The exhibit, titled “Help Wanted/Leave Now,” examines the mass deportation campaign carried out under President Eisenhower in 1954 and 1955 — an operation historians say removed roughly one million people, mostly from Latino communities across the Southwest, and remains the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. The federal government at the time gave the campaign an official name using a racial slur against Mexican immigrants.

The idea for the exhibit came from Pablo Espinoza, a former television journalist and Capitol staffer who now sits on the California Museum’s board. Years ago, while touring the museum’s exhibit on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans with his son, Espinoza had a realization: he wanted to use that same kind of storytelling to document the 1950s deportation campaign, a piece of history he felt had largely been forgotten.

Espinoza, who immigrated from Ecuador on a student visa before building a career in Spanish-language television and later working for the Assembly Speaker’s office, said he believed he could easily have been swept up in the 1950s raids had he been living in California at the time.

“That could have happened to me. That could have happened to my son. We look the part,” he said.

For years, the timing never felt right to pitch the exhibit. Now, museum officials say, it couldn’t be more relevant.

The exhibit pairs video testimony from people deported in the 1950s with accounts from immigrants detained and removed from the country within the past year, drawing striking parallels between the two eras. Visitors will see firsthand accounts of families torn apart, aggressive detentions based on appearance, and federal agents using slurs against the people they were removing — practices that mirror recent reporting on immigration enforcement tactics in Los Angeles, where leaked texts and audio last month revealed agents using similar language during raids.

The Eisenhower-era campaign came about a decade after wartime labor shortages had prompted the federal government to expand the Bracero Program, which brought Mexican workers into the U.S. to fill agricultural jobs. But amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment — echoed decades later in Trump’s own 2024 campaign rhetoric about immigrants “taking jobs” from Americans — officials reversed course and launched sweeping deportation raids. Detainees were often crammed onto ships and trucks under brutal conditions; some died of heatstroke during transport. Today’s immigrant advocates report similarly overcrowded detention facilities with inadequate medical care.

Among the personal stories featured is that of Victor Ochoa, a longtime San Diego artist and activist who was deported as a 7-year-old U.S. citizen in 1954. Ochoa’s mother had urged the family to avoid speaking Spanish in public as deportations intensified, fearing it would draw attention. Federal agents nonetheless showed up at the family’s East Los Angeles home and gave them three days to leave the country voluntarily or face forced removal. Though Ochoa was born in the U.S., his parents were Mexican nationals, and the family chose to leave rather than risk a more violent deportation.

“I remember they scared my mother so much, and she cried after they left,” Ochoa told CalMatters.

The experience shaped the rest of his life, pushing him into decades of activism, including his role in the creation of San Diego’s Chicano Park. He credits the schools he attended in Tijuana with instilling in him a critical perspective on the United States that later influenced his work as a muralist. Ochoa said he now volunteers with groups supporting undocumented immigrants and is troubled by reports of agents detaining parents near San Diego schools, calling the current enforcement climate “more aggressive” than what he witnessed as a child.

The exhibit also features Vilma Palacios, 23, who was detained by immigration agents in June 2025 — just about a week before she was set to begin a nursing job at a hospital in New Orleans. Palacios came to the U.S. at age 6 and spent much of her childhood in Orange County before finishing high school in Louisiana and graduating from Louisiana State University. After spending six months in detention fighting her case, she ultimately agreed to be deported to Honduras.

“They said they were going after criminals and people with records, not people who have dedicated their whole lives to this country and their careers to serving the community. I never thought it would go this far,” she told CalMatters.

Palacios’ story didn’t end in Central America, however. Professional contacts from her nursing career helped her secure a hospital job in British Columbia, where she now lives. She said she views the current crackdown as a loss for the country. “These are good people being deported. There are good people in America who just want to contribute and make the country better, and they’re being sent away.”

Espinoza said his own views on immigration shifted over the years after meeting people who crossed the border simply to support their families, with no realistic path to legal status. In those situations, he said, immigration “isn’t really a choice at all — it exposes the injustice of a system that offers no path to citizenship for people who are economically vulnerable but who provide an important service to this country.”

He hopes the exhibit will move visitors the way the Japanese American incarceration exhibit once moved him and his son, Adrian, who died in 2024 at age 25. The two used to debate politics together, something Espinoza said his son claimed to dislike even though “he was always engaged.”

As the exhibit opens, Espinoza said he keeps thinking of his son. “In the end, I hope people see this with their kids and think, ‘What else can I do?'”

