California lawmakers approved a temporary lifeline for hundreds of small farmers after the Trump administration ended a federal program that helped connect local farms with schools, food banks and other community organizations. 

Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a state budget that includes $15 million to keep the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program operating for another year. The Biden-era program helped schools, food banks and other organizations buy fresh food directly from small farms before it was eliminated earlier this year. 

The Trump administration said it ended the program because it was considered as a temporary pandemic-era initiative that no longer aligned with current priorities.  

The state funding replaces the lost federal dollars for one year while advocates push Congress to restore long-term funding in the next federal farm bill. 

The program has become an important way for Yolo County farmers to keep locally grown food in the community. 

From the fields to local classrooms 

Jim Knight never planned on becoming an apricot farmer. 

He was told the apricot trees on his property were dead when he moved to Esparto several years ago. They turned out to be Royal Blenheim apricots, which are a rare heirloom variety prized for its flavor but too delicate to survive shipping to most grocery stores. 

The Polestar Farm owner now sells much of his harvest to nearby schools. 

“You can’t get ripe apricots anywhere except on a farm stand because you have to pick it too green to really have that taste,” he said. “So they call me and I can pick it a day or so before and get it to them and they use it within three days. So the kids are getting all this fresh fruit and it’s amazing. And that wouldn’t happen without the support.” 

Polestar Farm owner Jim Knight Monday, June 29, 2026, in Esparto.(Chris Felts/CapRadio News)

Knight said his farm has also helped teach students valuable life skills. He has several local high school students pick fruit early in the morning during harvest season. 

The former educator said one student even used her earnings to fund a Future Farmers of America livestock project.

“It’s enjoyable to be able to work with the high school,” he said. “Being an administrator and a teacher, I love bringing the school into it.” 

Knight worries losing a program like LFPA could mean fewer opportunities like these as small farms operating on tight margins continue to disappear. 

“We’re losing small farms right and left,” he said. “The federal support is not what it could be.” 

A recent USDA report found that California lost 400 farms last year alone. 

A lifeline for small farmers 

Beth Smoker is the policy director for the California Food and Farming Network and said one of the program’s biggest benefits was giving farmers the confidence to plan future crops. 

“They were able to do very real crop planning knowing that they would then have a market to buy that produce,” Smoker said. “So it was really stable.” 

Smoker said the program strengthened regional food systems by helping farmers, food banks and schools rely less on national supply chains and more on food grown nearby. 

One example she highlighted was Hmong farmers growing culturally familiar produce that were able to reach Hmong community members through local food banks.

“Food is more than just calories,” Smoker said. “It is nutrients that feed you culturally as well.” 

Jamie Fanous with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers said the program’s impact extends beyond agriculture, noting that every dollar spent on a small farm generates roughly two dollars in the local economy. 

“They’re spending money at the local hardware store, they’re buying boxes down the street for packing these weekly food boxes,” she said. “So it does have a tremendous impact on rural economies that you don’t really see with many programs and that’s what really made this special.” 

Fanous said over 800 California farmers participated in the program helping supply food to roughly 50 food banks across the state. 

Food insecurity remains high 

The program also became an important source of fresh food for Californians experiencing food insecurity. 

Smoker said food banks continue serving high numbers of families years after the pandemic and that she expects demand to increase as federal changes reduce access to food assistance programs. 

“Hundreds of thousands of people are being unenrolled from CalFresh due to those cuts and they’ll still be hungry,” Smoker said. “So they’ll be turning to their local food banks.” 

A 2024 Yolo County Food Bank survey found roughly one in three county households experience food insecurity with higher rates in rural communities like Esparto. 

Yolo County Supervisor Angel Barajas said the county continues investing in food bank partnerships to help families in need. 

“That’s been a partnership for many years and it’s continuing,” he stressed. “So we’re still investing some funding for those families in great need.” 

A temporary solution 

Stephen Gordon’s Cadena Farm in Esparto grows citrus, almonds, corn and other crops. He said roughly 5% of his annual production is sold through LFPA partnerships with local food hubs. 

But Gordon said losing that reliable income makes it much harder for small farms to compete. 

“If I have all this citrus and I’m already moving that much weight in one year and then I have the same amount the next year and we can’t move the same, then where is it supposed to go?” Gordon said. “If we’re not pushing it locally then we’re pushing it commercially, which is not nearly as much as far as your bottom dollar is concerned. We can’t compete with that.” 

Earlier this year, Gordon joined small farm advocates at the State Capitol to ask lawmakers for three years of replacement funding after the federal program ended. 

He met with Democratic Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, whose district includes Esparto. Gordon said she warned them that securing multiple years of funding would be difficult given the state’s ongoing budget challenges. 

“I think Ms. Curry kind of prepared us for that before we left her office,” Gordon said. “That this was a temporary band-aid to a future fight.” 

Advocates say Newsom’s budget provides an important bridge but they hope Congress restores permanent federal funding in the next farm bill. 

But Gordon said the uncertainty around future funding — at the state or federal level — makes it difficult for small farms to plan beyond the next growing season. 

“I can go down to the Capitol all I want, but at the end of the day, is my voice being heard enough and loud enough?” Gordon said. “I don’t know. In the meantime, we’ll just keep trying.”

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Twelve states challenged Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday, filing a lawsuit that argues the $81 billion mega merger would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and threaten jobs across the industry.

The office of California’s attorney general, who is leading the case, said the states are asking Warner and Paramount to not close their merger “until after the judicial process concludes” — and if the companies do not agree, the coalition will then file a temporary restraining order.

“The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

The additional states joining the suit include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.

Skydance-owned Paramount said Monday's lawsuit “distorts settled antitrust law” and maintained its merger would create a "stronger competitor against dominant streaming and technology platforms who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition and jobs in the entertainment industry.”

The company vowed to “vigorously defend” the transaction. Warner deferred to Paramount for comment.

Where Paramount's takeover of Warner stands

A Paramount-Warner combo would mean putting HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like “Harry Potter” and even CNN under the same roof with CBS, “Top Gun” and the Paramount+ streaming service.

The states’ lawsuit could throw a wrench in those plans, at least for now. The antitrust case arrives at a pivotal time for the Paramount-Warner transaction — which, after months of what became a very public bidding war with Netflix, received shareholders’ stamp of approval in April and then a blessing from the Trump administration just last month.

The U.S. Justice Department isn’t challenging the deal — and instead released an unusually lengthy statement in support, maintaining a Paramount-Warner combo would “increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, with benefits for American consumers and workers.”

Paramount has touted additional regulatory clearances it says it’s received in a handful of other countries, including China, Canada and Australia. But other reviews remain in progress, including in the European Union and the U.K. — which has separately suggested it may intervene.

Paramount and Warner previously said they hoped to close their deal sometime in the third quarter of this year, signaling recently an effort to complete process in the coming weeks. The clock is ticking. Paramount pledged to give shareholders some compensation if the acquisition doesn’t close by Sept. 30 — in the form of a 25-cent per share “ticking fee” for every quarter past that date. It’s also agreed to a regulatory termination fee of $7 billion.

Including debt, Paramount’s proposed purchase of Warner is valued at nearly $111 billion (or $31 per share) based on current outstanding shares.

Critics of the deal, and Paramount's response

Warner and Paramount argue that merging will be good for growth in the industry and give consumers access to more content, particularly if HBO Max and Paramount+ libraries are combined. But critics have decried what further consolidation could mean in an industry already controlled by just a few major players.

Thousands of actors, directors, writers and other industry professionals have voiced “unequivocal opposition” to the Paramount deal, arguing that further consolidation will lead to job losses and fewer choices for filmmakers and movie goers. Meanwhile, Paramount on Monday argued that delaying the merger "will only harm entertainment workers who have already suffered over recent years as technology has disrupted their livelihood and cost California tens of thousands of entertainment jobs."

Questions of political influence have also piled up. Democrats in particular have expressed skepticism about whether regulators working under President Donald Trump would scrutinize the deal as heavily.

The Justice Department maintained that politics would not play a role in the regulatory process — but Trump himself has publicly waded into Warner’s future at times, despite backpedaling on what he once suggested his personal role would be. The Republican president also has a close relationship with the Ellison family, particularly Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is putting billions of dollars on the table to back the bid for his son’s company.

Many eyes are on CNN, a network that has long attracted ire from Trump and his allies. Paramount’s CBS has already seen significant turmoil and shifts in editorial leadership since coming under Skydance ownership last — and if Warner merger goes through, the reach of that could grow. Several Trump administration officials have been far from shy from sharing their hopes for CNN under Paramount ownership, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth telling reporters in March that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

Update 2 p.m. Friday July 10.

The California Department of Education (CDE) building in Sacramento will get a full treatment for bed bugs at the request of State Superintendent Tony Thurmond following over a month of complaints from employees.

Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Abel Guillén sent an email to CDE staff July 9 at 3:36 p.m confirming the Department of General Services (DGS), which manages the building, has agreed to a full pest control treatment to  “ensure that any infestations are eradicated.”

DGS has contracted EagleShield, which had only recommended a localized treatment, to begin treating the full building as soon as Friday, July 10. 

“The treatment process is anticipated to take approximately one day per floor, and the entire building will need to be vacated during treatment,” the email read.

Another independent pest control vendor, All Day West, has been contracted to do additional inspections and treatment recommendations. Both vendors will utilize a variety of inspection methods including dogs which have already indicated more treatment is needed. 

In the email, Guillén noted to staff additional treatments would not guarantee bed bugs from being reintroduced in the future. Employees are expected to work remotely until July 27 at the earliest. 

Original story:

Bed bugs continue to be a problem for employees at the California Department of Education (CDE) who say the building at 1430 N St. in Sacramento has been infested.

“I saw with my own eyes at least 50 bugs,” said Gina Garcia-Smith, an education programs consultant at CDE. 

Garcia-Smith said what began as an isolated incident in one area of the building has now spread to multiple floors, causing widespread anxiety about working conditions among staff, forcing them to work entirely remotely until at least July 13. It comes as state workers are beginning to return to the office following Governor Gavin Newsom’s mandate, which has been met with intense pushback.

