The discussion was sparked by the resignation of Jacob Coxon, a researcher who left AI company Anthropic and went public with warnings that the industry’s leading firms may be putting humanity at risk. In a social media post, Coxon — who previously worked at OpenAI — accused both Anthropic and OpenAI of “gambling with our lives” in their rush to build increasingly powerful, humanlike artificial intelligence systems. He suggested the consequences could arrive within the next several years.

The comments rattled more than just Silicon Valley. They reached the boardroom of CalPERS, the pension system that manages retirement funds for millions of California’s public employees and retirees, with assets totaling roughly $655 billion.

During Monday’s meeting, CalPERS Board President Theresa Taylor raised Coxon’s resignation directly with Chief Investment Officer Stephen Gilmore, framing the issue in stark terms.

“This is humanity,” said Taylor, a retired state worker and former union leader, as she pressed the board to consider whether CalPERS should speak out publicly on the risks posed by unchecked AI development.

Taylor noted that even in the wake of Coxon’s warning, the chief executives of both Anthropic and OpenAI — Dario Amodei and Sam Altman, respectively — have called for the industry to slow down its race toward more advanced AI systems, an acknowledgment that even top developers see cause for caution.

Taylor argued that CalPERS has a stake in the conversation beyond its investment portfolio. While the board’s primary duty is to safeguard the fund’s financial performance, she suggested that ignoring the societal risks of AI would be shortsighted.

“If we don’t have retirees, if we don’t have state workers because of AI, we don’t have a pension fund,” Taylor said, making the case that protecting the workforce and the public at large is inseparable from protecting the fund’s long-term stability.

Despite the pointed exchange, the board did not commit to issuing any formal statement on AI risks, nor did it signal any change to its investment strategy involving artificial intelligence companies. Gilmore, addressing the board, acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the technology’s trajectory, saying the future holds “a very wide distribution of possible outcomes.”

Taylor responded with a mix of skepticism and concern, noting that while investors continue to chase the financial upside of the AI boom, the ultimate result could look nothing like what anyone expects.

“We’re waiting for the money,” she said, “and unfortunately the outcome could be something entirely different.”

For now, CalPERS — like many major institutional investors — remains deeply intertwined with the fortunes of the AI sector, even as some of its own leaders openly question whether that reliance carries risks far greater than market volatility.

Original source: CalMatters

The post CalPERS Board Members Voice AI Concerns Following Anthropic Researcher’s Resignation appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

While his Republican rival in the governor’s race, Steve Hilton, has staked out bold promises like $3-a-gallon gasoline and slashing electricity bills in half, Becerra has taken a far more cautious approach to the campaign trail, according to reporting from CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang.

Ask Becerra about California’s housing shortage, and he’ll tell you the state needs to build more. Ask him how many homes he’d actually deliver as governor, and the specifics fall away. On healthcare spending, he says he’d root out administrative waste and fraud in public programs — but offers no details on how. And when pressed on whether he’d stick with the state’s mandate to phase out new gas-powered car sales, his answer amounts to: it depends.

Political observers say the strategy tracks with California’s electoral math. With registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans by roughly two to one statewide, Becerra “doesn’t have an incentive to go out on a limb,” said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College.

This isn’t a new pattern for Becerra. As California’s attorney general seven years ago, he made one of the more controversial calls of his tenure when he declined to release police misconduct records that a new state transparency law required him to disclose. He said at the time he wanted judicial guidance on whether the law applied retroactively — a decision that drew a lawsuit from news organizations and ultimately a court order forcing him to hand over the records.

Becerra doesn’t see his cautious style as a weakness. He says he won’t back a policy “unless I know what I’m voting for completely,” and argues that voters looking to understand where he really stands should simply examine his record.

He points to his time as President Joe Biden’s health secretary as an example. Biden made clear before nominating him that he opposed single-payer healthcare — a policy Becerra had championed for years. Becerra accepted the terms and instead focused his efforts on expanding Medicaid enrollment.

“Just because I didn’t get single-payer, doesn’t mean I’m not a progressive, and just because I didn’t fight for single-payer doesn’t mean I am establishment,” Becerra said. “At this stage of my life, at this stage of my career, I just want to get things done.”

Read the full story at calmatters.org.

OTHER STORIES YOU SHOULD KNOW

What will California’s new plastics law cost you?

Plastic producers are pushing back hard against a state law designed to curb plastic waste, arguing it will hit Californians’ wallets far harder than regulators have projected.

As CalMatters’ Alejandra Reyes-Velarde reports, the 2022 law requires plastic producers to cut packaging and food-service waste by 25% and ensure their products can be recycled or composted by 2032. The state’s recycling agency, CalRecycle, estimated the law would cost about $21 billion to carry out — roughly $190 a year per California household.

But an industry coalition that includes the California Restaurant Association and the California League of Food Producers says that estimate relies on overly optimistic assumptions. Their own projection puts the cost as high as $58 billion, or nearly $948 a year per household. This week, two dozen state lawmakers sent a letter urging legislative leaders to delay parts of the law by two years.

Supporters of the measure are pushing back against any delay.

“This 11th-hour Hail Mary (by plastic producers) is only trying to maintain status quo and avoid due responsibility, throwing years of good-faith negotiations, and affordability and sustainability improvements out the window,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, an El Segundo Democrat who authored the law.

