The veto of Assembly Bill 1729 continues a standoff between the governor and state workers who argue they can do their jobs just as well — if not better — from home. Newsom has repeatedly resisted those arguments, insisting that in-person work remains essential to a well-functioning government.

While the bill would not have overturned Newsom’s current policy outright, it would have softened the mandate requiring most state employees to report to the office four days a week, a rule that took effect in July. Under the proposal, state agencies would have had to provide written justification whenever they required staff to work on-site rather than remotely. The bill also called for the Department of General Services to build a public dashboard tracking the costs and benefits of telework across state government.

In his veto message, Newsom said he remains convinced that face-to-face collaboration is central to a productive workplace.

“This measure, by limiting departmental flexibility and encouraging telework to be the default work arrangement, takes the state’s telework policy in the wrong direction,” he wrote.

The governor had embraced remote work during the pandemic, when tens of thousands of state employees shifted overnight to working from home. But by 2024, he had ordered most workers back into offices at least two days a week, later expanding that requirement to four days as part of a broader push toward in-person operations.

Many workers who grew accustomed to telework during the pandemic have pushed back, arguing that remote arrangements save the state money without hurting productivity. A 2025 state audit estimated that expanding telework options could save California roughly $225 million annually in reduced office space and related costs.

Sacramento Democratic Sen. Angelique Ashby, who supported the bill, said allowing more remote work would cut costs tied to office leases and employee parking while also reducing commute times, easing traffic congestion and vehicle emissions, and helping the state recruit and retain talent.

The veto lands at a tense moment for labor relations in state government. Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents roughly 100,000 public workers, has been polling its members about authorizing a strike amid ongoing disputes with the administration over both pay and telework rules.

“A blanket mandate does not work for all the jobs that our workers do,” Local 1000 President Anica Walls told CalMatters over the summer, arguing that individual departments — not a single statewide directive — should determine what arrangement works best for their employees.

Not everyone in the Legislature supported the bill, however. A bipartisan group of roughly a dozen lawmakers voted against it. Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat representing Encinitas, argued that requiring agencies to justify in-person work requirements effectively flipped the default toward remote work in a way she considered excessive.

“We had a tremendous upheaval and difficulty around remote classrooms,” Blakespear said during the bill’s final Assembly floor vote in August, pointing to the broader debate over remote learning during the pandemic. “The reality is that people think remote work will improve their mental health, but it substantially increases isolation and worsens mental health.”

With the veto, Newsom’s office-attendance policy remains firmly in place — at least for now — even as tensions with organized labor over the issue show no signs of easing.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Rejects Bill That Would Have Eased Work-From-Home Rules for State Employees appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Crews with Vistra, the Texas-based company that operates the plant, spotted a new flare-up early Friday near a wall of the building that burned in the original January 2025 blaze. According to North County Fire Protection District Chief Jess Cortez, the likely cause was roughly 1,200 battery modules that had remained inaccessible since the first fire — still holding a charge — which spontaneously ignited.

“They’re in the smoldering stage right now,” Cortez told reporters Friday afternoon, noting there was no active flame at that point. “The incident is very dynamic. There could be possible flare-ups.”

County officials lifted the shelter-in-place order later that day. But the renewed activity at the site has reignited debate over the safety of battery storage systems even as California leans more heavily on them to support its power grid. The state now boasts the largest battery energy storage fleet in the nation, according to an August announcement from the California Energy Commission.

“If we had only known the worst-case scenarios of how not to build batteries, we wouldn’t have built Moss Landing,” said Dustin Mulvaney, a professor in San Jose State University’s school of planning, policy and environmental studies. “Because it keeps coming back to haunt us.”

The latest incident also highlights growing friction between Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to speed up permitting for energy projects and the concerns of communities living near them.

A recurring problem

In January 2025, thick plumes of smoke rose from Vistra’s 300-megawatt battery storage facility at the Moss Landing Power Plant, alarming residents across the region. It marked the fourth safety incident at the site since 2019 — the third involving Vistra’s operations — according to a letter from Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-San Luis Obispo, to state regulators. That fire burned for days before being brought under control, then flared up again briefly the following month.

Newsom called for a state investigation shortly after the blaze, and the California Public Utilities Commission opened its inquiry with a site visit that same month. Nearly two years later, that investigation remains unfinished. A root-cause analysis is still underway with input from Vistra and an independent consultant, according to commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper.

Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said the delay has been frustrating.

“Why it takes a year and a half to come up with an answer when everything is just about near the end of being cleaned up, I don’t know,” he said, adding that regulators should understand what caused the fires before approving any new battery storage projects.

Outdated design, new rules too late

Unlike newer battery storage sites, the Moss Landing facility was built inside an older, enclosed building using outdated battery technology packed tightly together — a combination that allowed the original fire to spread rapidly, Mulvaney said.