The department isn't under the RTO mandate and is still hybrid, coming into the office only two days a week. But a recent bill pushed through the legislature placing CDE under the Governor’s control could change that, potentially exposing more workers.

“When you are a leader, you have a responsibility to make sure that your employees are safe in the office and not be on their hands and knees with a flashlight,” Garcia-Smith said. 

Service Employees International Union Local 1000 (SEIU), which represents 96,000 state workers, released a statement saying exposure to bed bugs risks workers having to replace their belongings or pay out of pocket to fumigate their own homes.

“California's affordability crisis is already crushing state workers, and now unsafe worksites threaten to pile on more unexpected costs,” said Anica Walls, SEIU Local 1000 President.

In a statement to CapRadio, the Department of General Services (DGS), which manages the building, acknowledged the presence of bed bugs but denied there was an infestation.

“When DGS was notified of the presence of bedbugs at the building, we acted immediately,” the statement said. “The building was closed to allow for a thorough inspection and implementation of industry standards by subject matter experts that help with the eradication of the bed bugs. All areas were inspected, and areas were treated as recommended by the subject matter experts.”

On June 3, two bed bugs were seen in an employee’s cubicle on the third floor. CDE leadership was immediately notified, according to Garcia-Smith. 

An internal email was sent later that day asking all employees to work remotely for the rest of the day out of an abundance of caution “given the past history of the building.” The CDE headquarters had previously been the site of a possible infestation back in 2024.

The next day on June 4, staff were informed by DGS that a contracted pest control inspector determined that “no bed bug activity was detected” but a deep cleaning would be done, and the situation would continue to be monitored.

But on June 23, more bed bugs were spotted in a conference room, the same location as the previous sightings back in 2024. Garcia-Smith said it was 15 ft from where the two bugs had been seen weeks prior.

“[Employees] moved the table and pulled up the cord cover and bugs just scattered. Swarms. It was disturbing,” Garcia-Smith said. 

Garcia-Smith described the bugs as a reddish-brown color and “plump.”

“These are bed bugs that have been eating the human blood of my colleagues who have unknowingly been sitting in these chairs, in meetings, and being bitten,” Garcia-Smith said. 

Emily Ingram, an education programs consultant at CDE, said working in a building with bed bugs has taken a toll on everyone’s psyche.

“It kind of gets to your head a bit,” Ingram said. “You start to worry that maybe during the two weeks in June that they told us we had to come back to the office two days a week and that everything was all clear. Well, clearly it wasn't, so did I bring something home during that time?”

The union SEIU Local 1000 filed a formal complaint and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond sent a request to DGS to treat the entire building which hasn’t been done. Ingram and Garcia-Smith said they felt disrespected and betrayed that they are being allowed to work in this environment while DGS “refuses” to treat the building.

DGS stated their pest management consultants didn’t recommend treating the whole building after inspection. 

“Bedbugs are generally pesticide resistant, there is no way to simply spray/fumigate a building – the methods used to treat an office building are more complicated,” DGS said. "We are working with the Department of Education on next steps."

While DGS denies bed bugs are present in other state buildings, workers have highlighted multiple agencies that have other hazardous conditions including the presence of legionella bacteria in the tap water, asbestos, and rats, according to the union.

In 2024, CalMatters reported legionella bacteria, which can lead to pneumonia and cause Legionnaires Disease, had been found in 37 buildings since it began testing in June 2022

“State workers keep California working, and they never should have been forced into offices with unsafe or unsanitary conditions in the first place,” Walls said.

This story was originally published July 2 on EdSource.

This week marked the deadline for California schools to comply with a state law that prohibits the use of culturally insensitive terms for Indigenous groups as school names or mascots. Over two dozen schools are named after Native American tribes, and potentially hundreds use the blacklisted terms for their mascots. 

Across the state, some schools have retired their school or mascot names in compliance with the prohibition, meant to ensure Native American culture is not mocked or misrepresented. Other schools have used an exception to the revised law that allows them to retain names, such as Chieftain or Apache, with the consent of local tribes. 

Whether or not schools keep their mascot names, the California Racial Mascots Act, or Assembly Bill 3074, has been a conversation starter at schools. 

“This is why this is such an important bill — to start this conversation,” Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, D-Santa Clarita, said in 2024 as the revised law moved through the Legislature. “There are people who are really being harmed by it, and that’s why we have to have this conversation. We have to … make sure that that education happens.” 

Updated legislation expands restrictions 

California became the first state in the nation to ban the racial slur Redskins as a school or team name or mascot in 2015 under the initial California Racial Mascots Act. By 2017, schools were prohibited from using the term.

The updated law bans a list of terms for Native Americans, adding to the already-prohibited Redskins and capturing others with language that notes derogatory terms are “not necessarily limited to” those included in the bill.  The list ranges from terms for tribal leaders such as Chief to offensive terms some Native American groups only refer to as the “s-word.” 

Though less than 25,000 of California’s 5.7 million students identify as Native American, according to state data, many report being mocked or feeling isolated due to their school’s stereotypical portrayal of mascots or traditions that claim to honor the group. 

Julia Estrada, one of a few Native American students at Hart High School in Santa Clarita, told state lawmakers in 2024 that she experienced disrespectful behavior from classmates because of the school’s mascot at the time — the Indian. Her peers, with hands over their mouths, would make whooping noises as they came from a teepee during pep rallies, she said. She led a successful yearlong effort to change the mascot in 2020, which hadn’t been the norm.

Several Native American students had petitioned their schools to change their Native American-themed mascot names prior to the 2024 iteration of the law, but were turned down by school boards or administrators, according to Assemblymember James Ramos, D-San Bernardino, the legislation’s coauthor. Growing up on the San Manuel Indian Reservation in San Bernardino County, he said he attended schools that didn’t respect his culture.

“It goes deeper than the name being changed,” he said. “It goes deeper to the person being able to go to a campus, feeling welcome. If you’re going to a school that doesn’t even have respect for the Indian people … how does that individual feel and how are they expected to excel in education?”

Legislation creates conversations

The state law has led some schools to engage Native American groups in decision-making, and educate school communities on American Indian culture, as lawmakers hoped.

Since 2024, when the revised law passed, some schools have discussed with Native American tribes whether to change their names. 

For example, Fullerton High School in Orange County is changing its mascot as a result of a two-year process, the Orange County Register reported. The school attempted to retain the Indian name by seeking approval from tribes. The Native American groups declined and requested that the school change it. 

Fresno Unified School District in the Central Valley changed three school mascots after what it described as a “comprehensive engagement process.” 

The district created a mascot change committee with members of school leadership and its student inclusion and American Indian education departments. The committee conducted surveys of students, families and educators.

“We were especially intentional about listening to our Native American students and families, whose perspectives helped deepen our understanding and guide the process,” said Ryan Duff, principal at the 800-student Tenaya Middle School, which will go from being the Braves to the Titans. 

The 1,400-student Clark Intermediate School in the neighboring Clovis Unified School District was on the verge of changing its mascot as well. Incorporated in 1969 as part of the school’s founding, the Chieftain mascot, adopted as a sign of respect, had a deep history, district spokesperson Kelly Avants said. 

With the legislation specifically naming Chieftain as derogatory, the district had conversations with members of local tribes, students, families and staff about the mascot’s future. Without tribal support to retain the name at first, the district moved forward with plans for an alternative mascot. 

“People understood why the conversation was taking place,” Avants said, “but there was a lot of expression of sadness over saying goodbye to a symbol that has always been meant to celebrate and respect the indigenous culture of our community.”

Generations of families who attended Clark experienced that respect. So, the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, the largest tribe representing Clovis Unified students of Native American descent, authorized the continued use of the name and mascot in December. 

“There are generations of family, community, friends and tribal citizens that attended Clark Intermediate School and are proud to claim Chieftains as their mascot,” a letter from the tribe said. 

The tribe said it recognized Chieftain, a noble leader, as a prideful term, not derogatory. 

“The authorization that was given by this tribe, we feel, carries a great responsibility with it for us to honor that,” Avants said.

Greater ‘responsibility’ to educate students about Native American culture

Tribes have signed off on long-standing school names not only in Clovis Unified but also in Sierra Unified and Sanger Unified, all in Fresno County.

For Sanger High School alumni and educators, the Apache had become a symbol of pride, said Ronnie Scott, the school’s activities director. Derived, in part, from the Lipan Apache Band of Texas, the Apache signified strength, unity, tradition and pride for Sanger High School students, who in 1931 voted for the name. 

Over the years, because of the school’s respectful use of the term, Scott said the tribe has blessed the use of the name at sporting events, both in 2006 and within the last seven years. The North Fork Rancheria tribe, with the Lipan Apache Band, provided written permission for its continued use.

“It gives us honor because you’re doing it in a respectful and honorable way,” said Richard Gonzalez, chief of the Lipan Apache Band tribe.

Following the support, Sanger High raised the Lipan Apache Band flag on campus — the first of many ways the school hopes to further honor the name. According to Scott, Sanger High wants to incorporate lessons about the tribe’s origins and values as well as different symbols, including the flag and its significance. 

Using the Native American names creates a responsibility among schools, Clovis Unified’s Avants said. Already, the district has a Native American parent and community group that meets to discuss ways to ensure students understand the responsibility that comes with having American Indian-themed representation, she said. 

As the legislation takes effect, some schools may continue to struggle with proper depictions of Native Americans. 

The legislation has been an opportunity for tribes and school districts to work together on ways to respect and honor Indigenous groups, Ramos said. Yet, many school districts are still not including the Native American perspective, he said.

“Until we start to unravel that, how are we going to start to move forward?” Ramos said. “I think the whole goal, and that would be my hope, is that we would start to be more inclusive of tribal culture, not against it.”

California is modifying how it pays for preschool by moving the entire California State Preschool Program under the same constitutional funding guarantee that supports students in transitional kindergarten through community college.

It might appear to be a simple shift from one funding bucket to another. But some education advocates say the decision to move all preschool funding under the same funding mechanism for TK-12 schools means financial stability for nonprofits and community colleges that also offer free preschool to eligible 3- and 4-year olds, while critics say the shift could reduce funding available for school districts.

