For the third straight year, the state Legislature has approved major legislation meant to accelerate housing construction in California to help stabilize or reduce the cost of shelter. But will the latest – Senate Bill 330, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 – fare any better than past legislation in improving the housing picture in the Golden State?

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, is optimistic, saying in a news release that its enactment would help create the housing California “desperately needs.” Her bill is meant to force local governments to speed up the processing of building permits and limit fees on housing. It also forbids cities and counties from reducing how many homes can be built. SB330 easily won final legislative approval last week.

But there was similar optimism about past measures. Most notably, Gov. Gavin Newsom has used new powers to aggressively target local governments which don’t build enough housing, especially units with rents or mortgages within reach of families with average incomes or less.

Multifamily permits off 42% from 2018

Yet while this has produced headlines with the Newsom administration’s January lawsuit against Huntington Beach over its refusal to add more affordable units and with threats against other cities, it doesn’t appear to be boosting housing construction in any notable way.

State data shows residential building permits dropped by 12 percent in the first five months of 2019 compared with the same span in 2018. And the statistics were far grimmer for less expensive multifamily housing units, which plunged 42 percent.

Builders and housing experts who contributed to a recent Sacramento Bee print symposium on the news of declining residential construction were not optimistic. Two fundamental problems – one much noted, one less appreciated – are not going away, they said.

Tia Boatman Patterson, Newsom’s top housing adviser, said there continue to be bottlenecks at the local level in getting housing through bureaucratic hoops.

Sometimes there’s what appears to be defiance. The New York Times recently reported that California cities “with some of the state’s highest rents, including Atherton, La Canada Flintridge, Los Altos Hills and Rancho Palos Verdes, issued no multifamily construction permits from 2013 to 2017.”

Cash-strapped cities increasing fees

But some participants in the Bee project said the problem isn’t just getting local governments to live up to their obligations and to stop dragging their feet in granting permits and approvals. Many cities and counties are so fiscally stretched because of the rising costs of pensions and other expenses that they’re increasingly adopting new or higher fees on housing projects – even as developers beg for relief.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, even said these fees were on their way to being a bigger obstacle that the California Environmental Quality Act.

But there was also some pushback at the notion that NIMBYs were the biggest problem. Instead, some argued that it’s the fact that between the high cost of land and regulations that can add $200,000 to the cost of a single-family home, building housing in California is riskier and less appealing for developers than most other states. This decades-old problem may have been overshadowed by other housing issues of late, but it’s a consensus view of builders that has never gone away.

The executive director of the League of California Cities, Carolyn Coleman, noted in her contribution to the Bee that more than 450,000 homes had received final approval from local authorities but the vast majority weren’t being built.

The takeaway: Even when local bureaucratic obstacles are overcome, adding housing in California is a difficult proposition.

Newsom has not taken a position on SB330, but his signature is considered likely. It passed the Assembly 67-8 and the Senate 30-4.

Appointed to replace newly elected U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in 2016, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra ran for his own four-year term in 2018 as a supporter of then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s law enforcement and judicial reforms. “California’s Department of Justice has modernized its police force, sponsored state legislation to require an assessment of 2015 and 2016 data related to officer-involved shootings and has explored options for bail reform,” his campaign web page declared. After winning, Becerra made similar claims in a speech at Stanford University.

But to the surprise of many Democrats, the former 12-term congressman has also emerged this year as a persistent, unexpected obstacle to a reform measure that Brown signed before he left office.

Senate Bill 1421, by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, requires law enforcement agencies to release discipline records related to officers’ excessive use of force, sexual misconduct and dishonest actions. It replaced a previous collection of state laws and court rulings that made it close to impossible for the public to learn about sustained allegations against peace officers.

But even before it took effect on Jan. 1, dozens of police agencies attempted to undercut the law by saying it didn’t apply to misconduct before Jan. 1. Skinner and the legislative record showed that it was her clear intent to make all discipline records that departments had to legally retain available through public record requests.

CHP has produced no records on 7,000-plus officers

Becerra never supported this interpretation of SB 1421. But he initially declined to issue discipline records of state Department of Justice employees on the grounds that the question of the law’s effective date was being reviewed by state courts. Other law enforcement agencies began releasing their own records months before Becerra’s agency starting doing so following a May court ruling by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer.

