At the same time, Kalshi’s own market was showing Becerra with a 74% chance of winning the governor’s race as of Monday afternoon.

The contribution, one of the company’s largest reported donations to a California state candidate, is drawing scrutiny from campaign finance advocates who say it raises questions about whether a prediction market should financially support candidates while offering contracts tied to those same candidates’ electoral prospects.

Trent Lange, executive director of the California Clean Money Campaign, said the situation is troubling because betting markets can influence how voters view a candidate’s strength, even though the public may not have a full understanding of how the odds are shaped.

“It does seem especially problematic when a betting market is giving large contributions to any candidate that they are holding betting markets for,” Lange said.

Kalshi declined to comment on the donation or whether it presents a conflict of interest.

Lange said prediction markets can affect public perception by signaling which candidates appear viable, potentially influencing voters before they cast ballots.

“We do know that people often look to where candidates stand on the betting markets to see how viable people think they are and it may actually change many people’s votes,” he said.

Becerra’s campaign did not answer specific questions about the Kalshi contribution or the company’s market on his chances of winning.

“Californians from every walk of life are lining up to support Xavier Becerra,” campaign spokesperson Jonathan Underland said in a written statement.

Kalshi, founded in 2018, has recently expanded its political activity in California. Since the second quarter of 2025, the company has given $115,000 to state candidates, including Becerra, and $100,000 to the California Democratic Party. It also reported spending $72,000 lobbying state officials, including lawmakers, the attorney general and the governor.

Late last year, Kalshi joined Crypto.com, Coinbase and Robinhood in launching an advocacy organization called the Coalition for Prediction Markets. The group, led by former Democratic staffers, registered to lobby in California earlier this year.

Kalshi and the coalition have lobbied on state legislation involving prediction markets and online gambling. One bill would require the attorney general to investigate prediction market payouts of at least $5,000 when the outcome involves national security. Another bill seeks to prevent children from gambling online.

Both measures remain under consideration in the Assembly. State disclosure filings do not indicate whether Kalshi supported or opposed the bills.

Polymarket, one of Kalshi’s largest competitors, has not reported any California campaign contributions or state lobbying expenses.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Kalshi Gives Becerra Strong Odds as Bettors Put Money on His Campaign appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin last month blocked state regulators, for now, from enforcing rules that would have barred cardrooms from offering blackjack, one of their most profitable games. The regulations were issued by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Bureau of Gambling Control and had been set to take effect this week.

The ruling is not expected to end the dispute. Instead, it keeps alive one of the most expensive and politically influential fights in Sacramento — a conflict with major implications for gambling businesses, tribal governments, city budgets and campaign fundraising.

California has about 80 privately run cardrooms, also known as card clubs. Many local governments rely heavily on taxes generated by their table games. Tribal casinos, meanwhile, argue that cardrooms have been improperly offering games that voters reserved for tribes when they approved tribal gaming measures in 1998 and 2000.

Mike Gatto, a former Democratic assemblyman from Los Angeles, said the ongoing stalemate has also benefited another group: politicians.

“It keeps the fight going; it keeps the two very powerful interests caring about what goes on at the Legislature, and therefore it keeps the campaign contributions moving as well,” Gatto said.

Campaign finance records compiled by CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database show that 27 casino-owning tribes have contributed at least $15.8 million to current members of the California Legislature. Twenty-six cardrooms and related businesses have contributed at least $2.8 million.

Bonta, who is seeking reelection this year, has also received money from both sides. Since 2012, cardrooms have given him at least $244,000, while tribes have contributed $531,000, according to Digital Democracy.

Jonathan Underland, a spokesperson for Bonta’s campaign, said the donations did not influence the attorney general’s decision to move forward with the regulations. The Attorney General’s Office referred questions about campaign contributions to the campaign.

“Contributions have never impacted the Attorney General’s decision-making process,” Underland said in a text message. He added that Bonta stopped accepting donations from gambling interests before implementing the rules.

The legal and political fight centers on so-called “house-banked” games, including blackjack. Under California’s tribal gaming framework, tribes have the exclusive right to negotiate compacts with the state to operate Las Vegas-style casino games.

Tribal governments say gaming revenue has been critical to improving economic conditions in communities that have long faced poverty and political marginalization. They argue that cardrooms have undermined tribal exclusivity by offering versions of prohibited games through a workaround.

Cardrooms do not act as the bank in blackjack games. Instead, they contract with third-party companies whose employees sit at the tables and handle wagers and payouts. Dealers are required to periodically offer players the chance to serve as the bank, though nearly all decline. Cardrooms collect fees from the games.

Tribes contend that arrangement violates the state’s ban on non-tribal entities offering house-banked games. Cardrooms maintain that the model has been reviewed for decades and is lawful.