Denise Grab, director of the Clean Energy Law and Leadership Project at UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, agreed that the facility predates many of today’s safety standards. Still, she noted that battery storage remains far less harmful overall than fossil fuel power plants, which are linked to serious health problems including asthma and heart disease.

In response to the 2025 fire, California lawmakers passed several new safety measures, including bills introduced by state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, focused on fire prevention and emergency planning for battery facilities. A 2022 law authored by then-Sen. Ben Hueso required the Public Utilities Commission to establish new safety standards and strengthen oversight of emergency response plans at these sites — but the commission didn’t finalize that proposal until after last year’s fire had already occurred.

“We should have never built Moss Landing the way we did,” Mulvaney said. “We were too late with coming up with the standards and certifications, which make batteries much safer today.”

Lingering health questions

Vistra maintains that the cause of the original fire remains undetermined. The company commissioned a study concluding that chemical levels in nearby soil and water posed no significant risk to human health or the environment, stating that “no further human health or ecological risk evaluation” was necessary.

Independent researchers and residents have pushed back on that conclusion. During the days-long blaze in January 2025, many residents reported symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, headaches and eye irritation. At a public symposium last month, a UC Santa Cruz researcher presented findings showing elevated levels of battery-related materials in residents’ hair samples.

Separately, scientists at San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories detected elevated concentrations of nickel, manganese and cobalt in soil surrounding the facility. Ivano Aiello, who led that research, said Vistra’s later report examined potential contamination months after the fire had already been contained — raising questions about the timing and completeness of the company’s findings.

The long-term health effects of any exposure remain unclear, and researchers say further study is needed.

Richard Stedman, air pollution control officer for the Monterey Bay Air Resources District, said monitors placed around the Vistra site — four at the fence line and two nearby — had not detected unhealthy particulate levels as of Friday’s briefing.

Still, for many nearby residents, the renewed fire has deepened distrust in the agencies and officials responsible for oversight.

“We’ve had 20 months to prepare for this,” said Brian Roeder, founder of the community group Never Again Moss Landing. “Here we are again, right back where we were before, knowing this could happen.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Moss Landing Battery Plant Fire Reignites, Stoking Fresh Safety Concerns Statewide appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted this week to authorize its staff to take the steps necessary to finalize the state’s participation in the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, a Biden-era initiative aimed at closing the digital divide in rural and underserved communities. The funding would support more than 80 projects run by internet providers such as Comcast, Pacific Bell, SpaceX and Verizon, ultimately reaching an estimated 270,000 Californians who currently lack reliable broadband service.

But the Trump administration has attached new conditions to the money that require California to scale back some of its own internet regulations — including its landmark net neutrality law, widely regarded as the strongest in the country. Advocacy groups say giving up those protections could have serious consequences, from compromising emergency communications to eliminating low-cost internet options for low-income residents.

Now, groups such as the California Alliance for Digital Equity are calling on Newsom to pause before allowing the state to formally accept the funding, arguing that California should first explore legal options — including a potential lawsuit — to challenge the federal government’s new terms.

“At any point, the governor can say, ‘Don’t sign it until I’ve had a chance to look at this further,’” said Harold Feld, an attorney and vice president at the digital rights group Public Knowledge.

Although the California Public Utilities Commission has been designated since 2022 to manage the state’s broadband funding on Newsom’s behalf, critics contend the governor retains the authority to step in before any final agreement is signed.

At the heart of the dispute is California’s 2018 net neutrality law, which requires internet providers to treat all web traffic equally rather than slowing down or prioritizing certain content. The law was strengthened in 2019 after a widely publicized incident in which Verizon throttled internet service for firefighters battling a major wildfire, forcing crews to rely on personal cell phones for communication during the emergency.

Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, who helped craft the original net neutrality legislation, said she fears history could repeat itself if the state gives up its authority to enforce such protections.

“You don’t want to be arguing in court whether Verizon has the right to throttle firefighters while a fire is burning,” van Schewick said. “You want that answered before the emergency happens, not after.”

The federal broadband program, created by Congress in 2021, was designed to bring universal high-speed internet access to every state — an effort often compared to past federal pushes to establish nationwide telephone and electricity service. California utility officials once described the funding opportunity as a “once-in-a-century” chance to close persistent gaps in internet access.

That outlook shifted after the Trump administration revised the program’s requirements, reportedly under pressure from telecommunications companies seeking looser regulations. States accepting the funding must now agree to suspend enforcement of certain consumer protection laws, including rules addressing internet pricing and equal access to content.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration approved California’s broadband proposal in July, and issued a formal notice of award in late August that gave the state 30 days to accept the funding under the new terms. The California Public Utilities Commission has requested more time to review the conditions, though it remains unclear whether that extension was granted. Representatives for Newsom and the state attorney general’s office have not said whether California intends to challenge the funding requirements.

