State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, is among more than 140 women who signed the letter detailing sexual harassment in politics and demanding that it end. (Bert Johnson/KQED)

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, announced on Tuesday that the state Senate will hire outside firms to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct at the Capitol in Sacramento – allegations referenced in an open letter signed by women claiming widespread harassment while working in California politics.

“There’s always more employers can do to protect their employees,” de León said. “Everyone deserves a workplace free of fear, harassment and sexual misbehavior and I applaud the courage of women working in and around the Capitol who are coming forward and making their voices heard.”

The open letter was published on wesaidenough.com.

“The time has come for women to come together, to speak up and to share their stories,” part of the letter read. “The time has come for good men to listen, to believe us, and to act as strong allies by speaking out against harassment in all its forms.”

Below the text was a box to share and submit a story of your own to the group.

“If you see – or experience – inappropriate behavior, don’t sweep it under the rug. Speak up, speak loud, and know there is a community of people who will support you. Let’s work on the solution together,” the letter added.

In particular, the writing criticized the Legislature’s procedures for dealing with such complaints, with some women arguing they fear speaking out over concerns that it will put their professional life in jeopardy.

“If you hang someone out to dry as a Weinstein of the Sacramento community, that sort of gives folks the political cover to say look we got the bad guy, we fixed this,” lobbyist Samantha Corbin told the Sacramento Bee. “That’s not true. We want long-term culture change where men are held accountable and there is a system where woman can work and feel safe.”

Assembly leaders also said this week that they will launch public hearings, prompting some speculation that the claims are being given a heightened sense of attention in wake of the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal that has rocked Hollywood.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, issued a joint statement with with Assemblyman Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, and Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale.

“First, we must change the climate that has allowed sexual harassment to fester,” the statement read. “Second, we must ensure victims have a safe and dependable environment to come forward and discuss complaints no matter who the perpetrator is and without detriment to their career or environment. Third, we must ensure that sexual harassment is dealt with expeditiously and that the seriousness of consequences match the violations committed.”

The move by de León comes just days after he announced his primary challenge to longtime incumbent U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., likely creating a sense of urgency to quell any criticism that he presided over a toxic and abusive culture while in leadership in Sacramento.

The Law Offices of Amy Oppenheimer will conduct the investigation and CPS HR Consulting will “review the Senate’s policies and practices against harassment, discrimination and retaliation,” according to de León.

One of the more explosive allegations comes from lobbyist Pamela Lopez, who described to several papers an incident where a current lawmaker, who has not been named, shoved her into a bathroom and masturbated in front of her.

The actions come in conjunction with the #MeToo campaign, which is spreading across social media, where victims are documenting their experiences with harassment.

One of the more far-reaching bills, Senate Bill 63, mandates that companies with at least 20 employees provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to workers to care for a newborn or adopted child. Before the signing, state law required such leave for companies with 50 or more workers. The bill’s backers said it is about simple “fairness,” but the California Chamber of Commerce labeled it a “job killer” that “unduly burdens” small companies and “exposes them to the threat of costly litigation.”

Brown also signed Assembly Bill 168, which bans all employers – including state and local governments, and even the Legislature – from asking for the salary history of any applicant. Instead, the employer must provide a salary scale. It was pitched mainly as a gender-equality measure.

“The practice of seeking or requiring the salary history of job applicants helps perpetuate wage inequality that has spanned generations of women in the workforce,” said Assembly member Susan Eggman, the Stockton Democrat who sponsored the bill. Opponents argue that there are many legitimate reasons for employers to seek out an applicant’s salary history and that the law will cause employers mainly to enlarge the pay range, thus making it much harder for applicants and employers to find the appropriate level of pay.

These bills were part of a package backed by the California Legislative Women’s Caucus. Not all of them were workplace-related. For instance, the governor signed AB10 by Assembly member Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, which “requires public schools serving low-income students in grades 6 to 12 to provide feminine hygiene products in half of the school’s bathrooms at no charge.”

And he signed AB273 by Assembly member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters, which “expands the eligibility criteria for subsidized child care services to parents who are taking English as a second language or high school equivalency courses.” Brown also gave the OK to a bill that will subsidize diapers for poor women.

