didn’t.”
HOLD UP — “UC graduate employee unions forge tentative deals that might end the strike — but not all staff are celebrating,” by CapRadio’s Janelle Salanga: “The agreements were announced Dec. 16, 4 days after union and UC bargaining teams brought in Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg to mediate negotiations. But the brand new contracts haven’t been unanimously celebrated. Each bargaining teams split the vote for the tentative agreements.”
— “Even in Bay Area, Jewish residents face ‘drumbeat’ of antisemitism,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Sharpe: “In line with a first-ever survey conducted for the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, nearly a 3rd of the 828 respondents experienced or witnessed antisemitism prior to now three years and consider their environment before publicly identifying as Jewish.”
PUMPING PRESSURE — “California gas prices are plummeting. What does it mean for Newsom’s penalty on Big Oil?” by the Sacramento Bee’s Maggie Angst and Lindsey Holden: “Gas prices within the Golden State are plummeting and inflation could also be easing, but Democratic lawmakers and other political professionals imagine it should have little effect on the state’s push to take oil corporations to task for allegedly price-gouging drivers on the pump.”
— “Fentanyl on campus: DA says alleged dealer nicknamed ‘Madman’ targeted Los Gatos High students,” by the Mercury News’ Scooty Nickerson: “A 23 year-old alleged fentanyl peddler was arrested on Thursday and charged with selling fentanyl-laced pills to teenagers in downtown Los Gatos, including at a car parking zone and church near Los Gatos High.”
DRY DREAD — “‘Full on crisis’: Groundwater in California’s Central Valley disappearing at alarming rate,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Ian James: “Scientists have discovered that the pace of groundwater depletion in California’s Central Valley has accelerated dramatically throughout the drought as heavy agricultural pumping has drawn down aquifer levels to latest lows and now threatens to devastate the underground water reserves.”
— “California university apologizes for prisoner experiments,” by the AP: “A distinguished California medical school has apologized for conducting dozens of unethical medical experiments on no less than 2,600 incarcerated men within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, including putting pesticides and herbicides on the lads’s skin and injecting it into their veins.”
OFFICE ORDERS — “Here’s what latest California labor laws mean for you in 2023, from minimum wage to family leave,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Maya Miller: “Job hunters will give you the chance to understand how much a position pays before applying. Public employers found to be interfering with union activity can pay sizable fines. Family leave advantages will improve. These are among the changes coming for California staff and businesses because the calendar flips to 2023.”
— “Long-sought pregnancy protections are on the verge of becoming law,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bob Egelko: “Pregnant employees might be entitled to places where they’ll sit, limits on how much they need to carry and other reasonable accommodations from their employer under long-fought federal laws co-sponsored by Bay Area Rep. Jackie Speier that’s about to grow to be law.”
— “‘Dickensian’ Conditions At LA County Jail Amid Shortage Of Psychiatric Staff,” by LAist’s Robert Garrova: “The L.A. County Jail system is facing a stark shortage of psychiatric staffers amid what experts and officials say is an exploding population of incarcerated people living with a mental illness.”
MORE ON J6… Trump acknowledged his election loss to McCarthy before Jan. 6, Hutchinson testified, by POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told then-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in the times before Jan. 6, 2021, that Donald Trump had privately acknowledged losing the 2020 election, in keeping with a newly disclosed interview Hutchinson gave to the Jan. 6 select committee.
… AND MORE — “Jan. 6 Panel Issues Final Report, Placing Blame for Capitol Riot on ‘One Man,’” by the Recent York Times’ Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman: “Declaring that the central reason for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was ‘one man,’ the House committee investigating the assault delivered its final report on Thursday, describing in extensive detail how former President Donald J. Trump had carried out what it called ‘a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election’ and offering recommendations for steps to guarantee nothing prefer it could occur again.”
— “Congress has a $1.7 trillion bill to fund the federal government. Here’s what’s in it,” by the Washington Post’s Tony Romm: “Congressional lawmakers hope on Thursday to finalize a bipartisan, roughly $1.7 trillion bill that enhances domestic and defense spending through most of 2023, funding the federal government and averting a catastrophic shutdown within the waning hours of the 12 months.”
CRYPTO CHARGES — Former Alameda Research executive Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to a large alleged fraud yesterday; Ellison was the responsible officer for $12 million Alameda Research channeled toward a pandemic prevention initiative. Meanwhile, FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried has been released to his parents’ Palo Alto home as he awaits trial.
THE CALIFORNIA CRUMBLE — “Dream jobs brought them to Silicon Valley. Now they’re laid off and in an ‘inconceivable’ situation,” by the Guardian’s Johana Bhuiyan: “Over the previous couple of months the tech industry has been in a period of upheaval. In an apparent retrenchment, corporations have conducted mass layoffs after pouring their war chest of funding and resources into chasing the Covid pandemic’s explosive but fleeting growth in demand.”
ELON’S BIRD APP — “This Is What It Looks Like When Twitter Falls Apart,” by the Atlantic’s Caroline Mimbs Nyce: “In only eight weeks, Musk has laid off large chunks of the workforce, asked those that remained to commit to being ‘extremely hardcore,’ unbanned previously suspended accounts, caused advertisers to flee the platform, kicked a lot of journalists off the platform after which reinstated them, and polled users about whether or not he should proceed as CEO (a majority voted no).”
DUELING TRENDS — “L.A. students’ grades are rising, but test scores are falling. Why the massive disconnect?” by the Los Angeles Times’ Paloma Esquivel.
— “Twitter seeks dismissal of disability bias lawsuit over job cuts,” by Reuters’ Daniel Wiessner.
HOLIDAY HEADACHE — “Wave of canceled flights across US causing Christmas travel headaches at SMF, LAX, SFO,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Jacqueline Pinedo.
— “Arbitration of California Labor Law Claims Still Varies, for Now,” by Bloomberg’s Robert Iafolla.
— “It’s going to be the largest navigation center in Northern California. Can it end homelessness on this Bay Area county?” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Kevin Fagan.
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