Meanwhile, by far the largest state police agency – the California Highway Patrol, which has more than 7,300 sworn officers – had released no records as of June 30, according to the Los Angeles Times. This prompted a complaint from Skinner. “If the state agencies themselves are acting like they’re above the law, that’s absolutely the wrong model and the wrong example to set for the rest of the local government agencies up and down the state,” she told the Times.

Becerra is also appealing part of Ulmer’s May ruling requiring his agency to hand over discipline records it has involving local officers. He wants to limit the parameters of SB 1421 so it only covers the discipline records of officers possessed by their employers. Becerra’s position is that this could lead to the undermining of agencies investigating their officers and potentially lead to the release of incorrect information. 

His department also says the language in Skinner’s bill “focused on an employer’s records about its employees” – not such records in the possession of another agency. But Ulmer didn’t go along with this interpretation. 

Last Friday, an appellate court sided with the judge’s decision and rejected Becerra’s challenge on a preliminary basis. But it set a hearing on July 18 to hear further testimony in the case.

For the second year in a row, a sweeping police reform measure that law-enforcement organizations said was motivated by antipathy toward peace officers has been embraced by the state Legislature.

Last year lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1421 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. It required police agencies to release information on officer discipline records – treating these records the same as many others that are routinely released to the public under government openness laws. California’s police disclosure rules previously had been among the strictest in the nation.

This year, Assembly Bill 392, by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, appears headed for passage after being approved 67-0 by the Assembly on Wednesday. It says officers may only use lethal force if it is “necessary” for public safety. Existing law says officers can use such force if they believe it is “reasonable” to ensure public safety. While provisions in Assembly Bill 392 were dropped to persuade law enforcement organizations to end their opposition and take a neutral stand – as they did last week – the ACLU says the bill will create among the strictest use-of-force standards of any state.

These organizations were lobbied by Gov. Gavin Newsom to accept Assembly Bill 392. After their decision to go neutral was announced, Newsom, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins issued a joint statement endorsing Weber’s bill, seemingly guaranteeing its eventual approval.

The passage of the two reform measures would have been impossible to imagine earlier this century. Law enforcement unions had tight relationships with most elected Democrats, the same as with unions for teachers, nurses, service workers and government bureaucrats, providing them with heavy campaign contributions.

Gov. Gray Davis’ 2001 decision to give prison guards a five-year, 37 percent raise after its union helped him get elected in 1998 drew sharp blow-back from good-government advocates and newspaper editorial boards, especially after the 2003 revelation that Davis had badly underestimated the long-term cost of the labor deal. It was among the issues that helped lead to his unprecedented recall later that year.

2004 CHP scandal downplayed by state leaders

But the clout of law enforcement was again on display a year later. In 2004, the Sacramento Bee broke the story of a pervasive workers’ compensation scam in the upper reaches of the California Highway Patrol. The Bee found that 55 of the 65 senior CHP officers who had retired since 2000 had filed workers’ comp claims – with some citing injuries never reported while they were on the job. Their disability claims were routinely approved, sharply increasing their retirement benefits.

CHP Commissioner Dwight “Spike” Helmick agreed to retire after the “Chiefs Disease” scandal broke, then added to it by also claiming he was disabled because of vehicle accidents in the 1970s and 1980s. But neither the Legislature or Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – who courted and won law enforcement support – agreed with calls to bring in an outside reformer to run the agency. Instead, Schwarzenegger chose Mike Brown, one of Helmick’s top aides.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer declined to prosecute the case, citing conflicts of interest because of his office’s close ties to the CHP. The case was assigned to Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully. But in 2007, she closed the investigation without bringing any charges. Scully said CHP officials and former officials were “unable or unwilling” to testify about the pension-spiking scheme. The story faded from the headlines.

But ties between lawmakers and police unions have weakened since then as the national outcry has grown over alleged police mistreatment of minorities, especially a series of fatal shootings of young African-American men in questionable circumstances. The California Democratic Party has also had an influx of newly elected progressive lawmakers who dislike the aggressive, confrontational policing style adopted by many departments after it was credited with reducing crime in New York City in the 1990s under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Recent analyses of how Assembly Bill 392 overcame the obstacles that doomed a similar bill last year have focused on the March 2018 fatal shooting of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black father of two, in Sacramento.