In other topic areas, the governor signed 11 bills on Wednesday designed “to improve California’s criminal and juvenile justice systems, restore the power of judges to impose criminal sentences and reduce recidivism through increased rehabilitation.” These include measures that would seal the records of people who were arrested but never convicted of a crime; allow a parole hearing for juveniles who were sentenced to life without parole; and a bill that gives judges additional discretion regarding the “firearms enhancement” for sentencing decisions.

Furthermore, the governor signed AB1448, by Assembly member Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, which allows the Board of Parole to continue its parole hearings for elderly prisoners who have served at least 25 years in prison after federal oversight of the prison system ends. The state had been under federal court decrees dealing with overcrowding, but has since passed a realignment law and other programs that have reduced the size of the inmate population. In his signing message, the governor said that this elderly-prisoner program has successfully reduced costs involving geriatric prisoners who no longer pose a risk to society.

The governor previously had signed SB384, by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which creates a tiered sex-offender registry rather than the current system of lifetime registration. The bill received significant law-enforcement support. Supporters argued that “local law enforcement agencies spend between 60 to 66 percent of their resources dedicated for sex offender supervision on monthly or annual registration paperwork because of the large numbers of registered sex offenders on our registry,” according to the Senate bill analysis.

“If we can remove low-risk offenders from the registry it will free up law enforcement officers to monitor the high risk offenders living in our communities,” supporters argued. There was no official, recorded opposition to the bill, but Republican opponents expressed fear in the floor debate that these changes would put the public at risk.

The governor signed a controversial drug-pricing transparency bill, SB17, that forces “drug manufacturers to notify specified purchasers, in writing at least 90 days prior to the planned effective date, if it is increasing the wholesale acquisition cost … of a prescription drug by specified amounts.” The pharmaceutical industry fought vociferously against the measure, which it believes is a first step in a national campaign to impose government price controls.

The governor used some of his strongest – and most ideological – rhetoric in touting this measure. “The rich are getting richer. The powerful are getting more powerful. So this is just another example where the powerful get more power and take more,” he said, according to a National Public Radio report of the signing ceremony. “We’ve got to point to the evils, and there’s a real evil when so many people are suffering so much from rising drug profits.”

This was part of a package of recently signed medical-related consumer-oriented legislation. Other legislation puts limits on the gifts and benefits doctors can receive from drug manufacturers, prevents drug makers from steering consumers to higher-priced medications, creates a licensing system for pharmacy benefit managers, and creates a California Pharmaceutical Collaborative to help government agencies negotiate better deals for pharmaceuticals.

Signings have been far more plentiful than vetoes.

But the governor vetoed a bill that would require people who work for many web-based meal-delivery services that deliver pre-packaged uncooked meals to consumers to obtain a food-handler’s card. In his veto message, the governor wrote that he is “not convinced … that the existing regulatory scheme for food facilities is suitable for this new industry.” Brown vetoed a bill that would have created a new state task force that would examine opioid prescriptions in light of the state’s opioid crisis.

He also vetoed AB63, which would have imposed the same curfew (between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.) on drivers under the age of 21 that now applies only to those under 18. “Eighteen-year-olds are eligible to enlist in the military, vote in national, state and local elections, enter into contracts and buy their own car. I believe adults should not be subject to the same driving restrictions presently applied to minors,” Brown explained in his veto message.

Stay tuned. The governor has until Sunday night to sign or veto the remaining bills passed this session.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

The California Legislature enters the final week of its 2017 session with ambitious measures on immigration, renewable energy and housing still up in the air.

Two of the measures have been championed by state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles.

One – SB54 – would put relatively strong limits on how much local and state law enforcement agencies could cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of Homeland Security and other federal immigration authorities.

Labelled the “sanctuary state” bill by critics and de Leon alike, it passed the state Senate in March. But law enforcement officials’ concerns have won a friendlier reception in the Assembly, where the bill appears stalled despite approvals from three committees. Some sheriffs have warned the bill would put California on a collision course with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the U.S. Justice Department, which has already acted to withhold funds from “sanctuary cities” on the grounds that the federal government alone sets immigration policy.