Original source: CalMatters

The post New Exhibit Highlights Californians Caught in Mass Deportation Raids, Decades Apart appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“Help Wanted/Leave Now” opened this week and examines Operation Wetback, the sweeping 1950s deportation campaign carried out under President Dwight Eisenhower, alongside present-day immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump. The exhibit’s title captures the whiplash nature of U.S. immigration policy, which has long welcomed migrant labor in some periods only to expel it aggressively in others.

The display features firsthand video testimony from people swept up in the 1954 deportation effort, paired with accounts from immigrants detained and removed just last year. Among them is Vilma Palacios, who arrived in the United States at age 6 and was deported in 2025. “It was just one person stopping me that changed my whole life,” she says in the exhibit.

Visitors walking through the exhibit are likely to notice uncomfortable similarities between the two eras, including the racially charged rhetoric immigration agents used decades ago and language that continues to surface in enforcement efforts today.

One notable difference lies in how California’s political leadership has responded. In the 1950s, then-Gov. Goodwin Knight supported Eisenhower’s deportation drive, framing it as a way to protect jobs for California residents. In a 1954 letter to the Eisenhower administration, the state’s employment department director wrote, “We congratulate you and we are happy to have been of service during your wetback drive.”

That stands in sharp contrast to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which has taken a far more adversarial stance toward the current federal deportation push.

Pablo Espinoza, a trustee with the California Museum, said the timing of the exhibit is significant, coming as the Trump administration pushes back against the Smithsonian Institution’s portrayal of historical events tied to racism. “I think it’s fantastic that California is leading the way to bring transparency and accountability,” Espinoza said.

The exhibit invites visitors to reflect on how immigration policy has shifted over generations — and how those shifts continue to reshape lives on the ground in California today.

In other news, a hard-fought congressional race is unfolding in San Francisco to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, pitting two self-described progressive Democrats against each other. San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and state Sen. Scott Wiener may share a party label, but their visions for addressing the city’s housing crisis diverge sharply.

Wiener, a leading figure in the pro-housing YIMBY movement, has authored legislation aimed at cutting red tape for new construction and has steered billions of dollars toward affordable housing during his time chairing the Senate budget committee. He argues the state must step in when local governments fail to build enough housing to meet demand.

Chan takes a more cautious approach, having frequently opposed new development projects in San Francisco. She points to the city’s mid-20th-century “urban renewal” efforts in the Fillmore district, which displaced much of the city’s Black community, as a cautionary tale. Chan says her focus is on protecting tenants and small businesses that could be uprooted by new construction.

Meanwhile, a debate is brewing over how California schools should spend $1 billion in annual arts education funding approved by voters through 2022’s Proposition 28. Former Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner, who authored the ballot measure, is opposing Assembly Bill 2440, arguing it would weaken the funding requirements he wrote into law by giving school districts too much flexibility in how the money is spent.

Supporters of the bill counter that it would resolve confusion many districts have faced since Prop. 28 took effect, including mismatches between the state’s definition of arts education and what the measure originally intended. Some school officials have said they fear legal exposure if they misstep in how they allocate the funds — a concern underscored by Beutner’s own lawsuit last year accusing Los Angeles Unified of improperly using Prop. 28 dollars to replace, rather than supplement, existing arts funding.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Decades Apart, Same Fate: California Families Uprooted by Deportation Under Trump and Eisenhower appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

“Help Wanted/Now Leave” opened this week, documenting the 1954-55 federal deportation campaign that swept up an estimated 1 million people, most of them Latino residents of the Southwest. The exhibit’s title references the government’s own name for the operation at the time, which used a racial slur against Mexican immigrants. Museum organizers are pairing that history with video testimony from people detained and deported under President Donald Trump’s current immigration enforcement push — a campaign Trump has said would surpass the scale of the Eisenhower-era sweep.

The idea for the exhibit came from Pablo Espinoza, a member of the California Museum’s board of trustees, who first envisioned it years ago while touring the museum’s exhibit on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans with his son. A former television journalist and Capitol staffer who has spent his career documenting Latino experiences in California, Espinoza said he recognized himself in the history of the 1950s deportations.

“That could have happened to me. That could have happened to my son. We look the part,” he said.

It took years to bring the project to fruition. Now, Espinoza said, the exhibit’s message feels more urgent than he ever anticipated.

