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Jeremy B. White and Lara Korte’s must-read briefing on politics and government in the Golden State | | | | |  | | By Jeremy B. White, Lara Korte, Sakura Cannestra and Owen Tucker-Smith | THE BUZZ: Guns and abortion are primary policy areas where blue California proudly distinguishes itself from Republican strongholds — and yesterday brought major developments on both. California Democrats want to protect women’s reproductive acts from legal retribution, creating a bulwark against a Supreme Court that has undermined federal protections. They also want firearms purveyors to face legal repercussions, positioning themselves in opposition to a court that has expanded gun rights. In both cases, California is trying to carve out a legal sphere that contrasts clearly with the high court. Gov. Gavin Newsom further fortified California’s reproductive protections yesterday, signing a package that included bills barring prosecution for pregnancy loss and and prohibiting law enforcement from helping other states prosecute people who travel to California for legal abortions. Neither signature should come as a surprise. The shield against other states in particular fits with California’s quest to make itself a post-Roe abortion haven. But one of Newsom’s signature gun restrictions is on tenuous ground. A legal showdown was the inevitable outcome of a new law that lets Californians sue illegal gun purveyors, explicitly emulating Texas’s measure letting private citizens pursue abortion providers. Newsom conceded as much, saying the law effectively called the Supreme Court’s bluff after the high court preserved the abortion law. If a challenge to California’s gun law ended up invalidating its Texan inspiration, Newsom has said, that’s all to the better.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a visit to Chabot Space & Science Center with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on August 12, 2022 in Oakland, California. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | Now we’ll find out. Gun rights groups have sued to block California’s law, arguing it chills constitutional rights by requiring people who challenge gun laws and lose to pay legal fees. A similar provision in the Texas law has spurred criticism from the likes of Attorney General Rob Bonta and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Notably, some of the plaintiffs are also challenging a California assault weapons ban whose legal odyssey underscores the fact that California’s broader gun control regime is in flux. The lawsuit argues their right to contest that ban is endangered by California cracking down in “retaliation against Texas.” The growing gulf between California and Texas — or other states whose conservative governments’ ideology aligns with the Supreme Court — is a microcosm for national political divisions. Few politicians have played up that contrast more eagerly than Newsom, who bankrolled billboards in Texas and other states trumpeting California’s abortion allowances and played up California’s preferable path in Austin last weekend. He’s also signed a flurry of laws this year that cement California’s leftward lean — even if some of them don’t survive the courts. BUENOS DÍAS, good Wednesday morning. Attorney General Rob Bonta is lending some campaign help today to a former colleague, Assemblymember Rudy Salas. They'll appear at a press conference together assailing a politcal ad from GOP Rep. David Valadao that attacks Salas’s vote for an opioid rehabilitation bill . And California’s troubled unemployment insurance system — consistently a top source of constituent complaints — will be under a public microscope again at a joint Assembly hearing. Got a tip or story idea for California Playbook? Hit us up: jwhite@politico.com and lkorte@politico.com or follow us on Twitter @JeremyBWhite and @Lara_Korte. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “This is absurd and insane. This is a shipwreck. The rest is the sad story of our once great but now failing neighborhood and community and our beloved park, which for years was just called the park. It now has a new name: Todd Gloria-ville … We need new leadership. Todd Gloria should step aside.” NBA legend and San Diegan Bill Walton demands Mayor Todd Gloria’s resignation over homelessness in public spaces. A Gloria spox accused Walton of “self-aggrandizing hyperbole and outright lies.” TWEET OF THE DAY:
|  Today's Tweet of the Day | Twitter | WHERE’S GAVIN? In San Francisco to sign a bill to accelerate new housing construction.