The change gained traction this spring after preschool providers outside school districts raised concerns about enrollment and financial strain, with some pointing to the expansion of transitional kindergarten.

Though they share identical educational standards, California has funded preschool programs differently depending on their operator. School district preschool programs are funded under Prop. 98, which assures schools and community colleges a minimum funding level of roughly 40% of the state’s general fund. Privately operated nonprofit preschools, meanwhile, have been funded from the general fund, which fluctuates with the state’s finances.

Most recently, about $2 billion for preschool programs provided by school districts was covered by the Prop. 98 guarantee, while about $800 million for preschool provided by private nonprofits and community colleges came from the general fund.

“If community-based pre-Ks have a better option of getting Prop. 98 revenue in future years, it’s going to backstop the vitality of the nonprofit sector,” said Bruce Fuller, professor emeritus of education policy at UC Berkeley.

In his final state budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed with that approach, moving the $800 million for nonprofit and community college preschool programs into Prop. 98. The change means the entire California State Preschool Program will now be funded under the state’s constitutional education funding guarantee. The budget also expands eligibility, allowing the children of school district employees to automatically qualify for free preschool.

Opposing perspectives on Prop. 98

While some legislators and preschool advocates argued the change will provide greater financial stability for preschools outside school districts, others warn it could ultimately reduce funding available for K-12 schools and community colleges.

“Including preschool within the existing Proposition 98 allocation would effectively add another grade level to the guarantee without providing the new and necessary resources to support it in an ongoing fashion,” Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, or CSBA, said in a statement.

The state is transferring $800 million from the general fund to Prop. 98 to cover the current cost of nonschool district and community college preschool programs. But Flint said these costs are likely to grow as providers seek higher wages, higher annual cost-of-living adjustments and expanded services.

“As the program grows in the future, either due to expansions or annual (cost-of-living adjustments), we anticipate those costs will exceed the additional funding from the rebench, meaning nonschool-based preschool will eat into other Prop. 98 allocations and leave less money for TK-12 and community college students,” said Flint.

History repeats itself

California voters approved Prop. 98 in 1988, amending the state constitution to guarantee a minimum level of funding each year for K-12 schools and community colleges.

Soon afterward, lawmakers brought subsidized childcare and preschool programs under the Prop. 98 umbrella, where they remained until 2011. During the budget crisis following the financial fallout of the Great Recession, lawmakers removed nonschool district preschool providers from the Prop. 98 guarantee to ease pressure on education spending.

The debate surrounding that decision echoes today’s discussion.

Because Prop. 98 funding is based in part on the previous year’s spending level, removing preschool from the guarantee lowered the program’s funding base. Supporters of the move argued it was necessary during a fiscal crisis, while critics warned it could reduce education funding over the long term.

In the current budget year, different interpretations of why voters opted into Prop. 98 — and whether preschool should be included or not — have continued.

“This latest decision extends a concerning tendency to sidestep the rules of voter-approved Prop. 98,” said Flint, of the school boards association.

Supporters of this shift disagree. Fuller, of UC Berkeley, said returning all preschool funding to the state’s education funding formula is “sound public policy because this is an education function and meets the intent of the voters and language of Prop. 98.”

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Community college students in California could gain access to medication abortion through campus health centers under a proposal that would extend reproductive health services already required at the state’s public universities.

Assembly Bill 2540 would require community colleges with student health centers to offer access to medication abortion beginning in 2029, if the Legislature provides funding. The bill builds on Senate Bill 24, a 2019 law that requires University of California and California State University student health centers to provide medication abortion beginning in 2023.

Supporters say the bill would close an access gap for community college students who may face transportation, cost, privacy or insurance barriers when care is only available off campus. But campus health center directors warn that many community colleges may not have the funding, staffing or clinical capacity to provide the service.

Authored by Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a Democrat from San Francisco, the bill would apply to community colleges with student health centers — estimated at roughly 92 campuses statewide. If the Legislature provides funding, those campuses would have to offer access to abortion by medication techniques beginning in 2029.

“We are closing a critical gap by ensuring that community college students, one of the most diverse and economically vulnerable populations in our state, have the same access to care as their peers at four-year institutions,” Stefani told lawmakers during an Assembly Health Committee hearing in April. 

The bill would also require all campuses to promote awareness of the service, provide information to students and post availability online. The awareness requirement would extend to universities, which were not compelled to publicize medication abortion services under the previous law. 

Community colleges fill healthcare gap for students

“Healthcare is a basic need for any human,” said Stephanie Goldman, executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, a statewide advocacy organization that represents community college faculty and supports AB 2540. “And of course, abortion access and abortion is a healthcare issue.”

Goldman said community colleges increasingly operate under a “whole student” model that goes beyond academics to include food access, housing support, childcare, mental health and healthcare services. Reproductive healthcare access can directly affect whether students are able to remain focused on school, she said.

“It’s helpful that they understand that they have this kind of healthcare on campus and available to them, should they need it,” Goldman said.

Mifepristone and misoprostol at a Wyoming abortion clinic in Casper on March 10, 2025.Natalie Behring/Getty Images

Student leaders backing the bill say community college students often face challenges accessing reproductive healthcare outside campus systems, particularly in rural areas.

“Where you go to school should not determine what access you get just because you went to a community college system versus a four-year system,” said Alisha Nagpal, a student at Folsom Lake College who serves as vice president of legislative affairs for the Student Senate for California Community Colleges.

Nagpal said some community college students live hours away from providers, lack transportation or may not know what health services already exist on campus. She pointed to online-only students, low-income students and undocumented students as groups that may face additional barriers obtaining reproductive healthcare off campus.

Community college health centers vary in size and services

But while supporters frame the bill as a matter of equal access, health center directors say implementing the proposal statewide may be far more complicated than applying the UC and Cal State models.

According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis, the community college health centers “vary widely in structure and capacity, with many operating under limited staffing models or contracting services out to community providers and hospitals.”

The Health Services Association of California Community Colleges, which represents student health programs across the system, opposes the bill. In an April 15 letter to lawmakers, the organization said many community college health centers do not prescribe medication, nor do they have sufficient staffing or the infrastructure needed to provide medication abortion onsite.

Michelle Barkley, president of the association and a nurse at Cosumnes River College, said many community college health centers function more as public health entry points than full-service clinics.

“Some of our campuses have 5,000 students,” Barkley said. “Their health center is run by a single registered nurse.”

Barkley said many campuses currently rely on referrals to outside providers rather than onsite reproductive healthcare services. 

Funding may be a challenge

The bill’s projected cost has become a key point of disagreement between supporters and community college health center directors.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office estimates implementing the bill could cost between $7 million and $27.9 million in one-time startup costs across all 93 community college health centers, plus between $5.6 million and $9.3 million annually to maintain services. Those estimates are not limited to the cost of medication. The appropriations analysis says the expenses could include staffing, training, equipment, telehealth services, billing support and other infrastructure needed for campuses to provide or coordinate care.

Community college health centers may be partially funded through student health fees, though not all campuses charge them. The analysis said most campuses charge an average health fee of about $23 per academic term. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office lists the 2025-26 maximum health services fee at $27 per semester and $22 for summer, intersession or quarter terms.

Supporters of the bill argue the projected costs may overstate the financial burden. According to the committee analysis, Stefani’s office argues medication abortion services could become financially sustainable through Medi-Cal reimbursement, private insurance billing, third-party vendors and telehealth partnerships.

Nagpal pointed to language making the bill contingent on legislative funding, saying community colleges would not be expected to implement the requirement without state support.

“If funding is not provided at community college campuses, there’s no legal expectation for (community colleges) to provide the service,” Nagpal said.

The bill was put on hold in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 6 because of its potential cost. On May 14, the committee advanced the bill on an 11-4 vote after making amendments.

The amendments changed how the bill would apply to community colleges. Earlier language would have required community colleges with student health centers to offer medication abortion onsite, but the amended bill now says campuses must “offer access” to the service beginning in 2029. The bill still allows care to be provided by campus staff, through telehealth or through contracted external agencies, but it now also includes partnerships with community health providers “as appropriate.”

The amendments also broadened what colleges would report to the state, allowing campuses to count services provided through outside healthcare providers instead of only those performed at campus health centers. 

AB 2540 was referred to the Senate Health and Education committees on June 10. After additional amendments, the bill was re-referred July 2 to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers will review its fiscal impact.

The latest amendments further define how community colleges could comply, including through referrals, “warm handoffs,” written partnerships with licensed providers or a statewide provider agreement through the Chancellor’s Office. They also clarify that state funding could support costs such as telehealth, staffing, training, billing support, outreach and reporting.

Andrea Baltodano is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California’s dozens of private gambling halls can continue offering blackjack and other table games after a San Francisco judge ruled last week that Attorney General Rob Bonta overstepped when he tried to ban them.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin ruled that Bonta’s Bureau of Gambling Control didn’t have the legal authority to issue statewide rules severely restricting the games at cardrooms.

The ruling, which followed Darwin’s temporary order in May, is the latest defeat for the state’s casino-owning Native American tribes. They have spent years and tens of millions of dollars unsuccessfully appealing to courts, voters, the Legislature and California regulators to put their only in-state competitors out of the blackjack business.

The tribes contend cardrooms have unscrupulously violated state laws prohibiting anyone but tribal casinos from offering “house-banked,” Las Vegas-style table games including blackjack, the most lucrative. 

Cardroom operators say the ruling once again proves their business model is legal. It also ensures taxes that cities receive from blackjack revenues will continue to support local government services and cardroom jobs.

“For more than a year, we have said this case is about far more than gaming — it is about whether the attorney general and his regulators can bypass the Legislature and unilaterally rewrite decades of established law,” Kyle Kirkland, a Fresno cardroom owner and president of the California Gaming Association, said in a statement. “The court delivered a clear answer: they cannot.”

James May, a spokesperson for California Nations Indian Gaming Association, didn’t return an interview request.

Bonta’s office said in an email that officials were disappointed in the ruling and are reviewing their options.

By: Diana Lambert

This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.

Top Takeaways

• New California laws impact schools after summer break.
• Potential school employees will be vetted more rigorously.
• California schools must limit cellphone use under new law.