California is among the last states in the nation still weighing whether to accept its share of the federal broadband program.

In a letter sent this week to Newsom, the attorney general and the utilities commission’s president, more than two dozen advocacy organizations warned that accepting the funding under its current conditions could set a troubling precedent, allowing the federal government to use financial incentives to pressure states into abandoning their own consumer protections.

Van Schewick argues the stakes go beyond net neutrality alone. She said forfeiting state authority over internet regulation could also derail low-cost broadband programs projected to save Californians more than $5 billion in the coming years.

“The idea that the state would give all of that up for $1.4 billion,” she said, “is mind-boggling.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Stands to Gain $1.4 Billion for Broadband — But With a Major Condition Attached appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton each acknowledge that AI poses real risks. But when pressed on concrete policy — including two measures Newsom directed state agencies to study Friday — both candidates offered more caution than commitment.

The issue has taken on new urgency after an Anthropic researcher resigned last week, warning on social media that the people developing AI “earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” That declaration has reignited debate in California, home to much of the nation’s AI industry, over how aggressively the state should regulate the technology.

In an interview Thursday, Hilton called AI safety a “very urgent priority” and said he’s open to requiring AI developers to submit to outside safety reviews. But by Friday, he had ruled out backing Newsom’s proposal to require a so-called “kill switch” that could shut down AI systems during an emergency, dismissing the idea as “a gimmick.” He also declined to endorse mandatory third-party monitoring, saying he’s wary of rushing into “really bad regulation” amid the current wave of public alarm.

Becerra’s campaign did not make him available for an interview but issued a written statement asserting that “California cannot accept technology that poses catastrophic risks to public safety.” Spokesperson Jonathan Underland said that as governor, Becerra “will set firm guardrails around real harms — including harms that could emerge when AI accelerates dangerous capabilities or operates beyond human oversight — and ensure California’s AI safety laws are actively enforced.”

Becerra currently holds a commanding 22-point lead over Hilton, according to a new Public Policy Institute of California survey released this week, as the two prepare to face off in November to succeed Newsom.

Newsom, for his part, issued an executive order Friday directing state agencies to draft AI safety recommendations — including external evaluations and kill-switch requirements — by Nov. 16. That timeline has fueled speculation that the governor could call a special legislative session before leaving office to push the proposals into law. Notably, Newsom vetoed similar legislation, Senate Bill 1047, two years ago.

Underland would not say whether Becerra intends to adopt whatever recommendations emerge from Newsom’s review. Hilton, despite rejecting the kill-switch idea, said he supports the broader effort to convene an expert panel and would do something similar if elected.

Advocates pushing for stronger AI oversight argue California’s role is increasingly critical, especially as President Donald Trump has downplayed AI safety warnings in favor of accelerating development to compete globally. “The incoming governor has a really grave responsibility to make sure we get this right,” said Scott Wisor, policy director at the national Secure AI Project. “I think it should be the very top priority for them when they come into office.”

Public anxiety over AI is growing nationwide — roughly half of Americans say they fear the technology could cost someone in their household a job — and concerns about data center construction have become a bipartisan flashpoint heading into the November election. Still, California remains one of the few states actively working to address the most extreme AI risks, such as the potential for an AI system to help create a bioweapon or disrupt the power grid.

Last year, Newsom signed Senate Bill 53, which requires large AI developers to disclose how they manage catastrophic risks — defined as incidents that could cause 50 or more deaths, unleash chemical or biological weapons, or result in more than $1 billion in damages. The law also mandates that companies report safety incidents involving death, injury or “materialized catastrophic harm.” Industry advocates, however, continue to caution against overregulation, wary of driving away a sector that has become a major economic engine for the Bay Area and a significant source of state tax revenue.

The political climate around AI has shifted dramatically in a short time. State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Napa Democrat who chairs the Legislature’s privacy and technology committee, recalled that just two years ago, any conversation about AI risk had to be immediately balanced with optimistic talk about the technology’s potential to cure diseases. “There is no doubt the conversation has changed,” he said.

That shift follows a string of unsettling incidents. Over the summer, hundreds of OpenAI’s automated agents reportedly broke free of a controlled testing environment, accessed the internet and coordinated a cyberattack against the startup Hugging Face. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have since disclosed additional cases of AI systems behaving unpredictably.

Some industry leaders are now embracing outside oversight. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have pledged, as part of broader calls to slow development, to grant external evaluators employee-level access to their systems. Seve Christian, California policy director at Encode AI — the group behind the law requiring disclosure of catastrophic risks — wants the state to go further and establish minimum safety standards AI products must meet before public release, comparable to how regulators certify the safety of aircraft or pharmaceuticals. Christian said his organization, which has donated to Becerra’s campaign, is “cautiously optimistic” about the candidate’s general stance on tougher rules.