Will Newsom sign the so-called “Nick Shirley” bill?

A contentious measure aimed at shielding immigration service providers from harassment is now headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, after clearing the Legislature this week largely along party lines despite fierce Republican opposition.

The bill would let people who provide legal help, healthcare, counseling or other services to immigrants qualify for a state privacy program that removes their home addresses from public databases.

Republican lawmakers argue the measure would make it harder for journalists to investigate fraud or mismanagement at nonprofit organizations. Critics have nicknamed it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” referencing the conservative YouTube personality who last year alleged widespread fraud at child care centers in Minneapolis.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, an Oakland Democrat who authored the bill, said she and her staff have received death threats over the legislation. Fighting back emotion during floor remarks, she said the measure “fundamentally is about freedom from fear.”

“Right now, our immigrant service providers are living in fear because of the work that they do,” Bonta said. “That is an intolerable consequence to the fear-mongering that happens right now. … This is a very scary time.”

CALIFORNIA VOICES

CalMatters columnist Dan Walters argues Californians shouldn’t have to dig for information on which cases the state Department of Justice has lost — and that the state should regularly publish updated data on lawsuit outcomes and costs.

CalMatters contributor Jim Newton writes that former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa deserves credit for improvements to the city’s public transit system, which performed well during the World Cup — but faces an even tougher test with the Olympics on the horizon.

OTHER THINGS WORTH YOUR TIME

Some stories may require a subscription to read.

Rob Bonta says David Ellison is “desperate” and “grasping at straws” — The Hollywood Reporter

California Democrats rally opposition to voter ID measure, calling it a Trump-led effort — The Sacramento Bee

After a bruising loss in Michigan, AIPAC turns to California for a win — The Washington Post

Ruling renews scrutiny of tactic used to make Trump loyalist LA’s top federal prosecutor — Los Angeles Times

A California official helped a company pitching data centers. His daughter works there — San Francisco Chronicle

Why did Flock get a private investigator license? — The San Francisco Standard

Trump’s visa policies are not deterring international students from California universities — EdSource

Stockton city council candidate arrested on suspicion of election fraud — Stocktonia

Original source: CalMatters

The post Becerra Stays Vague on Policy Positions appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

For a candidate who polls show is the clear front-runner in November’s gubernatorial race, Becerra’s reluctance to commit to specifics traces back, he says, to a lesson learned more than three decades ago.

In 1993, as a freshman congressman representing the Los Angeles area, Becerra had campaigned against the North American Free Trade Agreement. He ultimately voted for it after being convinced that added labor protections and a domestic lending program would cushion American workers and small businesses from foreign competition. Within a few years, he watched American jobs disappear anyway.

That experience, he told CalMatters, became a defining lesson of his political career: never commit to something without being certain of its outcome.

“No one gets my vote unless I know what I’m voting for completely,” he said.

Becerra went on to serve 12 terms in Congress, rose into House Democratic leadership, became California’s first Latino attorney general, and later the first Latino U.S. secretary of health and human services. Now, as he seeks the governor’s office, that same instinct for caution is shaping his campaign — sometimes to the frustration of voters and reporters looking for concrete plans.

He rarely lays out detailed policy proposals and often deflects when pushed to commit to specific goals or numbers. Instead, he points to his long record in government as evidence that he can be trusted to lead, framing his candidacy around steady management rather than sweeping promises.

On the state’s public health programs, he says he’d target administrative waste, inefficiency and fraudulent billing to save money — but hasn’t specified how or how much. On housing, he has criticized fellow Democrats for promising unrealistic goals like 2 or 3 million new homes in a single term. Even though he’s weighing a more modest target, such as roughly doubling the state’s current annual output of about 106,000 units, he’s hesitant to make it official, worried it might turn into “an inflated promise.”

No incentive to take chances

The contrast with his rivals is notable. During the primary, Democratic opponents pitched specific ideas, and Republican nominee Steve Hilton has rolled out an aggressive platform that includes $3-a-gallon gas and slashed electricity bills through deregulation. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the term-limited Democrat Becerra hopes to succeed, campaigned in 2018 on ambitious goals — millions of new homes, universal preschool, single-payer healthcare and tougher climate rules — many of which remain unfulfilled.

While other candidates this cycle focused on curbing insurance regulations or reining in utility spending to address the state’s high cost of living, Becerra proposed declaring a state of emergency to study why electricity and insurance rates are so high — effectively putting off any decision on what to do about it.

He’s also been noncommittal about whether he would uphold California’s mandate to end sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

“If we invest in it, it absolutely is feasible,” he said during an appearance at a Politico event last week. “If we don’t invest in the infrastructure, then it’s not feasible.”

He suggested there’s “a lot of room to expand” California’s regulation of artificial intelligence and floated the idea of the state purchasing “some equity in AI to make sure that we all gain from having this new technology.” But when reporters followed up afterward, he backed away from endorsing it as policy, saying only that “if there’s something along those lines, it wouldn’t be totally far-fetched.”

Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College, said Becerra’s vagueness reflects a familiar campaign strategy.

Given California’s heavy Democratic registration advantage, Becerra is likely to defeat Hilton regardless of how detailed his platform is. His main task, Michelson said, is simply to keep Democratic voters engaged enough to turn out before Election Day — not to win over skeptics with bold policy pledges.

