Category Archives: California legislature

California legislature, Close the Gap California, Susannah Delano, Women, Women's equality

Former Benician Susannah Delano on California’s ‘Great Resignation’

BenIndy Editor: Full (and prideful) disclosure: Susannah Delano is my beloved – and highly talented – daughter.  🙂  – R.S.

Legislature’s ‘Great Resignation’ provides great opportunity for women

By Susannah Delano, Special to CalMatters, February 15, 2022 Susannah Delano is executive director of Close the Gap California, a nonprofit organization that recruits and prepares progressive women to run for state Legislature.

We’re witnessing the “Great Resignation, Capitol Edition,” with more than a quarter of California’s 120 legislators exiting the building in 2022.

Why are we losing so many legislators in one year? It’s a combination of factors – redistricting, which left many incumbents with no place to run; a domino effect of open seats as members seek new roles; and the reckoning of term limit reform passed in 2012.

Where some might see chaos, we see opportunity.

The 2022 election marks the start of California’s “Great Opportunity” to elect a Legislature that truly reflects the people it serves.

California has a reputation for leading the nation forward on critical issues including climate change, equal pay, reproductive health access, long-term care, minimum wage, family leave, early education and more.

But when it comes to women’s representation – California falls short.

Only 37 legislators – less than a third – are women. Of the 37 women serving, 28 are Democrats and 9 are Republicans. California ranks 28rd in the nation for our percentage of women legislators.

Our goal is nothing short of parity for women in the California Legislature, this decade. When I briefed political insiders on that audacious goal years ago, many of them gave me a virtual pat on the head and wished me luck. But in 2022, that audacious dream is starting to look a lot more real.

In my 20 years of working to elect more racially representative, progressive women to office, I’ve never witnessed a higher caliber of candidates step up to run at the state level. As we’ve worked with the majority of these women, I can tell you they are experienced, savvy, and ready to win.

In the fight for equal representation, we are all too used to incremental progress at best. But this year, the hard work of identifying, encouraging and preparing women to run is paying off at an unprecedented scale.

With musical chairs ensuring the Legislature will lose at least eight of its women incumbents by year’s end, this historically robust wave of reinforcements is exactly what might ensure women’s numbers continue to climb in 2022.

Common sense and research tell us that running for an open seat is the likeliest path to victory for a newcomer. What’s unprecedented about 2022 is the volume of open seats, and the number of accomplished women who are ready to win.

In the 35 legislative seats open so far in 2022, an astounding 45 female candidates with the capacity to run competitive campaigns have launched so far. In nine districts, both of the top two contenders are women.

These women arrive with impressive backgrounds and track records of service to their communities. They’re nonprofit directors, nurses, labor and tech leaders, small business owners and entrepreneurs. They’ve served on city councils, school boards, and local and state commissions.

The women running for open seats in 2022 are overwhelmingly Democratic, and also present historic levels of diversity. More than 70% are women of color, and many are LGBTQ+.

In this time of legislative turnover, who comes next will determine what comes next. The nation will look to the pipeline of leaders and innovative policy solutions we battle-test here in the years to come.

While we are losing some extremely effective legislators in 2022, as long as well-prepared women keep stepping up, and stakeholders are brave enough to put their resources where their values align, voters will have the opportunity to elect new voices and transform the Capitol’s decision-making tables.

The women of 2022 are the future many of us have dreamed of for decades.

They will need to overcome a disproportionate number of barriers along their paths to election. But today, their sheer number, talent and determination should inspire us to look beyond the Capitol’s Great Resignation, and recognize this moment for what it is: California’s Great Opportunity to put the world’s fifth largest economy on a fast-track to reflective democracy.

#BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter, California legislature, California Regulation, Legislative Action, Police violence

‘Insulting’: California police reform bills die without vote

State takes small steps toward reform

Vallejo Times-Herald, By Nico Savidge, September 3, 2020
[See also: Associated Press, California bill to strip badges from ‘bad officers’ fails]

Three months ago, with protests against racism and police brutality gripping the state and nation, California lawmakers had plans for new legislation that would make sweeping changes to law enforcement.

