California’s Supreme Court already declared a constitutional right to abortion. So why are state leaders pushing for a ballot measure?
BOB EGELKO, Chronicle: "The California Supreme Court ruled in 1981 that Medi-Cal must pay for abortions, because the insurance program for low-income residents already paid childbirth costs if women chose to give birth. The basis of the ruling was the court’s conclusion that the right to abortion was protected by California’s Constitution.
Under Article 1, Section 1 of the state Constitution, which includes an explicit right to privacy, “all women in this state - rich and poor alike - possess a fundamental constitutional right to chose whether or not to bear a child,” Justice Mathew Tobriner wrote. And as far back as 1969, he said, three years before California’s voters had approved privacy rights and four years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, the state’s high court had recognized constitutional protections for the choice of childbirth or abortion.
Which raises the question of why Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders are proposing a November ballot measure that would amend the state Constitution to declare a right to abortion. They want the measure placed on the ballot by two-thirds votes of both Democratic-controlled legislative chambers."
As women react to Roe v. Wade news, their ages color their outlooks
The Chronicle, CAROLYN SAID: “Growing up during America’s deeply polarizing and increasingly vitriolic debates about Roe v. Wade, Emma Dauplaise, 27, a law student at Santa Clara University, always had a lingering fear that abortion rights could be revoked.
Now her fear is on the brink of coming true with the leaked revelation that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the landmark ruling.
“It’s terrifying that this is potentially going to be a new reality for me, that Roe will not exist in my soon-immediate lifetime,” said Dauplaise, who is active in If/When/How, a legal organization promoting reproductive justice.”
California voters in November likely will decide on plastics — again
JOSHUA AALCIDES, Capitol Weekly: "California’s inability to meet its long-stated goal of cutting solid waste by 75 percent by 2020 has prompted environmentalists to craft a ballot initiative targeting single-use plastic products – including a sharp limit on their production.
The initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot marks the second time in six years that California voters have decided on plastics use. In 2016, an industry-backed referendum, Proposition 67, asked voters to toss out a law blocking retailers, with some exceptions, from issuing single-use plastic bags with their products. The earlier law was upheld.
The latest initiative, the California Recycling and Plastic Reduction Act, would require all single-use plastic packaging and foodware to be recyclable, reusable, refillable, or compostable by 2030."
L.A. city attorney charges suspect in Dave Chappelle attack at Hollywood Bowl
RICHARD WINTON and GREGORY YEE: "Hours after Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s office declined to file felony charges against a man who tackled comedian Dave Chappelle onstage at the Hollywood Bowl, City Atty. Mike Feuer announced late Thursday afternoon that his office had filed four misdemeanor counts against the suspect.
Isaiah Lee, 23, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and was being held on $30,000 bail. On Wednesday, police released photos of a replica gun with a knife that Lee allegedly had in a bag during Tuesday night’s incident.
The district attorney’s office referred the case to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office for misdemeanor filing consideration. After reviewing the evidence, county prosecutors concluded that, although criminal conduct occurred, the evidence as presented did not constitute felony conduct. The district attorney’s office does not prosecute misdemeanor crimes within the city of Los Angeles."
Below the Hollywood Sign, a Once ‘Private, Secret’ Enclave Becomes a Home-Buying Hotspot in Los Angeles
NANCY KEATES, Wall Street Journal: "It’s 9 a.m. on an April Sunday, and Eric Smith is drinking tea, looking out over the city of Los Angeles from the balcony of his two-level, midcentury modern in a tree-filled, mountainous neighborhood called Hollywoodland—just a few hundred feet below the iconic Hollywood sign. The only moving object on the street is a coyote, skulking around the corner.
But he knows the peace won’t last.
Soon, hordes of tourists following GPS to the Hollywood sign will start clogging the windy, narrow thoroughfares. At the bottom of the hill, there’s already a line, largely composed of teenage girls, snaking down the sidewalk outside the Beachwood Café, made famous by its mention in the lyrics of the Harry Styles song “Falling.”
At California’s second-largest lake, fish are dying in dried-up streambeds
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER: “At California’s second biggest freshwater lake, the latest fallout of drought is gruesome: dead fish in nearby stream beds that have run dry.