The announcement two months ago that no officer would face charges for Clark’s death triggered an outcry so intense it became a national and international story that appeared to give Weber’s bill new momentum.

Former Rep. Xavier Becerra (pictured), D-Los Angeles, was appointed in 2016 by Gov. Jerry Brown to replace state Attorney General Kamala Harris after she was elected to the U.S. Senate. He won a full term in the 2018 elections.

While Becerra joined Brown in backing measures that made the criminal justice system less punitive, he has come in the cross hairs of activists for his interpretation of Senate Bill 1421, which took effect Jan. 1.

The measure, by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, wipes away decades of protections of police discipline records that were adopted by past lawmakers and upheld by courts. It mandates the release of such records if they involve life-threatening or lethal use of force, sexual misconduct and lying in the execution of official duties.

Last year, however, police unions began arguing that Skinner’s law only applies to disciplinary records generated after it took effect Jan. 1 – not to past reports of discipline. However, on Jan. 2, the California Supreme Court denied an emergency request for a delay in implementing the law pending a full review of how the law should be interpreted. This was seen by legal observers as a plain sign that state justices agreed with Skinner, who said the retroactive intent of her law was clear.

Becerra won’t release discipline records of his agents

Nevertheless, police unions representing specific agencies have continued to file lawsuits. In two cases, involving Los Angeles and Richmond police officers, local judges have agreed to a temporary hold on discipline records predating Jan. 1 of this year.

These rulings were cited earlier this month by Supervising Deputy Attorney General Mark Beckington in rejecting a public records request for discipline records of law enforcement agents who work for Becerra.

In an interview with KQED, the Northern California PBS affiliate, the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition blasted Becerra for his department’s decision, saying it sent the wrong message to local agencies and reflected a failure of leadership.

“This is the highest law enforcement officer in the state. He has decided not to disclose records that I think the new law makes very clear should be disclosed,” David Snyder said.

Skinner told KQED that the attorney general’s decision was “puzzling” given that several state law-enforcement agencies complied with the law once it took effect.

But Becerra has rejected criticism, saying that on privacy issues – especially those involving law enforcement officers – he would err on the side of caution.

The controversy has echoes of criticism facing Sen. Harris, the former San Francisco district attorney, as she has launched her bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

In her new autobiography, “The Truths We Hold,” and in speeches to progressive groups, Harris has depicted herself as an aggressive advocate of the view that the criminal-justice system is overly punitive and particularly harsh on some minority groups.

Harris critics, defenders fight over her record

But University of San Francisco law professor Lara Bazelon says that doesn’t square with her record as San Francisco DA and state attorney general. In a commentary for the New York Times, Bazelon wrote that Harris was willing to use evidence she knew to be tainted to obtain convictions.

Other reformers have focused on her refusal to support Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that limited prison time for nonviolent crimes, and her opposition to legislation that would have mandated her office conduct independent investigations of fatal police shootings.

Harris’ defenders say this amounts to cherry-picking that ignores key parts of her record. They note she supported a pioneering program in San Francisco that provided resources and counseling to keep first-time drug offenders from ending up in a life of crime. They also note that as attorney general, her agency was the first in the state government to require that its law-enforcement agents wear body cameras.

It’s unclear when the dispute over police discipline records will be resolved. But since lower state courts have reached different decisions on how to interpret Senate Bill 1421, that normally means the issue won’t be resolved without a California Supreme Court ruling.

Three times in the past 18 months, prominent journalistic organizations have questioned whether Silicon Valley has peaked. Leading off the bad-mouthing was the hometown San Jose Mercury News, which

That was followed by the London Guardian reporting in May 2017 that start-ups were increasingly likely to fail as the tech venture-capital model struggled, and by Bloomberg News reporting in September 2017 that the high cost of housing was leaving thousands of jobs unfilled.

This month, the Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project, which is headed by the San Jose-based Silicon Valley Leadership Group, released a report on the region that was at least as bleak as the media accounts. It said Silicon Valley was still thriving and a global leader – but that it was unlikely to maintain its status as the U.S. pace-setter in creating tech jobs unless housing construction sharply increased, to end the upward spiral in rent and mortgage payments. A modest tract house can fetch more than $1 million in San Jose and triple that in wealthier suburbs. Rental costs, even in less affluent neighborhoods, are among the nation’s highest.