Bonta sided with the tribes, completing regulations that two of his predecessors, Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, had begun but did not finish. Darwin’s preliminary injunction found that Bonta’s office likely went beyond its authority by banning the cardrooms’ most popular table games. The order remains in place for 45 days, and the Attorney General’s Office is expected to argue its position in court on June 30.

A spokesperson for the California Nations Indian Gaming Association did not respond to a request for comment.

Kyle Kirkland, a Fresno cardroom owner and president of the California Gaming Association, praised the temporary court order and said cardrooms expect to win the broader legal fight.

“We are a legitimate industry, we have had decades of lawful operation,” Kirkland said. “We operate legally; we provide incredible support to our employees and our host communities.”

If cardrooms ultimately prevail, it would mark the second major legal setback for tribes in less than a year.

In October, a Sacramento judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by tribes against cardrooms. The case was based on a 2024 law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that gave tribes a one-time opportunity to sue cardrooms in Sacramento County Superior Court. Before that law, tribes had been unable to bring such unfair business practice claims in state court because, as sovereign governments, they lacked standing.

The judge ruled that federal law superseded the state law.

The stakes extend well beyond the gambling floor. Some California cities depend on cardroom tax revenue for a large share of their budgets, and officials have warned that losing that money could affect police, fire and other public services. San Jose officials have said the city receives about $30 million a year from cardrooms, enough to pay for 150 police officers or 133 firefighters.

The battle over the 2024 law, Senate Bill 549, became one of the most expensive political fights of that legislative session. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, many representing districts with large tribal casinos, supported the measure. A smaller bloc of legislators with cardrooms in their districts opposed it.

During the two-year session that ended in 2024, gambling interests on both sides donated at least $4.3 million to members of the Legislature, according to Digital Democracy.

The tribes had pushed for the bill after spending millions of dollars on a failed 2022 sports betting initiative that also would have allowed them to sue cardrooms.

Cardrooms responded with an aggressive lobbying campaign. In 2023, Hawaiian Gardens Casino spent $9.1 million on lobbying at the state Capitol, the second-highest amount reported by any company to state regulators that year. Only Chevron Corp. spent more.

After Newsom signed the bill, the cardroom industry spent more than $3 million that fall targeting four lawmakers who had played central roles in passing it. Three of those candidates lost reelection, including the bill’s author, Democratic Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton.

For now, the court order allows cardrooms to keep dealing blackjack while the legal fight continues. But with millions of dollars in gaming revenue, city tax funding and political contributions at stake, few in Sacramento expect the dispute to end soon.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Long-Running Gambling Fight Could Benefit California Politicians appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Voters statewide have about one day left to determine which two candidates will advance under California’s top-two primary system. Recent nonpartisan polling has shown Democrat Xavier Becerra leading the field, while Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer are running close for the second spot.

Although millions of Californians have already returned ballots, turnout remains relatively low, in line with past gubernatorial primaries. As of Sunday, 15.10% of ballots had been submitted statewide, according to Political Data Inc., a voter data firm. That is slightly ahead of the pace in the June 2022 primary, when 14.53% of ballots had been returned three days before Election Day.

The overall numbers, however, mask a partisan shift. Democratic voters are returning ballots more slowly than they did four years ago. About 15% of Democratic ballots have been submitted so far, compared with 17% at the same point in 2022. Republicans, meanwhile, are returning ballots at a faster pace, with 19% submitted compared with 17% four years ago.

Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., said several factors may be contributing to the stronger Republican return rate. Republican voters have a smaller field to choose from, with two major candidates, while Democrats are sorting through six leading contenders. Republicans also have a history of voting early by mail, a habit that appears to be returning after President Donald Trump discouraged mail voting in 2020.

The more significant hesitation, Mitchell said, appears to be among older white Democrats, some of whom may still be undecided or waiting to cast ballots strategically. Under California’s primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes advance to November regardless of party, making it possible for two candidates from the same party to face each other in the general election.

That has raised concerns among some Democrats that, in a crowded field, their party could risk splitting its vote and affecting who makes the runoff.

“All the stories about two Republicans making the runoff, they might be calculating their vote to make sure that they’re voting in a way that is strategic to make sure that a Democrat gets onto the general election,” Mitchell said.

Kevin Callan, also with Political Data Inc., said Democratic voters may not be firmly attached to one candidate but still understand the importance of the primary outcome.

“Democrat voters know that whichever Democrat candidate makes it into the runoff will be our next governor,” Callan said. “That adds more weight to their decision.”