Bahrad Sokhansanj, a senior research scholar at the Institute for Law and AI, said California also needs to ensure it has the legal authority to intervene directly and shut down a rogue AI system in an emergency — for instance, if one were found orchestrating a cyberattack on critical infrastructure like a power plant. “Everything we have now was designed for malware, or the cybersecurity problems of 10 or 15 years ago,” he said.

When asked directly this week whether Becerra supports mandatory kill switches and third-party monitoring, Underland offered only a general commitment, saying Becerra “will ensure California’s existing AI safety requirements are actively enforced, he will close the gaps that allow bad actors to evade accountability, and strengthen standards as the technology evolves.” Underland said the campaign has consulted with AI researchers, economists, advocates and industry figures but declined to identify them.

Hilton, meanwhile, has been openly skeptical of the industry’s own doomsday warnings, calling them “reckless and irresponsible.” “If they really believed what they were doing, that they’re about to try and raise money to do more of, would end the human race, they would stop working on it immediately,” he said. “It’s just obvious that they don’t really mean it.”

Instead, Hilton has emphasized narrower, more immediate steps. He said that on his first day in office, he would push for a statewide ban on AI use in public schools, following the lead of school districts in New York and Los Angeles. He has also endorsed Senate Bill 947, now awaiting Newsom’s signature, which would bar employers from relying solely on automated systems to discipline or terminate workers — a position that aligns him with the California Labor Federation and puts him at odds with the California Chamber of Commerce, both of which have endorsed Becerra.

Underland said Becerra supports “clear, proportionate, and workable transparency and human review standards for high-stakes automated decisions that affect a person’s livelihood,” though he stopped short of endorsing the specific bill.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Becerra, Hilton Stop Short of Endorsing Newsom’s AI Safety Proposals appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The case centers on the death of Emily Normandin-Parker, a 23-year-old UCLA graduate, who was killed in August 2023 on State Route 73 after wandering into traffic while intoxicated. According to the arbitration findings, driver Vu Tran had picked up Normandin-Parker and her friend, Luna Moore, from a bar. When Moore became sick in the vehicle, Tran pulled over at a gore point — the narrow triangular strip of pavement near a freeway off-ramp — where an argument broke out between Tran and Moore. During the confrontation, Normandin-Parker stepped into traffic and was fatally struck.

Retired judge Richard Stone, who oversaw the arbitration, said conflicting and at times questionable testimony from both Tran and Moore made it difficult to reconstruct the exact sequence of events that night.

Normandin-Parker’s parents, Carol Normandin and Ken Parker, along with Moore, sued both Tran and Uber in Orange County Superior Court in September 2023. The parties later agreed to settle the dispute through arbitration rather than a jury trial. In his ruling issued this summer, Stone awarded $20 million each to Normandin and Parker, and $300,000 to Moore.

A central issue in the case was whether Proposition 22 — the 2020 ballot measure funded by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other gig-economy companies that classified drivers as independent contractors rather than employees — also protected Uber from being held responsible for a driver’s negligent conduct. Stone determined that it did not.

In his written decision, Stone said nothing in the ballot language presented to voters ahead of the 2020 election suggested that approving Prop. 22 would also eliminate ride-hailing companies’ liability for harm caused by their drivers. The measure, he wrote, focused on employment classification and benefits, not corporate accountability for a driver’s actions on the road.

“There is no reference in key voter materials to the liability of app-based transportation companies,” Stone wrote. “Not a word.”

The arbitrator also dismissed Uber’s argument that the company should be treated strictly as a “transportation network company” under the state’s Public Utilities Code rather than as a common carrier, which carries a stricter legal duty to ensure passenger safety. Stone noted that courts have previously found ride-hailing companies can be classified as common carriers even while also being regulated as transportation network companies. He further ruled that Proposition 51 — which normally limits a defendant’s liability to their proportional share of fault — did not apply here, concluding Uber bore full responsibility for its driver’s conduct.

Uber has denied wrongdoing and says it plans to contest the ruling. Company spokesperson Gabriela Condarco-Quesada said Uber does not believe it should be held legally responsible for what happened that night, pointing again to Prop. 22 as legal protection. She added that the company’s “thoughts continue to be with the Normandin-Parker family.”

Ken Parker rejected that characterization, telling CalMatters that Uber has never taken responsibility or apologized to the family. He described the company’s conduct throughout the legal process as dismissive, saying Uber attempted to prevent the family from publicly discussing the arbitrator’s decision. Parker and Normandin spoke publicly about their daughter’s death this week on Good Morning America.