The Eisenhower administration’s deportation campaign followed closely on the heels of World War II labor shortages that had prompted the U.S. government to expand the Bracero program, which brought Mexican laborers into the country to fill agricultural and industrial jobs. Within a decade, however, political leaders — including then-California Gov. Goodwin Knight — began casting unauthorized immigrants as competitors for jobs held by American workers, a rationale echoed in Trump’s own campaign rhetoric before his 2024 election victory.

Agents in the 1950s moved quickly, herding people onto trucks and boats bound for Mexico; some deportees died of heat exposure during the journey. Today, immigrant advocates say detainees are often held in overcrowded facilities without adequate medical care. Then, as now, witnesses have described immigration sweeps that targeted people based on how they looked or sounded rather than any specific evidence of legal status. Last month, leaked text messages and audio recordings revealed present-day immigration agents in Los Angeles using slurs strikingly similar to the language embedded in the 1950s operation’s official name.

Among the personal stories featured in the exhibit is that of Victor Ochoa, a San Diego artist and longtime activist who was deported as a 7-year-old U.S. citizen in 1954. Ochoa recalled his mother urging the family to avoid speaking Spanish in public as deportation raids intensified. Federal agents eventually arrived at their East Los Angeles home and gave the family three days to leave the country voluntarily or be forcibly removed. Though Ochoa had been born in the United States, his parents were Mexican immigrants, and the family chose to leave together rather than risk separation.

“I remember them scaring the hell out of my mom, and she cried after they left,” Ochoa said.

That experience shaped the rest of his life. Ochoa later helped found San Diego’s Chicano Park and has spent decades as a muralist and advocate for immigrant communities. He said recent reports of agents detaining parents near San Diego schools have unsettled him deeply.

“It’s meaner now,” he said, comparing the current crackdown to what his family endured in the 1950s.

The exhibit also highlights a more recent case: Vilma Palacios, a 23-year-old nursing graduate who was detained by immigration agents in June 2025, just days before she was set to begin a new job at a New Orleans hospital. Palacios had come to the United States at age 6 and grew up largely in Orange County before finishing high school in Louisiana and earning her degree from Louisiana State University. After spending six months in detention, she agreed to be deported to Honduras.

“They were saying we’re coming for criminals and people with criminal backgrounds, not people who have dedicated their whole life to the U.S. and their career to serving the community. I never thought it would get to that point,” Palacios said.

Her story didn’t end there — she eventually found work through her nursing network at a hospital in British Columbia, where she now lives. Still, she views her removal as a broader loss.

“These are good people that are being sent back,” she said. “There are good people in the U.S. that just want to contribute and make it better, that are being deported.”

For Espinoza, who came to the United States from Ecuador on a student visa before building a career in television news and later at the Assembly Speaker’s Office, the project reflects a personal evolution. He once believed immigrants should simply wait their turn for citizenship, but said his views shifted after meeting people who crossed the border out of necessity, with no realistic legal pathway available to them.

“It isn’t a choice at all, and it highlights the unfairness of an immigration system that doesn’t provide a path to citizenship for folks that are vulnerable economically yet are providing an important service to this country,” he said.

Espinoza said he hopes visitors leave the exhibit the way he did years ago at the Japanese American internment display — moved enough to reflect and act. He often thinks of his son Adrian, who died in 2024 at age 25 and who joined him on that formative museum visit years earlier.

“In the end I’m hoping maybe people see this with their children and then think, ‘What else can I do?'” Espinoza said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Decades Apart, Californians Describe Being Caught in Immigration Raids appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

When most people picture the intersection of mental illness and homelessness, they imagine the most visible and severe cases — individuals living outdoors in the throes of untreated psychosis. But according to a new report from CalMatters, the far more common conditions among unhoused Californians are quieter struggles: depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

These conditions may not draw the same attention, but they can be just as disabling, often standing in the way of someone’s ability to secure stable housing. Filling out paperwork, making phone calls, and keeping appointments — tasks essential to escaping homelessness — can feel impossible for someone battling severe anxiety or trauma.

Complicating matters further, many unhoused residents simply can’t access traditional mental health care. Getting to a clinic, keeping a standing appointment, or navigating a health care system built for people with stable addresses is often out of reach.

In response, a growing number of therapists across the state have taken a different approach: meeting patients exactly where they are.

“You can find me on the riverbed, you can find me in a tent,” said Lisette Carmona, a Los Angeles-based therapist who conducts sessions wherever her patients feel safe. “Wherever the patient is comfortable, that’s where I’m conducting their therapy.”