Sessions’ recent announcement that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program would end in six months could give fresh fuel to the “sanctuary state” bill. Under the program, an estimated 200,000 California youths who were brought here as children have some legal rights. Protecting this group from deportation or other negative consequences has been a priority of state Democrats since Trump’s election last November.

Another high-profile de Leon bill also passed the Senate in May before facing a cooler reception in the Assembly. SB100 would set a goal for state utilities of having 60 percent of their electricity generated by renewable sources by 2030 – up from the present goal of 50 percent – and require utilities to plan to be 100 percent renewable by 2045.

While the measure has passed three Assembly committees, most recently the appropriations panel on Sept. 1, its future may depend on whether Gov. Jerry Brown provides a last-minute boost. Utility lobbyists say the state is already making perhaps the biggest gains of any large state in shifting to renewable energy and that they don’t need a further push by Sacramento.

Housing bond, real-estate fee may be packaged

Two measures to address the state’s housing crisis – including one measure long seen as a slam dunk – also await final approval.

The first – SB3 by Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose – won some Republican support when it passed the Senate. It would ask California voters to approve $4 billion in general obligation bonds next year to pay for construction of affordable rental housing and “smart growth” projects near transit hubs and to revitalize the state’s veteran home loan program, which is expected to use up all of its present funding at some point in 2018.

SB3 was initially expected to be approved late last month. Reports over the weekend suggested that delays may be because of the desire to package SB3 as part of a comprehensive deal that could rescue the second high-profile housing bill – SB2 by Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. To generate an estimated $250 million a year in reliable, permanent funding for affordable housing projects, it would increase fees by $75 on some real-estate transactions.

Because it is a fee hike, it needs two-thirds support from both houses to advance to Brown’s desk. In July, it passed the Senate with the bare minimum of 27 votes. But insiders have been skeptical for weeks that the measure can get the 54 votes necessary to pass the Assembly. No Republican Assembly members back the bill, meaning all 54 Assembly Democrats would have to be yes voters for it to advance.

A Los Angeles Times report last month suggested that was unlikely because some Assembly Democrats in swing districts didn’t want to vote for a measure that could be depicted as a tax hike after having already voted to raise fuel taxes earlier this year.

The California progressive movement’s summer of discontent continues, with anger still on display over the abrupt withdrawal of a single-payer health care bill and over the May election of a party insider as California Democratic chairman.

This week, the Associated Press reported that progressives remain interested in pursuing a recall campaign against Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, (pictured) for his decision to kill Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. Los Angeles activist Steve Elzie is a lead organizer.

The California Nurses Association last month paid for two mailers to be sent to constituents in Rendon’s Los Angeles County district blasting him for “holding health care hostage” and “protecting politicians, not people’s health care.” The mailers urged constituents to complain to Rendon’s offices over the decision, but did not advocate a recall.

That decision may reflect that CNA President RoseAnn DeMoro – who initially led the criticism of Rendon – has realized how difficult it would be to ultimately remove him from office.

Obtaining the 20,000-plus signatures needed to trigger a recall election might not be much of a problem, given that single-payer champion Bernie Sanders got 44 percent and 48 percent of the vote in the June 2016 Democratic presidential primary in California’s 38th and 47th Congressional Districts, respectively. The districts cover much of Rendon’s 63rd Assembly District district which includes parts or all of Commerce, Bell, Lynwood, Paramount and Lakewood.

But Rendon has gotten at least 69 percent of the vote in his three Assembly bids. He also has more than $1.2 million in his campaign war chest and has the support of other influential unions, meaning ready access to more donations and help campaigning.

Rendon killed SB562 because he said it failed to adequately identify how it would pay its $400 billion in annual costs to provide health care to every Californian.

‘Berniecrat’ still won’t accept loss in party chair vote

The other flap pitting the party establishment against “Berniecrats” also flared this week when Bay Area political organizer Kimberly Ellis launched a new salvo over her narrow loss for state party chairman to Eric Bauman, a nurse who has long been a fixture in Los Angeles County Democratic politics and was deputy to the last state chair, former Congressman John Burton.

At May’s state Democratic convention in Sacramento, Bauman held off a late surge from the lesser-known Ellis to win 51 percent to 49 percent. Ellis immediately challenged what she said were election irregularities, leading to a July recount in which 47 of about 3,000 ballots were thrown out but Bauman’s margin of victory was unchanged.