But as their session came to a chaotic end at midnight Tuesday, state legislators had only approved a handful of relatively modest changes to police practices, while more controversial proposals — to strip problem officers of their badges, broaden public access to police misconduct records and limit the use of rubber bullets and tear gas at protests — died without the votes they needed to pass.

The defeat of those measures, coming in the Democrat- dominated Legislature of a state that positions itself as a beacon of progressive government, is a stinging disappointment for activists, civil liberties groups and lawmakers, who believed the time had come for major changes meant to bolster police accountability and transparency.

“To ignore the thousands of voices calling for meaningful police reform is insulting,” Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, said in a statement early Tuesday morning after his bill to “decertify” officers who commit crimes or serious misconduct failed to get a vote in the final hours Monday. “Today, Californians were once again let down by those who were meant to represent them.”

Policing wasn’t the only issue that left advocates and lawmakers unsatisfied — bills that passed for eviction protections and housing also fell short of what many hoped to see in the shortened legislative session that was upended by the coronavirus.

The law enforcement bills lawmakers did approve included a requirement that state authorities investigate certain deadly police shootings, as well as a ban on the carotid “sleeper” restraint a Minneapolis officer used in the deadly arrest of George Floyd on Memorial Day.

But Dennis Cuevas-Romero, a legislative advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, noted that many police departments have already prohibited officers from using the carotid restraint. Gov. Gavin Newsom also directed the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training after Floyd’s death to no longer offer training on the tactic.

And while Cuevas-Romero said having state authorities investigate police shootings “could be really significant,” he also noted that the bill only requires the state to investigate fatal police shootings of unarmed civilians, as opposed to all deaths at the hands of police.

“This was our concern from the very beginning, when all the police reform legislation was introduced,” Cuevas-Romero said. “The ones that were less impactful would be the ones that make it to the finish line,” allowing lawmakers to claim victory “without actually doing significant reform.”

The ACLU cosponsored Bradford’s decertification bill. California is one
of only five states that doesn’t have such a process, and an investigation by this news organization found dozens of police officers with criminal records were still working in departments across the state.

Bradford’s bill also would have rolled back some of the legal protection known as “qualified immunity,” which shields officers from liability in many excessive force lawsuits. Activists charge the legal doctrine is a significant barrier to holding police accountable, and the bill got a late lobbying push from a raft of celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West and Los Angeles Laker Kyle Kuzma.

Law enforcement groups say they are open to creating a decertification process, and have called for a special session of the Legislature to create one. But they vehemently opposed the bill’s limits to qualified immunity, which helped make it the most controversial of this year’s police reform proposals.

“We are pleased that the late-session rush to enact a flawed bill that would have had debilitating repercussions for police officers and public safety was not voted upon,” Craig Lally, the president of the union representing Los Angeles police officers, said in a statement after Bradford’s bill failed. “It is more important to get it right and not rushed, and we pledge our cooperation to work collaboratively with likeminded stakeholders and the legislature to get it right.”

Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, said the shortened session made it difficult for his organization representing more than 75,000 police officers to negotiate with lawmakers. In the next session, Marvel said, “We will have a much better opportunity to collaboratively work with the authors on creating legislation.”

Bradford pledged to bring his proposal back next year.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, said she would do the same with her bill sharply limiting the use of rubber bullets and tear gas, prompted by what critics derided as a heavyhanded police response to racial justice demonstrations. That bill, which also faced opposition from police lobbying groups, similarly never came up for a vote Monday night.

Benicia CA, California legislature, Climate emergency, Progressive Democrats of Benicia, Youth Strikes for Climate movement

Benicia meeting on Climate Emergency Declaration, Student-led Climate Strike

Repost from Progressive Democrats of Benicia, Sept 11, 2019
[Editor: see links below for docs &  information about Climate Strike 2020 and Benicia’s proposed Climate Emergency Declaration.  Also see Benicia’s nearest Climate Strike next Saturday Sept 20: Walnut Creek.  (Note that Friday 9/13, was the final day of CA legislative session.)  – R.S.]
Kathy Dervin, Co-Chair of 350 Bay Area Legislative Committee

On September 10, members of Progressive Democrats of Benicia heard from a powerful and highly informative featured speaker, Kathy Dervin, Co-Chair of 350 Bay Area Legislative Committee and a consulting professional with a Master of Public Health (MPH) focused in Health Education/Environmental Health.