That kind of flexibility has proven transformative for people like Jessica Scott, a 35-year-old Sacramento resident who once found the process of seeking housing paralyzing. Scott said her anxiety was so severe that simply scheduling appointments could trigger panic attacks. While living out of her stepfather’s car, she began working with a therapist who taught her grounding techniques to manage her symptoms. A few weeks ago, that progress culminated in a major milestone — Scott moved into her own apartment.

“When you’re panicking so much that you can’t really talk to people, it’s difficult to do anything,” Scott said.

Despite the clear benefits, this kind of street-based therapy remains scarce. Doctors, nurses and clinicians interviewed by CalMatters estimate that between 80% and 90% of their homeless patients are living with a mental health condition that could be treated with therapy — most commonly depression, anxiety or PTSD. Yet one street psychiatrist told reporters his team is able to reach only about 5% of the patients who could benefit from such care, underscoring how far the need outpaces available resources.

—

**Also in California news this week:**

State lawmakers are weighing a bill that would let insurance companies offer discounts to drivers who agree to have their driving habits tracked through in-car “telematics” technology — devices that can record speed, location, braking patterns and swerving. Supporters say the trade-off could reward safe drivers with lower premiums, but privacy advocates and some regulators warn it opens the door to expanded surveillance with limited oversight. A deputy state insurance commissioner cautioned in a letter to legislators that the proposal could create “broad liability loopholes” and shift regulatory responsibility onto private telematics vendors.

Separately, a CalMatters investigation into California’s public colleges and universities found inconsistent compliance with state laws requiring campus police departments to disclose military-grade equipment. Reporters combed through records from all 148 UC, CSU and community college campuses and found stockpiles that included hundreds of semi-automatic rifles and vast quantities of ammunition. Several campuses failed to hold legally required public forums on the equipment, while others — including San Jose State — reported owning gear, such as tear gas grenades, not authorized under system-wide policy.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Homeless Californians Find Healing Wherever Therapists Can Reach Them appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The issue drew dozens of public employees to a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, where they urged support for legislation that would set stronger statewide standards for telework and give individual agencies more room to decide when in-person work is necessary.

The Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee advanced the bill on a 4-1 vote. The measure would not directly block Newsom’s return-to-office directive, which the governor has said is intended to improve accountability, strengthen government services and help revive downtown Sacramento.

Instead, the proposal by Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-Milpitas, would require state agencies to evaluate telework options and justify in writing when employees must come into the office. It also would direct the Department of General Services to create a public dashboard showing the costs, savings and other effects of state telework programs.

Lee and supporters pointed to a 2024 state audit that found remote work could save California money while reducing pollution and improving productivity and employee morale. Supporters also argued that forcing office workers back to cubicles is not a responsible solution for struggling downtown economies.

“As we grapple with the affordability crisis, we want to make sure that our downtowns and urban cores are not places where workers have to be, but where workers want to be,” Lee told the committee. “It’s not fair to shackle our office workers to be the entire bedrock for downtowns.”

The debate has implications across California, including for state employees who live in Southern California and the Inland Empire and may face long commutes to regional offices or state facilities. Telework became widespread in state government during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it did in many private workplaces.

Newsom began pushing state workers back to offices in 2024, first requiring two in-office days per week. His administration later increased the requirement to four days. A four-day mandate had been expected to take effect last year for some workers, but the governor delayed it for certain unions during labor talks as part of an effort to reduce payroll costs.

State employee unions, with the exception of those representing public safety workers, are backing Lee’s bill. Supporters include SEIU Local 1000, the largest state worker union, which is currently negotiating a contract with the Newsom administration. According to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database, the union has contributed at least $2 million to current California lawmakers.

At Wednesday’s hearing, workers said many state jobs can be done effectively from home and that departments have already invested heavily in digital systems. One employee with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation said the department had spent years and millions of dollars moving away from paper-based work and argued that pesticide evaluations do not require a permanent office presence.

In a separate development affecting public employees, California health plans serving government workers will not be required to expand coverage for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. A provision that would have required CalPERS to provide the benefit to its 1.3 million members was removed from legislation this week after the pension fund and a health insurer warned it could raise premiums and cost taxpayers about $187 million annually.

Original source: CalMatters

The post State Employees Push Back on Newsom’s Return-to-Office Order appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The awards, presented by the Sacramento Press Club, honor political and public policy reporting from across California.

