Newsom signs California eviction moratorium for renters hurt by pandemic
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "On an acrimonious final night of its session, the Legislature approved a bill to head off evictions of tenants who have been unable to pay their rent because of the coronavirus pandemic and to keep out-of-work Californians in their homes through the beginning of next year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the measure shortly before midnight. It takes effect immediately.
The legislation, AB3088, grants tenants who have lost income because of the coronavirus pandemic a reprieve on their missed rent and gives them five more months before they must start paying again in full."
California legislators push to let former prisoners become firefighters
The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER: "As California battles through another devastating wildfire season, state legislators have passed a bill that would make it easier for formerly incarcerated people to become firefighters.
AB2147 by Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-San Bernardino, would allow people who have trained at state fire camps in prison to have their criminal records more quickly expunged upon release.
Every year, several thousand California prisoners volunteer to help the state fight wildfires. They are trained at a camp and often work alongside full-time firefighters, digging fire lines and thinning forests."
AB5 cleanup bill allows gig work for musicians, interpreters, more in California
The Chronicle's CAROLYN SAID: "Musicians, translators, interpreters, writers, photographers and dozens more professions won exemptions from AB5, the state’s new gig-work law, with Monday’s passage of a cleanup bill, AB2257.
People in those occupations now can continue to operate as self-employed professionals if they qualify under an earlier standard, rather than being subject to AB5’s strict rules that make it much harder for workers to be independent contractors rather than employees.
The bill sailed through both the Senate and Assembly without opposition Monday."
Second effort to boost wildfire funding falls flat in the California Legislature
LA Times's TARYN LUNA: "An eleventh-hour push in the California Legislature to direct $500 million to wildfire response and prevention fell flat Monday, marking the second late attempt to boost fire funding that failed in the last week.
The efforts to secure more money for wildfires fizzled out as blazes burned more than a million acres across the state during the frenetic final days of the legislative year.
Arguing that California needs to do more to prevent fires, Democrats in the Senate came up with the plan to spend $500 million dollars on fires after a bill to generate $3 billion for wildfire and climate projects through the extension of a fee on electricity bills failed to gain traction last week."
Smoke still hurting NorCal air quality, but LNU Fire isn't main culprit
Sac Bee's MICHAEL MCGOUGH: "The air remains unhealthy in the Sacramento area as wildfires continue to burn across Northern California, and some of the morning relief that helped out last week has been absent at the start of this week.
Monitors from local air quality districts showed AQI readings in the “unhealthy” classification, from 151 to 200, from Monday morning through early afternoon across most of the capital region, according to SpareTheAir.com.
Particulate matter (PM2.5) pollutant levels are expected to remain about as bad on Tuesday, with AQI readings between 151 and 160 in the forecast for most of the region, according to Spare The Air, which is managed by several local air quality districts. The exception is El Dorado County, where a comparatively low AQI of 115 is predicted."
READ MORE related to Wildfire Season: One firefighter killed, second injured battling Mendocino County blazes -- The Chronicle's MICHAEL WILLIAMS/RITA BEAMISH/DOMINIC FRACASSA
California to require ethnic studies to graduate high school under bill headed to Gov. Newsom
JOHN FENSTERWALD, EdSource: "California would become the first state to require that all high school students pass a one-semester ethnic studies course to graduate if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill that the Legislature passed on Monday, the last day of the legislative session.
But in order to get Assembly Bill 331 out of a Senate committee and on to a final vote, the primary author, Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, proposed one amendment and accepted several others.
One amendment would push back the start date to the graduating class of 2029-30; districts would have to begin offering a course in the 2025-26 school year. Medina said the new schedule would give schools and districts “plenty of time to prepare for a smooth implementation” and give the state time to provide funding for the new courses, which would be considered a state mandate."
Class of 2020 to get a pass on California grad requirements in COVID-19 bill headed to Newsom
Sac Bee's LARA KORTE: "Certain members of California’s class of 2020 may get a second chance at a high school diploma, thanks to a bill sent to the governor’s desk this week.
AB 1350, authored by Asm. Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, would authorize a school district, county office of education, or the governing body of a charter school to retroactively grant a high school diploma to a student who was in their senior year of high school during the 2019–2020 school year, but did not graduate because of the pandemic.
Eligible students must have been in good academic standing and on track to graduate on March 1."
READ MORE related to Education: Ethnic studies requirement for California high school students passes legislature -- The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER
California lawmakers pass bill to diversify largely white, wealthier juries
The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER: "State legislators have passed a bill designed to make California’s juries look more like the people who live in the state by adding more people of color and low-income residents.