For voters in Southern California and the Inland Empire, the stakes are the same as the rest of the state: choosing who will compete in November to lead California for the next four years. With many ballots still outstanding, the final results may depend heavily on voters who waited until the last moment to make their choice.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Governor’s Race Faces Uncertainty as Democrats Hold Ballots in Reserve appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The issue is especially prominent this election cycle, led by liberal billionaire Tom Steyer, who has put $213 million of his own money into his campaign for governor. But the broader trend extends far beyond the governor’s race. More than 200 California candidates have collectively contributed about $250 million of their personal wealth to their campaigns this year, according to a CalMatters analysis of campaign finance records.

That total is roughly eight times higher than the amount self-funded by candidates during the last gubernatorial election in 2022. It also marks the highest level of candidate self-financing since California began keeping digital campaign finance records in 1999.

The last California candidate to approach Steyer’s level of personal spending was Republican Meg Whitman, who contributed more than $140 million to her unsuccessful 2010 campaign for governor, a record at the time.

Other statewide candidates have spent heavily on themselves in past elections, though at far lower levels. Steve Poizner put $14 million into his 2006 campaign for insurance commissioner. Eleni Kounalakis spent more than $8 million in her 2018 bid for lieutenant governor. Yvonne Yiu contributed nearly $6 million to her 2022 campaign for controller.

The surge is also showing up in races farther down the ballot. Candidates for state Senate have put nearly $4 million of their own money into campaigns this cycle, the highest total recorded for the chamber and more than double the $1.7 million candidates contributed 20 years ago. Congressional candidates in California have contributed more than $29 million to their own campaigns, the most in any cycle over the last two decades.

Some of the largest self-funded congressional campaigns in state history are taking place this year. Two of the five California congressional candidates who have spent the most of their own money in the past 20 years are on the ballot this cycle.

In the race to replace Nancy Pelosi in her San Francisco-based district, Democrat Saikat Chakrabarti has contributed nearly $9 million to his campaign, the most ever by a congressional primary candidate in California. In the North Bay, Eric Jones has put more than $5 million of his own money into his campaign against fellow Democrat Mike Thompson.

Chakrabarti has argued that his personal spending is a response to the large sums being spent against him. He said using his own resources allows him to avoid spending his campaign seeking money from major donors and later owing them political favors.

Jeremy Mack, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group The Phoenix Project, said the increase in self-funding reflects a campaign finance system that has become more expensive since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which loosened restrictions on outside political spending by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals.

The result, Mack said, is that large-scale spending by outside groups often pressures candidates to raise or spend even more to remain competitive. In California, he said, business interests, real estate groups and law enforcement unions have frequently aligned behind similar candidates.

Some voters see self-funding as a preferable alternative to corporate-backed campaigns. Maria Colon, a Sacramento voter who attended a Steyer rally last week, said she is wary of corporate contributions and believes campaign fundraising should be limited. While large personal spending can raise questions, she said, corporate donors generally expect something in return.

Campaign cash remains a major factor in whether a candidate can be taken seriously, said Wesley Hussey, a political science professor at Sacramento State University. A candidate with enough personal money to launch a campaign, he said, can quickly become viable.

Andrew Coolidge, a Republican running for Assembly District 3 in Northern California, has contributed more to his campaign than any other donor. He said voters should question candidates who have the ability to invest in their own campaigns but choose not to. A candidate who puts personal money into a race, he said, shows commitment and may be freer to make decisions based on conscience.

Others see both sides of the issue. Chris Anderson, a Lodi City Council candidate who has self-funded part of his campaign and attended the Steyer rally, said personal spending can make a candidate less dependent on special interests. At the same time, he said, voters should still ask what forces and relationships helped wealthy candidates gain their fortunes.

Political experts say voters are likely to weigh a candidate’s background, record and public involvement alongside spending. Hussey said wealthy contenders may draw more suspicion if they appear suddenly without a history of civic or political engagement.

That distinction has been raised in comparisons between Steyer and Whitman. Whitman had been involved in Republican presidential politics, including Mitt Romney’s and John McCain’s 2008 campaigns, before running for governor. Steyer has spent more than a decade involved in environmental advocacy and Democratic politics.

Steyer has rejected the argument that his personal spending amounts to an effort to buy office. At a recent rally, he said voters should consider the money being spent against him and argued that he is the only candidate in the race not compromised by corporate donations.

His opponents disagree. At a recent event at Stanford University, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter said wealth does not make a candidate immune to influence. She compared Steyer’s argument to one made by Donald Trump — that personal wealth makes a politician less beholden to special interests — and said she finds that claim troubling in a democracy.

Original source: CalMatters

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Recent nonpartisan polling shows a competitive fight for the two November runoff spots under California’s top-two primary system. Democrat Xavier Becerra has been leading in three polls released last week, while Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer are closely competing for second place.