When California students return after the summer break, their schools must have at least one gender-neutral bathroom and cellphone policies that limit their use during school hours.

Student identification cards in secondary schools and institutes of higher education will now include the number for a crisis and suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth, and potential school employees will have to go through a more rigorous vetting process in order to be hired.

Four new laws that go into effect on July 1, focus on keeping California students healthy, safe and concentrating on learning, according to legislators.

Preventing child abuse

One new law going into effect is meant to prevent child abuse in schools before it begins.

Senate Bill 848, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Alhambra, builds on state laws protecting children by expanding the background checks of job applicants at schools, and requiring teachers, administrators and students to be trained on how to recognize signs of grooming or potential abuse. 

The law requires school districts, county offices of education, charter and private schools to adopt and post safe-environment and abuse-prevention policies and resources, according to School Services of California Inc., an education consulting company.

District policies must outline standards for employee interactions with other employees, contractors, volunteers and students. They also must prohibit inappropriate electronic and social media communications, according to the bill.

By July 1, the state superintendent of public instruction must provide resources for districts to support age-appropriate instruction on preventing abuse. Parents will be able to opt their child out of the instruction, which will be given annually.

The legislation also broadens the definition of mandated reporters to include school board members, all public and private school employees and some volunteers.

The bill also establishes a statewide data system that tracks substantiated investigations of employee misconduct. The data system will go online by July 1, 2027, and will be accessible to all schools. 

“More than 75% of states have enacted laws to prevent educator sexual misconduct,” Pérez said in her author’s statement. “California has taken significant steps in this area by implementing policy changes to safeguard both students and employees, and enhance transparency. However, several high-profile cases continue to highlight systemic failures and underscore the urgent need for stronger preventative measures and mandates to protect children.” 

The new law is expected to cost the state about $2.5 million, primarily to hire more staff at the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to implement the plan.

Limiting cellphone use

Cellphone restrictions have become increasingly common in California schools, but this school year, every school district, county office of education and charter school must have a policy limiting device use during the school day.

Assembly Bill 3216, renamed the Phone-Free Schools Act, is meant to curb classroom distractions, bullying and addiction to the devices. 

In some schools with cellphone restrictions, students entering a campus or classroom are required to put their phones in an electronic pouch that can only be unlocked by school staff using a special magnet. In other schools, cellphones are turned off and put in lockers in the classroom. More commonly, students are asked to turn off their phones and to put them in their backpacks or pockets during class time.

At least 35 states have enacted laws or policies banning or limiting the use of cellphones in school, according to Ballotpedia.

“We know that excessive smartphone use increases anxiety, depression and other mental health issues — but we have the power to intervene,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement released after he signed the bill in 2024. “This new law will help students focus on academics, social development and the world in front of them, not their screens, when they’re in school.”

A 2024 study by the Association of American Educators in 2024 found that most teachers approve of cellphone bans. The association surveyed 1,517 teachers across the nation and found that 70% ranked cellphone use among their top five concerns. More than half of the teachers surveyed said cellphones are a distraction from learning, while 26% cited mental health concerns for their support of bans.

Requiring gender-neutral bathrooms

Beginning July 1, all California school campuses — except those with only one bathroom for male students and one for female students — are required to have a gender-neutral bathroom.

Senate Bill 760, signed by the governor in 2023, requires that signs identify the designated bathroom as being open to all genders and that it be kept unlocked during school hours.

The purpose of all-gender bathrooms is to allow any student to use a bathroom without shame or stigma, according to California Department of Education guidance to schools. 

“SB 760 is a measure that aims to create a safe and inclusive environment not only for non-binary students, but for all students, by requiring each public school to establish at least one all-gender restroom,” said former Sen. Josh Newman, author of the bill.  

Suicide hotline number on IDs

Student identification cards issued at California public secondary schools and institutions of higher education after July 1 will include the phone number for The Trevor Project, a crisis and suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 14, and the third leading cause of death for 14- to 25-year-olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In today’s political climate, LGBTQ+ students face significant levels of bullying, harassment, and discrimination — negatively impacting their mental health and academic success,” according to Assemblymember Mark González, author of the bill. “AB 727 will provide critical resources to support LGBTQ+ youth in crisis and those who have experienced harassment.”

The California Family Council, a conservative advocacy group, opposed the legislation, saying the mandate poses a threat to religious freedom and parental rights.

“AB 727 disregards the religious convictions of private, faith-based schools by forcing them to promote an LGBTQ advocacy organization that contradicts their values,” according to a statement from the organization. “AB 727 places California’s religious schools in an impossible position — forced to compromise their convictions by promoting an organization that contradicts their values.”

Thousands of state workers reported to work in-person Wednesday as Governor Gavin Newsom’s return to office (RTO) mandate for state employees took effect.

The order, which Newsom issued in March, requires state employees to work in-person four days a week starting July 1, up from the current two day requirement. It sparked pushback, and at times public protest from state workers who argue the mandate will increase traffic conditions, produce more pollution, and hurt employees who do not have reliable childcare options.

“During the summer is a little hard for parents to come back to work full time because we have to figure out what to do with our kids during the day,” said Rosaleen Ortiz de Jesus as she was on her way into work Wednesday morning. 

The California Department of Developmental Services employee says she arrived an hour early to allow herself time as state workers were expected to flood downtown Sacramento, but still had trouble finding parking.

“If I could figure out the child situation and the parking situation, I’m fine coming back to work. Those are the big issues for me,” Ortiz de Jesus added.

Some state workers say they don’t mind returning to the office for the majority of the time, but acknowledge it’ll change road and parking conditions.

“I suspect probably the next couple days, since this is a holiday weekend, next week especially when it’s a full week, that’s when we’ll really start to feel the pinch in terms of the traffic, the parking,” said Eric Merrill, an employee with the California Department of State Hospitals, also on his way into the office.

“I feel the pinch particularly for younger couples who have kids, you know dealing with daycare and now they have to shuffle it around,” Merrill added. “My kids are older so it’s not as bad for me, but I do feel for them.”

Other state workers are concerned their departments will not have the space needed to accommodate a large-scale return to office mandate after the state increased hiring during the pandemic.

“It’s a lot of chaos because seating, preparation, those things they haven't quite figured it all out yet,” said Monica Grimes, an employee with the California Department of Social Services.

In making the case for in-person work, Newsom has argued his RTO mandate will increase productivity and bolster downtown businesses that have struggled since the pandemic.

But many state workers have been publicly pushing back against the return to office mandate in recent weeks including members of SEIU Local 1000, the California Association of Professional Scientists (CAPS), the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG), and the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges, and Hearing Officers in State Employment (CASE).

“I refuse to be disrespected and pushed aside by this administration,” shouted SEIU Local 1000 president Anica Walls at a rally on Wednesday in front of the State Capitol.

The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the administration with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) last month, alleging CalHR refuses to bargain in good faith for failing to consider remote work options. Bargaining representatives say the administration again rejected the union’s remote work and pay proposals during negotiations this week. SEIU Local 1000’s contract expired on July 1.

“Telework is absolutely a negotiable working condition,” Walls told CapRadio. “The state can't simply make a unilateral decision that affects hundreds of thousands of workers without meeting its obligation to bargain.”

CalHR acknowledged the unfair labor practice charge in a statement to CapRadio, but declined to comment on labor negotiations with state worker unions.

“CalHR respects the confidentiality of the bargaining process and does not speak on ongoing negotiations. CalHR remains committed to continuing to negotiate in good faith with SEIU Local 1000. The State has reviewed SEIU Local 1000’s unfair practice charge filing and is responding as appropriate through the PERB process,” said Angela Musallam, a spokesperson for CalHR.

Pending state legislation

By Carolyn Jones, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California can continue its long-held policy of allowing transgender student athletes to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued Tuesday.  

“With this ruling, schools and states like California can continue to adopt inclusive policies that ensure every student is treated with dignity and respect,” Tony Hoang, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality California said. “Inclusive policies are working across the country, including here in California, where transgender young people have participated in school sports for years without incident.”

The court’s 6-3 decision allows – but doesn’t require – states to bar transgender student athletes from playing on girls’ and women’s sports teams, upholding state laws in Idaho and West Virginia. Including California, 23 states let transgender students play on teams that align with their gender identity. That means California and 22 other states that let transgender students play on teams that align with their gender identity can continue to do so.

Proponents of a ban also celebrated the court’s ruling, saying it’s a major step forward in their fight to keep transgender athletes out of girls sports, and it potentially opens the door to restrictions in the future.

“The Supreme Court just delivered a major victory for girls and for common sense,” said Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley Unified school board member who’s running for state superintendent. She added that “California should be leading the nation in protecting girls, not forcing them to surrender their rights … We will continue fighting until every girl has the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.”

California, an epicenter of the LGBTQ rights movement, has long maintained policies that protect transgender students in K-12 schools. The California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees high school sports in the state, also allows transgender students to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity. 

The state is currently fighting at least one lawsuit related to its transgender rights policies. Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Tuesday that his office is reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision to see how it might affect the state’s other lawsuits, particularly as it relates to Title IX, the federal law that prevents sex discrimination in schools.

Meanwhile, he reaffirmed the state’s position on transgender rights. 

“We do remain committed to protecting transgender individuals from discrimination, securing safe, inclusive, welcoming school environments for all students,” Bonta said.

Beyond California, LGBTQ advocates decried the court’s ruling as a blow to transgender peoples’ rights generally, especially in states that currently restrict – or are leaning toward restrictions of – those rights.

“The SCOTUS majority decision furthers the Trump administration’s widespread attack on civil rights protections and continued attempt to erase transgender individuals from society, including through distorted interpretation of law,” said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates. “(We) will continue fighting for trans equality and trans rights.”

Lina Haaga, 15, said she was relieved that California could continue its support of transgender athletes, but she worries about her peers in other states. Haaga, a transgender girl who runs on her school’s track team in Pasadena, said the court’s ruling would lead to an escalation of attacks on transgender people.