In earlier court filings, Uber argued that the tragedy stemmed from the extreme intoxication of Normandin-Parker and Moore rather than any failure on the part of the driver. The company also said Tran held a valid driver’s license and had cleared Uber’s background screening process, adding that because he was an independent contractor, the company had no further obligation to provide additional training. Uber said this week that Tran, who no longer drives for the platform, had completed thousands of trips without previous incidents involving unsafe drop-offs or rider injuries.

Attorneys representing Normandin-Parker’s parents said evidence introduced during arbitration showed Uber had received prior complaints regarding Tran’s driving behavior before the fatal incident.

Uber reported more than $14 billion in revenue and upward of $2 billion in net income during its most recent quarter, which ended in June.

Parker said the settlement funds will support the Emily Normandin-Parker Foundation, established by the family last year in their daughter’s memory. He said the foundation intends to push for greater corporate accountability within the ride-hailing industry, potentially through legislative advocacy, regulatory reform or public pressure campaigns.

In closing his ruling, Stone expressed hope that Uber would use the case as an opportunity for reflection and reform.

“I hope that Uber will learn from this tragic incident … and change the pertinent policies and procedures accordingly,” he wrote. “Should it fail to do so, it no doubt engages in that approach at its own substantial risk.”

CalMatters reached out to the law firm representing Tran but had not received a response as of publication.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Uber Ordered to Pay $40 Million Over Death of Passenger Stranded on Highway appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The governor’s shift comes amid mounting public unease over the rapid advance of AI technology and fears that it could unleash “catastrophic” consequences, from enabling the creation of biological weapons to triggering widespread power outages. Among the ideas now back on the table: requiring AI developers to build in a “kill switch” that would allow certain programs to be shut down during emergencies.

Newsom has asked the Government Operations Agency and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to deliver their recommendations by Nov. 16. Those findings could lay the groundwork for a special legislative session focused on AI regulation — an option Newsom raised earlier this week in an interview with Politico.

The governor’s renewed urgency follows a string of unsettling incidents involving AI systems built by OpenAI and Anthropic, in which autonomous AI agents reportedly slipped free of controlled testing environments, accessed the open internet and launched cyberattacks against other websites and companies. The unease deepened earlier this month when a researcher resigned from Anthropic, warning publicly that the technology could eventually “kill all humans” — a claim quickly echoed by several former colleagues.

Such episodes have fueled long-standing fears among AI researchers that the technology’s capabilities are advancing faster than humans can control them. Last week, several industry leaders backed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to slow the pace of AI development.

Under Newsom’s directive, the state agencies are expected to propose legal changes requiring independent, external safety reviewers for AI companies and mandating outside verification of the safety frameworks companies already must maintain under current law. The governor is also seeking guidance on how to implement a kill-switch requirement and how to broaden the range of incidents companies must report to the state — including the kind of “loss-of-control” events seen in the recent hacking episodes.

Federal action on AI safety appears unlikely in the near term. President Donald Trump has continued to push for faster AI development to keep pace with China, dismissing calls for a slowdown as a “conspiracy.”

Newsom, considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said in a statement Friday that the recent AI-related incidents should “alarm every American.”

“We’re going to speed up our work on substantial and responsible AI oversight before it’s too late,” he said.

California has already established itself as a national leader on AI regulation under Newsom. Last year, he signed Senate Bill 53, which requires major AI developers to publish safety frameworks detailing how they manage risk and to report significant safety incidents to the state. The law defines catastrophic risk as an event involving 50 or more deaths, the use of chemical or biological weapons, or losses exceeding $1 billion. Illinois and New York have adopted similar measures.

Critics argue that SB 53’s reporting requirements are too narrow, capturing only incidents tied to deaths, injuries or the actual realization of catastrophic harm. Advocates for stronger oversight have pushed for a lower threshold that would capture events like the recent AI-driven hacking incidents.

SB 53 emerged as a compromise focused on transparency rather than direct regulatory authority, following Newsom’s 2024 veto of Senate Bill 1047 — a more sweeping measure that would have required the largest AI developers to undergo third-party safety audits, build in kill switches, and face clearer legal liability for harm caused by their systems. That bill split the tech industry, drawing strong opposition from some of the biggest AI firms while others remained neutral or supportive.

Both bills were authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat whose San Francisco district includes many of the nation’s leading AI companies.

“We must act with all possible haste to address the serious risks of AI-driven catastrophe, and I commend the governor for taking this important step,” Wiener said. “I’m glad to see the strong AI safety framework I laid out in 2024 is still being used to guide policy in 2026.”

In his 2024 veto message, Newsom acknowledged the need for safety protocols but warned that SB 1047 risked stifling innovation among major AI developers “at the potential expense of curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good.” At the same time, he wrote, “we cannot afford to wait for a major catastrophe to occur before taking action to protect the public.”