Voters across California, including in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, are deciding which two candidates will advance to the general election to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom and lead the state for the next four years.

Although millions of ballots have already been returned, turnout remains modest, consistent with recent gubernatorial primaries. As of Sunday, 15.10% of ballots statewide had been submitted, according to Political Data Inc., a voter data firm. That is slightly higher than the 14.53% return rate recorded three days before Election Day in the June 2022 primary.

The overall number, however, masks a notable partisan shift. Democratic voters are returning ballots more slowly than they did four years ago. About 15% of Democratic ballots had been submitted as of the latest count, compared with 17% at the same point in 2022. Republicans, by contrast, are turning in ballots at a higher rate than last cycle, with 19% returned compared with 17% four years ago.

Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., said several factors may be contributing to the faster Republican return rate. GOP voters are choosing between only two major candidates, while Democrats are sorting through a larger field that includes six leading contenders. Republicans also have a long history of voting early by mail, a pattern that appears to be reemerging after former President Donald Trump discouraged mail voting during the 2020 election.

Among Democrats, Mitchell said the most pronounced delay is among older white voters, many of whom may still be undecided or waiting to vote strategically. Because California’s primary sends the top two vote-getters to November regardless of party, some Democrats may be considering how best to prevent two Republicans from advancing to the general election.

Mitchell said those voters may be trying to cast ballots in a way that improves the odds of at least one Democrat making the runoff.

Kevin Callan, also with Political Data Inc., said the decision carries added weight for Democratic voters who believe the Democrat who reaches November is likely to become California’s next governor. Even voters who are not enthusiastic about any one candidate, he said, may recognize that their primary choice could shape the state’s political direction for years.

Original source: CalMatters

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It also left a litany of unanswered questions: who came up with the narrow criteria, how many hospitals would qualify and whether the funding will be enough to prevent hospital closures in the near term.

Assembly Bill 108, signed into law last week, will provide grants to public and nonprofit hospitals that meet several criteria, including having less than 10 days of cash on hand and having more than half of their patients on government-funded insurance programs or uninsured. The goal is to tide eligible hospitals over until July 1, when the new fiscal year begins, said Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and championed the funding bill.

The measure, put in print on May 4, flew through both legislative chambers in just three days before Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it within hours. By Monday, the program was up and running and hospitals had just a week to apply. The Department of Health Care Access and Information will announce recipients May 26.

“It is a rare occurrence for bills to go from the starting block to the finish line in just a few days,” said veteran lobbyist and Capitol watcher Chris Micheli, who said the speed reflects the urgent need of hospitals and a consensus among leaders.

Hospital leaders interested in applying said they were pleased the Legislature acted so quickly, though some are scrambling to meet the application deadline after learning about it just a week ago.

Laird told CalMatters that he knows of two to three hospitals that will likely qualify but declined to name them, arguing that doing so could scare off vendors and hospital staff.

When pressed, he acknowledged that potential recipients include Watsonville Community Hospital in his own district.

“This bill comes at a completely inopportune time in the budget process, and the time was not dictated by us,” Laird said during a budget hearing last Tuesday. “It was dictated by a few hospitals going under.”

The criteria are so narrow and the bill moved in such an “expedited fashion” that it seems tailored to the needs of a specific hospital, said Assembly Budget Committee Vice Chair David Tangipa, a Fresno Republican, who voted for the bill nonetheless.

“It says 10 days. Why not put it at 30 days?” he said. “They needed to make sure that even though it appears to be a general fund that all of these other hospitals could apply for, that probably only one hospital met all of those qualifications.”

Neither Laird nor the finance department staff was able to explain how they came up with the criteria, including why they picked 10 days — instead of any other number — of cash on hand to indicate a dire enough financial situation. Hospital administrators said the typical goal is at least 90 days of cash on hand.

The ambiguity frustrated some state lawmakers, who repeatedly pressed for clarity during the budget hearing. Sen. Chris Cabaldon, a Napa Democrat, called the lack of answers “profoundly disturbing.”

“It’s been one long ‘I said what I said’ hearing,” he said. Still, he voted for it.

Others lamented that the criteria, especially the 10-day threshold, should have been expanded to allow more hospitals to compete for the funding.

“Right now, it’s far too narrow, and really by this time the hospital has gone over the cliff,” Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a Los Angeles Democrat, told CalMatters in an interview. She, too, voted for it. “We want to figure out who’s standing on the cliff, who’s a few feet from the cliffs, who’s a mile from the cliff.”

The $25 million grant comes as hospitals across California, particularly in rural areas, say they are at risk of dropping services or shutting their doors due to rising labor costs and federal Medi-Cal funding cuts.