Reporter Byrhonda Lyons won the impact in journalism award for her investigation into how the California Department of Motor Vehicles handled surplus proceeds from auctioned vehicles. Her reporting found that the DMV collected more than $8 million between 2016 and 2024 from nearly 5,300 vehicle auctions in which cars sold for more than the costs owed, but former owners were not notified that they could be entitled to the remaining money.

CalMatters journalism engineer Mohamed Al Elew followed the investigation by building an online tool that allowed people to search whether their towed vehicle had generated excess proceeds. The DMV later created a similar lookup system.

The reporting also prompted legislative action. In March, state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, cited Lyons’ work when introducing SB 1029, a bill that would require the DMV to notify vehicle owners when surplus funds from a lien sale may be owed to them.

Awards judges called the project a clear example of public service journalism, noting that CalMatters used reporting and public records to uncover money that should have been returned to Californians.

CalMatters investigative reporter Sergio Olmos was among the journalists honored with the courage in journalism award. The Sacramento Press Club recognized reporters who continued covering protests against federal immigration enforcement actions in Los Angeles in 2025 despite being struck, detained or otherwise targeted.

The award included journalists whose experiences were referenced in legal action filed by the Los Angeles Press Club and Status Coup against the Los Angeles Police Department. The lawsuit alleged that officers targeted journalists even when they were clearly identified as members of the press. A court later issued an injunction barring law enforcement from interfering with journalists doing their jobs.

Olmos was included after he was hit in the chest by a crowd-control munition while reporting on an immigration protest in downtown Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. He told The Washington Post he was wearing a press pass and recording video near a federal building complex when LAPD officers fired munitions at demonstrators. Olmos said he believed he was struck by a 40 mm sponge grenade.

Over the past year, Olmos has reported extensively on immigration raids in California. His investigative series examined the conduct of immigration agents from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, and later in Chicago and Minneapolis, documenting allegations of forceful tactics and questionable detentions that courts have said likely violated constitutional protections.

Anat Rubin won in the criminal justice reporting category for “The Man Who Unsolved a Murder,” an investigation into the shortage of investigators working with public defense teams in California. The reporting found that low-income defendants, who make up at least 80% of people charged with crimes, are often convicted without anyone independently investigating the allegations against them.

Rubin’s work showed that nearly half of California’s 58 counties do not employ full-time public defense investigators. In counties that do have them, access varies widely and is often insufficient.

Judges praised the project for its reporting and writing, saying it clearly showed the consequences of inadequate investigative support for defendants. They also noted the reporting on the risks of relying on flat-fee defense attorneys instead of public defenders.

CalMatters reporter Joe Garcia was a finalist in the same category for reporting from inside California’s prison system. His work examined the realities of shared prison cells and the state’s parole process, including how rehabilitative programming has expanded while the share of prisoners found suitable for parole has gradually declined.

In public health reporting, Jocelyn Wiener, Marisa Kendall and Erica Yee won for an eight-part series on California’s CARE Court program. The program allows family members, first responders and others to petition courts to help people with severe mental illness obtain treatment, and in some cases gives judges authority to order care.

The series examined how the program has worked in practice, including the experiences of families trying to get loved ones off the streets and into psychiatric treatment, and the legal limits courts face when handling petitions. Judges said the reporting explained how the law’s original goals were weakened during the legislative process and why the program has struggled to deliver on its promises.

Adam Echelman won in education reporting for his coverage of financial aid fraud in California’s community college system. His reporting found that colleges were seeing unprecedented levels of fraud, with scammers stealing millions more in student aid than in any prior period, according to reports colleges submitted to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

Following the CalMatters reporting, Republican members of Congress called for a federal investigation, a Democratic state lawmaker requested a state audit and the chancellor’s office approved a new identification verification policy for students. Jory Hadsell, an executive in technology initiatives for the chancellor’s office, said colleges have become more aggressive in detecting fraud through improved filtering practices and new software.

Judges said Echelman’s coverage combined deep reporting, data and the voices of people affected by the fraud, while underscoring the stakes for students, faculty, staff and taxpayers.

Original source: CalMatters

The post CalMatters Earns Golden State Journalism Awards Praise for Public Service Reporting appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In a video statement, Newsom said federal agents have recently contacted family friends and former employees as part of what he characterized as an open-ended search for wrongdoing.

“In recent days, federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees,” Newsom said. “Not because they found a crime, but because they simply are trying to find one.”

Newsom said he believes he has been placed on what he called Trump’s political “hit list,” alongside figures such as former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee.