“The Supreme Court has a job to uplift core American values – freedom, fairness, integrity, acceptance,” Haaga said. “They’ve ignored those values today. They’ve chosen their own personal beliefs over the lives of trans kids.”

Bullying and bigoted attacks are already too common for transgender youth, Haaga said. Haaga recently defeated her sister in a school track meet, and was assailed online when the story spread through conservative media outlets. She wrote a piece for the Guardian about the experience, which she described as brutal and devastating.

She hopes California will continue its protections for transgender youth, and that all legislators and members of the public come to understand the harm caused by anti-trans policies.

“I want people to remember that behind these laws, there are real humans,” Haaga said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

By a 6-3 vote, the court struck down Trump’s order. A bare majority of five justices, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, makes a citizen of anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions,

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, citing congressional debate over the amendment, “We keep that promise today.”

A sixth justice, Brett Kavanaugh, disagreed about the constitutional ruling, but pointed to a federal law that he said broadly conveys birthright citizenship.

“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 91-page dissent, more than three times as long as Roberts’ opinion. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

The Republican president’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.

During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

The case framed another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power that has largely ruled in his favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He also seemed to recognize the court was likely to rule against him on birthright citizenship, too, using his Truth Social platform to criticize “dumb judges and justices” and wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere who come to the U.S. to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.

Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump’s executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court’s 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

Roberts, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberal justices, said the amendment’s language, the historical context and the 1898 case make clear that children born to parents illegally or temporarily in the U.S. “are citizens at birth.”

But there was only a bare majority of five justices on the constitutional question.

Kavanaugh sided with the majority because of a federal law that makes those children citizens. But he joined the dissenters in finding that Trump’s order does not violate the Constitution. His view would enable a future Congress to change the law to restrict birthright citizenship.

The Trump administration had argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

By Adam Echelman, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

The U.S. Department of Education may no longer be able to fully support students, it says in an internal report that lays bare the full extent of the Trump Administration’s first round of government cuts.

The department lost about 40% of its staff from the day Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025 through March 31, 2025, but certain subdepartments were hit harder, according to the report released last week. The Office of English Language Acquisition, which served immigrant students, was gutted, leaving one employee, according to the report. The department also terminated contracts and grants totaling roughly $2 billion. 

Although the report was internal, conducted by the education department’s Office of Inspector General, it is incomplete. Department staff did not comply with all the inspector general’s requests and cancelled interviews. As a result, the report says that many of its key findings are not definitive and that the total number of layoffs, the impact of those cuts, and the reasons for terminating certain contracts and grants remain unclear.   

The report also says that because of the cuts, the education department may no longer be able to administer Congressionally appropriated dollars or oversee federal education law, including the distribution of financial aid, investigations into civil rights violations and data analyses. 

“According to the Department of Education's own inspector general, the rapid elimination of nearly 1,600 staff, including those responsible for teacher training, student mental health programs, and legally required oversight functions, raises serious questions about whether the department can still meet its obligations to students,” said Kindra Britt, director of communications and strategy for California County Superintendents. “These are not bureaucratic losses; they have real consequences for real kids.”

The report only includes cuts through March 31, 2025, and the education department has continued to cut staff and terminate grants and contracts since then. A number of grants have also been restored due to lawsuits. The Trump Administration has slowly transferred many education services to other federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Treasury Department. This year, the sole remaining staff member supporting English language acquisition was moved elsewhere in the department and the work was transferred to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. That office is now managed, in part, by the U.S. Department of Labor.

“The Department of Education is focused on returning education to the states while preserving critical funding and reducing unnecessary bureaucracy that can slow support to students and families,” wrote Kirsten Baesler, assistant secretary of the department’s elementary and secondary education office. “English Learners should never be treated as a siloed program, set aside as an afterthought.” 

In a statement, Scott Roark, a public information officer with California Department of Education, said the state remains focused on helping students, regardless of the administration’s efforts to “disrupt services and safeguards” and to “impose a national ideology on local schools.” He said schools directly impacted by these disruptions should contact the state’s education department for help. 

Is the U.S. Education Department more efficient? 

Soon after his inauguration, Trump signed executive orders and directives which proposed ways to make government more efficient. The U.S. Education Department, spurred on by those orders, sent out offers to all federal employees saying they could resign and stay on payroll for a few months. Later, in March 2025, the department began laying off workers.   

The cuts were uneven across the education department’s 17 offices, according to the Inspector General’s recent report: The Institute of Education Services, which conducts research, and the Office of the Under Secretary, which oversees many higher education programs, lost over 80% of their employees, much like the Office of English Language Acquisition. The 14 employees in the Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs were untouched. The Office of Inspector General is an independent entity and did not review itself.

Whether those cuts have created any efficiencies is up for debate.

Sharon Bonney, the chief executive of COABE, a national organization representing adult education programs, said she primarily interacts with the education department's Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, which lost about 30% of its staff in the first few months of 2025, according to the report.

“I haven’t seen them miss a beat. I have seen more efficiencies,” said Bonney. “In the past I would send an email, it would take three weeks to respond to, and now, two hours later, I have a response.”

For Edgar Lampkin, the chief executive of the California Association for Bilingual Education, the effects have been “devastating.” 

California still struggles to serve its more than 1 million English language learners, lagging far behind Texas in bilingual education, and recent efforts to improve California’s bilingual education have received minimal attention or funding.

Lampkin’s association, along with the advocacy coalition Californians Together, has long received federal grants, sometimes totaling as much as $1 million annually, to train bilingual teachers across the state. “Those grants are gone,” he said — and the Trump Administration won’t see the full impacts of its actions, he added. “The effects of education are normally 10 plus  years ahead.” 

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

By Kate Wolffe and Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California Forever, the tech billionaire-backed group that hopes to build a city from scratch on farmland in the outer San Francisco Bay Area, is lobbying state leaders to fast-track a massive shipbuilding deal that would kick-start its development after years of local opposition. 

The billionaires behind the project are seeking a deal to expedite environmental reviews of the development and, if necessary, bypass county restrictions on building by being absorbed into Suisun City boundaries. They’ve hired former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg — Democratic architects of landmark environmental laws — to make their case, and are using the prospect of luring a major shipbuilder to California to accelerate the dealmaking.

California Forever has pursued its project for nearly a decade, though the vision has shifted: At first pitched as a walkable city with cottages, bike lanes and even a water park, the plan then added a major shipbuilding operation and, last summer, a manufacturing hub. 

California Forever’s proponents, led by the state’s powerful building trades union along with realtors, peace officers and pro-housing groups, argue the latest proposal would boost the state’s economy and bring an estimated half a million jobs to California. And now, a prospective tenant has emerged: Defense company Saronic Technologies, Inc., which builds autonomous vessels for use in national security, is deciding between California and Texas for its next factory. The state must fast-track the development or lose the deal, supporters argue.

The developers are seeking the state’s permission to use an 18-year-old environmental impact report for the shipyard development, limit any legal challenges to the project to 270 days, and allow Suisun City to annex their land if needed, according to Steinberg and Hertzberg. 

“In short, if legislation is not approved, California will lose billions of dollars in investments and tens of thousands of jobs this summer to Texas and other states,” proponents wrote in a joint letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders this week.

But some locals and lawmakers are skeptical, arguing that details about the project remain scarce. The proposed development would convert vast farmlands into factories and risk harming the surrounding ecosystem, they said, which deserves rigorous environmental review under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act that proponents are seeking to expedite. 

State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon during a Senate floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Feb. 20, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

“For a project this scale in this location, it is what the (law) was designed for,” said Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Napa Democrat who represents the area. “A central question for the people of Solano County is: Is this going to be for the community or is this a conversion project that leaves them behind?”

Opponents also slammed California Forever for pursuing relief behind closed doors with state leaders and circumventing local opposition. Since 2018, the group has secretly bought up agricultural land, shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to court local residents and spent at least $330,000 lobbying the governor and legislative leaders for favorable legislation.

“I think they know that the only way this actually happens is under cover of darkness, by trying to essentially get the governor to work this plan for them,” said Jordan Grimes, legislative director at Greenbelt Alliance, which has advocated for streamlined environmental reviews for housing projects.

Secretive beginnings foment distrust

For residents of Solano County, an agricultural community on the outskirts of the Bay Area that includes coastal areas next to a deep-water shipping lane, the suspicion around California Forever has been hard to shake. 

The group’s subsidiary, Flannery Associates, started buying up farmland in 2018, eventually acquiring 62,000 acres while routinely refusing to answer questions about its backers. Some farmers later alleged the company used strong-arm tactics to get them to sell. 

In 2023, Flannery’s backers were unmasked as a group of wealthy venture capitalists including the founders of LinkedIn and Netscape, all led by former Goldman Sachs trader and real estate developer Jan Sramek. Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, holds investments in both California Forever and Saronic, the defense company eyeing California. Andreessen’s firm did not immediately return a CalMatters inquiry for comment.

Despite rocky beginnings, California Forever needed the majority of Solano County voters on its side due to a 1984 “orderly growth” law that requires voters to approve development on unincorporated land. 

In 2024, the company debuted the East Solano Plan to rezone 17,500 acres of agricultural land for a dense, 400,000-person city. The proposal was set to go before voters that year, but its backers pulled it following powerful grassroots opposition, poor polling and a county assessment that found holes in the plan. Sramek acknowledged the group likely moved too fast and said the initiative would go back before voters in 2026. 

Instead, the group has pivoted. The East Solano Plan has become the Suisun Expansion Plan and the Solano Shipyard. In January 2025, Suisun City’s city council directed its manager to explore expanding the city’s limits through annexation, which is now underway, although it could take years.

State Route 113 runs through land where California Forever plans to put its new city in Solano County on Feb. 16, 2024. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters

“The annexation and the ship building have been a clear way to work around the need for voter support in Solano County,” said Nate Huntington, a member of the grassroots group Solano Together, which formed in response to the secretive land purchases. Huntington pointed out that California Forever hasn’t even submitted a proposal for a shipbuilding facility to the county. 

“All of this has been happening in backrooms of Sacramento, and it's not been publicly available.”

Seeking state environmental relief

California Forever is now selling the development to the state as a major incentive to lure manufacturers and shipbuilders to California — and the subsequent need for housing to accommodate the promised jobs. 

