Ex-lawmaker in alleged masturbation incident sues accuser
Sacramento Bee's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "Former Assemblyman Matt Dababneh, who resigned last year amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault, is suing the Sacramento lobbyist who accused him of pushing her into a hotel bathroom and masturbating in front of her."
"In a complaint filed Tuesday in Sacramento County court, the Los Angeles Democrat sued Pamela Lopez for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He is seeking unspecified damages."
"Lopez held a press conference last December to name Dababneh as the California lawmaker who in 2016, forcibly followed her into the bathroom in a suite at a Las Vegas hotel, told her to touch his genitals and masturbated as she was pressed against the wall. Dababneh immediately denied the episode, but four days later, he announced his resignation and said he was leaving office to focus on clearing his name."
Big change in California's Prop 13 could be headed to ballot
The Chronicle's JOHN WILDERMUTH: "California’s largest companies could find themselves paying an additional $11 billion a year in property taxes under a ballot measure that would dramatically revise the state’s tax-cutting Proposition 13."
"Schools and Communities First, a wide-ranging group of community organizations, education advocates, unions and foundations, turned in 860,000 signatures Tuesday that could put that initiative on the November 2020 state ballot."
Yosemite reopens to a surreal scene of smoke, toursts and flames in the distance
LA Times's JACLYN COSGROVE: "As Rob Walker drove into Yosemite, he briefly reconsidered the camping trip he was about to take with a small group of friends and family."
"The outing is a tradition. Walker’s family always stays at the North Pines Campground near the Merced River, with Kaleigh Burn and her family."
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Kopp sues Secret Service in SF, wants to know security cost for Trump Jr. trip
The Chronicle's DOMINIC FRACASSA: "San Francisco Ethics Commissioner Quentin Kopp filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to force the Secret Service to turn over documents detailing how much it cost taxpayers to protect Donald Trump Jr. while he was on a business trip to India on behalf of the Trump Organization."
"In February, Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son and executive vice president at the Trump Organization, traveled to India for a weeklong tour to promote Trump-branded luxury properties across that country."
Hey, who says California politics isn't entertaining? Capitol Weekly's Top 100 List is out
From the Capitol Weekly Staff: "Much has changed in the nine years since we started this exercise. We shifted from a Republican to a Democratic governor, emerged from the Great Recession to become the world’s fifth-largest economy and watched GOP voter registration dip to third-party status behind decline-to-state. Hardball politics got even harder."
"But the big issue in Sacramento this year stemmed from the #MeToo movement, in which hundreds of women — including lobbyists and Capitol staffers — publicly described being victimized by acts of sexual misconduct committed by lawmakers, managers, lobbyists and others. The disclosures hit the Capitol like a bomb, forcing the departures of some legislators and public apologies from others. Reporting by the L.A. Times’ Melanie Mason captured the issue."
"About a fifth of the names on the Top 100 are new, including some who have been on before and who are joining us again. We try to have new blood each year — “It shouldn’t be a yearly entitlement,” said one — while retaining what we hope is a fairly accurate rundown of those at pivotal points in California politics. Several were destined to be on last year’s list, but we couldn’t fit them in. They are here now."
Gavin Newsom has big, liberal plans for California. So how would he pay for them?
Sacramento Bee's ANGELA HART: "Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is promising an ambitious agenda for California in his campaign for governor: Universal preschool and childcare. Health care for all. More money for higher education and job training. More spending on roads, public transit and bridges. Millions of new housing units."
"The time for timidity is over,” Newsom said at a primetime speech at the California Democratic Party convention in February. “Calfornia has never succeeded by playing it safe.”
All of it would be expensive. But Newsom isn’t saying exactly how he’d pay for his ideas."
GOP to weaponize Pelosi and 'San Francisco values' in key California House races
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "Rep. Nancy Pelosi has starred in roughly one in every five Republican-made House campaign ads across the country this yeazr, usually as a device to tar a fellow Democrat running in a conservative area as beholden to her “liberal San Francisco values."
"But almost no Pelosi-themed ads have aired yet in her largely Democratic home state. That is about to change, as two Republican groups are planning to use Pelosi in attack ads warning that if Democrats take GOP-held House seats in California, it will mean higher taxes for all Americans."
14,000 CalPERS members and their families need to find a new 2019 health plan. Here's why
Sacramento Bee's HANNAH HOLZER: "Changes at California’s pension giant will force more than 14,000 CalPERS members and their dependents in the Sacramento region and Bay Area to find a new health plan over the coming year."
"The California Public Employees’ Retirement System recently negotiated its lowest premium increases in the past 21 years, which will mean lowered health premiums for 800,000 members in 2019."
Can hackers tamper with your vote? Researchers show it's possible in nearly 30 states
McClatchy DC's TIM JOHNSON/GREG GORDON/CHRISTINE CONDON: "Top computer researchers gave a startling presentation recently about how to intercept and switch votes on emailed ballots, but officials in the 30 or so states said the ease with which votes could be changed wouldn’t alter their plans to continue offering electronic voting in some fashion."
"Two states — Washington and Alaska — have ended their statewide online voting systems."
She served in the Army for more than 4 years and now, she could be deported
LA Times's VICTORIA KIM: "In spring 2015, Army Spec. Yea Ji Sea was stationed with the U.S. military in South Korea where she worked as a pharmacy tech, spending some of her time off translating for seriously ill soldiers at local hospitals."
"She was working toward her dream of becoming an Army doctor and researching Lou Gehrig’s disease, which disproportionately affects soldiers."
"Around the same time, across the Pacific in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, immigration agents were raiding the offices of Hee Sun Shim, who ran a network of schools in Los Angeles that authorities said was a front for a visa fraud."
Is Trump finally ready to turn his sights towards remaking the 9th Circuit Court?
LA Times's SARAH D WIRE: "There’s been a noticeable exception to President Trump’s otherwise successful effort to appoint young, conservative judges to the nation’s appellate courts."
"The Senate has confirmed a record 24 new circuit court judges nationwide in 20 months — with two more nominees scheduled for votes this week. But Trump has made far less progress in the jurisdiction he criticizes the most: the liberal-leaning U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, including California and eight other Western states."
Here's how California became the most secretive state on police misconduct
LA Times's LIAM DILLON: "In the 1970s, Los Angeles police officers were furious that past complaints against them increasingly were making their way into court cases."
"So LAPD officials did something radical: They took more than four tons of personnel records dating to the 1940s and shredded them."
"That decision resulted in the dismissal of more than 100 criminal cases involving officers accused of wrongdoing whose records had been purged, sparking public outrage."
Twitter suspends far-right conspiratorial commentator Alex Jones
WaPo's ELIZABETH DWOSKIN: "After drawing criticism for inaction, Twitter followed in the footsteps of its technology industry counterparts late Tuesday and suspended the far-right conspiratorial commentator Alex Jones, the company said."
"Twitter said that Jones, whose Infowars shows have been banned by Facebook, Youtube, Spotify, Apple and others in recent weeks, had posted a new show which violated the company's rules prohibiting violent threats."
Prosecution and defense scheduled to make final pitches to jury in Paul Manafort trial
LA Times's CHRIS MEGERIAN: "The federal trial of Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, is expected to enter its final stage on Wednesday when prosecutors and defense lawyers begin closing arguments to the jury."
"Manafort has been fighting 18 charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and conspiracy brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III."