“He doesn’t have an incentive to go out on a limb” on policy, she said. “You don’t want to mess up, you don’t want to do anything crazy.”

Yet Becerra’s aversion to specifics appears to run deeper than campaign strategy. Pressed onstage last week to name a single concrete commitment voters could expect from him as governor, he declined.

“I would prefer not to run on inflated promises,” he said. “I will run on my record.”

A career built on deliberation

Becerra, 68, was born in Sacramento to working-class Mexican immigrant parents and later attended Stanford Law School. He emerged as a political figure during the surge of Latino political activism in the early 1990s, first winning an upset Assembly race in the eastern Los Angeles suburbs in 1990, then a safely Democratic congressional seat two years later that he’d hold until 2017. He and his wife, OB-GYN Carolina Reyes, raised three daughters while living in Washington, D.C., before eventually returning to Sacramento.

Former staff members describe Becerra as meticulous — someone who would flag typos in memos and insist on tracking even minor costs as potential “fiscal impacts” when reviewing legislation. They say he consistently weighed how policies would affect immigrants and working- and middle-class families.

“I think he always kept people like his parents in mind,” said Sirat Attapit, who worked in Becerra’s congressional office and later served as his legislative liaison when he was attorney general. “You always knew based on the kinds of questions he asked, that was always in the back of his mind.”

Attapit said his reputation for taking his time on decisions reflected careful, inclusive policymaking, even when it meant hearing out people who strongly disagreed with him. In the early 2010s, Becerra was part of a bipartisan group of House members who met privately to work on immigration reform.

“He was thoughtful and methodical to the point where perhaps some of his colleagues thought he mulled things over or took too long to make a decision,” Attapit said. “Whenever he made a decision, you had to get to a point where he had educated himself and heard from all of the stakeholders. Everybody who had a perspective, he wanted to hear from.”

That same instinct shaped one of the more controversial episodes of his tenure as attorney general. In 2019, he declined to release police misconduct records despite a new state transparency law requiring it, as local police unions challenged the law in court over officer privacy concerns.

Becerra opted to wait for further court guidance on whether the law applied retroactively — even after an appellate court had already ruled the records were public. Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, said he appreciated Becerra’s caution.

“He just wanted to make sure that it was a clear direction on what needed to be released,” Marvel said.

But David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, called the delay “baffling,” saying the law’s requirements were clear. News organizations sued, and courts ultimately ordered Becerra’s office to release the records and pay more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees.

“In fairness, I suppose, it was a brand-new law,” Snyder said. “But I can’t recall a time where an agency simply refused to interpret the law itself and said, ‘We don’t know what the law means until a court tells us.'”

Asked whether his cautious style might work against him as a decisive executive, Becerra pointed to moments when he acted swiftly — such as suing the Trump administration to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or intervening in litigation to defend the Affordable Care Act.

A pragmatic brand of progressivism

Should he win in November, Becerra would take charge of a state Democratic Party trending further left — even as he positions himself as its most cautious standard-bearer.

Supporters like Amanda Renteria, who worked with Becerra in the U.S. Senate and helped draft portions of the federal health care law, argue his understated approach masks genuinely progressive instincts. He was an early advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and universal health care, and throughout his time in Congress he consistently defended asylum seekers and immigrants’ access to public benefits — sometimes putting him at odds with fellow Democrats.

“He can work between two worlds,” Renteria said, describing his knack for operating within Democratic leadership while still “pushing the progressive agenda where he sees it’s possible.”

Becerra himself resists that framing when it comes to his gubernatorial platform, describing himself instead as a “pragmatic” progressive with a deliberately flexible agenda.

When President Joe Biden nominated him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, he made clear he opposed single-payer health care — and Becerra, despite being a longtime supporter of the idea, accepted the constraint and focused instead on boosting enrollment in Medicaid and ACA marketplaces. During the primary, he reportedly told the California Medical Association he would not push for single-payer health care as governor.

“Just because I didn’t get single-payer, doesn’t mean I’m not a progressive, and just because I didn’t fight for single-payer doesn’t mean I am establishment,” he said. “At this stage of my life, at this stage of my career, I just want to get things done.”

That philosophy — favoring what’s achievable over what’s ambitious — extends to smaller proposals as well.

Last week, Becerra floated a “power hour” concept that would give low-income utility customers two hours of free electricity each day during peak solar production hours, when supply often exceeds demand.

Asked by CalMatters whether that idea rises to the level of a campaign promise, he walked through his reasoning in real time: he’d still need to consult stakeholders including utility companies and the California Public Utilities Commission. But because low-income households are already enrolled in existing discount programs, delivering the benefit would be relatively simple — and since it wouldn’t apply to all ratepayers, it likely wouldn’t strain the grid.

“I’d like to make it a promise, because it’s not pie-in-the-sky,” he said. “Is it realistic? Can I make it into a promise? I probably can, because I’ve limited it.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Becerra Treads Carefully in Governor’s Race, Steering Clear of Bold Promises appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The most obvious reason is the fight for the House of Representatives. Last year’s redrawing of California’s 52 congressional districts, engineered to favor Democrats, has put as many as five seats in play. Given that Republicans currently hold only a slim majority in the House, what happens in California this fall could tip the balance of power in Washington.