A person in the Department of Justice familiar with the matter said at least two criminal investigations involving Newsom have been underway for about a year in the Eastern District of California. According to that person, the inquiries stemmed from whistleblowers and people in Sacramento and involve questions related to Siebel Newsom’s taxes, as well as a separate investigation connected to Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson.

Williamson pleaded guilty in May in a corruption case that has not implicated the governor. She had been indicted on wire fraud charges tied to allegations that money was routed from a dormant campaign account belonging to Xavier Becerra, the former Biden administration health secretary and a leading candidate to succeed Newsom as governor.

Newsom’s office pushed back sharply on the federal activity, saying prosecutors turned their attention to the governor and his family after failing to find evidence tying him to the Williamson case. The governor’s office said investigators have asked about private matters involving the Newsom family, including the couple’s marriage.

The governor alleged that federal agents are seeking records and misusing the grand jury process by combing through years of documents. Newsom’s office said neither he nor Siebel Newsom has received a subpoena, though the office said the governor “looks forward” to receiving any such request.

Officials in Newsom’s office also told reporters that the specificity of some investigators’ questions has led them to believe federal agents may have subpoenaed financial records for businesses tied to the Newsoms.

Before becoming governor, Newsom built the PlumpJack hospitality business, which he has placed in a blind trust. Siebel Newsom is a filmmaker and leads the California Partners Project and the Representation Project, nonprofit organizations focused on gender equity and representation.

Disclosure reports filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission show Newsom solicited at least $1.9 million in charitable donations, known as behested payments, in 2024 and 2025 for the California Partners Project. The donations included $1 million from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Newsom’s office said federal agents have contacted more than a dozen people and organizations connected to the couple, including friends, former employees, business associates, donors and affiliated groups. The office did not identify those contacted.

The governor’s accusations were made in a strongly worded video but did not include direct evidence that Trump personally ordered or directed the federal inquiries. Newsom’s office maintains that the Justice Department is seeking a new allegation after the Williamson investigation, which began during the Biden administration, did not implicate the governor.

Matthew Rowan, an attorney for Williamson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The White House referred questions about Newsom’s remarks to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“You can subpoena my records. You can investigate me. You can harass me. Put my name on any and every enemies list that you have,” Newsom said. “But leave my wife and family out of your personal vendetta!”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Says DOJ Interviews With Friends Signal He’s on Trump’s ‘Hit List’ appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Assembly Bill 1751, carried by Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Fullerton Democrat whose district includes parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties, would remove certain regulatory barriers for townhouse construction. The measure is intended to speed approval of tightly built, multistory homes, a housing type often seen as a middle ground between single-family houses and large apartment projects.

In exchange for that streamlined approval, developers would have to pay construction workers at least $28 an hour. That is well above California’s current statewide minimum wage of $16.90.

But the proposed wage floor has drawn fierce opposition from the State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents skilled trades such as electricians, plumbers and sheet metal workers. The council argues the bill could weaken higher wage standards already in place for many union workers on public or publicly supported projects.

At the center of the dispute is the concept of “prevailing wage,” a government-set pay rate that applies to many publicly funded construction projects, including a number of affordable housing developments. Prevailing wages are calculated through surveys of what workers in specific trades earn in different regions. Because union contracts often cover large numbers of workers, union pay scales can help establish those prevailing rates.

Quirk-Silva has insisted that her bill would not alter those standards.

“It does not replace prevailing wage,” she said during a tense Assembly floor debate earlier this month. “It does not undercut prevailing wage. This bill leaves prevailing wage exactly where it stands in current law.”

The building trades remain unconvinced. Their concern is partly technical: while the bill says California regulators could not use the new $28 wage standard when calculating state prevailing wages, federal officials conduct their own surveys and set their own rates for federally supported projects. Union leaders worry that if enough townhouse construction jobs are paid at $28 an hour, that lower rate could influence federal prevailing wage calculations.

Their broader objection is about precedent. For years, the building trades have pushed back against housing bills that ease development rules unless they include strong labor protections, such as prevailing wage requirements or “skilled and trained” workforce mandates that favor graduates of apprenticeship programs, most of whom are union members.

AB 1751 offers a different model: a required minimum wage that is far lower than what many skilled union tradespeople already earn.

Chris Hannan, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council, said that approach could become the new standard in future housing legislation. If lawmakers begin treating a construction minimum wage as the labor concession needed to win support for development streamlining, he said, “that becomes the new go-to.”