“The gap between job and housing growth is large and widening,” stated the report, which defined Silicon Valley as including the city-county of San Francisco, Santa Clara County and San Mateo County.

Many of the key findings were based on comparisons of where Silicon Valley stood in 2010 versus 2016. The study noted there was a 29 percent increase in payroll jobs during that span, but only a 4 percent increase in total housing units. As more people were forced to commute to Silicon Valley, the average commute lengthened by 18.9 percent over the six years.

“An average Silicon Valley commuter now spends 72 minutes commuting per day, round trip. This figure has grown marginally since last year and remains second only to the commute time of New York City workers, who spend 74 minutes commuting,” the report noted.

Region’s population fell despite economic boom

Silicon Valley saw another negative landmark in 2016. Despite a booming economy, the report cited U.S. Census Bureau population estimates showing the region had a slight decline in population.

The downbeat report came as no surprise to one former Silicon Valley resident: Santa Cruz attorney Kate Downing, who resigned from the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission and moved from the city in 2016 because her family could no longer handle Palo Alto’s housing costs. She told the San Francisco Chronicle, “We’re just not building enough housing. More correctly, cities are not permitting developers to build enough housing. … I think more affordable housing would have kept us in Silicon Valley.”

Lawmakers from the region have had some success in trying to make it easier to build homes in California. State Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, was the lead author of a bill enacted in 2017 that limits cities with bad records on new housing from preventing new projects that meet basic zoning rules.

This year, Weiner and co-authors Senator Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, have introduced Senate Bill 827. With exceptions, it would make it far easier to build small apartment-condo buildings up to 85 feet in height within a half-mile of a transit center.

“We are at this point prepared to bring the full budget to the floors of both houses,” said Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who has been overseeing budget negotiations in the conference committee, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Republican legislators, whose votes aren’t needed to pass the state’s spending plan for the next fiscal year, were left out of the budget negotiations. Consequently, Brown acted as the lone voice for fiscal restraint as Democratic lawmakers looked to help their core constituencies with billions of dollars in additional spending.

The tentative agreement would provide additional funding to social service programs — as long as certain revenue triggers are met during the next year.

Legislators win overtime for in-home services

Among the budget agreement’s key points: additional money for California’s In-Home Supportive Services program, which provides assistance to elderly and disabled Californians. Considered an alternative to nursing homes and board and care facilities, the program was dealt a blow with new federal regulations set to take effect next year that changed overtime rules for workers.

The governor’s original budget proposal eliminated overtime, which, in turn, avoided as much as $600 million in additional spending by 2015. The proposed deal, according to the Sacramento Bee, relies on unspecified ways to curb abuse of overtime and is expected to cost “$180 million in 2014-15 and $350 million in future years.” Although the governor rolled over to legislators’ demands on overtime rules, he secured a 7 percent reduction in service hours for the 2014-15 budget year.

“I’m glad that the administration is with us on this,” Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, told the San Jose Mercury News. “The idea that we would cap the amount of hours to get around the federal requirement that we pay overtime was a non-starter. It didn’t work in the real world.”

Deal on funding Brown’s high-speed train

But Brown’s frugality on social service spending was balanced by an equally spendthrift tone in funding the state’s much-aligned high-speed rail program. As part of the tentative budget agreement, Brown secured up to $250 million in funding for the California High-Speed Rail Authority. But as the Sacramento Business Journal points out, that’s still “far less than the agency expects it will need to cover construction costs at that time, which is roughly $4 billion a year.”

As reported by CalWatchdog.com’s Chris Reed, the state’s high-speed rail program has been plagued by a pattern of problems and follies. Most recently, a report released in May found that an independent consultant had been pressured to hide a $1 billion increase in project costs.

Despite serious questions surrounding the legality and viability of the state’s high-speed rail plan, Brown went to great lengths to save his pet project, urging lawmakers to raid funds from the state’s cap-and-trade program. Those funds are legally earmarked to pay for offsets to carbon emissions. Some Democratic lawmakers questioned the governor’s plan to raid cap-and-trade funds.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, said of the governor’s high-speed rail funding proposal. “I don’t support what we’re doing on high-speed rail. I don’t support the authority using the cap-and-trade funds.”