But there’s a second, less obvious layer to this year’s contests. In several reliably Democratic districts, the real fight isn’t between the parties — it’s within them. Progressive candidates are squaring off against more centrist Democrats in races that echo the ideological tug-of-war playing out nationally within the party.

Take the East Bay, where state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive, is competing against Melissa Hernandez, president of the Bay Area Regional Transit board, for the seat once held by Eric Swalwell, who resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations.

In San Francisco, the race to succeed retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become its own study in intra-party tension. State Sen. Scott Wiener and City Supervisor Connie Chan both identify as progressives, yet they diverge sharply on housing policy. Wiener has built his career pushing to make it easier to build homes, a position that puts him at odds with much of San Francisco’s left, where resistance to development remains a deeply held value.

Then there’s Proposition 40, a ballot measure that has captured attention well beyond California’s borders. The initiative would impose a 5% tax on the wealth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, and its implications reach far past state lines.

On one level, Prop. 40 represents a test case for a taxation model that could eventually spread to other states or even shape national policy debates. It has already drawn commentary from national political figures, including progressive stalwart Bernie Sanders, and coverage in outlets well outside California.

On another level, the measure has exposed real fractures among California Democrats — fractures that mirror the broader ideological split within the national party. Progressive lawmakers view the billionaire tax as a natural extension of long-standing efforts to make the wealthy pay more. But more moderate Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and his likely successor, Xavier Becerra, worry that such a tax could push high earners out of California altogether, straining an already fragile state budget.

Even labor unions, typically united on tax issues, are split. The measure is backed by SEIU-UHW, a healthcare workers’ union, and would direct most of the resulting revenue toward healthcare programs. But that very focus has drawn opposition from the California Teachers Association and other major unions, which argue the money should be spread more broadly.

Prop. 40 now joins a short list of California ballot measures that have reshaped debates well beyond the state. Proposition 13, passed in 1978, ignited a nationwide tax revolt that reshaped conservative politics for decades. Proposition 187, approved by voters in 1994 before being struck down in the courts, previewed the immigration battles that continue to dominate American politics today. And Proposition 209, passed in 1996, banned affirmative action in public hiring, contracting and college admissions — a policy fight still unresolved in courts and legislatures nationwide.

Should Prop. 40 pass, it could similarly ripple outward, inspiring or discouraging similar wealth-tax proposals elsewhere. But its fate remains far from certain. With mail ballots set to go out in just seven weeks, opponents — many of them among California’s wealthiest residents — have poured significant money into defeating the measure.

The latest survey, conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, found support at 48%, opposition at 41%, and 11% of voters still undecided. In other words, the outcome remains genuinely up for grabs — and so, potentially, does its influence far beyond California’s borders.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California’s Midterm Vote Could Tip the Balance in National Political Battles appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Over the past 21 months, California’s governor has cycled through several distinct political personas, each one seemingly calibrated to whatever version of the Democratic Party he believes can actually win back the White House.

In the months following Kamala Harris’ defeat to Donald Trump, Newsom leaned noticeably rightward. He warned that Democrats needed to conduct a real “autopsy” of the loss, arguing the party had lost touch with voters across the middle of the country and the South.

That shift became unmistakable when Newsom launched his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” and chose conservative commentator Charlie Kirk as his very first guest. During that conversation, Newsom sided with Kirk on a contentious issue, agreeing that transgender women shouldn’t compete against biological women in athletics.

Newsom pointed to a Trump campaign ad that used footage of Harris expressing support for gender-transition surgery for prison inmates, calling it evidence that fairness concerns in sports were legitimate. “So I completely align with you,” he told Kirk. “And we’ve got to own that. We’ve got to acknowledge it.”

The comment infuriated transgender rights advocates but succeeded in nudging Newsom’s public image toward the center.

He doubled down on that message not long after, telling a crowd at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit that Democrats had grown too consumed with “woke culture” and needed to reconnect with everyday concerns like immigration and rising prices. “We have to be more culturally normal,” he said. “We have to be a little less judgmental.”

That was the Newsom of last year. This year looks different.

As progressive Democrats have notched a series of high-profile victories and tensions have flared between the party establishment and its more left-leaning base, Newsom appears to be recalibrating once more — this time swinging back toward the party’s activist wing.

Speaking in May at a conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, alongside other Democrats weighing their own presidential ambitions, Newsom effectively announced the pivot. “A year ago my sense was, in this country, that our path back as Democrats … was through the center,” he said. “Increasingly, I’d argue, it’s through the fight. And people want fighters. People want people with conviction and clarity.”

From there, Newsom laid out an economic vision that borrowed heavily from progressive critiques of corporate power and wealth inequality. “You cannot save democracy unless we democratize the economy,” he told the crowd. “The whole system has to be reimagined.” He floated the idea of a “universal basic capital” system that would use profits generated by artificial intelligence to help workers displaced by the technology.

There’s a wrinkle in this latest leftward turn, though. During his more centrist phase, Newsom actively opposed a ballot measure that would slap a 5% wealth tax on California’s billionaires, even lobbying the healthcare union backing the proposal to abandon it. That effort failed, and the measure will appear before voters in November as Proposition 40.

Unable to reverse course entirely, Newsom has instead tried to soften the political damage by pushing for new federal taxes targeting the wealthy — an attempt to appear aligned with the tax-the-rich sentiment without fully embracing the state measure he once fought.