On the other side of the fight are California’s unionized carpenters, who support the proposed wage standard. The rivalry between the carpenters and the building trades has become a recurring feature of housing debates in Sacramento.

The two labor groups clashed over a similar proposal last year, when Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat and longtime ally of the carpenters, sought to include a residential construction wage floor of $28 to $40 an hour in a budget bill near the end of the fiscal year. The carpenters argued then, as now, that most workers building housing in California are not represented by unions, except on high-rise projects that require more specialized labor. A higher minimum wage, they said, would improve standards for those nonunion workers.

The building trades reacted strongly to that proposal. Union members packed a budget hearing to denounce the idea, saying it would mark a retreat from California’s traditional labor standards. One representative compared the measure to “Jim Crow” laws. The proposal was ultimately dropped after several labor-friendly Democrats expressed concern.

This year’s version has gone through a more public legislative process, though opponents still argue it has moved too quickly. When AB 1751 was introduced in February, it dealt only with townhouse regulations. The wage language was added in late April before the bill’s second committee hearing.

Quirk-Silva’s staff declined to make her available for an interview, citing personal family matters. On the Assembly floor, she said the timing was partly affected by serious health issues involving staff and family members.

Since the wage language was added, debate over the bill has centered almost entirely on labor. That is notable because the measure would also exempt townhouse projects from environmental review and remove local elected city councils and planning boards from parts of the approval process. In past years, that kind of land-use shift would likely have triggered a major Capitol battle on its own.

But California’s housing politics have changed rapidly. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law exempting most urban infill housing developments from environmental litigation, reducing some of the political shock around proposals that limit local review.

During an Assembly floor vote last month, Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat, called the wage issue the “900-pound gorilla.” Like several Democrats, Ward said he generally supported the housing goals of the bill but remained concerned about unanswered questions over how the $28 rate might interact with existing labor standards.

The bill needed 41 votes in the 80-member Assembly to advance to the Senate. It passed with 47.

Quirk-Silva’s office attempted to address the prevailing wage concern by writing into the bill that the California Department of Industrial Relations could not use the $28 townhouse wage when calculating state prevailing wage rates. Those rates are based on the most common pay for each type of work in each region.

The building trades say that does not solve the federal issue. For example, the current federal prevailing wage for a residential roofer in Sacramento is $46.73 an hour, plus benefits. Federal officials base those numbers on the most common wage paid in an area, or on the regional average if no single rate covers at least 30% of surveyed workers.

Scott Wetch, a lobbyist for unions affiliated with the building trades, warned at an April hearing that federal officials would not be bound by the California bill’s language.

“The federal government won’t give a rat’s ass about what this bill says,” Wetch said. “And they will set the prevailing wage rate for all the crafts at $28.”

Kevin Duncan, an economist at Colorado State University Pueblo who has studied how prevailing wage rules affect construction costs, said the trades’ concern is not baseless. In a smaller market with limited union presence, he said, a large number of contractors paying workers exactly $28 an hour could potentially influence a wage survey.

“That would be the prevailing rate — and with zero benefits,” Duncan said.

Supporters of AB 1751 say that scenario is unlikely. They argue the bill applies to a specific category of townhouse construction and would not generate enough federally relevant wage data to substantially change prevailing wage rates. They also contend that few residential roofers work on federal public works projects in Sacramento or elsewhere in California.

Most roofers on privately funded residential projects are nonunion and many earn less than $28 an hour, said Danny Curtin, director of the California Council of Carpenters. Raising the floor for those workers, he argued, should not be portrayed as a threat to higher-paid union trades.

The claim that a $28 minimum wage would pull other workers’ pay down “defies comprehension,” Curtin said.

Original source: CalMatters

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Voters should confirm their registration status, look over their ballot information and check the latest guidance from the Sacramento County elections office for details on voting options, ballot return procedures and in-person voting locations.

Residents can also consult the California Secretary of State’s office for statewide election information, including registration resources and official voter guidance.

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The number of monthly clients has risen to 310,000, more than double the number of people the food bank served before the pandemic, spokesperson Kevin Buffalino said. 

So it was a blow this month, he said, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture halted hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds for food banks. Caught up in the freeze were 11 truckloads of food – 400,000 pounds – that the Sacramento food bank was expecting over the next few months. 

A total of 330 truckloads bound for food banks across the state has been suspended, according to the California Association of Food Banks, with no indication of when or if they’ll be delivered. The biggest potential hit is to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, where 90 expected truckloads are in limbo. 

