The settlement, announced Monday, put an end to a standoff that had grown increasingly tense in recent months. Bonta, joined by attorneys general from 11 other states, had sued to block the merger on antitrust grounds. In response, Paramount executives floated the idea of relocating the company out of California altogether. According to a report in the New York Times, Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison told senior staff during an August meeting that “clearly we’re not wanted here.”

The dispute became the latest flashpoint in a decades-long struggle over the future of the entertainment industry in the state that built it. California’s political leaders — including its last three governors — have repeatedly stepped in to try to keep production dollars and jobs from migrating to states offering cheaper deals and richer tax breaks.

That effort dates back to 2009, when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed California’s first Film and Television Production Tax Credit, a response to other states beginning to lure productions away with financial incentives of their own. The original program set aside $100 million annually for qualifying film and TV projects through 2017.

Five years later, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1839, more than tripling that funding to $330 million a year through 2020. Brown extended the program again in 2018, pushing it out to 2025. When the pandemic brought Hollywood productions to a standstill, Gov. Gavin Newsom temporarily raised the annual credit to $420 million to help the industry recover.

But the challenges kept mounting. Hollywood faced what many in the industry called a “quadruple whammy” — COVID-19, a prolonged writers strike, devastating wildfires, and aggressive recruitment from other states offering more generous incentives. In 2025, state lawmakers responded by boosting the tax credit substantially, to $750 million annually through 2030. Newsom threw his support behind the increase, describing the industry at the time as being “on life support.”

This year, lawmakers took additional steps to protect the industry, exempting independent film producers from a newly created cap on corporate tax breaks after the film credit conflicted with that initiative. In July, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas formed a new Select Committee on Growing and Retaining the Creative Economy in California, aimed specifically at preventing further production flight. And on Saturday, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2319, authored by Burbank Democrat Nick Schultz, establishing a new tax credit for post-production work such as editing and visual effects.

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a Democrat who represents Hollywood and chairs the new Assembly select committee, said he was relieved that Paramount and the state reached an agreement, but cautioned that California cannot afford to rest on its laurels.

“Now that other states are realizing what important, family-sustaining jobs these are, they’re competing very aggressively for these jobs,” Zbur said.

He added that the committee plans to examine additional incentives when it convenes for the first time, likely in October in Los Angeles, as California continues its effort to hold on to the industry that gave the region its identity.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California’s Decades-Long Battle to Keep Hollywood From Leaving: A Timeline appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The package of laws requires data center operators to shoulder more of the costs tied to their operations, rather than passing them along to everyday ratepayers. Three of the bills redirect electric infrastructure expenses away from residential customers and onto the companies building and running these facilities. Another three require data center operators to disclose how much water and other resources their operations consume. The seventh law strips data centers of automatic environmental review exemptions, though it does offer a faster approval path for projects that meet the state’s water and energy conservation benchmarks.

In a statement announcing the signings, Newsom drew a sharp contrast between California’s approach and that of the Trump administration, which has largely encouraged unchecked data center expansion nationwide.

“We know that we don’t have to sell out Californians or sacrifice our well-being to innovate and succeed,” Newsom said. “California has proven that time and time again. With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense.”

President Trump, for his part, has been an outspoken champion of rapid data center growth, calling the sector the “oil of the next 20, 25 years” during remarks last week at the All-In Summit, a business leaders’ conference.

The move represents a considerable reversal for Newsom, who last year vetoed a bill that would have required water usage disclosures, citing worries that added regulation might slow the growth of artificial intelligence. At that time, he approved only a single, watered-down measure calling for environmental studies.

Lawmakers and environmental groups say the change in course reflects a surge of public opposition to data center construction that grew too loud to ignore — even as tech companies poured money into lobbying efforts to blunt the legislation.

“When you’re looking down the barrel of public outcry that says we don’t want [data centers] at all, and you’ve got localities that are saying they’re going to ban them, then you know the atmosphere has changed,” said Assemblymember Diane Papan, a San Mateo Democrat who authored two of the bills Newsom signed Monday.