That could provide an opening for GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari, who has lambasted Brown for spending money on “a crazy train.”

More $ for Democratic lawmakers projects

But, the biggest winner in the state budget deal may be Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. The Democrat, who has represented Sacramento in the legislature since 1998, secured $264 million in funding for preschools and $250 million in funding for the Career Pathways Trust program.

“The Career Pathways Trust now doubles our investment in the workforce that will lift our rising economy,” Steinberg said in a statement. “It provides critical support for school and college partnerships with businesses that provide work-based learning opportunities to young people. It brings tangible meaning to education, investing students in their own futures.”

Other items contained in the tentative budget deal are:

• $40 million in a one-time budget allocation for court construction
• $2.5 million to renovate the governor’s mansion in Sacramento
• $50 million each for the University of California and California State University systems
• $100 million for state-deferred maintenance projects
• $20 million for homeless programs operated at the county-level
• $3 million in funding for health care for unionized farm workers

Republican lawmakers generally praised Brown for holding the line on spending, while criticizing his high-speed rail budget.

“I think Republicans would focus more on public education, public safety and infrastructure,” Assembly Budget Vice-Chair Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, told Capitol Public Radio. “And we wouldn’t have invested as much in some of the social programmatic spending, and we wouldn’t have spent money on the high-speed rail.”

The trip, which kicks off on Monday, is the second legislative junket to Cuba organized by Anderson this year. During the Legislature’s spring break, eight lawmakers participated in a similar trip that included a tour of a castle, afternoon salsa lessons and rooftop cocktails, among other activities, according to Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, R-San Luis Obispo, the only legislator to speak publicly about the trip.

The legislative junket to Cuba has been criticized by ethics experts for conflict of interest issues as well as the questionable practice of setting up a nonprofit organization that is “a wholly owned subsidiary” of a lobbying firm.

Assemblywoman Campos confirmed as participant

It is unclear how many legislators or their staff are participating in this week’s trip. At least one legislator has been identified as a participant. The San Jose Mercury-News reports that Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose, and her husband, Neil Struthers, are going.

“It’s an opportunity to develop economic and trade ties,” Campos spokesman Steve Harmon told the Mercury-News by email.

However, an ethics expert said this type of trip gives lobbyists an unfair level of influence.

“It absolutely raises ethical questions when lobbyists travel with elected officials,” Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who specializes in ethics, told CalWatchdog.com in April. “We want elected officials to hear from all of us, not just those who are taking trips.”

The trip’s price tag, according to the invitation, is $4,175 per person with a $500 supplement for single occupancy. But legislators won’t be paying for it out of their own pockets. A spokesman for Campos told the Mercury-News that the San Jose Democrat would use campaign funds to pay for the trip.

Under the California Political Reform Act, legislators and their staffs cannot accept gifts worth more than $10 per month from a registered lobbyist. However, campaign accounts provide legislators with an easy vehicle for circumventing these strict limits on lobbyist gifts. Lobbyists can direct their clients to donate to a member’s campaign account. Then the member can use the campaign account to pay for personal expenses, including foreign travel.

Nonprofit has links to lobbying firm

In order to comply with the State Department’s ban on travel to Cuba, the trip was arranged by Californians Building Bridges, a shadowy nonprofit organization controlled by Anderson. The organization’s website was registered by an employee of Platinum Advisors in August 2010, who provided contact information for Platinum Advisors.

The nonprofit’s board of directors includes Anderson as well as Holly Fraumeni and Melinda McClain, both of whom are registered lobbyists with Platinum Advisors. Only two other individuals serve on the board of directors, Kevin Murray, a former state senator and lobbyist, and James Bruner, the director of Orrick’s Governmental Affairs Practice Group in Sacramento.

That information, Levinson previously suggested, raised the question of whether “the nonprofit is a wholly owned subsidiary of the lobbying firm.”

More evidence of lobbying firm directing trip

The latest trip provides even more evidence that Anderson has used the nonprofit organization as a subsidiary of his lobbying business. In June 2013, Anderson invited lawmakers on the trip on behalf of “Platinum Advisors” and signed the invitation on Platinum Advisors letterhead.

