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Rep. Duncan Hunter says he will plead guilty in campaign finance scandal -- U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter says he will plead guilty on Tuesday to a charge of misusing campaign funds. The California Republican is facing charges he looted campaign cash to finance vacations, golf outings and other personal expenses, a judge said Monday. Hunter tells KUSI television in San Diego he is changing his plea to protect his children. Morgan Cook, Jeff McDonald in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ Melanie Zanona and John Bresnahan Politico -- 12/2/19

Leader of L.A.'s top homeless agency quits after a ‘long five years,’ rising public anger -- In a major change for the team tasked with addressing rising homelessness in the region, Peter Lynn announced Monday that he is stepping down as head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Doug Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

California Gov. Newsom to campaign in Iowa for Kamala Harris -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom will travel to Iowa to campaign for Sen. Kamala Harris as she tries to rebound amid a critical stretch in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kathleen Ronayne Associated Press Sophia Bollag in the Sacramento Bee$ Carla Marinucci Politico -- 12/2/19

One of California’s most powerful labor unions is feuding with Gov. Gavin Newsom -- A young girl dressed as a newsie walked up to Gov. Gavin Newsom at the California Democratic Party convention in Long Beach last month, handing him a copy of a paper with his image splashed across the front page. Alongside an unflattering photo of the Democratic governor, a headline on the Building Trades News read: “Gov. Newsom Vetoes Fair Wages for Construction Workers.” Taryn Luna in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

Bay Area super-commuters take to the skies in planes, helicopters -- Every Sunday evening for eight months, Paul Spence drove his 16-year-old daughter, Hayley, to a private air terminal in Sacramento 15 minutes before her flight left. He’d walk her out to the plane, meet the pilot, and watch the preflight security briefing. Then she’d take off alone for the 45-minute ride to her specialized school in Palo Alto, where she spent the week with a family member before flying back Thursday. Mallory Moench in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

More than 400 UCLA medical school students get a free education thanks to major donation -- Medical school had put Allen Rodriguez in debt before he was even accepted. Sonali Kohli in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

Surviving a shut-off -- Thousands of people in California use electric medical devices and rely on electricity for their health. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers across the state — including some of this vulnerable population — lost power this fall in outages designed to prevent wildfires. Eric Blom in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

Wait times are dropping at the California DMV. How you can avoid getting stuck in line -- Newly released data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles show the state making a huge dent in the wait times  ustomers are experiencing across the state. Bryan Anderson in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 12/2/19

Statewide police reporting project wins First Amendment Coalition award -- A statewide reporting collaboration that includes the Bay Area News Group and KQED News has won a 2019 First Amendment Coalition’s Free Speech and Open Government Award obtaining and digging through thousands of police disciplinary and use of force records released under an accountability law that went into effect this year. The item is in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 12/2/19

Steyer buys 'Keep America Great' domain name -- Tom Steyer's presidential campaign says the Democratic billionaire candidate landed a special Cyber Monday deal — nabbing the www.keepamericagreat.com domain name under his campaign's own branding. Carla Marinucci Politico -- 12/2/19

Borenstein: The rotting of Contra Costa’s political moral fabric -- After the cases of the district attorney, elections chief, assessor and two judges, it’s time to raise the bar. Daniel Borenstein in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 12/2/19

 

California Policy & Politics This Morning  

Flipping Orange County was key for Democrats. Now the trick is to keep it -- Harley Rouda knows it took a little luck, a wacky opponent and a wave election for the 57-year-old Democrat to be elected to Congress last year in one of Orange County’s most reliably Republican districts. Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

John Cox: will his new outreach to independent voters deliver GOP victories? -- After his last defeat, Cox detected a possible route to future victory: registered voters who are unaffiliated with political parties. Peter Rowe in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 12/2/19

California banned plastic bags. So why do stores keep using them? -- Three years ago, California voters upheld a state law prohibiting single-use plastic grocery bags. Environmentalists declared victory. Business groups cried government overreach. But for all the furor, shopping bags made from plastic film remain commonplace in checkout lines across the state. Dustin Gardiner in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

Walters: Will schools get more state aid? -- To the denizens of the state Capitol, the onset of the holiday season also marks the beginning of the state budget cycle. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 12/2/19

Presidio at 25: The making of a park -- There’s been striking progress in bringing the former Army post back to life. But many historic buildings still sit empty, and its leaders seek to attract a more diverse set of visitors. John King in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

Technology to keep lights on could help prevent wildfires -- B. Don Russell wasn’t thinking about preventing a wildfire when he developed a tool to detect power line problems before blackouts and bigger disasters. Brian Melley Associated Press -- 12/2/19