The Senate voted 30-5 on Monday night to give final legislative approval to SB592 by state Sen. Scott Wiener. It would expand California’s pool of potential jurors by drawing candidates from among everyone who files income tax returns.
Currently, California draws courtroom panels that decide criminal cases and lawsuits largely from residents who are registered to vote or have a driver’s license or identification card from the Department of Motor Vehicles."
Amid coronavirus crisis, an unsatisfying end for California's Legislature
LA Times's JOHN MYERS: "So many storylines could have prevailed as the California Legislature adjourned for the year on Monday — the response to a public health emergency, demands for racial justice, progress toward easing the state’s homelessness and housing crises.
But what was most notable as the final gavel fell in the two houses just before midnight was an unmistakable feeling of absence.
It went beyond the 10 senators forced to quarantine after possible COVID-19 exposure and the empty offices and hallways of the state Capitol, where lobbyists and advocates usually provide rhythm and tempo to the governing process."
Bill to strip problem cops' badges in California dies in Legislature
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "A bill to strip the badges from police officers who break the law and eliminate their legal immunity for killing a suspect — the most far-reaching changes to policing proposed in the California Legislature this year — died Monday night without ever coming up for a vote.
SB731 by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena (Los Angeles County), would have created a statewide process to revoke the professional certificate of an officer who has used excessive force, committed sexual assault, made a false arrest or committed ethical violations such as falsifying evidence.
The bill also would have scaled back qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields police from liability for violating a suspect’s rights, allowing people to sue an officer who injured them or who killed their family member."
READ MORE related to Police, Prisons, Protests & Public Safety: Fatal shooting of Black man by LA sheriff's deputies sparks protests, questions -- LA Times's MATTHEW ORMSETH
Where do second stimulus checks stand? Here's what top Democrats, Republicans say
Sac Bee's BAILEY ALDRIDGE: "A second round of coronavirus stimulus checks remains in limbo as August draws to a close without an agreement among lawmakers on a relief package.
Talks about the relief package, which is expected to include stimulus checks, resumed last week, Nexstar/the Associated Press reported Sunday. But Democrats and Republicans remain locked in a stalemate and unable to reach a compromise on spending.
In mid-May the House of Representatives passed the Democrats’ $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill, the Heroes Act, that was never voted on in the Senate. Senate Republicans introduced their own $1 trillion package, the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools, or HEALS, Act in late July, McClatchy News reported."
READ MORE related to Economy: Millions of Californians would be eligible for job-protected leave under plan approved by lawmakers -- LA Times's MELODY GUTIERREZ
California bill eliminating sex offender list inequity toward LGBTQ passes
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "California would eliminate a disparity in its statutory rape laws that critics say is a discriminatory vestige of the historic criminalization of gay sex, under a bill sent Monday to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
SB145 by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would remove automatic sex-offender registration for young adults who are convicted of having anal or oral sex with a minor, leaving the decision up to a judge. Newsom has until the end of September to act on the measure.
Under current law, a judge can decide whether to place a man who has vaginal intercourse with an underage teenage girl on the sex offender registry based on the facts of the case. But if anal or oral sex, or vaginal penetration with anything other than a penis is involved, the adult must register as a sex offender — a relic of a penal code that criminalized those acts until 1975, even between consenting adults."
Trump has slipped among key groups that backedd him in 2016
LA Times's DAVID LAUTER: "President Trump’s support has eroded among key groups of voters who backed him in 2016 — a major reason why he continues to trail former Vice President Joe Biden and a prime motivator for the president’s reelection strategy of emphasizing violent disorder in the nation’s cities.
Trump’s decline among parts of his 2016 base is a chief finding so far from the USC Dornsife Daybreak Poll, which tracked voter preferences daily four years ago and is doing so again this year. Overall, Trump has lost support from about 9% of voters who backed him in 2016, the poll finds.
The poll shows no major shift in the race during the last two weeks, belying much speculation that the back-to-back national political conventions and violence in Portland, Ore., and Kenosha, Wis., might have changed what has been an unusually stable contest."
Would Biden undo Trump's provocative steps in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
LA Times's TRACY WILKINSON: "If he wins the presidential election, Joe Biden will find a Middle East quite different from the one at the end of the Obama administration.
Nuclear threats may once again be on the horizon in Iran. Militant groups are on the ascendance in Lebanon and Yemen. And Israelis and Palestinians stand farther away from settling their conflict than they have in a long time.
Biden says his first task will be repairing much of what he and his supporters consider to be the damage done by President Trump, who demolished long-standing norms and decades of U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