| | | | HAPPENING 9/29 - POLITICO’S AI & TECH SUMMIT : Technology is constantly evolving and so are the politics and policies shaping and regulating it. Join POLITICO for the 2022 AI & Tech summit to get an insider look at the pressing policy and political issues shaping tech, and how Washington interacts with the tech sector. The summit will bring together lawmakers, federal regulators, tech executives, tech policy experts and consumer advocates to dig into the intersection of tech, politics, regulation and innovation, and identify opportunities, risks and challenges ahead. REGISTER FOR THE SUMMIT HERE. | | | | | |  | Top Talkers | | TESTING TROUBLES — “California’s Standardized Test Results Will Come Out In October, After Concerns About Delayed Release In Scores,” by LAist Staff: “Deputy Schools Superintendent Malia Vella's pledge that the department will release the scores next month comes in the wake of a report last week from the news site EdSource that raised the possibility state officials might not release the data until after the November election. Vella’s boss — State Superintendent Tony Thurmond — is running for re-election.” — “ State bar announces probe of L.A. lawyers Geragos, Kabateck over Armenian genocide settlement,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Harriet Ryan and Matt Hamilton: “The State Bar of California announced Tuesday that two prominent Los Angeles attorneys are under investigation for their conduct in a landmark, multimillion-dollar settlement for Armenian genocide victims.” — “ S.F. women share more disturbing stories of alleged stalker. How did the city miss its chance to intervene?” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Heather Knight: “It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and the grass at Dolores Park beckoned. A 27-year-old woman named Cassidy laid down near the tennis courts, popped in earbuds to listen to music and began to doze off.”
| | CAMPAIGN MODE | | REED UP: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings dropped $1 million to defeat Proposition 30, joining other wealthy Silicon Valley players opposing the EV-funding tax hike. That puts Hastings on the same side as the anti-Prop 30 California Teachers Association, an interesting alignment given the millions Hastings has poured into advancing charter schools’ agenda. THE J6 FACTOR — “Jan. 6 still has the power to shock. But will it move California voters?” by the Los Angeles Times’ Melanie Mason: “One issue, though, is far less prominent than many anticipated: [Republican Rep. Mike] Garcia’s vote to block the results of the 2020 presidential election. It was a perplexing move by the Santa Clarita Republican who had just won his swing district on a whisper-thin margin.” — “California Senators Padilla, Feinstein advocate for federal protections for elections workers ,” by the Mercury News’ Kaitlyn Schallhorn: “With less than two months before the midterms, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are pushing legislation to protect election workers.” HEDGING BETS — “Sports betting to solve homelessness? Dodgy claims made by Prop. 26 and 27 campaigns, fact checked ,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Ari Plachta: “Whether they follow politics closely or not, most Californians have probably seen or heard about competing ballot measures to legalize sports betting. Ads for Propositions 26 and 27, which may be slowing down, have ranged from confusing to misleading.”
| | CALIFORNIA AND THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR | | PORTER PRESSURE: Newsom yesterday signed a pared-back pay transparency bill (it no longer requires public disclosure of gender and ethnic pay disparities) and a measure barring gendered product pricing. But he has yet to act on another Women’s Caucus priority bill that would boost paid leave rates — and now he’s getting pressure from both the caucus and another prominent female California politician, Rep. Katie Porter, who released a whiteboard video urging Newsom to sign. A labor-backed coalition is also taking out newspaper ads. — California tax-revenue slide stokes fears of economic slowdown , by POLITICO’s Blake Jones: Years of bursting coffers have given way to dropping tax revenues and inflation worries, leaving California’s financial footing more precarious than it has been since the early days of the pandemic. — “California needs a plan for how and where we will live in the future ,” Opine Anita Chabria and Erika D. Smith for the Los Angeles Times: “In an era of climate change and worsening wildfires and drought, should we be rebuilding tiny, vulnerable Northern California towns?” — “Mayor’s Secret Resignation Letters ‘Inconsistent’ With SF Law, City Attorney Finds ,” by the San Francisco Standard’s Michael Barba: “Mayor London Breed didn’t explicitly break the law by directing her appointees to sign secret, undated resignation letters. But her newly uncovered practice is “inconsistent” with the City Charter, and could threaten the independence of her appointees from her “undue influence,” City Attorney David Chiu’s office concluded in a memo Tuesday.” — “ One year after a California school officer killed a teenager, families fight to remove armed campus guards,” by the Guardian’s Sam Levin: “The killing sparked outrage as yet another example of unwarranted deadly force by US law enforcement. But in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, the tragedy has also fueled a campaign to transform the way the public school system approaches safety.” TRANSMISSION DECISIONS — “California enjoying ‘good COVID weather’ now. But a tough winter could be coming,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Rong-Gong Lin II and Luke Money: “Though the situation is much improved from earlier in the year, there are early signs the coronavirus is once again on the upswing in Europe, a development that has previously foreshadowed increases stateside.” — “Hundreds of affordable homes planned in San Jose,” by the San Jose Spotlight’s Joseph Geha: “Following through on a policy priority five years in the making, San Jose is partnering with developers to build affordable housing on several city-owned plots of land, including the first housing project stemming from Google’s major downtown development.”