The company wants the governor and state lawmakers to cut red tape for the development and require enough housing for the new jobs. Steinberg and Hertzberg told CalMatters they are contemplating legislation to that end, but only after California Forever signs a lease with a manufacturer or shipbuilder. 

Their plan would allow the governor to designate construction on company land as “environmental leadership development projects,” which would effectively require any litigation to be resolved within 270 days. Steinberg authored the state law streamlining that process in 2013.

State law requires government agencies to prepare a report for any project that might have a significant impact on the environment. Instead of assessing the impact of the proposed shipyard, Steinberg and Hertzberg’s proposal would use a 2008 report, which designated the area where the shipyard would go as “water-dependent industrial usage.” Most of California Forever’s 7,500-acre planned footprint does not have that designation.

Steinberg told CalMatters the report is sufficient since the site has changed little.

“The state and county need the ability to say yes now to these numerous opportunities,” he said in a text. A new report, he said, “would require years of additional delay and lost opportunities.”

But the report is outdated, Cabaldon argues.

“This is completely different,” he said. “Just the notion that you would just say, ‘We are not going to do any assessments at all and we’ll just rely on this old one’ — that is not consistent with what the public interest is.” 

Steinberg and Hertzberg also want the state to require enough housing in the area, but to allow surrounding cities and Solano County to permit local housing developers to build first. 

But if local governments aren’t willing to or cannot build enough housing within the timeline the manufacturer or the shipbuilder wants, Steinberg and Hertzberg’s proposal would allow Suisun City to annex adjacent California Forever-owned county land into its city boundaries — a controversial idea that has drawn fierce local opposition. The move would be a “last resort,” Steinberg and Hertzberg stressed repeatedly.

The annexation would effectively bypass the county’s orderly growth initiative, which requires voters to have a say in development. 

“The shipbuilders and manufacturers need certainty on a much faster timeline,” Steinberg said.

Cabaldon said the pitch to build new housing to accommodate theoretical jobs is “fantastical,” noting that Saronic, the proposed ship-builder, is a leader in automation. 

“There’s no indication that this is going to generate on an ongoing basis that many jobs, and certainly not more jobs than we have housing for even today without building a single additional unit,” he said.

Historic union agreement prompts support

In January, California Forever announced it had signed a 40-year deal with the Napa/Solano Building Trades Council and Northern California Carpenters Union to use union labor to build its development. The agreement was an important political alliance for CEO Sramek, bringing more influential advocates to the table. 

According to Digital Democracy, both the Building Trades Council and the Carpenters Union have given roughly $10 million in direct donations to legislative candidates since 2000. 

Those advocates made themselves heard over the past few weeks, following a Texas county court approving significant tax incentives to lure Saronic to Brownsville. In a statement, Saronic said its nationwide search is still “active and ongoing.”

The California Alliance For Jobs, an alliance of influential construction companies and workers, drafted two letters in quick succession calling for legislative leaders to streamline the California Forever expansion and shipyard. 

“We champed at the bit to go all in to get this project moving, and to get legislation through Sacramento this session,” said Joshua Arce, the executive director of the alliance.

Suisun City Councilmember Princess Washington, who has consistently been the sole vote on the council against the annexation plan, said she feels organized labor is being used as “political pressure” to win approval. 

“Processes are slow, but they're done that way through government to ensure that it's being done correctly, that all parties of interest are being treated fairly, and there's checks and balances,” Washington said. 

“It's unheard of for a project to be done as quickly as they want it to be done.”

In a statement, California Forever spokesperson Jim Wunderman said any shipyard project will comply with all California environmental and land use laws. He said county supervisors already approved using the 2008 impact report, and that legislation would allow the group to “meet prospective employers' timelines.”

He said by pursuing expansion within Suisun City, California Forever is following the community’s preferences by channeling new growth into existing cities.

An ongoing presence in the Capitol

Since 2024, California Forever has spent at least $330,000 lobbying the Legislature and governor’s office on bills and other actions, according to campaign finance records. 

Steinberg and Hertzberg told CalMatters they were hired in April as “special counsel,” not lobbyists, meaning they are spending less than a third of their time talking with public officials. 

Grimes, who said he respects Steinberg for leading landmark environmental land use reforms in the Legislature, said he’s disappointed in his advocacy for California Forever, “a project that is antithetical to all of this.”

Sheep graze on land where California Forever plans to build its new city in Solano County, on Feb. 16, 2024. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters

California Forever reported spending $90,000 lobbying the governor’s office and the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, GO-Biz, last year on “federal shipbuilding activities and California business attraction and retention activities.” 

"GO-Biz has discussed relevant state incentive programs with Saronic and explained how they operate," said GO-Biz spokesperson Willie Rudman. He said the agency does not offer incentive packages to specific companies.

Last fall though, GO-Biz helped organize a bid for Saronic to settle in Solano County. County staff reported during a board meeting that GO-Biz supported a legislative effort to override the county’s “orderly growth” law. 

County supervisors rushed through a proposal to change the boundaries of the Solano Shipyard to comply, but with just days remaining before the end of the legislative session, Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat from Suisun City, said there wasn’t time to introduce legislation. 

Since then, Wilson said, the proposal has been on the table, but “nothing’s been requested” of her office by California Forever. 

The company also urged lawmakers to act fast or risk losing the shipbuilder to Texas last year — a negotiating tactic common in economic development, Cabaldon said. 

But Cabaldon argued that Saronic will decide where to place its shipyard based on “defense needs of the United States of America” instead of state incentives.

“We have to negotiate with our eyes open.”

For the record: This story was corrected to reflect that Joshua Arce is executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs. It was also updated to add that GO-Biz says it does not offer incentive packages to specific companies.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

By Levi Sumagaysay, Marisa Kendall, Kristen Hwang and Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

State leaders are feverishly negotiating with special interests behind a few high-profile measures ahead of a Thursday deadline to withdraw them from the November ballot. Top Democrats have already announced an agreement between Uber and the state’s trial lawyers to pull rival initiatives they had each spent tens of millions of dollars promoting.

It’s a dance that happens every election cycle: Interest groups seeking policy changes spend big on voter initiatives, using them as leverage in exchange for favorable deals from state leaders, who often prefer to reach compromises to kill controversial proposals rather than take their chances with voters. 

Legislative leaders can also place measures on the ballot. By Monday, they had already agreed to an affordable housing bond. They are also expected to approve a proposal to increase the cap on deposits into the state’s rainy day fund by Thursday. 

Here are the highlights:

A deal between Uber, trial lawyers

Uber and California’s trial lawyers have likely avoided an expensive battle ahead of the November election by going through the state Legislature instead of voters.  

Uber had collected enough signatures for a ballot initiative that would have capped attorney contingency fees and limited how much California crash victims could recover for medical costs — and not just those injured while riding in an Uber. Attorney groups had qualified a competing initiative to increase the ride-hailing company’s liability for sexual misconduct against riders and drivers. 

The company and the attorneys reached a compromise in Senate Bill 623, which would cap medical cost recoveries in cases that involve medical liens, which allow crash victims to get medical treatment without paying upfront while their case is pending. It would not restrict lawyers’ contingency fees as Uber had proposed in its ballot measure, which critics said would have made it harder for crash victims to get legal representation. It will be limited to crashes that occur in an Uber or other ride-hailing service.

The legislation would also prohibit attorneys from recommending medical providers with whom they have direct ties. 

Meanwhile, Uber will have to tighten its driver background checks and renew them every year, including rejecting drivers who have been convicted of certain violent offenses or those found guilty of driving under the influence, in the past seven years.

A group of medical providers that spent money against Uber’s initiative did not return multiple requests for comment about the deal. Likewise, the Consumer Attorneys of California, which  had raised about $77 million  for its initiative — almost as much as the $78 million Uber had allocated for its campaign, which also declined to comment beyond a statement it had agreed on with the company. 

It reads in part: “This agreement protects patients from unnecessary treatment or getting overcharged, ensures access to medical care and legal representation, and strengthens safety measures.”

Consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog had also opposed Uber’s ballot measure but said the deal “strikes a fair balance.” 

The bill “doesn’t do harm to the average Uber rider (who has health insurance),” Jamie Court, president of the group, told CalMatters. 

If lawmakers pass the bill and send it to the governor, it would take effect next year.

Affordable housing bond

A record-breaking $11.25 billion affordable housing bond appears headed to the California ballot this November. 

The governor, Assembly and Senate agreed on the language of Senate Bill 417, known as the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, which would have Californians borrow $10 billion to pay for the construction, rehabilitation, acquisition and preservation of affordable housing, plus another $1.25 billion to help veterans buy homes. 

If approved by voters, the bond should help more than 40,000 people buy a home, help create or preserve tens of thousands of affordable units and support high-paying construction jobs, according to the Newsom administration.

“California’s future depends on whether people can afford to put down roots, raise a family, and build a life here,” the governor said in a news release. 

A recent report found nearly 40,000 planned units of affordable housing in California are ready to be built but are stuck waiting for funding.

The bond is not officially a done deal. The Legislature still needs to pass the bill by Thursday and the governor must sign it before the housing bond appears on your ballot.

What’s happening with the billionaire tax?

The state’s largest health workers union appears poised to bring its high-profile billionaire wealth tax before voters despite Newsom’s late-hour efforts to strike a deal to remove it from the ballot. 

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West has proposed a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires. If approved by voters, the tax would generate roughly $100 billion primarily for healthcare with some money reserved for schools and food programs, according to SEIU-UHW. 

The union says the money is needed to backfill federal healthcare cuts that forced California to cut its Medi-Cal health insurance program for low-income residents and people with disabilities.

Newsom, who emerged as an early opponent of the tax, steadily ramped up pressure against the union over the past week, joining forces with other labor groups such as the California Teachers Association and healthcare powerhouses like Planned Parenthood and the California Medical Association, which ran digital ads against the tax. Billionaires and Silicon Valley moguls also oppose the tax, which they argue would decrease state revenue in the long term by driving wealthy Californians out of the state.