California isn’t alone in this reconsideration. Other state legislatures, along with Congress, are weighing similar restrictions. A Gallup poll from May found that seven in 10 Americans oppose having data centers built in their own communities, while a July survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found comparable resistance among state residents. Across the country, hundreds of cities — including Monterey Park locally and Pittsburg in the Bay Area — have either banned data centers outright or reversed prior approvals after residents pushed back.

Arnab Pal, executive director of the clean-energy nonprofit Deploy Action, called the new laws a meaningful step but said there’s more work ahead to ensure data centers genuinely benefit Californians through grid improvements and clean energy investment.

“I don’t think these bills are the end of this fight; I think we’re gonna have to do a lot of implementation on the back end, and as other states roll out their policies next year, I think California is going to look back and be like, ‘maybe we should have done more,'” Pal said. “I’m interested to see what we do next year on this.”

Industry groups, meanwhile, warn the new rules could drive data center development out of state. The Data Center Coalition — whose members include Google, Microsoft and OpenAI — points to the sector’s economic footprint in California, which it says supported 665,500 jobs, generated more than $159 billion in economic activity, and produced $14.1 billion in combined federal, state and local tax revenue in 2024.

Khara Boender, the coalition’s director of government affairs for the western U.S., said the industry supports responsible growth but cautioned that policymakers need to strike a balance.

“The data center industry shares the goal of ensuring growth of this critical infrastructure is responsible and well managed,” Boender said, adding that more needs to be done “to promote responsible data center growth while maintaining California as a key, competitive market in the global economy.”

The bills Newsom signed include Senate Bill 1168, Senate Bill 886 and Assembly Bill 2383, all aimed at shifting electric infrastructure costs from residential ratepayers to data center operators; Assembly Bills 2469, 1577 and 2619, which require disclosure or estimation of water and other resource usage; and Senate Bill 887, which eliminates blanket environmental review exemptions for data centers while providing expedited approval for projects meeting state conservation standards.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Signs New Restrictions on California Data Centers Amid Growing Public Backlash appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The bill, which had cleared the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support, would have lowered the retirement age for public safety workers and expanded pension formulas — changes labor groups argued were long overdue given the physical demands of the job.

In his veto message, Newsom said the measure would have unwound key parts of a 2012 pension reform law championed by former Gov. Jerry Brown, one enacted at a time when California’s major retirement systems were reeling from Great Recession losses.

“I still recall — before PEPRA’s passage in 2012 — the alarming forecasts, the fierce criticism of public employees, and the growing pressure to eliminate defined benefit plans all together,” Newsom wrote, referring to the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act. “This is an era of California history I do not wish to repeat.”

Brown’s law reshaped retirement rules for public safety workers statewide, pushing the retirement age from 50 to 57 and trimming the annual pension accrual rate from 3% to 2.7%. It also required employees to contribute more from their own paychecks toward their retirement.

Assembly Bill 1383, authored by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, D-Inglewood, sought to roll back some of those changes. It would have dropped the retirement age to 55, raised pension earning caps and given unions more room to negotiate accrual rates as high as 3% per year of service.

Supporters argued the physical toll of policing and firefighting justifies an earlier retirement. “AB 1383 gives us something important: Two more years with our families,” said Darrell Roberts, president of California Professional Firefighters, speaking last week at a rally on the Capitol steps that drew hundreds of public safety workers.

But the price tag worried city and county governments across the state, including in the Inland Empire. According to estimates from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the bill’s provisions would have added hundreds of millions of dollars annually in costs to local governments responsible for funding these pensions.

“It represents the greatest long-term financial threat to the sustainability of cities in years,” La Verne City Manager Ken Domer told CalMatters in a recent interview.

A coalition representing cities, counties and special districts praised Newsom’s decision to reject the bill. “At a time of severe fiscal uncertainty and growing demand for services, it is more important than ever for state leaders to help control costs,” the group said in a statement.