The funding woes sparked calls for renewed funding for the state’s Distressed Hospital Loan Program, which in 2023 gave 16 financially distressed hospitals nearly $300 million. Of those, 15 have asked for more time to repay the debt, and nine of them have also applied for loan forgiveness, according to the California Health Facilities Financing Authority.

The California Hospital Association, which represents nearly 400 hospitals, is sponsoring a bill to put another $300 million into the loan program. Senate Democrats proposed $200 million in funding in mid-April but have not specified if the dollars would be a loan or a grant.

Newsom proposed up to $50 million toward hospitals in “immediate and significant financial distress” in 2026-27 in his budget revision Thursday.

A few hospitals plan to apply

Watsonville Community Hospital, which has publicly shared its financial struggles, reported having 8 days of cash on hand in the last quarter of 2025, according to the most recent financial records collected by the state. The hospital received an $8.3 million state loan in 2023 as part of the distressed hospital program lawmakers passed that year. When asked about the hospital, Laird said the hospital is “quite likely” to be eligible.

“This is critically important for the hospital as we navigate fiscal challenges brought on by funding delays and cutbacks at the federal level,” hospital spokesperson Jennifer Murray said in an email.

Hospitals in the Central Valley and rural Southern California also could benefit from the grant, according to Laird.

Madera Community Hospital told CalMatters it intends to apply for a slice of the grant money. The hospital reopened its doors in March 2025 after closing at the start of 2023. American Advanced Management, the company that took over the hospital, received $57 million from the state to reopen it. State data show the hospital ended 2025 with two days of cash on hand.

Delays in reimbursements and low patient volume in its outpatient clinics are contributing to Madera Community’s slower-than-expected recovery, said Matthew Beehler, a spokesperson for the hospital. He said Madera Community is still working on contracting with some insurers and is not yet receiving funds from the Hospital Quality Assurance Fee, a state-federal supplemental payment program for hospitals that serve a high number of Medi-Cal and uninsured patients. State data show that in 2022, before the hospital closed, it relied on more than $16 million in supplemental payments.

The $57 million from the state, Beehler said, helped cover the hospital’s first six months of operations. Beyond that, American Advanced Management has covered the shortfalls.

“I think that we are headed towards the path of real sustainability for the hospital,” Beehler said. “It just takes time to have all that sort of reach its state of equilibrium.”

In the Eastern Sierra, Dr. Kevin Flanigan, CEO of the Southern Inyo Healthcare District, said he, too, plans to apply for the state’s emergency grant. He said his hospital needs about $1 million to get through 2026. However, he does not know if his hospital will qualify given the 10 days of cash on hand criteria. He said Southern Inyo’s cash balance fluctuates anywhere between 18 to 20 days of cash to 8 to 10 days — grim in either case.

If his hospital doesn’t qualify for a grant? “Then God willing, we find money elsewhere. If not, we begin the process of closing certain things,” Flanigan said. Southern Inyo is a small hospital, with only four acute care beds, 30 skilled nursing beds and an outpatient clinic; there isn’t much to cut from, he said.

“We are clearly one of the most precarious hospitals in the state.”

Unanswered questions

Laird told CalMatters he is confident the $25 million will be enough to save hospitals facing the most imminent threat of closure.

But it’s unclear how he and the finance department arrived at the dollar amount. Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said the figure represents the administration’s “best assessment of potential funding needs” and is partly based on the Distressed Hospital Loan Program, which gave 16 hospitals an average of $19 million each to keep them afloat for several years.

Laird said the amount was based on the number of hospitals legislators “informally” think would be eligible. Whatever is left untapped by June 30 would revert back to the state, he said, and legislators could add more funding if it runs out.

“It is what we think is necessary now,” Laird said.

The Department of Health Care Access and Information collects and publishes financial data from hospitals quarterly, but that data lags. Which hospitals qualify for the grant will depend largely on their self-reported finances as of April 15, the department said.

Many state lawmakers want more answers, too. Sen. Shannon Grove, a Bakersfield Republican, grilled finance department staff over the bill details.

“How long is this lifeline going to last? Is it even going to save the people who are in the 10-day timeframe?” she asked.

“That is the intent,” said Lupe Manriquez of the Department of Finance.

“I know it’s the intent. Is it going to save them?” Grove pressed.

“That’s the goal,” Manriquez answered.

Cabaldon told the staff he wouldn’t even bother asking about the criteria because “I already know what the answer is going to be.”

“It is incumbent on this committee to be able to have real answers to the questions that are posed about the why and the evidence,” Cabaldon said. “We are not having a conversation. We are asking questions of fulfilling our constitutional role in this process and getting zero answers.”

Palmer called the heat on his staff “undignified sniping and sarcasm,” noting that the bill originated from the same legislative chamber that’s now questioning it.