Whether this is the final version of Newsom that voters will see on a national stage remains an open question. Recent developments have added new complications to his public narrative, including a tell-all article detailing an affair he had with a staffer — the wife of a close aide — during his tenure as San Francisco mayor, as well as the release of his personal tax returns. Both are likely to keep fueling speculation about who, exactly, Gavin Newsom is trying to be.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom’s Presidential Balancing Act: Which Persona Wins Out? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Across 14 sessions, 33 speakers took the stage to weigh in on topics ranging from the tense relationship between state and federal government to the fiscal and political obstacles awaiting California’s next governor. Attendees also explored the state’s outsized role in the national debate over artificial intelligence, with audience members able to ask questions and interact with panelists throughout the day.

The event drew a notably diverse crowd. In partnership with the California Association of Nonprofits, organizers invited nonprofit directors from across the state, broadening both the geographic reach of attendees and the relevance of the conversations to those directly affected by the policies discussed.

A high school newspaper adviser and her student journalists from Roseville spent the full day covering the festival, landing extended interviews with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano — a rare opportunity for young reporters to question two prominent public figures at length.

The festival also served as a gathering point for California’s Latino Media Collaborative, whose members met to discuss shared editorial and business challenges while also reporting on the day’s events. Meanwhile, organizers held the first meeting of what will become the CalMatters Creators Circle, bringing in digital content creators who cover the news and issues CalMatters reports on. Those creators were given a dedicated interview space in the green room and had the chance to sit down one-on-one with many of the day’s speakers, followed by a half-day workshop after the main event concluded.

Sessions throughout the day covered a wide range of subjects. CalMatters CEO Neil Chase and Editor-in-Chief Kristen Go opened the festival alongside California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick, who reflected on the state through verse, in a discussion moderated by CalMatters Board Chair Hema Sareen Mohan.

Other panels examined the widening distance between government institutions and the communities they serve, featuring Amy E. Lerman of UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab. A keynote conversation with Cesar Fernandez of the AI company Anthropic explored whether California can lead the nation in both developing and regulating artificial intelligence, a theme picked up again in a follow-up panel featuring UC Berkeley law professor Deirdre K. Mulligan and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan.

Immigration enforcement and its ripple effects on communities were addressed in a session featuring Julián Castro, CEO of the Latino Community Foundation, and CalMatters health reporter Kristen Hwang. The tension between state and federal authority took center stage in a conversation between Attorney General Bonta and Napolitano, while Lincoln Project co-founders Mike Madrid and Rick Wilson offered their take on lessons learned from recent political battles.

Workforce and education issues were front and center in a panel featuring Alysia Bell of UNITE-LA, Don Howard of the James Irvine Foundation, and Eloy Ortiz Oakley of the College Futures Foundation, who discussed how the state must adapt to shifting labor demands.

Looking ahead to California’s next gubernatorial race, Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen, California Federation of Labor Unions President Lorena Gonzalez, and CalMatters columnist Dan Walters outlined the steep challenges — from budget pressures to political gridlock — that will confront whoever takes office next.

The festival closed with a discussion on the state’s ongoing housing crisis, featuring Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty, and Gustavo Velasquez, director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, who acknowledged progress made in recent years while emphasizing how much work remains.

Video recordings of all 10 mainstage sessions are available for public viewing through CalMatters’ online archive.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Elected Officials, Educators and Residents Convene for CalMatters’ Second Ideas Festival appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The governor, widely seen as weighing a 2028 presidential run, has spent recent weeks leaning into economic populism, addressing voter frustration over wealth inequality and the job losses tied to artificial intelligence. He has thrown his support behind a proposed national wealth tax targeting Americans worth more than $100 million — a stance that aligns him with progressive Democrats nationally while, notably, not threatening California’s own billionaire class with an added state-level burden.

In a recent statement, Newsom argued that the nation’s founders built a system meant to guard against the concentration of power, “but we’ve allowed that concentration to happen anyway, slowly and in plain sight.” He said it’s time to “democratize the American economy to save our democracy.”

Yet when a similar tax concept surfaced closer to home, Newsom pushed back hard. A coalition led by a healthcare workers’ union is pursuing a November ballot measure that would tax California billionaires. Newsom reportedly pressured the union to abandon the effort in exchange for other concessions, but negotiations fell apart. He has joined other Democratic officials and groups including Planned Parenthood in warning that a state-level billionaire tax could simply push wealthy residents to relocate their fortunes elsewhere.

Political strategists say the contradiction reflects the competing demands of Newsom’s ambitions. Democratic strategist Kevin Liao said the governor is trying to satisfy a Democratic base energized by anti-billionaire sentiment while not alienating the wealthy donors, many based in Silicon Valley, who have helped fund his political career and could bankroll a future presidential bid.

Federal Government’s Detention Center Purchases Tied to California’s Resistance

California’s hardline stance against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts appears to be a driving factor behind the federal government’s recent decision to purchase two immigration detention facilities in the state outright, according to a CalMatters investigation.

Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid $1.5 billion to CoreCivic, a private prison operator, for full ownership of the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County and the California City Detention Facility in Kern County. ICE spokesperson Jason Sweeney said the state’s “sanctuary politicians” have made it too difficult for private companies to keep running detention operations profitably in California.

“Unlike in states like Florida and Oklahoma, ICE cannot rely on local state and county partners for detention space in California,” Sweeney said in a statement.