Ellis and her fellow Sanders’ supporters, however, still don’t accept the results.

On Tuesday, she called on the California Democratic Party to accept binding arbitration to determine who really won the May election. She hinted it was the only way the party could head off a lawsuit that she suggested last month was forthcoming if she were unhappy with how party officials handled her appeal, which continues this month with a hearing of the Democratic Party credentialing committee.

California Democratic Party spokesman Mike Roth said the party would stick to its rules, which don’t provide for arbitration.

“Ms. Ellis is now deep in her own end zone and throwing a desperate Hail Mary pass in hopes of changing the outcome of an election that she lost fair and square,” Roth said.

But Ellis’ “Vote for Kimberly” website remains unchanged and continues to feature sharp – if indirect – criticisms of Bauman for allegedly close ties to corporate interests.

The Sacramento Bee reported last week that “leaders of the Legislative Asian Pacific Islander, Black, Jewish, Latino, LGBT and Women’s caucuses” are seeking information about the “race, ethnicity, gender and openly gay or lesbian orientation” of the employees of lobbying firms.

Supporters of the request say it’s “intended to expand conversation about cultural diversity in the Capitol workforce,” according to the Bee report. Critics believe it may instead be the first step toward something like a quota system and note that legislators aren’t required to report this kind of personal information about their employees.

The data request has taken on partisan overtones, as well. The conservative Breitbart news site found it ironic that the Democratic-dominated caucuses want detailed personal data on lobbying firms “while the state refuses to give voter data to President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission.”

The request for data, however intrusive it came across to the lobbying firms, was made in a letter and is not currently the subject of any legislation. Meanwhile, members of both parties have voted overwhelmingly in favor of expanding an already far-reaching mandate for similar data from insurance companies that do business in California.

That legislation was amended significantly late last week. Instead of giving the imprimatur to the Department of Insurance to seek out more data from insurers without doing an official rulemaking, it limits the department’s power. But the legislation is a reminder that other industries already deal with these kinds of demographic data requirements.

Currently, insurers that write California premiums in excess of $100 million biennially are required under the California Department of Insurance’s 2012 “Insurance Diversity Initiative” to provide the department with detailed demographic data about insurance-company suppliers. Insurers must “periodically submit to the insurance commissioner a report on its minority, women and disabled veteran business enterprise procurement efforts,” according to state law.

Senate Bill 488, by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, expanded that reporting requirement to include businesses controlled by veterans (not just disabled veterans) as well as those owned or managed by lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered people. It passed the Senate in late May on a bipartisan 38-0 vote. The clear goal of these surveys is to use the highly regulated nature of the insurance industry to pursue social goals that go beyond the stated goals of insurance regulation.

For instance, the Senate analysis notes that including the new categories of business owners “will open the door or economic opportunity more broadly.” Yet the analysis makes clear that the purpose of insurance regulation is not to promote economic opportunities for various demographic groups but to ensure insurance companies “are financially able to fulfill their obligations to policyholders and that they are treating consumers fairly.”

Lobbying firms likewise are regulated by the state, so there’s fear that the letter seeking data will turn into something more pernicious. “If a firm isn’t diverse and voluntarily provides data, some legislators may feel less inclined to work with them,” explained the Bee report. In addition, lobbying firms might view the request as something less than voluntary.

Likewise, insurance companies are routinely asked by the Department of Insurance to provide data voluntarily that conforms to controversial political objectives. There’s fear in the industry that if a company doesn’t comply, it could suffer repercussions from a department that holds ultimate authority over the prices they are allowed to charge consumers.

There’s no question that regulators continually expand their requests. Assembly Bill 53 in 2012 mandated the provision of supplier demographic data, but the Department of Insurance (DOI) then issued a 2014 data call for information about the diversity of insurance-industry board members, which was not specifically authorized by the legislation. As part of that diversity initiative, the DOI participated with four other states and the District of Columbia in collecting the board member information, which was used to highlight the large percentage of white males at the helm.