“On behalf of Platinum Advisors and in partnership with Californians Building Bridges, we are excited to invite you to join us on an upcoming trip to Havana, Cuba during December 2-7, 2013,” Anderson wrote on Platinum Advisors letterhead. “In 2010, I founded an exciting nonprofit organization, Californians Building Bridges (CBB), which gained independent approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2011 to travel to Cuba and coordinate educational exchanges.”

Nevertheless, despite overwhelming evidence that the nonprofit is a subsidiary of the lobbying firm, Californians Building Bridges denies that lobbying will occur on the trip.

Jason Kinney, a spokesman for the nonprofit, told the Los Angeles Times that no policy issues are discussed. “These are nongovernmental educational exchanges with the people of Cuba — which means that no policy issues are discussed and certainly none relating to anything going on in Sacramento,” Kinney said in interview with the newspaper earlier this year.

83% of nonprofit funds spent on travel

Federal tax documents, filed by the organization on May 28, 2013, for the 2012 tax year, claim that the group’s primary purpose is to support other charitable endeavors. In 2012, $541,363, or 83 percent of the organization’s overall expenses, was spent on travel.

“The organization’s primary purpose is to assist other charitable organizations in expediting projects, setting priorities, and achieving goals,” the group stated as its charitable mission on tax forms for the past two years. “Californians Building Bridges will develop humanitarian programs that help volunteers and corporate partners alike make a useful connection to a world in need.”

Despite its tax-exempt status, Californians Building Bridges has little to show in the way of charitable activities. Californians Building Bridges, according to its most recent tax return, provided no financial support to domestic or international charities.

In fact, Californians Building Bridges, which spent $652,200 last year, has never spent a penny in support of grants or contributions to other charities, according to the two tax returns that are publicly available. Yet the organization’s mission, according to its tax return, listed as a priority making “one-time financial grants and donations of supplies and materials to charitable organizations that lack their own resources or do not qualify for assistance through existing agencies and organizations in their region.”

Darius Anderson: Sacramento’s ‘best connected lobbyist’

According to state disclosure reports, Anderson’s firm is the lobbyist of record for 68 government organizations and special interest groups, including Anthem Blue Cross, AT&T, California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, Clear Channel Communications, Station Casinos, Sutter Health, United Food and Commercial Workers, UPS, and the counties of Alameda, Napa, Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura.

In 2009, Anderson was voted by state legislators as the “best connected lobbyist,” according to a survey of all 120 legislators conducted by Capitol Weekly.

In 2010, Anderson and Platinum Advisors “paid $500,000 to settle claims by New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo stemming from a yearlong investigation into so-called pay-to-play practices in city and state pension fund investment partnerships,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

As of Sept. 12, seven of the eight legislative members on the spring-break trip to Cuba have been identified. Attendees include: Achadjian, Assembly Majority Leader Toni Atkins, D-San Diego; Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego; Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles; Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello; and state Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston.

Additional background information, past coverage

California Building Bridges 2012 tax return

Platinum Advisors 2013 Invitation Page 1

Platinum Advisor 2013 Invitation Page 2

CalWatchdog: Legislators take secret trip to Cuba with Sacramento lobbyist

CalWatchdog: FPPC shuns investigation of CA legislators’ Cuba trip

CalWatchdog: Two more legislators ID’d who went on lobbyist-organized Cuba junket

LA Times: Six California lawmakers took trip to Cuba with Capitol lobbyist

CalWatchdog: 7th legislator on Cuba junket identified

San Jose Mercury-News: Nora Campos’ junket to Cuba

“Collaboration is part of the pharmacy bill,” Dr. Paul Phinney, president of the California Medical Association, told the Assembly Business, Professions and Consumer Protection Committee on Tuesday.

With the medical association’s opposition removed, Senate Bill 493, one of three scope of practice bills authored by state Senator Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, sailed through the assembly committee on a unanimous vote. SB 493 is up for a vote tomorrow in the full Assembly.

The pharmacists reached a political compromise that didn’t compromise patient safety.

Optometrists

Don’t expect the state’s optometrists, another profession looking to expand its scope of practice this legislative session, to follow suit.