The orders were promised during the Biden administration, which in December announced a bonus round of food orders on top of deliveries the USDA normally makes to food banks. 

The freeze of the bonus orders came as food banks brace for other cuts — both from a new Trump administration intent on reducing federal spending and from California’s own state budget deficit after several flush budget years in the pandemic. In Washington, Congress is also considering cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which sends about $1 billion a month to low-income Californians to buy groceries. 

But food programs are just one of many competing priorities the Democratic-dominated state Legislature will have to balance as California starts to get a picture of how federal cuts may affect the state and its $322 billion budget. California receives more than $314 billion in federal funds for food benefits, health coverage and other social services each year, while federal grants to nonprofits and private contracts total more than $81 billion.

Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said it’s still too early to determine whether California can afford to make up the federal spending being cut.

Already, the food banks association is urging lawmakers not to reduce the state food assistance dollars, but they’ll be jockeying for attention amid a myriad of real and potential federal cuts in everything from higher education to rural road repairs, refugee resettlement services and the massive low-income health program Medicaid.

“These are Sophie’s choices,” said Assemblymember Gregg Hart, a Santa Barbara Democrat who chairs a budget subcommittee that’s evaluating potential federal funding shortfalls. “Every single thing that we could talk about has a federal funding connection that’s in jeopardy and the state just doesn’t have the money to backfill it.”

The demand for food has not slowed

When a persistent foot condition forced Antoinette Turner to retire early last fall from her longtime job on a hospital graveyard shift, she looked for ways to save. 

The 61-year-old was “rationing” her savings and accepting help from her son. For the first time in her life, she started going to the Sacramento food bank. 

On Tuesday morning in a Sacramento church parking lot, she made her way down an assembly line of grocery pallets as volunteers offered canned soup, peanut butter, beans, rice and frozen turkey breasts. Hundreds of people were expected, including retirees, disabled veterans and immigrant families from Russia, Ukraine and Afghanistan who settled in the diverse Sacramento suburbs. 

“It’d be sad,” if the organization had to cut back, Turner said. “It makes my life easier.”

A confluence of cuts could force the food bank to do just that, Buffalino said.

Earlier in March, the USDA terminated a Biden-era grant program that gave food banks and tribal governments money to purchase food from local farmers. 

California food banks have gotten more than $80 million through the program since 2022, with some grants expected to last through mid-2026. They were expecting another $47 million in the program’s next round, before that was cut on March 7, said state Department of Social Services spokesperson Jason Montiel. 

It was unclear why the grant was canceled and the orders halted. USDA officials did not respond to queries sent to the agency’s press email seeking comment. Under Trump, federal agencies have moved to halt or cut grants in a quest to purge waste and spending on programs that don’t meet the administration’s ideological tests.

California, too, is slated to reduce food banks’ funding. For several years when the state had a record surplus, it devoted millions of additional dollars to a state program called CalFood that allows food banks to purchase from local farmers or food producers such as tortillerias. 

Those boosts gave food banks about $60 million a year through CalFood over the past three years; in the budget Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed for the fiscal year that starts in July, that funding would revert to $8 million. 

California food banks depend on aid

The federal and state food-purchasing funds have made up the majority of the $3.5 million the Sacramento food bank spends to buy food annually, Buffalino said. 

Purchased food makes up 40% of the groceries the food bank gives away; the rest is delivered by the USDA or recovered from supermarkets that can no longer sell it. 

With sharp reductions in both purchasing funds, Buffalino said the Sacramento food bank will either have to rely more heavily on private donations or cut back on how much it gives each recipient. 

Though demand at the food bank receded slightly as jobs started to recover from the pandemic, clients quickly came back because of inflation, Buffalino said. Food prices last year were nearly 24% higher than in 2020.

“It’s been a steady increase (in clients) over the past five years,” he said. 

Farmers, too, will be affected by the grants’ cancellation. 

The federal food-purchasing funds have allowed small farmers to buy new equipment, invest in greenhouses and expand their footprints to serve bulk buyers, said Megan Kenney of the North Coast Growers Association in Humboldt County. 

Kenney coordinates food orders between two regional food banks and about 40 farmers, all of whom plant fewer than 100 acres each. Over the winter, she and the farmers planned what they would plant based on food bank demand, expecting federal funds to back the purchases. 

“They were encouraged to do these sorts of things,” Kenney said. “If they have to make a larger investment into seeds or labor without getting to see a return, they could really see that impact.”

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