“Since the initial AB53 data call in 2013, DOI has expanded their diversity data call efforts to include an entire new effort (board member diversity), insurer activity in other states (collecting data for multiple states), increased data call frequency from every other year to annual, and added demographic categories not included in AB53 (LGBT and veteran-owned business enterprises),” explained the Senate analysis. The Senate legislation in its original form would mainly have granted the department authority it already had been exerting on its own.

There are parallels here with the letter from the legislative caucuses. Will the caucuses follow up the request to registered lobbyists with a legislative mandate? If they do so, will they continue to up the ante? Lobbying firms are concerned, but they aren’t the only industry that faces such “requests.” Some lobbyists downplay the recent letter and argue that there’s not much the legislators could do even with detailed data. Others nonetheless worry that the request is just a precursor of things to come.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

In a joint statement, Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, and Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, announced the agreement with Holder’s firm, Covington and Burling, to deal with “potential” challenges from the Trump administration. 

“The Legislature will work with the governor and our next attorney general to protect California’s economy and our sensible policies on climate change, health care, civil rights and immigration,” according to the joint statement, adding that Holder will lead a team of Covington and Burling lawyers to advise the Legislature in its “efforts to resist any attempts to roll back the progress California has made.”

The statement was short on specifics, like the terms of the agreement (including costs), the timing (prior to the swearing ins of both Trump and the presumptive CA attorney general, Xavier Becerra, who, if confirmed by the Legislature, will represent the state) and why the two leaders made the decision between themselves. Spokesmen for both leaders would not comment on these questions.

“It is all about branding and symbolism,” said John J. Pitney, Jr., a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “If Trump does take action on immigration, for instance, there are many qualified lawyers who specialize in that field. No disrespect to Holder, but U.S. attorneys general spend their time managing a bureaucracy, not arguing cases in court.”  

Republicans respond

Responses from Republicans in the Legislature trickled out throughout the day, with many arguing there are already plenty of problems facing the state that have nothing to do with Trump.

“This is a distraction from the very real problems facing everyday Californians,” said Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley. “Donald Trump did not cause California’s transportation crisis, nor did he play a role in our state’s sky-high housing costs.”

Newly-elected Assemblyman Vince Fong questioned the need for more counsel, calling the move “political.”

“The Democrat leadership’s hiring of Eric Holder to be a consultant dedicated to obstructing the Trump presidency is a waste of taxpayer dollars,” the Kern County Republican said in a statement. “The Legislature already has immediate access to legal counsel within the Legislature and in the Attorney General’s office.”

More details

The Sacramento Bee reported the contract with Covington and Burling will be initially for three months and the $25,000-per-month legal fee will be split between the Assembly and Senate, while the Los Angeles Times, citing legislative aides, reported the funds will “come out of both chambers’ operating budgets and would not require additional state funds.”

Holder served as U.S. attorney general from 2009 to 2015, under President Barack Obama. He served as a U.S. deputy attorney general under former President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

Holder was the first sitting member of a presidential cabinet to be held in contempt of Congress, in relation to the investigation into a botched federal law enforcement program, Operation Fast and Furious, where federal agents lost about 1,400 firearms, two of which were eventually found at the murder scene of a U.S. border agent. 

While Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, is holding a contest for constituents to pitch their best ideas for a “There Ought to be a Law” contest, Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, aims to do the exact opposite. 

Moorlach, partnering with four other Republican senators, is pushing a “There Ought NOT Be A Law” program. Unlike Garcia’s program, the Republican contest is not to write a new law, but to instead simplify and streamline existing state law. 

“It could be as simple as deleting a problematic word or phrase in a particular code section or as complex as eliminating entire statutes and regulatory structures,” according to the description.

For Garcia, this is the third iteration of the program. Last session, a group of fifth graders at Bell Gardens Elementary School came up with the idea for Assembly Bill 146, which requires the State Board of Education to consider adding to the curriculum the a mass deportation in the 1930s of citizens of Mexican descent.

The year prior, a two Bell Gardens residents pitched AB1596, which required that completed mail-in applications be returned straight to county registrars, instead of parties or middlemen. Both of Garcia’s bills became law.

Submit ideas to Moorlach here.

Submit ideas to Garcia here.