Their kids died on the psych ward. They were far from alone, a Times investigation found -- Mia St. John’s cellphone lit up with a message from the psychiatrist treating her son. The voicemail shimmered with hope, the first she had felt in months. The doctor said Julian, admitted to a psychiatric facility with schizophrenia, seemed more cheerful, was talking more with other patients and would soon begin a new art project. Soumya Karlamangla in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

Schnur: Low unemployment numbers hide income inequality, other economic issues in California -- California has now experienced almost 10 years of uninterrupted economic growth. But as the state braces itself for the inevitable downturn, the storm clouds on the horizon are becoming more menacing. Dan Schnur in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 12/2/19

Why Buttigieg’s UC San Diego climate adviser is taking fire from the left -- A climate policy adviser for presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has recently come under attack for criticizing an ambitious vision of the Green New Deal aimed at dismantling the fossil fuel industry. Joshua Emerson Smith in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 12/2/19

‘Turn Off the Sunshine’: Why Shade Is a Mark of Privilege in Los Angeles -- Shade in Los Angeles sits at the intersection of two crises: climate change and income inequality. City officials are rushing to deploy cover to hundreds of bus stops and plant 90,000 trees. Tim Arango in the New York Times$ -- 12/2/19

Economy, Employers, Jobs, Unions, Pensions  

Gig economy companies made workers arbitrate disputes. Then didn’t pay fees to start cases -- In his San Francisco courtroom, U.S. District Judge William Alsup has berated lawyers for Google, Oracle, Uber and PG&E. Last week, an attorney for DoorDash found himself the target. The issue was the way the meal-delivery startup pushed its couriers into arbitration. Mallory Moench in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

UC outsources thousands of jobs to private contractors. Is that a good idea? -- The University of California is at war with its largest union, the 26,000-member Local 3299 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). November’s one-day strike, with picket lines at 10 UC campuses and five university hospitals across the state, was the sixth such angry walkout in the three years that the two sides have been fighting over a new contract. Margot Roosevelt in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

Need hospital linens? At new Stanford Hospital, call the robot -- The robot future is here — at least in the hallways of the new Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. The $2 billion, high-tech hospital, which opened last month, is preparing to deploy a fleet of 23 automated delivery robots to shuttle clean and dirty linens, packages and medical gas tanks between the hospital and its loading dock a quarter-mile away. Catherine Ho in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

California electric vehicle sales are up. But will we reach the 5 million goal by 2030? -- While overall sales for new cars in California dipped in the third quarter, the combined market share for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in the Golden State has continued to grow. But is the increase moving at a quick enough pace to reach the goal set by state policymakers for 5 million zero-carbon emission vehicles on California’s roads by 2030? Rob Nikolewski in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

Time running out for braceros who worked US fields during WWII -- Serna was 16 when he came from Mexico and was hired under an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico governments to work in the fields, where he picked oranges and grapefruit. Now 90, he has started to forget things, but he remembers this: The governments put 10% of their paychecks in “savings funds” without the workers’ knowledge. Jorge Macías in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 12/2/19

Efforts to rein in the Inland Empire’s warehouse industry fall flat -- Two years ago, Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries looked around the Inland Empire and saw massive warehouses inching closer and closer to communities. The region’s local governments, he said, were receiving the projects with open arms and little real consideration for their health and quality of life impacts. Paloma Esquivel in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 12/2/19

Immigration / Border 

Who Are America’s Undocumented Immigrants? You Might Not Recognize Them -- Eddie Oh, an industrial engineer, lost his job during the financial crisis that gripped South Korea in 1998. With no prospects, he scrounged together his savings to pay his family’s airfare to California. They were going on vacation, he told the United States embassy, which issued six-month visitor visas for the family. Miriam Jordan in the New York Times$ -- 12/2/19

Also . . . 

Newly released records show San Jose officers disciplined for shooting at cars, police dog that bit kid -- In the last four years, two San Jose Police Department officers have been suspended for shooting at moving cars in violation of department policy and a third for failing to prevent a police dog from biting a 2-year-old girl during a search for the child’s uncle, according to newly released records. In one of the cases, the agency unsuccessfully tried to fire the officer. Robert Salonga in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 12/2/19

Disgraced Oakland cop linked to Chinatown underworld implicates another officer -- Former Oakland cop and Alameda County District Attorney Inspector Harry Hu revealed in sworn testimony he was not the only lawman treated to dinners, concerts and hotels by a now-convicted murderer with ties to Chinatown underworld figures. David DeBolt and Nate Gartrell in the East Bay Times -- 12/2/19

POTUS 45  

Trump’s counsel says president won’t participate in House Judiciary’s first impeachment panel, calling it unfair -- As the impeachment inquiry moves into a critical week, President Trump and his Republican allies are debating the degree to which the president should participate in a process they have spent more than two months attacking. Mike DeBonis and Felicia Sonmez in the Washington Post$ Emily Cochrane and Michael D. Shear in the New York Times$ -- 12/2/19