The bill’s legislative support had been striking — it passed the Senate 33-0 and cleared the Assembly 69-2. At last week’s rally, lawmakers stood alongside firefighters and police officers holding signs reading “Firefighters deserve a safe retirement” and “Keep California safe. Recruit. Retain. Sign AB 1383.”

Assemblywoman Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, told the crowd the fight would continue regardless of the outcome. “This is just the beginning. After we get this signed, we will do more. We will fight for more to show you that we appreciate you,” she said.

Following the veto, Roberts said the firefighters union was “deeply disappointed” but vowed to keep pushing for change. “To every CPF member, this fight is not over. I made a commitment to you all; we will keep fighting for retirement security, and we will stand together,” he said in a statement Sunday.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Vetoes Bill to Boost Police, Firefighter Pensions, Citing Fiscal Concerns appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original source: CalMatters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original source: CalMatters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original source: CalMatters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original source: CalMatters

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

Assembly Bill 1267, authored by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, cleared the Legislature in August with overwhelming bipartisan support. It now sits on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, awaiting his signature before a Sept. 30 deadline. If signed, California would join the vast majority of states that have already set a minimum marriage age, leaving only New Mexico and Mississippi without one.

The bill’s path to passage was anything but straightforward. For years, efforts to ban child marriage in California have collapsed under opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood — two organizations with deep ties to Democratic politics and significant sway at the Capitol.

Both groups have historically argued that restricting marriage for minors would infringe on young people’s rights to make their own decisions, including about reproductive health and bodily autonomy. The ACLU has contended that marriage offers minors a legal path to emancipation, while Planned Parenthood has framed the issue as one of personal choice.

Critics, however, say those arguments ignore the reality facing thousands of California children. According to Unchained at Last, a nonprofit that tracks and campaigns against child marriage, roughly 9,000 minors marry in California each year, the overwhelming majority of them girls wed to adult men. Because the state’s age of consent is 18, advocates argue that these marriages effectively legalize relationships that would otherwise be considered statutory rape.

This year, lawmakers took an unusual route to get the bill moving. Pellerin used a legislative maneuver known as a “gut and amend,” stripping the language from an unrelated bill and replacing it with the child marriage ban after the normal bill-introduction deadline had passed. Advocates say the timing was deliberate — an effort to keep the proposal off Planned Parenthood’s radar until it was too late for the organization to mount effective opposition.

The strategy appears to have worked. While the ACLU again registered its opposition, no lobbyist showed up to defend minors’ right to marry during this year’s committee hearings. Planned Parenthood, meanwhile, took a “neutral” stance, declining to formally support or oppose the measure.

“We need to be clear that girls, no matter how mature they may seem, are still girls,” Pellerin said in an interview. “Girls don’t have freedom without protection.”

Neither organization agreed to make anyone available for an interview with CalMatters. In a June letter outlining its opposition, the ACLU wrote that “prohibiting marriage for all minors would represent a departure from California’s longstanding commitment to respecting minors’ ability to make important personal decisions for themselves, particularly in matters of reproductive autonomy.” The ACLU’s press office declined to answer further questions about its position.

Planned Parenthood spokesperson Shelby McMichael said in an emailed statement that the organization evaluates legislation on a bill-by-bill basis each session. “Given the funding cuts to Planned Parenthood health centers last year, we chose to prioritize issues related to the Trump administration and the ongoing attacks from congressional Republicans on health care,” she wrote.

Planned Parenthood’s influence in Sacramento is substantial. The organization has donated at least $2.7 million to Democratic lawmakers since 2002, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database, and it operates more than 100 clinics statewide. The group also publishes an annual legislative scorecard tracking how often lawmakers vote in line with its positions — in 2025, nearly every Democrat scored 100%.