“They asked for our assistance in the expedited consideration of the bill outside of the regular budget process — and we complied and cooperated,” Palmer said in an email. “If members were either unable or unwilling to do some basic homework on their own bill that they wanted to be put on a fast track, then that’s a question that’s better posed to them — not us.”

How long a lifeline?

But throwing money at hospitals to keep them afloat is not the answer, some lawmakers argued.

“We can’t just keep giving $25 million handouts over 10 days where a hospital is looking to close,” Smallwood-Cuevas said, noting that President Donald Trump’s H.R. 1, which sharply reduces federal spending on Medicaid, could devastate hospitals.

“What is the state doing to identify and support vulnerable safety net hospitals before they reach the point of fiscal crisis? That is an answer I want to hear.”

Some hospital administrators also called for longer-term solutions. Katherine Burnworth, board president of the Imperial Valley Healthcare District, which oversees Imperial County’s two hospitals, told CalMatters that while she appreciates state action, $25 million statewide “is a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of the problem.”

“That may help a small number of hospitals avoid a near-term emergency, but it does not address the ongoing instability that communities like ours live with year after year,” Burnworth said.

While acknowledging the importance of emergency grants, Republicans on the committee argued that California has shortchanged hospitals’ Medi-Cal reimbursements. The California Hospital Association estimates that hospitals are reimbursed 74 cents for each dollar they spend on Medi-Cal patients. Hospitals that see a high share of Medi-Cal patients do get supplemental payments to help offset some of the gaps in reimbursement.

The GOP lawmakers also said that some state regulations, such as a minimum wage hike for health care workers and the requirement that all hospitals comply with new seismic safety requirements by 2030, will burden hospitals with high costs.

“We are throwing Band-Aids on everything, when really we need to just get together and fix the issues of what are the unfunded state mandates that are on our hospitals right now,” Tangipa said.

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Newsom is eager to safeguard programs that have defined his tenure as the leader of the nation’s most populous state and one of the world’s largest economies. As he gears up for a possible presidential run in 2028, the Democrat is promoting the budget as fiscally responsible, saying it protects California’s values but also builds up the state’s rainy day funds — a pointed rebuke to critics who say the state spends more than it has.

The state’s spending has grown more than $100 billion since 2020, according to legislative budget analysts.

“We’re cutting deficits. But we’re not cutting corners,” Newsom said.

Newsom can’t seek a third term and will leave office in January.

Revenues, driven mostly by the booming stock market and the artificial intelligence industry, are $16.5 billion higher than projections in January. That will help the state avoid a $2.9 billion deficit projected in January, guarantee no budget hole next year and cut the shortfall the following year in half, his office said. Newsom also wants to set aside $9.7 billion in a holding account to help balance future budgets.

California faced tens of billions of dollars in budget deficits several years in a row, forcing painful cuts last year such as a rollback on a promise to provide free healthcare to low-income immigrants without legal status. Nonpartisan budget analysts previously projected the state will see budget holes upward of $20 billion each year in the next few years. Newsom and the analysts sometimes differ in their estimations.

Still, Democrats are bracing for federal funding cuts in healthcare and the impacts of high costs on everything from gas to energy because of the war in Iran. State officials repeatedly have said California can’t backfill all the federal dollars.

Republican lawmakers said Newsom’s plan didn’t go far enough to address future budget problems. Republicans are largely excluded from budget negotiations because Democrats have supermajorities in both chambers.

“Governor Newsom appears to define fiscal success narrowly: if the budget doesn’t collapse on his watch, it’s a balanced one,” Assemblymember David Tangipa said in a statement.

Newsom also blasted President Donald Trump and his policies, including in his budget presentation a photo depicting the president and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as characters in the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” Trump “doesn’t particularly give a damn about the financial situation of the average American,” Newsom said.

The budget proposal will officially kick off the final stretch of negotiations between Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature, who have to pass a budget by the end of June.

State lawmakers this year are considering several proposals to increase taxes on corporations to help with budget problems. Newsom has largely avoided raising taxes to boost revenues in past years. Now, he wants to cut fees for new small businesses, limit some tax credits starting in 2027 and impose a sales tax on some digital software and cloud-based services.

The two tax measures could generate more than $1 billion the first year of implementation, according to the governor’s estimation. Newsom is against a ballot initiative for a one-time tax on billionaires that will likely go before voters in November.

He also proposed to increase the monthly premiums for adult patients without legal status in the state-funded healthcare program, up to $50 from $30. The premiums were part of last year’s budget and are set to take effect in July for adults under 60 years old. Democrats in the Senate already signaled they will fight the plan.

California has a progressive tax system that relies on rich people, meaning it gets about half its revenues from just 1% of the population. When the economy is good, rich people pay more in taxes and revenues can soar quickly. When the economy is bad, they pay less and revenues can drop just as fast.