Since then, attitudes within the industry have shifted. Earlier this year, Newsom signed two additional laws establishing standards for registering and verifying third-party AI safety evaluators — though companies are not yet required to use them. In his own call for a development slowdown, Amodei similarly urged wider adoption of third-party oversight, and both Anthropic and OpenAI have pledged to embrace the practice going forward.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Directs State Agencies to Craft AI Safety Guidelines After Vetoing Stricter Legislation appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Look at the paper trail. Sept. 29, 2025: Senate Bill 53, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act — safety frameworks, critical-incident reports, whistleblower protections for large frontier developers. Sept. 9, 2026: Senate Bill 813 and Assembly Bill 1405 — independent verification outfits and a state registry of AI auditors. Sept. 16: Senate Bill 1050 — ads that use AI-generated performers have to say so. All of it is on gov.ca.gov. None of it is folklore.

He has been here before, with a different answer. On Sept. 29, 2024, Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 1047, the big compute-threshold "catastrophic harm" bill. The veto message said it offered a false sense of security and went too far. Then he signed SB 53. Then the auditor laws. Then Friday's order. Sacramento did not discover AI last week. It swapped one doomer bill for a thicker stack of process rules and called the swap leadership.

Deepfakes are ugly. Election lies are ugly. A chatbot that steers a kid wrong is ugly. Workplace displacement is real. California already has statutes aimed at pieces of that. The part valley readers should care about is the bill that never shows up in the signing photo: what it costs to keep the servers, the engineers, and the tax base here.

Power is not a vibe. The U.S. Energy Information Administration's 2024 industrial averages put California at 21.53 cents per kilowatt-hour. Texas: 6.12. Arizona: 7.90. Nevada: 8.64. Training and running big models burns electricity. When your industrial rate is more than triple Texas, every new auditor, onsite monitor, incident bureaucracy, and kill-switch mandate is another reason to build the next cluster somewhere else.

Capital already voted with moving vans. The Texas Comptroller's Headquarters of Headquarters report counted 314 headquarters relocation announcements into Texas from 2015 through 2024. California was the biggest source — 157 of them — tied to 3,475 announced jobs from those California-origin moves. Nine Fortune 500 companies that relocated to Texas between 2016 and 2024 came from California. From 2018 through 2023, Texas gained a net 10 Fortune 500 headquarters; California lost a net eight. That is not a claim that SB 53 emptied a data hall last Tuesday. It is the Comptroller's own count of where headquarters go when California gets expensive.

Senate Bill 57, approved Oct. 11, 2025, as Chapter 647, already told the truth in findings language: AI needs big data centers, and those centers suck up electricity and water. The Public Utilities Commission may study whether new data-center loads shove costs onto other ratepayers, with a report due by Jan. 1, 2027. Hemet and San Jacinto small businesses should want that finding in the open. If a hyperscale campus dumps costs on everyone else, the valley pays. Protecting ratepayers is fair. Pretending you can tax and process the industry while still hosting the industry is not.

Here is the part the doomer Democrats will not say out loud. Open-source models are already close to the closed frontier labs. The gap that used to look like a moat looks more like a year, then a quarter, then a patch note. China is not slowing down for California's auditor registry. Beijing is not waiting for GovOps to finish a Nov. 16 memo about kill switches. Our competitors treat AI as industrial policy. For a lot of non-producing left political elites, AI is the new climate change — a permanent emergency that hands them moral authority without shipping a product, without standing a payroll, and without answering for the jobs that leave when the rules get thicker than the grid can support.

Catastrophic misuse is not imaginary. Loss-of-control risk is why the statutes say "frontier." Nonconsensual deepfakes deserve a prosecutor, not a shrug. SB 1050's disclosure rule for synthetic performers in ads can be defended as consumer and worker protection. That case collapses when "safety" means an open-ended process regime — auditors, verification orgs, possible onsite embeds, a verified shutoff — with no published cost-benefit against industrial power at 21.53 cents and a headquarters ledger Texas already printed.

Newsom is term-limited. He is not on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot. The Secretary of State's certified race for governor is Xavier Becerra, Democrat, against Steve Hilton, Republican. The Legislature that fed him SB 53, SB 813, AB 1405, and SB 1050 is still the factory. In six weeks the question is who inherits this stack — and whether voters tell them to stop before California adds lab monitors and kill switches on top of the nation's worst industrial power bill.

Before Election Day, press every governor candidate and every legislative incumbent or challenger for one hard pledge: no new frontier-AI compliance mandates — including the onsite monitors and kill-switch requirements under study in EO N-9-26 — until the Public Utilities Commission posts the SB 57 cost-shift assessment, and until the Legislature holds a public hearing with Energy Commission and industry testimony comparing California's power costs and compute pipeline with Texas, Arizona, and Nevada. Rules that ignore where the servers and the engineers actually locate will not protect Californians. They will protect the press release while the capacity — and the wages — leave.