State lawmakers have introduced legislation aimed at making it financially difficult for private companies to operate detention centers in California, and they’ve relied on state law to demand access to inspect the facilities. By taking direct ownership, the federal government may be attempting to sidestep that oversight entirely, cutting off state and local officials from the access they’ve used to monitor conditions inside.

Insurance Myths, Debunked Ahead of November Election

With Californians preparing to elect a new insurance commissioner this fall, a recent CalMatters analysis breaks down several widespread misunderstandings about the state’s troubled insurance market.

One persistent myth is that skyrocketing insurance costs are only a homeowner’s problem. In reality, roughly 44% of Californians rent rather than own, and many are feeling the pinch indirectly — landlords have told CalMatters they’ve passed rising insurance premiums along to tenants in the form of higher rent.

The insurance crunch is also worsening the state’s affordable housing shortage. Some insurers have pulled back from covering commercial properties altogether, including affordable housing developments. That’s forced property owners to turn to “non-admitted” insurers — companies that operate outside state regulation and aren’t backed by California’s safety net if they go under financially.

As the insurance commissioner race heats up, experts say voters should understand how deeply the crisis extends beyond single-family homeowners and into the broader housing market that affects renters across the state.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Treads Carefully on Proposal to Tax California’s Wealthiest appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The relationship traces back more than 80 years, to a friendship forged when Gordon Getty, son of oil magnate J. Paul Getty, lived with the Newsom family while attending school in San Francisco. That bond carried into the next generation. Newsom’s father, William, went on to work as an attorney for the Getty family’s oil empire, and in 1973 he personally delivered a $2.2 million ransom payment to kidnappers holding J. Paul Getty’s grandson in Italy — an episode he later described simply as “an interesting sort of job.”

The connection deepened further after Gavin Newsom’s parents divorced. Gordon Getty effectively took the young Newsom under his wing, a gesture that mirrored the hospitality the Newsom family had extended to Getty decades before. In his recently published memoir, Newsom writes candidly about growing up caught between two very different worlds — the son of a financially struggling single mother, yet also something of an adopted son within a family whose fortune was built on oil.

The ties between the two families only grew stronger once Jerry Brown, then governor and a Newsom family friend, appointed William Newsom to a judgeship in Placer County in 1975 and later to the state appellate court. While serving as a judge in the 1980s, the elder Newsom played a role in helping change California trust law in a way that allowed Gordon Getty to unlock billions of dollars tied up in the family’s oil trust. When William Newsom left the bench in 1995, he went to work directly for Getty, later acknowledging in an interview that his livelihood depended on the oil fortune.

That fortune also helped launch Gavin Newsom’s business career. In the early 1990s, the Getty trust supplied startup money for a wine venture launched by Newsom and Gordon Getty’s son, Billy. The business, named PlumpJack after an opera Getty had composed, became the foundation of what would grow into Newsom’s broader hospitality and wine empire. In short, without Getty oil money, Newsom’s rise as an entrepreneur — and later as a politician — may never have happened.

Given that history, it was something of a surprise in 2022 when Newsom turned sharply against the very industry that had shaped his family’s fortunes. He accused California refiners of price-gouging drivers at the pump and pushed the Legislature to act. Lawmakers responded with a relatively modest law empowering the California Energy Commission to monitor refinery operations more closely.

At the time, Newsom framed it as a major victory. “There’s a new sheriff in town in California, where we brought Big Oil to their knees,” he declared. The rhetoric was bold, but reality soon complicated the narrative — within months, refiners began warning of plant closures, raising fears of fuel shortages and price spikes across the state.

Facing that possibility, Newsom reversed course. He began urging refiners to stay in California and signed legislation making it easier to permit new oil wells. This year, the California Air Resources Board went further, restructuring the state’s cap-and-trade emissions program — now rebranded as cap-and-invest — in a way that grants refiners free emission allowances meant to keep them operating in the state.

Newsom has praised the overhaul as a pragmatic move to protect energy supplies and jobs. But environmental advocates see it as a betrayal of the state’s climate commitments. Earlier this month, the nonprofit Communities for Better Environment sued the state in Los Angeles, arguing the changes violate the California Environmental Quality Act because regulators failed to properly study the environmental consequences of handing refiners such benefits.

The lawsuit contends that the new rules “lock in decades of subsidies for polluting industries” without the required environmental review that would let policymakers weigh the full impact of the decision.

The dispute lands at a politically delicate moment. The Democratic Party’s progressive wing — which has gained influence in recent election cycles and includes many environmental activists deeply critical of the oil industry — is watching closely. For Newsom, a governor whose family history is intertwined with one of the world’s great oil fortunes, and who has now reversed himself to keep California refineries running, the optics could prove troublesome should he seek the party’s presidential nomination.

Original source: CalMatters

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This seat, which blends portions of Kim and Calvert’s current districts, spans from Mission Viejo in Orange County up into Woodcrest, Menifee and Murrieta in Riverside County. The district was reconfigured under Proposition 50, the ballot measure that passed last year to redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts. The new district includes pieces of the current ones represented by Kim and Calvert and is considered a fairly safe Republican seat.

President Trump would have won this district by 12 points in 2024.

Who are the candidates?

• Ken Calvert: Republican, incumbent member of Congress

Calvert, the longest-serving Republican member of California’s congressional delegation, is a Corona native who was first elected in 1992. He serves on the House Committee on Appropriations.