That influence became even more pronounced after President Donald Trump moved to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood clinics, pushing the organization to rely more heavily on state support. In February, California lawmakers approved $140 million in emergency funding to help offset those federal losses.

The current fight echoes a similar battle two years ago, when Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine, introduced a nearly identical measure, Assembly Bill 2924. That bill never received a hearing. Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee, told advocates at the time that Planned Parenthood needed to drop its opposition before he would allow a vote. Kalra said he was also concerned the bill could jeopardize minors’ abortion rights, even though California voters had already enshrined abortion rights into the state constitution in 2022 — two years before that bill was introduced.

“I think that was certainly one of the factors,” Kalra said of Planned Parenthood’s opposition and the bill’s failure to advance. “Planned Parenthood’s voice matters on this issue, and on other matters that come before us at the Capitol.”

The pattern dates back further. In 2017, then-state Sen. Jerry Hill introduced similar legislation after learning that a 13-year-old girl in his district had been engaged to a 38-year-old man from another country. “I thought, who could possibly oppose this? Who could say this is wrong?” Hill recalled. Instead, his proposal ran into fierce debate over cultural differences, adolescent autonomy and bodily rights.

Then-Assemblymember Lorena González, a labor-aligned Democrat who chaired the Assembly Appropriations Committee at the time, told Hill she would block the bill unless it were amended to lower the marriage age to 16 or 17 rather than banning marriage for minors outright. The legislation was eventually watered down into the law still in effect today, which allows minors to marry with parental and judicial consent but sets no minimum age.

Hill blames special interest groups for repeatedly derailing reform efforts. “These interest groups in Sacramento are very powerful. They have a lot of influence over what passes in the Legislature,” he said. “Politics trumps policy about 80% of the time.”

González remembers it differently. While she acknowledges blocking an outright ban, she said she doesn’t recall Planned Parenthood weighing in or factoring into her decision. Instead, she said her hesitation stemmed from experiences in her own district, where some Latino families encouraged pregnant teenage girls to marry the child’s father if he was close to their age. “I had girls tell me this was the best option for them,” González said, adding that the age gap between spouses seemed to matter more than the marriage itself. At the time, she said, an outright ban felt “classist.”

For survivors like Sara Tasneem, the state’s decades of inaction carried lasting consequences. Tasneem said she was forced into marriage at 15 with a 28-year-old man as part of arrangements made within a Northern California Sufi group her father belonged to. After her father learned she was dating a classmate, he arranged the marriage instead. “I was handed off to a complete stranger I had just met,” she said. She left school, was repeatedly raped, and said she felt trapped because, as a minor, she could not hire a divorce attorney. Tasneem said she had two children with her abuser before leaving him in 2003 at age 23, taking her children with her. She later became an advocate for ending child marriage nationwide.

Momentum for reform grew last November after a New York Times opinion piece singled out the ACLU and Planned Parenthood for helping block anti-child-marriage legislation in California, even as Republican-led states such as Arkansas and Louisiana enacted stricter age requirements.

Fraidy Reiss, executive director of Unchained at Last, was herself forced into marriage at 19 within an Orthodox Jewish community in New York. She said California’s long delay in addressing the issue is frustrating, but progress is still progress.

“Should this have happened a decade ago? Yes, it should have,” Reiss said. “But at least we’re here now.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Bill Would Ban Child Marriage, but Some Civil Rights Groups Are Pushing Back appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

For years, efforts to ban child marriage in California have stalled in Sacramento — not because of resistance from conservative lawmakers, but because of pushback from the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, organizations closely aligned with the Democratic supermajority that controls the Legislature. Now, after nearly a decade of failed attempts, a bill banning marriage before age 18 sits on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, awaiting his signature or veto by September 30.

Under current California law, a minor can marry with the consent of a parent and a judge, regardless of age. Only two other states, New Mexico and Mississippi, similarly have no minimum marriage age. According to the advocacy group Unchained at Last, roughly 9,000 children are married in California each year, the overwhelming majority of them girls wedding adult men. Because the state’s age of consent for sexual activity is 18, critics argue these marriages effectively legalize relationships that would otherwise be considered statutory rape.