A new government-run retirement program: On Thursday, Gov. Brown signed Senate Bill 1234, which gives legislative approval to the state’s continuing efforts to create a new government-run retirement program for private-sector employees. Once it is up and running, private employers (with five or more employees) will be required to offer this program, whereby 3 percent of each employees’ earnings will be deducted and invested by a state-selected investment group – possibly, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

Employees can opt out. The details are not yet certain, but the goal is to invest the money in a low-risk investment tied to the Treasury bond. Supporters say the law protects taxpayers from incurring more than minimal costs, but critics insist the program could grow and change in ensuing years – and that there’s no way of creating a massive new government program without imposing risks on the state budget.

The idea, which is being pitched in other states too, grew out of union activism. Several years ago, when publicity over unfunded public-pension liabilities began creating pressure for pension reform, union allies wanted to come up with a “positive” rebuttal to all those news stories about six-figure pensions and pension-spiking gimmicks. This idea is designed help private workers.

Putting limits on ‘policing for profit’: One of the most controversial policing strategies in recent years has been “civil asset forfeiture.” Born out of the nation’s drug war in the 1980s, forfeiture was designed to help police agencies crack down on drug kingpins by allowing departments to grab the cash, cars and properties gained through their illegal activities. But like many government programs, asset forfeiture morphed into something its creators never envisioned.

Two of the men who helped create the program in the U.S. Department of Justice, John Yoder and Brad Cates, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2014 pointing to the corruption engendered by this process: “Law enforcement agents and prosecutors began using seized cash and property to fund their operations, supplanting general tax revenue, and this led to the most extreme abuses: law enforcement efforts based upon what cash and property they could seize to fund themselves, rather than on an even-handed effort to enforce the law.”

Basically, police agencies came to depend on the revenue and they distorted their law-enforcement priorities based on the chance to grab more cash. There’s no due process here, given that police agencies file suit against the property itself, alleging it was involved in a drug crime. No conviction is necessary. California had previously passed reforms that mostly required a conviction, but police agencies got around that by partnering with the feds (and operating under looser federal standards) and then splitting the seized property.

Senate Bill 443 was killed last year after lobbying efforts by police chiefs and other law-enforcement agencies. But a fairly recent amendment – allowing cops to still take large amounts of cash without a conviction, but limiting smaller amounts of cash and property takings – eliminated most opposition from law enforcement. The new law is meaningful, and one of the more substantive compromises to take place in Sacramento this year.

Giving the terminally ill the right to try: One of the more significant “freedom” battles this year was over the so-called “right to try” – i.e., the ability of terminally ill patients to try experimental drug treatments that have yet to gain final approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Similar measures have been approved by 31 other states.

The Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based free-market think tank, has been championing these measures across the country. As Goldwater explains: “The FDA … often stands between the patients and the treatments that may alleviate their symptoms or provide a cure. To access these treatments, patients must either go through a lengthy FDA exemption process or wait for the treatments to receive FDA approval, which can take a decade or more and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The California law, Assembly Bill 1668, passed overwhelmingly. According to the official bill analysis, it authorizes drug manufacturers to make investigational treatment available “to a patient with a serious or immediately life-threatening disease, when that patient has considered all other treatment options currently approved by the FDA, has been unable to participate in a relevant clinical trial, and for whom the investigational drug has been recommended by the patient’s primary physician and a consulting physician.”

Allowing felons to vote: One of the more controversial new laws, Assembly Bill 2466 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, allows felons who are serving their sentence in county jails to vote. The measure was opposed by law-enforcement groups, but Weber argued it would stop discrimination in voting and make it less likely that prisoners would commit new offenses.

“Civic participation can be a critical component of re-entry and has been linked to reduced recidivism,” Weber said, according to a Los Angeles Times report. “For me, this bill is not about second chances, but about maintaining the integrity of elections,” said Sen. Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, in a statement. “Close elections, especially at the local level, could now turn on a handful of ballots cast by people in jail. This new law is bad for democracy and will further erode trust in government.”

Putting self-driving cars on the road: Autonomous vehicle technology has been advancing rapidly, and California is, not surprisingly, ground zero for the development of this important new technology. Gov. Brown signed a bill Thursday “that for the first time allows testing on public roads of self-driving vehicles with no steering wheels, brake pedals or accelerators,” according to a San Jose Mercury News article. “A human driver as backup is not required, but the vehicles will be limited to speeds of less than 35 mph.”