His legislative priorities, according to his district website, include strengthening the economy, fixing what he calls “our broken immigration system,” advocating for veterans and service members and coming up with solutions for California’s water issues.

• Young Kim: Republican, incumbent member of Congress

Kim was one of three Korean American women who were the first to be elected to Congress in 2020. She won reelection in 2022 and 2024. Kim serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Financial Services and House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

Before she was elected to Congress, she served in the state Assembly for two years. Kim also worked for more than two decades for Orange County’s Rep. Ed Royce during his stint as a U.S. House member.

• Esther Kim Varet: Democrat, art gallery owner

Varet, who lives in Trabuco Canyon, has a Ph.D in art history, criticism and conservation from Columbia University. She is the founder and director of the contemporary art gallery Various Small Fires.

Her priorities include protecting reproductive rights, strengthening schools, combating climate change, immigration reform and rebuilding the country’s middle class, according to her campaign website.

• Lisa Ramirez: Democrat, immigration attorney

Ramirez, a Southern California native, is the owner and partner of U.S. Immigration Law Group. She attended Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and has a Bachelor of Arts from Scripps College in political science and religious studies, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Affordability is a cornerstone of her campaign along with immigration reform, climate stewardship, education and women’s health.

• Joseph Kerr: Democrat, retired fire captain

Kerr spent 34 years as a fire captain with the Orange County Fire Authority and served 17 years as president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters Assn., a labor union that represents more than 1,100 firefighters. He ran unsuccessfully for the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2018, the state Senate in 2022 and Congress in 2024.

• Claude Keissieh: Democrat, electrical engineer

Keissieh is a U.S. Army veteran who served four tours in Iraq and later on a mission in Afghanistan, a small business owner, an adjunct college professor and an electrical engineer, according to his campaign website.

He previously worked with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to teach incarcerated people how to become electricians, his website says, and last year joined the California Department of Transportation as an electrical engineer.

• Nina Linh: Independent, nonprofit executive director

Linh started the WonderSeed Foundation, a nonprofit that uses neuroscience and technology to help at-risk youth, in 2018 after grappling with her son’s mental health struggles. She previously was a television producer and wrote a parenting book and a series of children’s books.

She’s running as an independent because she feels the “two-party system is broken” and the public is tired of hyperpartisan politics.

Democrat Francis Xavier Hoffman also is running.

Where they stand on immigration

Calvert for years has advocated for immigration reform, which he says must begin with controlling the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent people from entering illegally.

In 1996, he authored legislation that later became the E-Verify program, a tool used by employers to check the immigration status of newly hired employees. In 2023, he introduced legislation that would expand the use of the program. The bill, the Legal Workforce Act, was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary and the House committees on Ways and Means and Education and Workforce last year.

Calvert told The Times he favors passing legislation that guarantees a secure border and “ends the job magnet.”

“I support a system that rewards those who follow the rules and wait their turn, not one that gives a fast pass or grants amnesty to those who cut in line,” he said.

Last year, Calvert voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act, which allowed the Department of Homeland Security to detain noncitizens who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting. Kim also voted in favor of the legislation.

Kim has identified border security as a key issue in her campaign. She voted in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated $46.5 billion for border wall construction and additional funds for hiring Border Patrol agents. Calvert also voted in favor of the bill.

On her campaign website, Kim states that former President Biden “opened our border and purposely created a crisis that overwhelmed law enforcement and allowed deadly fentanyl to flood into our country.”

“It’s simple: enforce our laws, secure the border, no amnesty and put American safety first,” she wrote.

Varet supports the DREAM Act, which if passed would offer a path to legal status and citizenship for thousands of DACA recipients — undocumented people who were brought to the U.S. as children and given federal protections — and other undocumented minors, according to her campaign website. She also is in favor of legislation that would reduce green card backlogs, establishes a path to citizenship for people who have been in the country for a certain number of years, for people who have passed a background check and those who have worked in the agricultural industry.

She wrote that “undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. and their children cannot and should not be removed other than for legitimate criminal justice or immigration law violation convictions.”

She supports providing a path to amnesty and providing funds to boost the number of immigration judges, consular officers and naturalization officers.

Linh, who came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam as a young child, told The Times she supports “secure, orderly and lawful immigration.” She added that a functioning immigration system would protect everyone, including those who seek to enter the country.

“Real reform means a funded immigration court system, smart technology at ports of entry, and cooperation with origin countries on root causes. It means agents who identify themselves, follow the law, and are held accountable when they do not. It means a legal pathway that works, not one so backlogged that doing things right means waiting 15 years,” she said.

As an immigration attorney, Ramirez believes America should provide permanent legal status and a path to citizenship for Dreamers and immigrants who have contributed to the country for years.

“Our immigration laws need an overhaul and to be brought into the 21st century, giving workers more flexibility and options for people who are waiting decades to complete the legal process,” she told The Times. “In the meantime, we need to keep our communities safe from unlawful ICE enforcement while supporting effective community policing, accountability and trust in law enforcement…”

Kerr said immigration policies aren’t working, noting that it’s not simply a choice between “open borders and cruelty.”