That’s because over the years a political action committee controlled by the California Optometric Association has plied members of a key committee with tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. More than a third of those contributions have occurred in the past five months. Ten of the 14 members of the Assembly Business, Professions and Consumer Protection Committee have accepted campaign contributions from the optometry association.

The association did not respond to CalWatchdog.com’s email for a comment about its political contributions.

“Giving campaign contributions close in time to a vote helps to ensure that legislators remember those contributors fondly,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law school professor who specializes in campaign finance issues. “Campaign contributions can be intended as a down payment on goodwill.”

Since 2009, the California Optometric Association PAC, or Cal-OPAC, has contributed $37,200 worth of goodwill to members of the committee that will now consider whether to dramatically expand the scope of practice for the state’s 9,000 optometrists.

“It’s not a conflict as much as it is a blatant case of using political contributions to influence legislators,” said Phillip Ung, a policy advocate for California Common Cause, which closely monitors campaign finances.

Gordon has accepted $10k from Optometric PAC

Assemblyman Rich Gordon, D-Menlo Park, the B&P committee member that has received the most optometry funds, has accepted $10,400 throughout his legislative career, including a $3,000 contribution in March.  Gordon’s office did not respond to CalWatchdog.com’s email for a comment about his position on the scope of practice bill.

Gordon’s five-figure campaign haul is followed by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who has accepted $9,800 in contributions to her political campaigns. Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, has accepted $4,000 during the past three years.

Uptick: Reason for public to feel uneasy

Gordon, Skinner and Dickinson account for the overwhelming majority of optometrists’ contributions to the committee. That hasn’t stopped the association from forming new friendships with committee members.

This March, Cal-OPAC made first-time contributions to Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-Los Angeles, Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, and Assemblyman Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita. Each received a $2,000 check on the same day. In May, the association added Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, to the $2k club. In total, the optometry PAC has contributed $13,000 to members of the business and professions committee in the past five months.

Those recent contributions, according to Levinson, are likely to further undermine the public’s faith in the legislative process.

“An uptick in campaign contributions by interested groups before an important vote can make the public feel uneasy about the pervasive influence of money in politics.” Levinson said.

Ung agreed, but said the practice is nothing new in Sacramento. “You can always depend on special interests to give right before important votes,” he said. “We see this every year without fail.” 

Contributions: Cost of doing business

Those contributions are likely to be remembered this Tuesday when the committee considers legislation strongly supported by the optometrists. Senate Bill 492 would give your local eye doctor the power “to perform vaccinations and surgical and non-surgical primary care procedures.” Such an expansion would increase the number of patient visits to optometrists, thus delivering a financial windfall to optometry-related businesses. On its website, the California Optometric Association lists SB 492 as a “Priority 1” bill.

“Many campaign contributions are likely seen as the cost of doing business,” said Levinson. “It makes business sense for those who have a proposal pending before the legislature to give campaign contributions to those in charge of making decisions affecting with pending proposals.”

Contributions don’t violate state law

For all of the criticism, campaign finance watchdogs don’t believe that the contributions violate state law.

“These activities are totally legal as long as bribery or extortion are not explicit,” said Ung.

Levinson added, “If there were a conflict of interest each time a group that has business pending before the legislature ramps up targeted campaign contributions to committee members in charge of decisions affecting that group, then many campaign contributions would present a conflict of interest.”

The California Optometric Association’s flurry of campaign activity isn’t the first controversy surrounding the scope of practice bill package. In June, CalWatchdog.com first reported that Hernandez, the bill’s author who also works as an optometrist, has accepted more than $140,000 in campaign contributions from optometry-related businesses.

Assembly Democrats Susan Bonilla of Concord, Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton, and Kevin Mullin of South San Francisco, along with Republican Assemblyman Brian Maienschein of San Diego, have not accepted any contributions from the California Optometric Association.

Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, R-San Luis Obispo, another Cuba trip participant, told the San Luis Obispo Tribune that the trip included a tour of a castle, afternoon salsa lessons and rooftop cocktails, among other activities.