Last week, SEIU-UHW called on Newsom to accept a 2% version of the tax in lieu of the original 5%, but Newsom swiftly rejected that proposal, calling  it “poorly designed.” 

In a recent interview with The Lever, SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan said Newsom could “pull some rabbit out of the hat” to reach a compromise, but he had doubts. “We’re prepared to go forward, and we will be on the ballot in November.”

Rainy day fund reform

Lawmakers are expected to vote this week to send a proposed constitutional amendment to voters  to increase how much money the state can save in a good financial year.

Currently, the state cannot deposit more than 10% of its general fund tax revenue into its rainy day fund. The proposal, titled “Save for California’s Future Act,” would double that amount and allow the state to use some excess revenues to pay down its $20 billion federal unemployment insurance debt acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposal comes as California faces a multi-year budget deficit despite growing revenue, prompting state lawmakers and Newsom to search for long-term solutions to stabilize the state’s finances. California is heavily dependent on income tax and capital gains of its wealthy residents, making the state vulnerable to economic downturns.

If you've been thinking about exploring California's historic state parks this summer, now may be the perfect opportunity.

Governor Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom have announced a free special edition of the California State Parks Historian Passport, giving visitors unlimited admission to more than 30 participating state historic parks. 

The announcement comes in celebration of Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating June 19, 1865. Union troops arrived in Texas and informed enslaved people they were free more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The holiday recognizes the end of slavery in the United States and honors the contributions of African Americans throughout the nation's history.

“Building on our Outdoors for All initiative, we’re creating even more opportunities for Californians to explore the natural beauty and rich history that define our state,” Siebel Newsom said. “As we celebrate Juneteenth and our nation’s 250th anniversary, the free special edition Historian Passport provides an incredible avenue for California families to immerse themselves in nature while gaining a deeper understanding of the remarkable place we’re proud to call home.”

The passport, which typically costs $50, can be claimed through July 6 and will remain valid until the end of the year.

Among the participating locations is Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, a California town in Tulare County dating back to 1908 which was founded, financed and governed by African Americans pioneers. 

The passport also grants access to other historic parks including Sutter’s Fort Historic Park in Sacramento, museums and cultural sites that tell the stories of Native Americans, immigrants, Gold Rush-era settlers, civil rights leaders and other communities that helped shape California.

The free passport program is funded through donations from the California State Parks Foundation and the California State Railroad Museum Foundation.

California State Parks Capital District Director John Fraser said it gives residents a chance to visit places that often receive less attention than the state's better-known outdoor destinations while supporting the department's Reexamining Our Past initiative.

“Utilizing this passport promotion is going to be a way to not only experience these amazing sites, but get a taste of how California State Parks is trying to be a more accurate and inclusive and complex interpreter of the state's rich history.”

The announcement also comes amid a broader national debate over how American history is presented at public institutions and historic sites.

Last year, the Trump administration ended free admission days at national parks for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, replacing them with what officials described as "patriotic fee-free days," including Flag Day and Trump’s birthday on June 14. 

Administration officials said the changes were an example of Trump's “commitment to making national parks more accessible, more affordable and more efficient for the American people." 

In his statement, Newsom criticized the removal of dozens of historical signs and exhibits from some national parks. Reasons given by the administration for the removals were because the items “disparage Americans.” Last week, a federal judge ordered them to be restored.

Newsom also drew a "stark contrast" between California's approach to its historic parks system compared to the administration's handling of the country's national parks calling it an attempted "whitewashing" of American history.

“California doesn’t hide from hard truths and uncomfortable history — in fact, we embrace it and learn from it,” Newsom said. “While Trump ignores and tries to rewrite the past, California is marking these celebrations of freedom by inviting everyone to learn our country’s history — our real history — for free in our state parks.”

Fraser said he’s proud of the state’s approach as well saying the public loses something when its park systems — state, national, or otherwise — “walks away from its charge.”

“Which is to try to tell the truth as best as we can about these sites, even if that leads to uncomfortable conversations about the country's history,” Fraser said. “I think the public deserves and expects something far better from its park systems.”

Residents interested in taking advantage of the offer must download the free Historian Passport by July 6 through the California State Parks website. Once claimed, the passport can be used through the end of the year at participating historic parks across the state

You can find the full list of California historic parks here. 

Summer has traditionally been the time that wildfires come into focus in California, but that risk has now grown into a year-round threat.

This reality is fueling an alarmingly-strained insurance market, with companies declining to provide new fire coverage or renew existing policies.

These developments have pushed hundreds of thousands of people onto California’s “insurer of last resort,” known as the FAIR Plan, which was designed to provide basic fire insurance for high-risk properties when traditional companies have refused.

In recent years the number of FAIR Plan policies have ballooned 152%, from roughly 270,000 policies in 2022 to more than 680,000 as of March 2026.

To keep up with that demand, and to offset major losses during disasters like the Los Angeles wildfires last January, the San Francisco Chronicle reports the FAIR Plan is planning to hike rates an average of 30% this fall.

Dave Jones served as California’s Insurance Commissioner from 2011-2019, and is now the director of the Climate Risk Initiative Center at the UC Berkeley School of Law. He spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about how these rate increases could impact residents across the Golden State.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

You served as Insurance Commissioner during some of California's most severe and deadly disasters. What are the biggest changes you've seen over that time?

I think the biggest change is that the background risk of wildfire continues to climb, and we've moved from a “wildfire season” to wildfire being part of our new normal throughout the entirety of the year. What's happening globally is that insurance company losses are going up because of global losses from hurricanes, wildfires, floods. That's happening in the United States as well, and that's because we're not doing enough fast enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which are driving global temperature rise, causing more frequent and severe weather-related events which are killing us, injuring us, destroying our homes, and also causing insurance companies to pay out a lot more. 

Insurance companies respond in two ways simultaneously when they have big losses; they raise prices and they write less insurance. Both of those are happening across the United States, as well as in California. So what we're experiencing, which is very acute and severe, is not unique to California.

It has been reported that the FAIR Plan will hike its rates nearly 30% on average come October. This is the first rate hike since 2023, which was almost 16%. Why was such a large increase necessary?

I think the commissioner ultimately approved that rate increase because the FAIR Plan’s losses have been so substantial. With the LA wildfires the FAIR Plan lost so much money that they ran out of money. [They] needed an infusion of a billion dollars, half of which came from the insurers [and] half of which is coming from all the rest of us. 

They demonstrated to the commissioner that they needed a rate increase, and that's the average rate increase. For some homes in some areas it's going to be substantially higher because the risk they face is substantially higher. I think that's sadly just the tip of the iceberg because as wildfire risk continues to grow…I think we're going to see more rate increases occurring over time from the FAIR Plan and from the private insurers.

For this upcoming rate hike on the FAIR Plan, will this impact all 680,000 policyholders? 

Yes, all of them will see some level of rate increase. To the extent that the FAIR Plan is beginning to take into account home hardening and defensible space — they were asked by the commissioner to do that some number of years ago, [it’s a] question mark whether they are — then maybe you won't see a rate increase. But I think it's a pretty good bet if you're on the FAIR Plan, you’re getting a rate increase.

Planning for an on-average 30% hike is considerable. How are policyholders made aware of this? 

They're supposed to send you a notice; typically the way they do this is upon renewal. Everybody buys their insurance at a different time, but there are one-year policies and that’s true with the FAIR Plan. You're supposed to get a notice 60 days or so in advance of your renewal that will tell you “this is a new rate you're going to be charged as your policy renews.”

I don't think they're going to unilaterally impose it on existing contracts that people are in; I don't think they can. But a back of the envelope calculation right now, it's 30% on average. So take your existing FAIR Plan price and plus it up by 30%, and that could be where you are, or it could be more than that.

How can people prepare for this, what options are available?

One thing we need to do collectively is pass a law that requires the private insurers and the FAIR Plan to take into account mitigations. When you do things to reduce risk for your property, you get credit for it. The FAIR Plan is supposed to be offering a discount if you do home hardening, defensible space. You should take a look at the insurance department standards for what one can and should do to make your home safer from wildfire. How big will the discount be? Probably not substantial, but at least it's something. The other thing that we need to do is see if there are ways to get people off the FAIR Plan. There are some insurers that are writing in what's called the “non-admitted market,” where there's a bit less regulation, that are actually trying to write policies off the FAIR Plan.

A plane drops fire retardant on the Park Fire near Forest Ranch, Calif., Sunday, July 28, 2024.AP Photo/Nic Coury

Then, we need to improve the regulations that were just recently enacted which gave the insurers a number of things that they had asked for. They wanted the ability to include reinsurance costs and rates, they got that. They wanted the ability to use forward-looking probabilistic models, they got that. In exchange what they were supposed to do was increase the amount of insurance policies that they're writing in the high wildfire risk areas, which could then be an opportunity for more people to get off the FAIR Plan. 

The problem is the way that this has been executed. The baseline against which the insurance companies are going to be measured, to see if they are writing more policies in the high wildfire risk areas, is 2025. They've been non-renewing in 2021-2024, and effectively lowered the number and percentage of policies they were writing in [those] areas. Now they’re being told they have to write a bit more, but that “more” is measured after they non-renewed a substantial volume of policies. Changing that regulation to put a higher obligation on them is important to get them to write more in these high wildfire risk areas, in exchange for the things they got as a part of this regulatory change.

The insurance market is national, and there are programs like national flood insurance. Why not make fire insurance a national issue? 

There have been proposals to do that. I think the big concern I have about those proposals is that these national insurance schemes oftentimes are very regressive. You have renters paying through their federal income taxes to subsidize home insurance in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP.) They don't send the right price signal [about risk], so the NFIP is expensive as it is… and we've been doing a lot more real estate development in areas that are going to flood, because people think they can get this national flood insurance program. And, they require a substantial amount of subsidy from the federal government.

I think the better route is to improve the regulations to better protect consumers. I've got a proposal at my center to have a federal reinsurance program for FAIR Plans. Have the federal government provide lower-cost reinsurance to the California FAIR Plan and the other 34 state FAIR Plans. Why? Because reinsurance for FAIR Plans is really expensive because the plans are insuring the riskiest risks. The reinsurers know that, so they have them over a barrel and they charge them a lot. 