The path to this year’s bill, Assembly Bill 1267, began quietly in March, when a group of Democratic lawmakers started laying the groundwork to finally push a ban through — this time working to keep Planned Parenthood from blocking it before it even reached a hearing.

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin of Santa Cruz introduced the measure using a legislative maneuver known as a “gut-and-amend,” swapping the language of an unrelated bill after the normal bill-introduction deadline had passed. Advocates say the timing was intentional — an effort to sidestep the kind of early opposition that has doomed similar bills in the past.

This time, the strategy worked. While the ACLU again formally opposed the bill, no lobbyists showed up to argue against it during summer committee hearings, and Planned Parenthood declined to take a position, staying neutral. The bill passed with near-unanimous support in August.

“We need to make it clear that girls, despite their perceived maturity, are children,” Pellerin said. “Children don’t have unprotected freedom.”

The ACLU has argued for years that restricting marriage among minors would strip young people of an important form of legal independence, including access to emancipation and reproductive health decisions made without parental involvement. In a letter opposing the bill in June, the organization wrote that banning marriage for all minors “is a departure from California’s longstanding commitment to honoring minors’ ability to make important personal decisions for themselves, particularly in the realm of reproductive autonomy.”

An ACLU spokesperson declined to answer further questions or make anyone available for an interview.

Planned Parenthood, for its part, said it evaluates legislation on a case-by-case basis each session. A spokesperson said that given ongoing threats to defund Planned Parenthood health centers under the Trump administration, the organization chose to focus its political capital elsewhere this year rather than fight the marriage bill.

Planned Parenthood’s influence in California politics is substantial. The organization has donated more than $2.7 million to state lawmakers since 2002, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database, and nearly every Democrat in the Legislature earned a 100% rating on the group’s 2025 legislative scorecard.

That influence proved decisive two years ago, when Irvine Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris introduced a similar ban. Assemblymember Ash Kalra, who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee, told advocates at the time that Planned Parenthood’s opposition needed to be resolved before the bill could even get a hearing. Kalra said he was concerned that banning marriage for minors could complicate their access to abortion services, and he ultimately never scheduled the bill for a vote.

“Planned Parenthood’s voice matters in that, and in other issues that come before us in the Capitol,” Kalra said in a recent interview, acknowledging the group’s opposition played a role in his decision.

The pattern dates back further. In 2017, then-state Senator Jerry Hill introduced a bill to ban child marriage outright after learning that a 13-year-old girl in his district had become engaged to a 38-year-old man. Hill said he was stunned when the proposal drew opposition rather than broad support.

“I thought, ‘Who could oppose that? Who could say that it was wrong?'” Hill recalled. Instead, the bill became entangled in a larger debate over cultural norms, youth autonomy and reproductive rights. Then-Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, who chaired the Appropriations Committee, refused to advance an outright ban, insisting instead on amendments that preserved marriage rights for 16- and 17-year-olds. That compromise became the law still in effect today.

Gonzalez, now removed from the Legislature, disputes that Planned Parenthood factored into her decision. She said her reluctance stemmed from cases she saw in her own district, where pregnant teenage girls sometimes chose to marry partners close to their own age rather than face other pressures. To her, an outright ban felt like it unfairly targeted families making difficult personal choices.

For survivors like Sara Tasneem, the state’s decades-long inaction had lasting consequences. Tasneem said she was forced into marriage at 15 to a 28-year-old man as part of an arrangement orchestrated by her father, who she said belonged to a Northern California religious group. She said she endured years of abuse and could not seek legal help to leave the marriage until she turned 18, since minors cannot retain an attorney on their own. She eventually left the marriage in 2003, at age 23, taking her two children with her.

Tasneem has since become an advocate for ending child marriage nationwide, work she says stems directly from feeling powerless as a teenager with no legal recourse.