The state could also see a revenue boost from expected upcoming initial public offerings by several major artificial intelligence companies, which are expected to be the largest IPOs in history. But legislative budget experts warned of a potential AI bubble that could worsen the state’s finances.

Newsom’s Thursday proposal also includes a $300 million plan to backfill some of the loss of government-sponsored health subsidies, a $5 billion education grant for teacher training and $100 million to help Los Angeles-area homeowners rebuild after the devastating wildfires last year.

The post Newsom outlines his final budget proposal with no deficit, new major spending appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Federal prosecutors announced Monday that Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, Calif., has been charged with one count of acting in the U.S. as an illegal agent of a foreign government and is “expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks.” The charge is punishable with up to 10 years in prison. 

“Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 – promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X. “FBI and our federal partners continue to move aggressively to root out this kind of influence in American institutions all over the country.”

Wang was elected in November 2022 to the five-member Arcadia City Council, where the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement Monday that Wang, who became mayor in February, has resigned from the council.

“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,” Lazzaretto said, though he clarified that the charge against Wang is for actions that ended after her swearing-in, and that, after an internal review, the council can confirm that no Arcadia City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved. 

In a statement to the Courthouse News Service, Wang’s attorney Brian Sun said that the California politician “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life,” adding: “Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a track record of attempting to influence other countries’ affairs to advance its interests. It has meddled in elections, targeted overseas Chinese dissidents, and conducted information and propaganda campaigns, according to government and journalistic reports.

“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in the Monday announcement, adding that the plea agreement Wang has entered into is “the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.” 

Here’s what to know.

Who is Eileen Wang?

Eileen Wang is a Chinese immigrant. According to a 2024 report in the Los Angeles Times, Wang said she moved to Southern California from China three decades ago. Wang told the paper that her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor, while her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at the University of Southern California.

The LA Times report added that Wang, a mother of two, had been based in Arcadia for about two decades, and was mainly known for running an after-school program in the city called Little Stanford Academy before entering politics. About 59% of Arcadia’s 54,000 population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is Asian, while over 42% is ethnically Chinese.

Wang is the former fiancée of Yaoning “Mike” Sun, who was sentenced to four years in federal prison earlier this year for similarly acting as a covert agent for China, including, according to the U.S. Justice Department at the time, while he was serving as a campaign adviser for an unnamed candidate “who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city.” Sun was Wang’s former campaign adviser.

Wang’s case

The charge against Wang was filed on April 1, but court filings, including the plea agreement Wang entered into, were unsealed on Monday. 

According to the unsealed plea agreement, from late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang “coordinated with U.S.-based individuals” for the purpose of “promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States.” 

Wang is alleged to have worked with Sun, her then-fiancé, to run a website called U.S. News Center that purported to be a news source for Chinese-Americans. According to the agreement, the two “received and executed directives” from Chinese government officials to post and circulate pro-PRC content on the site. 

The document cites examples. In June 2021, after a Chinese government official contacted Wang and other individuals via messaging platform WeChat about a pre-written essay on Xinjiang, she posted it on her site and received a “thank you” from the official. In August, Wang addressed a Chinese official’s request for edits to the article; then she sent the official a screenshot of the number of views that article had amassed. After the official replied, “Great!” Wang allegedly responded: “Thank you leader.”

In November 2021, Wang communicated with John Chen, who was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government in the U.S. and bribing a tax authority agent. Chen, according to court documents, previously attended high-level CCP functions, and had personally met Chinese President Xi Jinping. The plea agreement said that Wang asked Chen to share an article from her website, saying, “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”

Wang admitted in the plea agreement that she did not notify the Attorney General that she was acting in the U.S. as an agent of China, as is required by law, and that she did not disclose that content posted on her website were based on orders from Chinese authorities.

Chinese espionage

The FBI’s website says that China employs “tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable” to them and called counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts from the Chinese government and the CCP a “grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.”

In 2025, the House Committee on Homeland Security issued a report that found more than 60 cases of Chinese espionage or repression in the U.S. since 2021, including sending sensitive U.S. military information to the Chinese government, stealing trade secrets, and carrying out transnational repression schemes including setting up undercover Chinese police stations–which it has reportedly done worldwide.

In April, the White House also accused China of stealing on an “industrial scale” the intellectual property of U.S. artificial ​intelligence labs, as both countries race to become global leaders of AI. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) said in a statement last month that China steals between $400 billion and $600 billion of IP yearly, or about $5,000 per taxpayer.

China has routinely refuted interference, espionage, and theft accusations. It also denied that it had overseas police stations that collect information on and harass Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. and elsewhere, claiming instead that it had service centers for citizens abroad.