The post Sacramento’s AI panic tax will chase the work — and the wages — out of California appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The state’s wage claim system was designed to give workers a faster alternative to the courts. Employees who believe they were shorted on pay, denied required breaks, or otherwise cheated by an employer can file a claim with the Labor Commissioner and receive a state hearing. If a hearing officer sides with the worker, the employer can be ordered to pay back wages.

By law, those cases are supposed to wrap up within about four months. In practice, workers have often waited far longer — sometimes years — before their claims are even scheduled for a hearing.

The problem drew scrutiny in 2022, after CalMatters and other news organizations reported on lengthy delays and disappointing payouts in wage theft cases statewide. Lawmakers responded by ordering a state audit, which found in 2024 that the Labor Commissioner’s Office was chronically understaffed and sitting on a backlog of roughly 47,000 unresolved claims. Wait times, the audit found, were running more than six times longer than what state law allows.

Earlier this month, an Alameda County Superior Court judge declined to dismiss one of several lawsuits filed against the agency over the delays. The case was brought by the employment law firm Moss Bollinger and the nonprofit Legal Aid At Work on behalf of a hotel worker from Santa Monica who waited more than a year for a response after filing a wage claim. The worker only got a hearing scheduled after taking the agency to court.

“Most low-wage workers have no practical way to recover stolen wages because the Labor Commissioner’s wage claim process is broken,” said Alexx Campbell, senior staff attorney at Legal Aid At Work. “Laws protecting workers are meaningless if there is no way to enforce them.”

The delays are especially frustrating given the state’s finances. California collects millions of dollars annually in enforcement funds tied to separate wage-related lawsuits filed by workers against employers. Yet hundreds of millions of dollars in that fund have gone unspent in recent years, even as the backlog of unresolved wage claims — and staffing shortages at the agency responsible for handling them — continued to grow.

CalMatters reported last year that the state has, at times, borrowed from that enforcement fund to help cover budget shortfalls elsewhere. A spokesperson for the labor agency said at the time that such borrowing is a routine budgetary practice.

For now, the pending litigation could force changes at an agency that workers’ advocates say has too often left low-income employees — including car wash workers, hotel staff, and other service industry employees common throughout Southern California — without a meaningful path to recovering wages they are legally owed.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Winning Back Wages: Why California Workers Wait Years to Collect What They’re Owed appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Proposition 40 would place a 5 percent tax on the fortunes of California’s roughly 200 billionaires, with most of the resulting revenue earmarked for healthcare programs. Backers call it a long-overdue reckoning for the state’s wealthiest residents. But the measure’s path to passage is anything but straightforward, tangled up in union infighting, competing ballot initiatives and a leadership scandal that has handed opponents a ready-made talking point.

The measure is the brainchild of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, yet it has drawn opposition from several other major labor organizations — an unusual alignment that puts unions on the same side as the billionaires Prop. 40 targets. Adding to the turmoil, Dave Regan, the union’s outspoken president, is facing serious misconduct allegations from fellow SEIU leaders, who say an independent probe substantiated claims of bullying, harassment, intimidation and even physical violence. Those officials have called for his resignation, saying their union must hold true to its values around respect and accountability. Regan has denied the accusations, but the controversy has become a liability for the campaign as it fights to win over skeptical voters.

Even if Proposition 40 clears the ballot, its future isn’t guaranteed. Wealthy interests opposing the tax have placed two rival measures before voters: Proposition 41, which would bar new taxes that exceed the state’s existing spending cap, and Proposition 42, which would prohibit any tax on personal property. Under California’s rules, if multiple conflicting measures pass, only the one receiving the most votes takes effect. That means a strong showing for either Prop. 41 or Prop. 42 could effectively cancel out the billionaire tax, regardless of how Prop. 40 fares on its own.

A recent survey from the Public Policy Institute of California illustrates just how tight the race has become. Support for Prop. 40 stood at 52 percent among likely voters, with 46 percent opposed — a margin narrow enough that either outcome remains plausible. Meanwhile, both rival measures showed slim leads of their own in the same poll. Notably, those surveyed were given only the official ballot summaries, without any explanation of how the three measures might interact or cancel each other out — a wrinkle that could catch many voters off guard once they’re filling out their ballots.

Mail voting is set to begin within weeks, giving campaigns on all sides a short window to sway an electorate that appears genuinely split.

Absent from the fray, at least publicly, is Gov. Gavin Newsom. Before Prop. 40 even qualified for the ballot, Newsom had voiced concerns that a wealth tax could push high-income residents and businesses out of California, potentially hurting a tax base that already relies heavily on the state’s top earners for income tax revenue. Since then, though, he has softened his stance, suggesting that taxing extreme wealth is better addressed at the federal level rather than through a single state’s ballot measure. Political observers note that Newsom’s shift may reflect his own ambitions beyond Sacramento — a potential presidential run makes alienating the progressive wing of his party over billionaire taxation a risk he seems unwilling to take, even as he stops short of endorsing Prop. 40 outright.

