California Policy & Politics This Morning
New bullet train plan paints optimistic picture, but opposition continues to grow -- Every other year, the California bullet train authority issues a business plan to support its cause and this year’s 168-page document came out this week with words that are obvious by now: “Building the nation’s first truly high-speed rail system is certainly not easy,” said Chief Executive Brian Kelly in the first sentence of the report. Ralph Vartabedian in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/16/20
Activists marking Torrance refinery explosion anniversary call for investigation -- A group of activists on Saturday marked the fifth anniversary of an explosion at the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance that injured four workers and prompted continuing concerns about the potential for an even more catastrophic incident and the release of toxic chemicals and fumes into local communities. Alex Wigglesworth in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/16/20
Is a vaccine for the coronavirus coming? Inovio says it has designed one in San Diego -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals said that it has produced a pre-clinical vaccine to fight the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus at its lab in San Diego. The company, based in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., used its proprietary DNA-based technology platform to design the synthetic vaccine within hours of getting the genetic sequencing of the virus. Mike Freeman in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 2/16/20
Walters: How’s the March 3 primary working out? -- The more or less official rationale offered by the state’s Democratic politicians for moving our presidential primary election to March 3 was that the nation’s most populous and diverse state should play a major role in choosing a challenger to President Donald Trump and compel candidates to pay attention to our issues. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 2/16/20
Willie Brown: Is Joe Biden toast? States that matter are about to tell us -- Now that we Democrats have endured Iowa and New Hampshire, can we agree never to start off the primary season with those two states again? Democratic candidates, who once numbered a total of 25, spent a collective $100 million in Iowa and didn’t even get a quality count. Willie Brown in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/16/20
How the Iowa caucuses came ‘crashing down,’ under the watchful eye of the DNC -- Six hours before Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses were set to begin, an engineer for the Democratic National Committee offered a frank appraisal of the software that would be used to verify the results collected by hundreds of volunteer precinct leaders across the state. “I’ve tested this as well as I can without real data but no guarantees it . . . won’t all come crashing down once real data comes in,” he wrote in a private channel on Slack, the online messaging platform, according to records viewed by The Washington Post. Isaac Stanley-Becker in the Washington Post$ -- 2/16/20
Economy, Employers, Jobs, Unions, Pensions
More Californians are skipping medical care because of cost, and are sicker for it -- Californians are increasingly worried about high health care costs, and more are postponing or skipping medical treatment altogether because of it, according to a new report by the California Health Care Foundation, a nonprofit that researches health care trends. Catherine Ho in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/16/20
The Ride-Hail Utopia That Got Stuck in Traffic -- Five years ago, Travis Kalanick was so confident that Uber Technologies Inc.’s UBER -1.07% rides would prompt people to leave their cars at home that he told a tech conference: “If every car in San Francisco was Ubered there would be no traffic.” Eliot Brown in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 2/16/20
Homeless
Sanctioned homeless encampments: Oakland and Berkeley leaders pay for safer spaces -- After years of opposing outdoor encampments, Oakland and Berkeley city leaders want to build safe versions of them for homeless people with nowhere else to go. Sarah Ravani in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/16/20
LA Councilman Lee’s office temporarily halts daily homeless-encampment cleanups, but residents still on edge -- Residents of a small cluster of homeless encampments in Chatsworth were hit with a spike in enforcement sweeps last week, daily patrols ordered by Los Angeles City Councilman John Lee’s office. Elizabeth Chou, Olga Grigoryants in the Los Angeles Daily News$ -- 2/16/20
Water
Is California headed back into drought, or did we never really leave one? -- The most recent U.S. Drought Monitor, issued on Thursday, shows an oval-shaped patch of Central California slipping back into moderate drought. This is after a couple months where the Drought Monitor showed the state to be almost drought-free. Paul Duginski in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/16/20
Environment
California adopts first air pollution measures targeting local emissions in Central Valley -- Anabel Marquez was on her way to church one day when she saw a group of people heading to a meeting. She asked what the meeting was about, and they said pesticides. She was intrigued. “Everything they said, I lived it,” Marquez said in Spanish. Cresencio Rodriguez-Delgado in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 2/16/20
Feds burn island weeds at Mono Lake to help birds feather their nests -- A massive weed infestation on a tiny island at Mono Lake has choked out the nesting grounds that California gulls need to complete a life cycle as ancient as the million-year-old Sierra Nevada ecosystem. Louis Sahagun in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/16/20
Also . . .