A lower cost federal reinsurance program targeted at the FAIR Plans, helping those in the greatest need, I think is something that could help reduce prices for policyholders. In a way that avoids setting up a national scheme of insurance.

By Kristen Hwang, CalMatters

A union wants California’s billionaires to rescue the state’s healthcare system. The billionaires have other ideas.

On June 17, an initiative to tax the state’s wealthiest residents qualified for the ballot, according to the secretary of state’s office, which verifies petition signatures.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has consistently swatted down the idea of tax increases throughout his tenure, emerged early as an opponent of the proposed tax. Wealthy allies in Silicon Valley joined the fray armed with deep pockets and threats to leave the state, which depends disproportionately on high earners for revenue.

The union funding the measure, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, says California needs the revenue that would be generated by the measure to rescue the healthcare system from deep cuts that the Trump administration made last year in the president’s tax reform package, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Newsom is reportedly trying to negotiate a last-minute deal that would pull the initiative before the ballot is finalized on June 25.

What would it do?

The proposed initiative would levy a one-time 5% tax on California residents whose net worth exceeded $1 billion at the start of this year. The tax would hit roughly 200 people, and billionaires could pay in installments over five years. 

Proponents of the measure estimate it would generate $100 billion for the state. The revenue would go into a special fund with 90% reserved for healthcare spending and 10% for education and food assistance programs. 

The Legislature would control the funds and could allocate up to $25 billion annually to designated programs including Medi-Cal and CalFresh.

It needs a simple majority to pass. 

Who is supporting it?

The state’s largest healthcare workers union is bankrolling the measure, pouring more than $31 million into the campaign. “We are facing literally a collapse of our healthcare system here in California and elsewhere,” Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW, said in October when the campaign launched.

The union, which is known for wielding ballot measures aggressively, argues that federal healthcare cuts will result in hospital and clinic closures, worsened patient access and thousands of lost jobs if the state doesn’t step in to backfill tens of billions of federal dollars. The group also points out that the Trump tax breaks for income, businesses and investments disproportionately benefit the wealthy people who would then be subject to the proposed billionaire tax.

“Whether or not folks support this, they can’t deny that these massive cuts to healthcare are coming,” said union spokesperson Renée Saldaña. “Nobody else has a solution to fill this massive $100 billion funding gap that is facing California.”

Saldaña noted that people signing the initiative petition were supportive and sometimes wanted the tax to be continuous rather than one-time. 

“This is popular. The public is feeling the strain of their own healthcare costs,” she said.

The measure has won high-profile support from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. A handful of local unions as well as the Teamsters and AFSCME California have also backed the measure.

Who is opposed to it?

Newsom is an unsurprising and vocal critic of the proposal. He has long argued that increased taxes would drive wealthy people and businesses out of the state. In a recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, Newsom claimed that “we’ve already seen dozens and dozens of people leave the state.”

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, with a net worth of $300 billion, according to Forbes, reportedly moved to Nevada because of the tax threat. Brin, a one-time supporter of liberal causes turned Trump supporter, is also the biggest spender among opponents. As of June 15, he has contributed $82 million to Building a Better California, which is funding multiple countermeasures designed to invalidate or weaken the initiative should it pass. The committee has not, however, taken a position on the wealth tax.

The top two measures — the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act and the Improving Transparency, Effectiveness and Efficiency in California Government Act — will also likely appear on the November ballot. The retirement act would prohibit new state taxes on personal property, effectively canceling the billionaire tax if both measures pass. The transparency act would require audits of state programs funded by special taxes.

Other tech and industry titans, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, worth $43.3 billion, Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr, worth $25 billion, and The Wonderful Company president Stewart Resnick, worth $5.4 billion, have donated millions of dollars to Brin’s committee.

Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen, worth an estimated $12.4 billion, also started Golden State Promise, a political action committee dedicated to opposing the tax initiative directly. Venture capitalist Ron Conway, who does not appear on Forbes’ billionaires list, is funding a third group, Stop The Squeeze.

Collectively, the opposition campaigns have raised $107.9 million as of June 15, according to state campaign finance data.

Robert Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, said one of the most concerning parts of the proposal is a provision allowing the Legislature to amend the tax after passage. “They can change the level of taxation; they can change how often they get taxed; they can keep ratcheting down the income level of who pays it.” The union disputes this claim.

Progressive groups like Planned Parenthood and the California Teachers Association have opposed the measure in recent weeks. Healthcare industry groups like the California Medical Association, California Primary Care Association and California Hospital Association also oppose it.

What’s really going on with healthcare?

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which Congress passed last year, enacts a number of sweeping changes to Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people and those with disabilities. 

Over time, experts say the changes will dramatically reduce the number of people with publicly funded insurance through mandates such as work requirements and shorter eligibility periods. The law also limits federal Medicaid spending. Because Medicaid programs draw on state and federal dollars, reductions in enrollment or federal spending mean less money for states like California.

The state Department of Health Care Services projected early on that federal cuts could cost California $30 billion annually. Roughly 14 million people rely on Medicaid, also known as Medi-Cal, in California.

State lawmakers have also grappled with successive budget deficits and ballooning program costs. Last year, Newsom and the Legislature limited Medi-Cal enrollment for low-income people without legal status. State leaders are eyeing additional cuts this year to align with new federal requirements.

Miranda Dietz, director of the Health Care Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, said close to 3 million Californians will lose healthcare over the next two years as a result of state and federal changes. 

“The need for health insurance and healthcare is not going anywhere,” Dietz said.

What are the challenges?

Should the measure pass, it will surely face legal challenges that could tie the potential revenue up for years, experts say. The seemingly retroactive nature of the tax invites a constitutional challenge, many say, though supporters reject those concerns. The initiative proposes taxing those who are California residents as of Jan. 1, 2026, meaning those who have since left the state would still owe it. 

Mark Peterson, a public policy professor at UCLA School of Law, said revenue from the initiative would “make a huge difference” in helping the state offset federal funding losses, but that’s only if the initiative survives legal challenges and efforts by billionaires to move or hide assets.

Economists and state budget watchers are also wary of the number of billionaires who have already left the state, taking their assets and businesses with them. Only six people moved out of state last year before the proposed tax would apply to them, but their collective worth would have generated the state $27 billion, Fortune reported. Others, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, worth $231 billion, have also reportedly moved out but not before Jan. 1.

On the other hand, there’s no evidence yet that a majority of the state’s 200 billionaires are leaving. Some, including former gubernatorial candidate and billionaire Tom Steyer, have stated they support the proposal.

Early polling shows 50% of voters favor the initiative, with most strongly behind it, according to the UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO poll. But that is not as strong a position as it may seem: 54% of voters are concerned about wealthy individuals leaving the state, and 63% are concerned about them taking their businesses with them. A UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies-Los Angeles Times poll from March showed similar division among voters with 52% in support. 

Generally, campaigns running ballot initiatives want their early polling numbers to be much higher because support nearly always dwindles as the election creeps closer. 

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

The California State Capitol building in downtown Sacramento on January 7th, 2026.Ruth Finch/CapRadio

According to Stop CIPA Shakedowns, a coalition that seeks to reform CIPA to protect businesses from CIPA-related lawsuits, 3,000 businesses have been sued using CIPA.

Jim Monegal said that his law firm, Mullen Coughlin, has represented upwards of 500 clients alone that are defendants in CIPA-related lawsuits.

“No one knows what [they’re] doing wrong, how to follow the law,” Monegal said of his clients. “We don’t even know what the law says in this regard of what we can and can’t do.”

Monegal is one of many attorneys, alongside media and business interests, that comprise Stop CIPA Shakedowns. They’re advocating for the California legislature to pass SB 690, a bill meant to keep CIPA from applying to any tracking that’s done with a “commercial business purpose.”

In 2018, the California legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA. This law also covers what companies can and can’t trace on the internet, and is the reason why, for example, most websites will show a pop-up asking if you want to opt-in for cookies. But, it doesn’t allow individuals to sue companies over its violation.

On the other hand, CIPA allows for individuals to sue for damages when it’s violated, due to its origins as a criminal wiretapping law.

Monegal said that law firms, and sometimes individuals representing themselves, have been exploiting CIPA. In these lawsuits, they’re claiming analytics tools, like those used by Google and Meta to track ad performance, are being used without the visitor's consent.

These tools are also used by smaller businesses, like Folsom Lake Heating & Air to track their own internal ad performance.

“There’s actually some claimants out there … that have leveraged AI and other means to send out thousands upon thousands of demand letters shaking these companies down on an individual basis,” Monegal said.

Monegal said that these cases really kicked off in 2022, and have been growing.

“It’s such a high return on such a minimal investment,” Monegal said. “All of the demand letters look exactly the same. All of it can almost be automated and auto-generated.”

However, privacy advocate groups like Oakland Privacy are worried about removing safeguards for all businesses to use tracking technology. Tracy Rosenberg, advocacy director of Oakland Privacy, said that, while the law was expanded "awkwardly", oftentimes lawsuits citing CIPA are the only way for individuals to get reparations for breaches of privacy.

Rosenberg said that one example was a lawsuit leveled against Flo, Meta and Google filed in 2021 that accused Flo, a menstrual cycle tracking app, of collecting and selling menstrual data of users without their consent. She also cited cases where Oracle was sued for surreptitious tracking.

“CIPA is the law that allowed women that were upset about this, and there were many, to file a class action lawsuit that said, ‘Hey, we should have been asked if this was okay with us because this was just a way for Flo to make money and for Meta to make money,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said that she recognized the problem that small businesses are facing with these predatory lawsuits.

“There’s a handful of law firms that have come to the same conclusion, basically saying, well, every business collects analytics and IP addresses online, and in a lot of cases they don’t ask for consent,” Rosenberg said. “A lot of it is just kind of first party, and yes, they’re technically violating the law, but the consequences are not necessarily that profound.”

She said that exempting CIPA’s application from all business activity would be an overreach. According to Rosenberg, herself and other privacy advocate groups have proposed amendments that would apply the same thresholds for enforcement that the CCPA has, where businesses below a certain size would be protected from lawsuits.