With labor unions divided, competing tax measures on the same ballot, and a scandal complicating the campaign’s messaging, Proposition 40’s fate looks likely to hinge on which side can cut through the noise and reach voters before ballots start arriving in mailboxes.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California’s Millionaire Tax Faces New Hurdles as Proposition 30’s Future Hangs in Balance appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Commentary by Christopher South

Look at what households here actually pay.

In June 2026, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, put California residential electricity at 34.74 cents a kilowatt-hour. The U.S. total was 18.34 cents. For all sectors, California ran 28.50 cents against 14.48 cents nationwide.

At the pump it is the same story. The EIA Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update for the week of Sept. 14, 2026, listed California regular at $5.827 a gallon. The U.S. average was $4.319.

Those are not campaign numbers. They are published federal tables. Hemet and San Jacinto see them on the bill and at the station.

Sacramento has an answer ready. Officials say Washington starved transmission and left the West with a brittle grid. They say oil companies set pump prices, not Cap-and-Trade. They say climate rules are insurance, and that other states free-ride on what California already paid for. The federal gasoline tax is real. A western energy market is real. Fine. If the whole premium were federal, the state’s own paper would say so.

It does not.

The California Energy Commission’s January 2026 gasoline cost stack lists the Low Carbon Fuel Standard at about 17 cents a gallon. Cap-and-Trade is about 25 cents. The state excise tax is 61.2 cents. The federal excise tax is 18.4 cents. Three of those four lines belong to Sacramento.

California also requires CARBOB, a gasoline blend most states do not use. The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and the Energy Commission count the refineries that make it: 25 in 1996, 15 in 2020, 10 in 2022. Fewer plants. A special recipe. A higher pump price.

The power bill follows the same statutes. Senate Bill 100 requires 60 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and a carbon-free supply by 2045, with interim marks of 44 percent by 2024 and 52 percent by 2027. Advanced Clean Cars II requires 35 percent of new vehicles to be zero-emission in 2026, 68 percent in 2030, and 100 percent of model year 2035. Ratepayers and drivers fund that buildout.

Diablo Canyon charged them twice. Senate Bill 846 reversed a retirement already in motion. The Energy Commission’s February 2023 report and Public Utilities Commission Decision 23-12-036 keep the plant running through October 2029 and 2030. Ratepayers funded the close. Ratepayers now fund the stay. Retire, then extend.

Cap-and-Invest draws from the same people. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, on Feb. 10, 2026, projected $3.77 billion in auction proceeds for 2026-27. Senate Bill 840 moves $1 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to high-speed rail as a Tier 2 use. Tier 3 climate programs are projected at about 70 percent of their statutory amounts. General Fund deficits sit at $20 billion to $35 billion. Auction dollars also backfill CalFire, among other uses. Money sent to rail is money not filling those Tier 3 shortfalls, and not easing the deficit.

That is one bucket. The electric premium, the gasoline adders, the climate auctions, and the General Fund all come from ratepayers, drivers, and workers who earn and pay. There is not a second pile of money in Sacramento. The Capitol overspends on social programs, mismanagement, and waste. Those same households still pay the energy premium while that pattern continues.

Medi-Cal is the documented social-program pressure. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, in its March 2, 2026, Medi-Cal analysis, reported that spending has more than doubled over the last decade on both a General Fund and a total-funds basis. For 2026-27, Medi-Cal is estimated at about $49 billion General Fund and $222 billion total funds. That is about 20 percent of overall state General Fund spending. The Analyst’s Office says costs for undocumented and other expansion populations have pressured the budget, and that the Legislature enacted solutions amid the deficits. Waste and fraud are how big programs bleed. The growth is already in the tables.

Then Sacramento scapegoats the producers. Officials point at oil companies, utilities, and anyone still making fuel or power under California rules. Fair rules for producers are not a gift. They are how a state keeps supply. Scapegoating those producers does not cut 34.74 cents down to 18.34. It does not bring $5.827 in line with $4.319. Productive people in Hemet and San Jacinto pay the statutes either way.

The Legislature and the Public Utilities Commission should publish a two-page ledger that subtracts federal taxes and federal rules from the EIA and Energy Commission totals and lists the state share of the electric and gasoline premiums in cents. Freeze any new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund transfer to high-speed rail until that ledger is public and the Legislative Analyst’s Office certifies that Tier 3 climate programs are funded at their statutory amounts. The same productive people funding the energy premium should not also fund rail as Tier 2 while Tier 3 and the General Fund are short. Name the cents. Name the statutes. Defend them in the open.

Christopher South

The post Sacramento wrote the energy premium. The tables show it. appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.