BART police shoot man who ‘produced’ gun at El Cerrito del Norte station -- BART police shot and wounded a young man at the El Cerrito del Norte station Saturday afternoon after officers responded to a report that he may have been armed with a gun aboard a train. BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez said at least one officer fired on the male rider, who had fled from police and then “produced” a gun as he stood in the station’s trackway around 2 p.m. Nico Savidge, Jessica Yadegaran in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 2/16/20
Attorney for 3 women who accused Newport Beach doctor of rapes requests special prosecutor -- An attorney for three accusers of a Newport Beach doctor and his girlfriend, who have been charged with drugging and raping multiple women, filed a motion Friday suggesting the case be turned over to a special prosecutor or the state attorney general’s office instead of being dismissed. The item is in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/16/20
POTUS 45
Trump eliminates funding for program honoring Ambassador Stevens, who was killed in Benghazi -- The Trump administration has zeroed out of the State Department budget a request from a nonprofit entity set up in honor of J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador killed in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 terrorist attacks. Colby Itkowitz in the Washington Post$ -- 2/16/20
A Presidency Increasingly Guided by Suspicion and Distrust -- Presidential paranoia is not a new phenomenon but Mr. Trump, burned by impeachment, seems to have elevated it to a governing philosophy of his White House. Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman in the New York Times$ -- 2/16/20
Beltway
Pete Buttigieg Makes His Pitch to Moderate Voters in the Central Valley -- On the heels of his strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg toured several Northern California cities and towns on Friday, including a stop in the Central Valley, where he was the keynote speaker at a sold-out fundraiser for the Stanislaus County Democratic Party. Alexandra Hall KQED -- 2/16/20
The Democratic nomination contest doesn’t look like any from the past -- Halfway through the early state primaries and caucuses, Democrats are no closer to clarifying their nominating contest than they were at the turn of the new year. In the coming two contests — Nevada’s caucuses next Saturday and South Carolina’s primary on Feb. 29 — the “winners” from Iowa and New Hampshire have almost as much at stake as the losers. Dan Balz in the Washington Post$ -- 2/16/20
-- Saturday Updates
New ICE crackdown in sanctuary cities sparks backlash in L.A. -- Los Angeles law enforcement officials are pushing back against a new federal immigration push to add more resources in sanctuary cities as the Trump administration continues to target those migrants who have entered the U.S. without legal documents. Brittny Mejia, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Leila Miller in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/15/20
California congressman owes $145,000 in unpaid income tax, according to new IRS lien -- The lien against the Fresno Democratic congressman lists about $87,000 in unpaid federal income tax for 2016 and about $57,000 in unpaid incomes tax in 2017. It says the IRS had contacted Cox and his wife about the debt prior to filing the lien. Kate Irby McClatchy DC -- 2/15/20
Lopez: Column: He’d like to get past the Columbine High shooting, but life has been a struggle -- Former Columbine High School student Richard Castaldo did not look well when he arrived at the summit for victims of gun violence in downtown Los Angeles last September. Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/15/20
Fire victims speak out against PG&E bankruptcy settlement -- While their specific grievances vary, a few common themes are clear. Some victims think the deal does not provide nearly enough money to help those who filed claims — some 80,000 people — rebuild their lives. Others object to the fact that the trust would be financed partially with stock or to the idea that billions of dollars from the trust might go to government agencies, not individuals. J.D. Morris in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/15/20
Rep. Panetta co-sponsors bill to ban single-use plastics -- Requiring big corporations to take responsibility for their pollution, the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act was introduced by Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico and Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, this week with Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, signed on as one of its co-sponsors. James Herrera in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 2/15/20
Coronavirus shows why you must read travel insurance policy before you buy -- People who purchased travel insurance may be surprised to learn that it might not cover claims arising from the coronavirus. Some plans exclude coverage for losses arising from epidemics. Even if it’s not excluded, no standard policy will cover claims from events — be it a hurricane or epidemic — if the policy was purchased after it became known or foreseen. Kathleen Pender in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/15/20
Ashore at last: Californian’s tweets helped in 2-week cruise ordeal amid coronavirus fears -- It wasn’t home, but it was land. After two weeks at sea, that was just fine for Bonnie Banks of Sacramento and her daughter, Christina Kerby. Darrell Smith and Cathie Anderson in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 2/15/20
Why everyone is suddenly taking Mike Bloomberg seriously -- He got into the race late, he hasn’t been on the ballot and won’t be for another few weeks. And he’s being criticized by his opponents as buying his way into contention for the Democratic nomination. So how is former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg climbing in the polls, including with voters of color, and what’s up with his unconventional method of running for president? Amber Phillips in the Washington Post$ -- 2/15/20
Mike Bloomberg for years has battled women’s allegations of profane, sexist comments -- Several lawsuits have been filed over the years alleging that women were discriminated against at Bloomberg’s business-information company, including a case brought by a federal agency and one filed by a former employee, who blamed Bloomberg for creating a culture of sexual harassment and degradation. Michael Kranish in the Washington Post$ -- 2/15/20