He supports expanding immigration courts to eliminate backlogs, protecting Dreamers and creating a pathway to citizenship for people who contribute to the U.S., simplifying the process of legal immigration and boosting accountability for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations to ensure enforcement is focused on real public safety threats.

“We can enforce the law with strength and we can do it with basic human dignity. These goals are not in conflict,” he wrote on his campaign website.

Where they stand on climate change

In 2024, Kim co-sponsored the Championing Local Efforts to Advance Resilience Act, proposed bipartisan legislation that would authorize $100 million annually over five years to help states strengthen infrastructure and prepare for extreme weather and natural disasters. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

In May 2025, Kim partnered with Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine) to introduce the Building Resiliency and Understanding of Shrublands to Halt (BRUSH) Fires Act, which aims to boost wildfire mitigation efforts in shrubland ecosystems.

Kim and Calvert also co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to improve the health and resiliency of giant sequoias, which have been threatened by California wildfires.

But Kim also faced criticism from environmental groups for voting for legislation that reduces environmental regulations.

Calvert told The Times he favors focusing on “mitigating for a changing climate instead of imposing more taxes and regulations that kill jobs and make everything more expensive.”

He opposes California’s Cap-and-Invest program, which sets a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions from major polluters, and believes the Trump administration was right to stop the state’s efforts to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.

The solution to climate change, Calvert said, is “water storage … better forest management to stop these catastrophic fires before they start and investing in infrastructure so we can better handle whatever Mother Nature throws our way.”

In February, Calvert announced he’d helped secure $67 million for Riverside County infrastructure projects, including several water-related projects, as part of an appropriations package.

On her campaign website, Varet said she will “demand responsible, science-based solutions” to protect the public and keep the country competitive.

She vows to support legislation that would hold large fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change, repeal tax breaks for the oil and gas industry and advance the transition to renewable energy.

“Pollution and climate change threaten not only our national forests but our health, our homes and our quality of life,” she wrote.

Linh told The Times she will push for mandatory modernization of utility infrastructure to prevent power lines from sparking fires, invest in forest and vegetation management and modernize water infrastructure and early warning systems.

On emissions, Linh said she believes “incentives and innovation will always outperform heavy-handed mandates.” She supports expanding clean transit options, incentivizing employers to adopt flexible work policies to reduce commute emissions, deploying smart traffic technology and giving small businesses tiered time lines and tax credits to transition.

She also vows to push for federal oversight of insurance companies that abandon fire-prone states like California.

“The climate crisis has become an affordability crisis,” she said. “People who were already struggling to stay housed are now one policy cancellation away from financial collapse. This is not an abstract environmental issue. It is happening to families right now.”

Ramirez supports policies that call for responsible energy development, innovation in renewable technologies, improving energy efficiency in buildings and transportation, and strengthening infrastructure to withstand stronger storms and higher temperatures. It’s critical, she said, to restore the historical function of the Environmental Protection Agency and reinstate protections for air and water.

“Environmental stewardship and economic growth are not opposing goals — they reinforce one another,” she told The Times.

As a firefighter, Kerr said he saw the effects of climate change firsthand. He supports funding for advanced wildfire detection technology, more resources for firefighters, strengthening incentives for homeowners to harden against wildfires, clean energy and climate resilient infrastructure and strengthening federal disaster relief programs.

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The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, which would largely be used to offset federal funding cuts to healthcare for low-income people.

“California’s health is at stake,” said Liz Perlman, executive director of a chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a major labor union. “Hospitals are closing and people will die. Why? So billionaires can get another tax cut that they don’t need.”

The California Secretary of State still has to verify the signatures and officially place the measure on the ballot. Backers say they collected more than 1.5 million signatures, well over the roughly 875,000 they needed. California allows ballot initiative campaigns to pay people per signature they gather. The cost of gathering petition signatures can vary widely, but it typically runs around $15 for each signature.

If the measure goes before voters in November, it could prompt one of the costliest ballot fights ever and will draw national attention as a litmus test for voter attitudes on raising taxes on the rich. An effort to oppose the tax has already raised millions and led to proposals designed to nullify the tax. Meanwhile, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has campaigned in support of the idea.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Silicon Valley tech moguls are adamantly opposed. They warn it will drive California’s wealthiest residents out of the state. Nearly half of California’s personal income tax revenue comes from the top 1% of earners. Some have already purchased properties out of state in case it passes.

“After playing with matches since October the SEIU has succeeded in lighting a ‘Tax the Rich’ wildfire by getting enough signatures,” said David Lesperance, a tax consultant who’s advised some of his wealthy clients who left California because of the proposal. “The many billionaire targets of their efforts have already responded by executing fire escape plans by relocating to other states.”

Brian Brokaw, a longtime Newsom adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said the measure was poorly constructed and would deal a huge blow to the state’s budget.

“Enacting a so-called wealth tax in just one state wouldn’t target a small group — it would impact all 40 million Californians,” he said in a statement. “This proposal trades a short-term revenue bump for long-term losses.”

At least 25 billionaires listed among Forbes magazine’s 2025 rankings of the world’s 500 wealthiest people either lived in California or had some significant ties to the state, based on a review by The Associated Press. But determining whether they were full-time residents or just frequent visitors could turn into a matter of dispute, since many of them own property elsewhere.

The big tax and spending cuts law President Donald Trump signed last year will cut more than $1 trillion nationwide over a decade from Medicaid and federal food assistance.

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