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Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling announced the Ventura facility will permanently close on July 10, ending a 114-year run in the city and impacting dozens of workers, according to company filings and published reports.

The closure will affect 85 employees, though the company said most workers are expected to be reassigned to other Southern California locations.

“We regularly assess our locations, products and services to ensure we can continue driving sustainable growth and innovation across our business,” a company spokesperson told SFGATE.

The shutdown marks the end of one of Ventura’s oldest industrial operations.

Coca-Cola first opened a bottling operation in Ventura in 1912, later relocating several times over the decades as the business expanded.

By the 1950s, local newspapers described Ventura’s soda bottling industry as booming, with Coca-Cola and Nehi plants capable of producing thousands of cases of soft drinks each day.

The Ventura closure appears to be part of a broader consolidation effort by Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling, which has shuttered multiple California facilities in recent years.

Operations from the Ventura plant are expected to be transferred to other Southern California distribution centers.

The company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notice, with the state alerting officials to the upcoming closure and layoffs, according to the Los Angeles Times.

While many employees are expected to remain with the company through reassignment opportunities, the shutdown still represents the loss of a longstanding local landmark tied to Ventura’s industrial history.

The facility’s final day of operation is scheduled for July 10.

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The sweeping regulations, finalized at the start of the month, put producers in a bind that has no obvious solution. Plastic clamshell containers, for instance, protect berries from being crushed and keep them fresher, longer until they reach a refrigerator. Plastic producers say there’s simply no substitute — yet under the new rules, they’ll have to find one. 

Last week, two environmental groups — the Natural Resources Defense Council and Californians Against Waste — said they plan to take California to court. Their argument: the state’s rules actually break the law by allowing recycling methods that create a lot of toxic waste, and by letting some plastics slip through the rules entirely. On the other side, plastic manufacturers say the rules go too far and will make products more expensive for shoppers.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from coastal Los Angeles County who authored the plastic waste law, said the program still “massively moves the needle on this really major problem” — even if the process was messy. “This was the product of a compromise, and it was not perfect, and everybody walked away from the table, you know, unhappy about various aspects,” Allen said.

“California is the United States, but 30 years in the future,” said Joe Árvai,  director of the University of Southern California’s Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. “What’s happening now is emblematic of trends that we are seeing worldwide … and the U.S. needs to adapt in the way that those countries are adapting in order to remain globally competitive.”

Less plastic, more recycling 

For decades, the burden of reducing, reusing and recycling plastic waste has fallen on consumers. Once a consumer buys a product, they decide what happens to it — whether it ends up in the garbage can or the recycling blue bin — and their tax dollars fund recycling systems we have today.  

In 2022, California’s landmark Senate Bill 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, shifted that responsibility to businesses. The regulations outline what materials are covered by the law and who counts as a “producer” of plastic waste.  

The new regulations are a huge milestone, said Anja Brandon, director of U.S. plastics policy for the Ocean Conservancy. “There’s plenty more steps on this journey, but I’m just really excited that we are going to start making real progress,” she said. 

The law applies to plastic food service ware and almost all single-use packaging — from the plastic wrap around large pallets of products shipped to retailers to a tube of toothpaste and the cardboard box around it.  

To carry out the law, the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery appointed the Circular Action Alliance, a nonprofit that helps states carry out extended producer responsibility mandates, as the organizing body for producers. The alliance is responsible for coming up with  a plan to meet the law’s goals. 

Producers — defined as companies that make more than $1 million in sales and produce products packaged in plastic or own brands under which those products are sold — must join the organization and pay fees to fund waste management. They can meet the law’s requirements by using less plastic, finding alternative materials, or investing in recycling infrastructure.

“The biggest challenge is the scale and coordination required to modernize a complex recycling system across a state as large and diverse as California,” said Sheila Estaniel, a spokesperson for the Circular Action Alliance, in an email. 

California’s requirement that businesses reduce single-use plastic altogether makes it one of the strongest plastic waste laws in the country. It also goes further than other similar laws because it requires plastic producers to pay $5 billion over a decade to address the environmental damage their products have caused to communities — though the state doesn’t expect to start distributing those funds until 2027 at the earliest.

Watered down rules

The plastic waste rules have had a rocky road to implementation. 

In 2024, CalRecycle developed a first draft of regulations detailing what plastic the law covers and what producers must do. The draft expired before CalRecycle finalized it. In 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom directed regulators to rewrite the rules — a move that some advocates say say food and agriculture lobbyists pushed for.

The result was a second draft that carved out a broad exclusion for plastics used for food and agriculture purposes, covering products under the jurisdiction of the FDA and USDA, such as packaging for fresh produce and supplements. Advocates said the exclusion gutted the law.

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