Assembly Bill 1592 itself is rather modest. It provides two spots for such testing – in a San Ramon business park and at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station. And Friday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles released new regulations that are far friendlier toward self-driving cars than the DMV’s previous regulations. So while the new law itself isn’t particularly significant, the state’s new legislative and regulatory approach certainly is. If that approach continues, we’ll be seeing rapid expansion of autonomous vehicles here.

Greenlighting granny flats: The governor’s signing of Senate Bill 1069 shows increasing bipartisan understanding of the state’s skyrocketing home prices. The bill would relax standards for creating ADUs (accessory dwelling units), better known as granny flats.

“Eliminating barriers to ADU construction is a common-sense, cost-effective approach that will permit homeowners to share empty rooms in their homes and property, add incomes to meet family budgets, and make good use of the property in the Bay Area and across California while easing the housing crisis,” according to the bill analysis’ summary of the author’s arguments. The bill embraces a regulatory approach that could be tried with other types of housing.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

While her ascendancy will need to be formalized with a vote of caucus members after November’s election, the vice chair, which Garcia is, has almost always become chair. The position already wields great power from its bully pulpit, but the bipartisan caucus appears set for a makeover after November sweeps in a large voting bloc of Democratic women to consolidate power in the Assembly.

Exactly how many women is unknown until the votes are counted. But a conservative estimate, based on a CalWatchdog analysis, suggests Democratic women will likely occupy between 16 and 28 seats in the Legislature next session, compared to 19 now.

The biggest gains will be in the Assembly where Democratic women could control at least 25 percent of the votes, with Garcia taking a lead role in the recruitment efforts.

In the four years since being elected — and after surviving a sharp learning curve having come from no background in elected office — the Bell Gardens Democrat rose in stature by focusing largely on ethics and women’s issues, with a knack for forcing to the forefront what she says are taboo topics.

Garcia made recent headlines for calling out a male colleague accused of domestic violence and for championing a bill redefining rape in the aftermath of the controversial sentencing of a former Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman and another eliminating sales tax on tampons and other feminine hygiene products. 

Both bills passed the Legislature and await a final decision from Gov. Jerry Brown. But to her, the legislative victories are just as important as the cultural changes. 

“I’ve been talking about periods the whole year,” Garcia told CalWatchdog in August over ice cream in Sacramento. “Why does it have to be taboo? It’s women’s health.”

Queenmaker

One of Garcia’s biggest goals with the women’s caucus outside of policy will be to build a bench of viable Democratic women candidates, particularly women of color, to compete for governor. There are only 11 women of color in the Legislature at the moment (several of whom are termed out in November), but many of the presumptive newcomers are Latinas.  

There’s no reason the first female governor in the state’s history would need to come through the Legislature, but it’s not a bad launch pad. Garcia didn’t dispel the notion she may make a run for governor at some point, but she said she’s satisfied doing what it takes to make a female Democratic governor possible. 

“If we don’t have a farm, we’re never going to climb,” Garcia said. “The men aren’t doing it for us, so we have to do it for ourselves.”

The 2018 gubernatorial field is quickly filling with men, so Garcia is looking to future elections to break the glass ceiling. Garcia knows gubernatorial candidates will want the women’s caucus’ support, but it would come with a price.

“I’ll help you now because I want something later,” Garcia said. “And that something is a woman governor after you.”

Background

In 2012, the unassuming math teacher was sent to Sacramento by voters in an underprivileged district in southeastern Los Angeles County — her only prior political experience was forming a community group in response to widespread corruption in Bell Gardens.

In her first primary, she bested a member of a political dynasty, then-former Assemblyman Tom Calderon. After defeating Calderon, she handily beat her Republican opponent in the general election and has run officially unopposed ever since.

Garcia is quick to condemn what she sees as immoral or unethical actions. A few months ago, she was one of the first legislators to demand the resignation of fellow Democratic Assemblyman Roger Hernandez after allegations of domestic violence surfaced.

