KQED’s Marisa Lagos is reporting that the ACLU of California is filing a complaint today, alleging that the DMV has failed to properly implement the Motor Voter Act and is making it unnecessarily difficult for some to vote. Next step: lawsuit.
“The civil rights organization is filing a complaint Thursday with Secretary of State Alex Padilla on behalf of three Californians as well as four organizations: the League of Women Voters of California, the National Council of La Raza, California Common Cause and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment…
“Stuart Naifeh, a lawyer at the nonprofit organization Demos, which is working with the ACLU on the case, said California isn’t the only state that has failed to adequately implement the motor voter law — but its shortcomings do ‘offer a stark example of some of the things we have seen that are wrong.’
“Among those problems: The state DMV doesn’t automatically transfer information from its driver’s license applications onto a voter registration form, even though most of the information is the same, and it doesn’t always process the voter registration forms when people fill them out.”
And speaking of the DMV, a new bill from Assemblyman Matt Dababneh (D–Encino) would digitize driver’s licenses and ID cards. Gregory J. Wilcox reports in the Los Angeles Daily News:
“There might come a day when a cop asks to see your driver’s license, and you simply whip out your cell phone and activate an app.
“San Fernando Valley Assemblyman Matt Dababneh (D–Encino) this week introduced AB 221, legislation that would let the Department of Motor Vehicles develop a mobile application for a digital driver’s license, which would be accessed via smartphone.
“’California has always been at the forefront of digital innovation and last year passed legislation allowing individuals to access their automobile insurance on their smartphones,’ Dababneh said in a statement.
“’What my bill will do is not replace traditional licenses,’ he added when contacted by phone. ‘It will supplement options for people who want to have a traditional ID.’”
And, yesterday, Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins unveiled a plan to add user fees for all those folks holding licenses. From Jeremy White at the Sacramento Bee:
“Drivers would fund repairs to California’s roads with a new user charge under a proposal unveiled Wednesday by California Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego….
“Atkins said she has not yet determined how the fee would be assessed but estimated it would amount to roughly a dollar a day.
“’It could take any number of forms,’ Atkins told reporters after her speech. ‘You’ve heard vehicle mileage, you’ve heard vehicle license fee, there’s a way you could attach it to insurance – people pay insurance on a regular basis. Either way, it’s a fee that we have to figure out how best and the easiest way to collect it.’”
As lawmakers introduced legislation to tighten rules for exemptions to vaccinations, Governor Brown signaled that he was open to reconsidering the state’s vaccination policies. Patrick McGreevy and Rong-Gong Lin II report for the Los Angeles Times:
“Brown's spokesman, Evan Westrup, said the governor ‘believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered.’
“Earlier, five lawmakers had said they would introduce legislation that would abolish all religious and other personal-beliefs exemptions for parents who do not want their children vaccinated before starting school.”
And while we’re on the subject of public health, we hope you don’t have Anthem health care: the industry giant announced yesterday that it had been hacked, exposing the personal information of about 80 million customers and employees.
Capital and Main has launched an in-depth series examining income inequality in California—the first story is posted now and others will be coming over the next weeks. Nice work from Manuel Pastor and Dan Braun:
[A] French economist, Thomas Piketty, reached the top of the American best seller list – when did that last happen? – with a dense volume called Capital in the Twenty-First Century that has jump-started a global conversation about the distribution of income and wealth.
“Piketty’s detailed research shocked some… But it was not necessarily a big surprise to those of us in California: As with demographics, the Golden State seems to have foreshadowed national trends.
“California, for example, is the home to more super rich than anywhere else in the country – and it also exhibits the highest poverty rate in the nation, when cost of living is taken into account. Income disparities in the state of California are among the highest in the nation, outpacing such places as Georgia and Mississippi in terms of the Gini coefficient, a standard measure of inequality.
“But it’s not just the extremes – with wages falling and insecurity rising, the middle class is also squeezed. And, as it turns out, none of this is good for economic growth…”
We haven’t seen see any articles on last night’s SD7 candidate forum, but Carla Marinucci’s live-tweeted coverage was almost as good as being there.
Patrick McGreevy offers a nice profile of capitol pastor Frank Erb, (complete with the largest headline font we’ve ever seen on the internet). From the Los Angeles Times:
“Tall and lean, Frank Erb might be mistaken for a lobbyist: the dark business suit, the black leather shoulder bag. But he isn't interested in hotly contested bills and votes, and his bag contains a Bible, not checks made out to campaign committees.
“Erb is the self-described "pastor to California's leaders," ministering to a small flock that includes some of the most powerful men and women in California.
“He has been a fixture at the statehouse in Sacramento for years, holding weekly Bible study sessions that he hopes will deliver legislators from temptation.”
Uh… good luck with that.