Kathy presented a compelling overview of pending legislation relating to Climate Change (see bold text below).  She also covered

We made plans to post here and send out by email an URGENT CALL TO ACTION!  > With only three days to the close of the California Legislature’s  session (until Sept 13th), everyone was asked to call Assembly member Grayson and Senator Dodd’s office ASAP to advocate on the following bills: (see details at URGENT! Call our representatives today!! or download the list)
Air Quality, California legislature, Fossil fuels, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil industry lobby

California’s conservative Democrat legislators not protecting air quality

Repost from CALmatters

When oil industry supports legislators, air quality suffers

By By Kathryn Phillips, April 22, 2019

When oil industry supports legislators, air quality suffers

California journalists have reported over the last two election cycles on the effort by the Legislature’s “moderate caucus,” composed of conservative Democratic state legislators, to increase the caucus’ influence

The caucus’ power, according to those reports, is rooted deeply in the oil industry and its generous campaign donations to the caucus and its members.

During normal times—say, when the planet’s very future hasn’t depended on dramatically cutting combustion fueled by oil and methane gas—such facts would be just interesting data points for analyzing the Legislature’s political dynamics.

Now, though, the caucus members’ devotion to maintaining California’s oil dependence is having health-threatening consequences.

This devotion is especially playing out in the Assembly Transportation Committee. The committee is chaired by Jim Frazier, a Democrat from Discovery Bay, a leader of the moderate caucus.

California’s notorious air and climate pollution is driven by transportation. The smog and toxic particles that spark maladies ranging from low birthweight to asthma and heart disease are tightly linked to tailpipe emissions.

Reams of data, scientific papers and regulatory agency reports point to the need to transition California’s cars and trucks to zero-emission vehicles if the state is to ever have clean air or avoid the worst effects of climate change.

So one would expect to see growing devotion by the Democratic-led California Legislature to do more to help Californians access electric cars and cut pollution from delivery trucks.

Instead, the California Assembly is the graveyard for legislation designed to help advance zero-emission vehicles.

Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Frazier has a commanding, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners style of governing. He has demonstrated that style by stopping bills to advance clean transportation by refusing to schedule them for a hearing in his committee.

One of the most recent victims is Assembly Bill 40, which would require the regulatory agency responsible for tailpipe emissions regulations, the California Air Resources Board, to produce and deliver to the legislature a strategy for fully transitioning brand new cars sold in California to zero-emission by 2040.

That is, the bill by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting would have asked for a study to be done and sent to the Legislature. It did nothing more. Yet it’s a bill the oil and gas industry and the California Chamber of Commerce strongly oppose. The bill isn’t being scheduled for a hearing.

There are a few bills in the Senate that advance clean transportation that may pass in that house. But they are sure to face the buzzsaw in the Assembly once they reach Frazier’s committee.

How can a single legislator stop progress in advancing technology and cutting pollution?

He can do this by not acting alone. The Assembly Transportation Committee includes at least four other moderate caucus members who won’t buck the chairman, and whose votes, when counted with the handful of Republicans on the committee, can stop any bill.

In essence, the committee is stacked against zero-emission technology.

Frazier isn’t the only pro-oil Democrat sitting in a leadership role this year. Rudy Salas, Jr., a Democrat from Bakersfield, is chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. His first action was to try to get an expansive and expensive audit of the air resources board’s work on transportation.

It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Salas’s audit request, which failed to garner the votes needed, echoed the complaints commonly heard from the oil and gas industry about the air resources board’s transportation policies.

Who pays campaign costs has consequences. In the California Legislature, the consequences are that we all live with more health-threatening transportation pollution with no end in sight.

Kathryn Phillips is director of Sierra Club California, the legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the Sierra Club’s 13 local chapters. She wrote this commentary for CALmatters.