National scrutiny of California’s law intensified last November, when a New York Times opinion piece singled out the ACLU and Planned Parenthood for their roles in blocking similar legislation, noting that even Republican-led states like Arkansas and Louisiana had already tightened their marriage laws.

Fraidy Reiss, executive director of Unchained at Last and herself a survivor of forced marriage at 19 in a New York Orthodox Jewish community, said she is hopeful Newsom will sign the bill despite the long delay in getting it this far.

“Should it have happened a decade earlier? Yes, it should have,” Reiss said. “But at least we’re here now.”

Original source: CalMatters

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The money is guaranteed under Proposition 98, the constitutional education funding formula approved by California voters in 1988. While the funds are supposed to eventually reach schools, Newsom and legislative leaders opted to delay the payment as part of a broader effort to close a significant budget shortfall when they finalized the spending plan in June.

“We are filing a lawsuit to demand the protection of Prop 98,” CTA President David Goldberg said in a statement announcing the legal action. “We are demanding a return of the funds that have been withheld so that our students and communities can be saved from yet another year of devastating educator layoffs and unnecessary cuts.”

Proposition 98 established the state budget as the main funding source for California’s public schools, reducing reliance on local property taxes. It represents the single largest category of state spending, and over the years, governors and lawmakers have found ways to temporarily divert or delay these dollars when the budget doesn’t balance.

The union’s lawsuit also targets an earlier round of withheld education funding — $1.9 billion from the prior budget year that was eventually repaid, but only after a full year’s delay.

California has wrestled with consecutive budget deficits over the past four years, totaling roughly $125 billion, according to Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek. To manage the shortfalls, the state has built up what Petek has described as a mounting “wall of debt.”

Even though overall funding for schools — both state and local — has climbed substantially in recent years, many districts across California continue to struggle financially. Rising personnel costs and shrinking enrollment, which directly affects how much state aid a district receives, have combined to squeeze school budgets even as top-line funding numbers grow.

The timing of the CTA’s lawsuit this week happened to coincide with two other reports raising fresh questions about how the state is spending public money.

A CalMatters investigation by reporter Yue Stella Yu uncovered a long list of budget line items — inserted quietly at individual lawmakers’ requests and passed swiftly just before the Legislature wrapped up its session — that funneled money toward local pet projects with little public scrutiny.

Among them: $29 million to renovate a gymnasium at a Santa Barbara-area college located in the district of Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, $13 million for a farmers market and food innovation center in affluent Marin County, where Newsom resides, and $3 million to upgrade the ballpark used by the San Jose Giants minor league team in Santa Clara County.

In total, these earmarks — inserted with minimal explanation and almost no public notice — amounted to $1.3 billion. Notably, a disproportionate share of the money flowed to some of the state’s wealthiest communities, including Marin County and Santa Barbara, while many lower-income areas saw their funding requests passed over.

Separately, another CalMatters report by Yu and reporter Juliet Williams detailed findings from the High-Speed Rail Authority’s inspector general, who identified nearly $600,000 in questionable travel expenses racked up over a two-year span. The spending reportedly included trips to gyms, a nightclub, an escape room, a tiki bar and a cigar lounge — expenditures the report said had no clear connection to official state business.

“Paying for travel when it is not necessary or when it exceeds what is allowed by state regulations or the contract terms is waste of public funds and is behavior inconsistent with the Authority’s role as the steward of public resources,” investigators wrote.

It’s worth remembering that the rail authority, whose board members are appointed by the governor, is overseeing a multibillion-dollar bullet train project that remains far from finished, with cost estimates that have ballooned well beyond original projections.

Taken together, these three stories — surfacing within days of each other purely by chance — paint an uncomfortable picture: state leaders are holding back money meant for California’s schoolchildren even as taxpayer funds flow toward pet projects and travel expenses with little oversight.

In political circles, there’s a term for that kind of contrast. They call it bad optics.

Original source: CalMatters

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