In 2013, she was the first sitting legislator to speak out and organize protests against Ron Calderon, a sitting senator, calling for his resignation after allegations surfaced the FBI suspected him of bribery. Calderon would later plead guilty to mail fraud, while his brother, Tom (Garcia’s former opponent), pleaded guilty to money laundering.

When the Kevin Sloat lobbying scandal ripped through the Legislature, Garcia responded with a sweeping ethics package. And currently waiting for Gov. Brown’s signature is a measure to overhaul the Central Basin Municipal Water District amid allegations of wrongdoing. 

But Garcia has had her own ethical faux pas. During her first run for the Assembly, she claimed she had a Ph.D. when she had only completed coursework. She has since admitted the mistake and will defend her dissertation in December.

Chair

Above all, Garcia’s time as chair will be about women and women’s issues, and she’ll have tremendous influence over the legislative focus of the caucus. Her recruitment efforts with the 2016 crop of women candidates will engender a base of loyalists. 

Garcia plans to personally push for early childhood education, but rather than having members support the caucus’ agenda, Garcia plans to have the caucus support members’ agendas — hence the emphasis on electing more Democratic women.

Naturally, Democratic women are more likely to stick together than a bipartisan group would. Plus, Republican women in the Legislature will drop from 12 seats to between five and eight.

Garcia understands power in the Legislature is held in numbers — the tighter and larger the voting bloc, the better — and wants to use it to enable women to accomplish their goals.

“We just have to prop each other up,” Garcia said. “Hold our votes together to push our stuff forward, and hold our votes together to hold things hostage when our stuff is not being taken seriously.”

And while the tributes range in length and tone — one legislator joked (?) about his romantic feelings for Assemblywoman Nora Campos — none were as awkward as the one for termed-out Roger Hernández, who was recently placed under a restraining order from his now-ex-wife and was subsequently stripped of his committee assignments.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, was the first of around a half dozen Democrats to pay kind words to the West Covina Democrat, whom she had known since election night 2000.

Gonzalez spoke of Hernández’s focus on immigrant communities and low-wage workers.

“This body will miss your work,” Gonzalez said.

Remember when he stole a member’s mic?

Gonzalez opened her remarks with a joke about Hernández’s relationship with Assemblyman Matthew Harper, R-Huntington Beach. Last July, Hernández had security remove Harper’s microphone at a committee hearing on increasing the minimum wage after repeatedly talking over Harper and calling a vote to end debate. Videos suggested that even the clerk and deputies seemed confused by Hernández’s requests.

“Seargents have already turned off Mr. Harper’s microphone, so we’re going to do OK,” Gonzalez said.

Harper declined to speak on Wednesday when jokingly asked.

“Thank you for your wisdom, Mr. Harper,” said Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, who was presiding.

Proud

Assemblywoman Shirley Weber had the most awkward exchange with Hernández, however, when she said she was “proud” to see how he’d handled himself over the past year.

In April, Hernández was placed under a temporary restraining order from his then-wife, Susan Rubio, after allegations of domestic violence surfaced during divorce proceedings.

Rubio alleged Hernández assaulted her 20 times over a three-year period, detailing eight alleged incidents in court that included being choked with a belt, being beat with a broom while on the ground and being threatened with a knife after having been accused of an affair.

Hernández has not been charged with a crime but was placed under a three-year restraining order earlier this summer. Hernández has denied the allegations, and even compared Rubio to former Olympic ice skater Tonya Harding, who hired a thug to whack the knee of another skater, Nancy Kerrigan.

It’s not the first time Hernández was in trouble. In 2012, an ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence, although charges were never filed. That same year, Hernández was arrested for drunk driving in a state vehicle, but was acquitted by a jury on one charge, while the jury was hung on another. And in 2015, allegations of political money laundering against Hernández were dropped by the Fair Political Practices Commission after two key witnesses were unable to testify — one had serious medical issues while the other passed away.

“You’ve taken a lot this year,” Weber said. “You’ve taken a lot over the years. And I’m always so proud to see you stand.”

Weber added that she thought of Hernández as courageous on tough issues, a man of “tremendous love and respect” and reiterated her appreciation for his toughness during his personal turmoil. Hernández recently dropped a bid for Congress amid the allegations.

“Many of us struggle with all the issues of life and we crumble as a result of it, but you did not,” Weber said.