Some of the foot-long, silvery Clear Lake hitch have been decapitated by racoons and other varmints, which have had easy pickings of the beached minnow.
The grim sightings by Lake County and tribal crews surveying the lake have prompted a rescue effort over the past week to save hitch, a threatened species found only in this region.
Many are still stranded in what little water remains in the channels amid larger questions about the fate of the fish and the state of drought-diminished Clear Lake.”
Sacramento taco chain withheld overtime from workers, kept part of their tips, feds say
SAM STANTON, SacBee: "The U.S. Secretary of Labor has filed a complaint against the owners of Sacramento’s Garibaldi Mexican restaurant chain, alleging they failed to pay proper overtime, kept part of workers’ tips and pressured employees not to cooperate once federal investigators began looking into problems at the restaurants. T
he complaint, filed by Labor Secretary Martin Walsh in federal court in Sacramento late Wednesday, claims violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act at the Taqueria Garibaldi chain’s restaurants on Howe Avenue near Alta Arden Expressway and El Camino and Watt avenues in Arden Arcade, and a third eatery in Roseville on Fairway Drive.
The 12-page complaint names the Che Garibaldi company, restaurant owners Eduardo Hernandez and Hector Manual Martinez Galindo and Howe Avenue restaurant manager Alejandro Rodriguez, and says the chain employs more than 20 workers but deprived their workers of the wages they earn."
A bid to stop freeway expansions in California hits a roadblock: Organized labor
LIAM DILLON, BEN POSTON and RACHEL URANGA, LA Times: "After more than 60 years and 15,000 miles of highway and interstate construction in California, momentum is growing to end the state’s freeway expansion era.
Top state transportation officials recently pulled the plug on a $6-billion interstate widening in L.A. County and are pledging to funnel billions of dollars toward mass transit and road repairs. Multiple state lawmakers want to do the same, including one proposal that would prohibit freeway expansions in underserved communities across California, an effort that would be the first of its kind in the country.
Supporters of this approach cite freeways’ legacy of displacement and pollution in Black and Latino communities, the need to fight climate change and research showing that widening freeways in cities doesn’t ultimately ease congestion."
This may be the world’s last ‘affordable’ city for home buyers — and how the Bay Area compares
The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG: “A new study reinforces the daunting reality for home buyers in San Francisco and San Jose: Those two housing markets are among the world's least affordable.
But the two Bay Area metro areas are in rapidly growing company as the ranks of unaffordable markets swell worldwide during the pandemic, putting homeownership increasingly out of reach for middle-income buyers, researchers found.
In fact, out of the nearly 100 housing markets in eight countries examined in the report, just one remained “affordable” when measuring home prices in relation to income: Pittsburgh.”
A U.S. agency will stop selling target dummies that resemble Black men. An Oakland artist is the reason why
The Chronicle, JUSTIN PHILLIP: “Later this month, police agencies and the U.S. military will no longer be able to buy a target dummy resembling a man of African descent through a federal government website.
On May 27, the U.S. General Services Administration will terminate its five-year contract — called a GSA schedule — with the California company Kistabra Inc., which has been selling the rubber figure through the GSA’s website since 2019. The GSA procures equipment from commercial companies like Kistabra Inc. and sells their products at discounted rates to federal, state and local agencies.”
Berkeley flea market likely must move to make way for housing. Vendors hope they’re not left behind
JESSICA FLORES: “The Berkeley flea market, which has occupied the BART station parking lot on Ashby Avenue for almost half a century, is facing relocation to make way for much-needed housing — but some are worried about what that could mean for its vendors and the Black and brown and immigrant communities that use it as a gathering space.
When the market opened 48 years ago, sellers had to line up in the early morning to secure a spot. About 250 vendors filled the lot every weekend, selling everything from used bikes and vinyl records to incense and jewelry.
Over the past few decades, that number declined by half as housing prices went up, displacing South Berkeley’s Black residents, said Yasin Khan, the market’s general manager and board member of Community Services United, the organization that runs it.”