According to the most recent campaign finance report for his state Senate officeholder committee, Calderon spent $6,159 on the March trip, including more than $2,500 on an upgraded Virgin America flight. Within days of returning from Cuba, Pfizer, one of Anderson’s lobbying clients, contributed $1,500 to the same Calderon committee that paid for his trip expenses. In May, just days before Calderon’s offices were raided by the FBI, another Anderson client, AT&T, made a $1,600 contribution to the same Calderon committee.

Under the Calfiornia Political Reform Act, legislators and their staff cannot accept gifts worth more than $10 per month from a registered lobbyist. However, campaign accounts provide legislators with an easy vehicle for circumventing these strict limits on lobbyist gifts. Lobbyists can direct their clients to donate to a member’s campaign account. Then, the member can use the campaign account to pay for personal expenses, including foreign travel.

Since 2011, Calderon’s various campaign committees have collected $12,100 from Anderson’s past or current clients, including the American Council of Life Insurers California, Anthem Blue Cross, AT&T, Conoco Phillips, DirectTV, Dish Network, Pfizer and Phillips 66 Company.

Skinner on Cuba junket

Calderon wasn’t the only legislator to be identified through the most recent campaign disclosure reports. Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, also joined the lobbyist-organized trip to Cuba during the Legislature’s spring break. She reported $2,400 in Cuba trip expenses, according to her most recent campaign finance report.

Skinner has accepted $12,900 in campaign contributions from Anderson’s clients since 2011. According to state campaign lobbying reports, Anderson’s firm is the lobbyist of record for AT&T, DirectTV, Entertainment Software Association, Pfizer, SKS Investments, LLC and the United Food and Commercial Workers, all of whom made campaign contributions to Skinner.

Campaign watchdog groups have criticized the practice of using campaign funds for personal expenses, such as travel junkets.

“Unfortunately, paying for travel and other non-campaign expenses through campaign funds is a growing trend among public officials,” Phillip Ung, a policy advocate for California Common Cause, told CalWatchdog.com earlier this year. “The simple, common sense fix to this problem is to limit campaign funds to campaign related spending.”

6 of 8 legislators identified

As of July 31, CalWatchdog.com has identified six of the eight-member legislative delegation to Cuba. Other attendees include: Achadjian, Assembly Majority Leader Toni Atkins, D-San Diego; Assemblymember Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles; and State Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston.

In order to comply with the U.S. State Department’s ban on travel to Cuba, the trip was arranged by Californians Building Bridges, a non-profit organization controlled by Anderson. In 2011, the only year for which the organization filed a tax return, it spent $94,586 on travel-related expenses of $136,476 in overall expenses. The organization’s mission also listed as a priority, making “one-time financial grants and donations of supplies and materials to charitable organizations that lack their own resources or do not qualify for assistance through existing agencies and organizations in their region.” Yet, it paid out $0 in domestic and foreign grants, according to the group’s tax return.

Anderson and his firm agreed in 2010 to pay out half-a-million dollars to settle pay-to-play allegations, according to the Los Angeles Times.

By John Seiler

If there’s one thing that might get me finally to move away from the beach to another state, it’s gun control. There’s no way I will let a tyrannical government take away my sacred Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.”

I’m checking out U-Haul prices because it looks like the repression is coming:

“Democratic lawmakers are pushing like never before to regulate or tax ammunition sales. They say the logic is simple: A firearm is nothing but an expensive paperweight without ammunition.

“‘We regulated gun sales because of our concern about safety, (so) by logical extension we should do so with bullets,’ said state Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, whose AB48 will be heard Tuesday by the Assembly Public Safety Committee.”

So, “by logical extension,” my freedom is taken away and I become Skinner’s slave.

Would she also “regulate” book sales? After all, books are dangerous. Look how many tens of millions of died from people reading “The Communist Manifesto” and “Mein Kampf,” both of which you can buy at your local book store, used or new; and are in most public libraries. But the First Amendment protects even the worst free speech because that’s the only way to also protect the best free speech, such as the Jefferson or de Tocqueville.

The same with guns: The way to defend ourselves against psychos and criminals with guns is not to “regulate” our guns and ammo, but to maintain our Second Amendment rights so we can defend ourselves.

That’s also the best way to fight back should some jackboot barge in your your door seeking to take you to a camp while implementing “The Communist Manifesto” or “Mein Kampf.”

Only the armed are truly free.