| | | | DON’T MISS - MILKEN INSTITUTE ASIA SUMMIT : Go inside the 9th annual Milken Institute Asia Summit, taking place from September 28-30, with a special edition of POLITICO’s Global Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive coverage and insights from this important gathering. Stay up to speed with daily updates from the summit, which brings together more than 1,200 of the world’s most influential leaders from business, government, finance, technology, and academia. Don’t miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | BIDEN, HARRIS AND THE HILL | | — Harris to travel to Korea's demilitarized zone, White House confirms, by POLITICO’s Olivia Olander: Harris will “tour sites at the DMZ, meet with service members and receive an operational briefing from U.S. commanders,” according to a White House statement. The visit aims to reaffirm the United States’ alliance with South Korea, the White House said. — Freedom Caucus poised to pull its hardest McCarthy punch, by POLITICO’s Olivia Beavers : With the California Republican still the uncontested frontrunner for speaker next year, his biggest potential threat — aside from a November collapse that leaves him with a threadbare majority — is a Freedom Caucus-backed rival. But interviews with more than a dozen members of the conservative group indicate they’re not moving to coalesce against the GOP leader as they have in the past. TERMS OF SERVICE — “ California leads the nation in privacy protections. Congress wants to end that,” Opines Jennifer M. Urban for the San Francisco Chronicle: “For decades, California has been a leader in establishing strong privacy protections for its residents. But if some federal lawmakers have it their way, the state will no longer be able to do so.”
| | SILICON VALLEYLAND | | — “When Robots Fire Workers, Best Not to Be Too Human About It,” by the Wall Street Journal’s Chris Kornelis: “More companies will be dealing with the question of how to design interactions between their employees and the robots the companies use to help supervise and evaluate them.” TECH TROUBLES — “Tech Stocks Face Another 10% Drop or More as Strong Dollar Hits Profits ,” by Bloomberg’s Nate Lanxon and Heather Burke: “The great tech selloff of 2022 is far from over as investors brace for earnings misses that may spur a more than 10% plunge in the Nasdaq 100.”
| | MEDIA MATTERS | | — “KTLA turmoil over anchors’ departure highlights concerns about Latino representation,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Meg James: “KTLA-TV Channel 5 is defending its handling of the departure of two popular anchors amid calls by viewers to boycott the station and criticism that station executives have been insensitive to concerns about a shortage of Latinos on air.”
| | MIXTAPE | | VIBE CHECK — “12 places to find solace for your soul in Los Angeles,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Deborah Netburn. — “Dog attacked by coyotes and dragged away from owner while on walk, California cops say,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Maddie Capron. READY FOR RELIEF? — “ California could 'export inflation' to the rest of the US when it sends up to $10 billion in relief payments this October, a Harvard economist says,” by Business Insider’s Jacob Zinkula. — “ Why the next big Bay Area earthquake could happen on a fault many don't even know exists,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Claire Hao. — “ A San Jose church avoided $217,500 in COVID court fines. Santa Clara County still wants to make them pay,” by the Mercury News’ Gabriel Greschler. | | BIRTHDAYS | | Meta’s Julie Bone … Nadia Szold … L.A. Times’ Del Quentin Wilber CALIFORNIA POLICY IS ALWAYS CHANGING: Know your next move. From Sacramento to Silicon Valley, POLITICO California Pro provides policy professionals with the in-depth reporting and tools they need to get ahead of policy trends and political developments shaping the Golden State. To learn more about the exclusive insight and analysis this -only service offers, click here. Want to make an impact? POLITICO California has a variety of solutions available for partners looking to reach and activate the most influential people in the Golden State. Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness amongst this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
