In dueling Friday afternoon announcements, the state in one case sidestepped paying for gender-reassignment surgery for a prison inmate, while agreeing to cover costs for surgery that will medically transform the man into a woman in another. Paige St. John has the story in the Los Angeles Times:
“The state concedes that Shiloh Quine, who entered the California prison system in 1980 as Rodney, suffers severe gender dysphoria that can be treated only by physically conforming her body to her psychological gender.
“The agreement to settle Quine's federal lawsuit seeking the surgery was announced late Friday, with a brief statement from the corrections department that ‘every medical doctor and mental health clinician who has reviewed this case, including two independent mental health experts, determined that this surgery is medically necessary for Quine.’
“Quine's victory was made possible by another inmate, Michelle Norsworthy, born as Jeffrey, who in April won a federal court order for surgery to reshape her genitals. Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday allowed a parole grant for Norsworthy instead, making that ruling moot days before an appellate panel was to hear California's legal challenge.”
The California Emergency Drought Relief Act, a drought bill recently introduced in the Senate by California senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, provides specific environmental protections missing in a similar bill passed by the House earlier this year. Janie Costa, Turlock City News:
“The legislation, which has a focus on compliance with the existing Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act, has some of the provisions that originated in the largely-Republican House drought bill which seeks to address the drought with short and long-term provisions.
“In Feinstein’s bill, there is a new USDA program to help stabilize water supplies for rural and disadvantaged communities with fewer than 10,000 residents, with hundreds of millions of dollars allocated throughout the bill for things like federal assistance for desalination projects; there are provisions for research, water recycling and storage projects, grants and initiatives.
“In terms of environmental protections, $20 million is allocated to begin the implementation of NMFS’ Endangered Species Act recovery plan for habitat and flow restoration throughout the Sacramento and San Joaquin basins, $3 million to trap and barge fish to reduce mortality rates on migration through the Delta, and nearly $20 million between creating spawning habitats, scientific water management and restoration of wildlife refuges.”
The Bee offered its editorial support of the bill Saturday.
The prolonged drought continues to have unpredictable impacts. Cindy Carcamo looks at the drought’s latest victim: Head Start programs that provided services for the children of migrant workers. From the Los Angeles Times:
“The federally funded Migrant Head Start centers provide free child care and developmental services for the children of migrant farmworkers, but at least two in Fresno County are in jeopardy of not reopening next farm season. Another, in the small town of Biola, closed this year.
“Fresno Head Start Director Flora Chacon said there simply weren't enough children to justify keeping it open.
“Unable to find field work, the farmworker families who usually migrate and follow the harvests left Biola and its surrounding areas early this season or simply didn't arrive because the drought has left the fields barren, Chacon said…
"’We used to have a line out the door,’ Chacon said. ‘There was a waiting list.’
“Now the center serves 19 children with nine staff members — including four teachers. If enrollment were to fall any lower than 14, the center would be in jeopardy of closing.”
Even without the drought, California agriculture is changing. The Bee’s David Siders looks at the evolution of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board – and the Governor’s attitudes toward labor and Big Ag.
“Though the Democratic governor signed the labor relations act when he was governor before, from 1975 to 1983, protecting the right of farmworkers to organize, Brown has frequently sided with industry interests since returning to office in 2011.
“Yet Brown’s evolving approach to farm labor in California appears guided more by a shift in the state’s agricultural landscape – with a sharp decline in the influence of farmworker unions – than by any change in his own ideology.
“The state’s farming industry has grown dramatically since Brown first took office in 1975, with greater crop yields and an increasing reliance on seasonal farmworkers brought to workplaces by labor contractors or other intermediaries. When Brown signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the board routinely oversaw union certification elections every day, and often more than one.
“Now, instead of overseeing elections, the ALRB more often presides over worker retaliation or discrimination cases involving farmworkers who are not represented by a union.”
While Jerry Brown was invited to participate in a recent conference on climate change at the Vatican, the Pope has publically scorned cap and trade programs similar to the one in place in California. Predicted to be a trendsetter, California’s program remains the only one of its kind in the U.S. CALmatters’ Laurel Rosenhall has the story:
“Cap and trade is among the most pioneering -- yet controversial -- elements of California's multi-layered approach to combating climate change. The program covers most major polluting industries and is generating billions of dollars for the state, money that must be poured into efforts to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Courts have so far upheld the approach in the face of legal challenges.
“Yet the national reach of the program has fallen short of expectations. One Canadian province has joined, and another is working on it. But California remains the only state that charges almost every industry a price for emitting carbon.
“It wasn't supposed to be this way, said former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who carried Assembly Bill 32, the 2006 measure that led to cap and trade.
"’The environmental community said, “Look, the reason why this has to be the most progressive bill is because once California passes a law, all of these other states are going to follow suit. All of them," Núñez said in a recent interview.
"’The irony of this is that once the law passed in California, no one followed suit. No one.’"
It was only last week that Fox News hosted the first GOP debate of the 2016 presidential season, and though the candidates (including The Donald and his caustic commentary) have remained in the news, we’re already yearning for more.
We’ll have to wait ‘til September 16 for our next serving of genuine 2016 goodness, but to hold us over we decided to revisit the AMAZING debate of the candidates from the 2014 Idaho Governor’s race.
Like Donald Trump, candidate Harley Brown attacked political correctness and delivered a host of memorable one-liners including, “thank god we don’t get all the government we pay for.”
Here’s the three and a half minute supercut…
