California Policy and Politics Tuesday

Trump administration dramatically cuts staff at water agency in California -- The Trump administration has ordered firings and buyouts at the federal agency that operates water infrastructure in California, potentially jeopardizing the agency’s ability to manage dams and deliver water, according to Central Valley water officials. Ian James in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Supreme Court strikes down EPA rules on discharge of water pollution -- The ruling came in an unusual case that featured sewage and one of the nation’s greenest cities, San Francisco, battling the Environmental Protection Agency. Justin Jouvenal in the Washington Post$ Sara Libby, Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/25

Return to office: Newsom orders California state workers back four days a week -- The order is likely to inflame tensions between the governor and labor unions representing public employees, which have fought back against previous efforts to limit telework for the state workforce. About 95,000 employees continue to work remotely or in a hybrid capacity, according to the governor’s office. Alexei Koseff CalMatters Sophia Bollag, Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle$ William Melhado in the Sacramento Bee$ Jeremy B. White Politico -- 3/4/25

Republicans removed from California legislative committees. Did social media play a role? -- Freshman Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, said he was taken off the Assembly budget committee as “retaliation” for his comments challenging “wasteful spending and money laundering,” in the current budget. For weeks, DeMaio has shared videos on X of himself challenging witnesses during committee hearings. Some videos have accrued hundreds of thousands of views. Nicole Nixon and Kate Wolffe in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/25

California Reps. Adam Gray, David Valadao are crucial to who will control House -- Gray and Valadao are among a handful of congressional incumbents with potentially close races next year, according to independent analysts who watch Congress closely. Democrats need a net gain of three seats to win control. David Lightman in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/25

Tony Strickland declares victory in 36th State Senate District special election -- Strickland will resign from his current Huntington Beach City Council position on March 10. Michael Slaten and Hanna Kang in the Orange County Register -- 3/4/25

S.F.’s parking garages are as empty as they’ve ever been. Here’s why it’s bad for the city -- Downtown has bottomed out, and so have its parking facilities. As a result, the amount of revenue the garage nets for the city — and specifically for public transit — has dropped. Rachel Swan, Emma Stiefel in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/25

Arellano: How California helped Trump make English the official national language -- It was the spring of 1985, and Californians were waging civic war on behalf of English. Some Monterey Park residents were pushing their City Council to ban Chinese-language business signs. Voters who had passed Proposition 38 a year earlier were waiting for Gov. George Deukmejian to implement the initiative, which required that he ask the federal government to print election material only in English. Gustavo Arellano in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Tariffs

Costs could ‘fall on our customers’: San Diego businesses brace for tariffs, uncertainty -- San Diego companies that use materials and goods from other nations say in many cases costs would be passed to consumers. Phillip Molnar in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 3/4/25

Town Halls

DOGE firings provoke heated confrontations, shouts of ‘Nazi,’ at Republican town halls -- By the time U.S. Rep. Jay Obernolte, a Big Bear Lake Republican, tried asking for unity at his “community coffee” event, his audience had screamed, cussed and called him a Nazi. Hailey Branson-Potts and Rebecca Plevin in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Workplace

California lawmaker seeks to expand protections for temporary migrant workers -- California lawmakers will consider a bill intended to expand protections for migrant workers who come to California through temporary work visa programs for jobs in agriculture, nursing, domestic care and other industries. Suhauna Hussain in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Spotted owls are disappearing fast, and federal cuts could mean no one’s left to count them -- Federal job cuts have upended spotted owl surveys in Northern and Southern California. It’s unclear whether wildfire mitigation strategies such as forest thinning can happen if the surveys are not completed. Lila Seidman in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Wildfire

Bass aides were warned of growing fire danger before she flew to Ghana -- The day before Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass left for Ghana, her aides received an email from the city’s Emergency Management Department warning of a “high confidence in damaging winds and elevated fire conditions occurring next week.” Dakota Smith and David Zahniser in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

California’s effort to streamline wildfire prevention could have long-term consequences -- Wildfire experts and environmentalists expressed concern that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s move to suspend environmental regulations in order to fast-track wildfire prevention projects in California could ultimately weaken some of the state’s landmark environmental laws. Tara Duggan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/25

Lost in a sea of ash: When wildfire destroys a home — and a loved one’s urn — the search begins -- Specially trained dogs help find the ashes of people who had been cremated. A pair of archaeologists have worked 19 burn sites in recent years and recovered cremains from more than 300 destroyed homes. David Wharton, Myung J. Chun, Albert Brave Tiger Lee in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

The L.A. fire recovery effort: Colliding egos, ambitions and financing -- Promises to unify and work together to rebuild a wide swath of the region have given way to a far messier reality. Maeve Reston and Reis Thebault in the Washington Post$ -- 3/4/25

Housing

Home-Selling Season Starts After L.A. Wildfires—and There Is Demand -- More than 80 new listings of scorched plots in Pacific Palisades and Altadena have hit the market since the middle of February. Land parcels where homes once stood are commanding selling prices above early expectations. Rebecca Picciotto in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/25

‘Too damn hard to build’: A key California Democrat’s push for speedier construction -- Oakland Democrat Buffy Wicks said lawmakers will soon see 20 bills to speed up housing construction, along with more on energy, water and transit. Ben Christopher CalMatters -- 3/4/25

Homeless

Nonprofit founded by Daniel Lurie is giving $11 million to prevent family homelessness in S.F. -- As a mayoral candidate, Daniel Lurie said he wanted to tap private dollars to fund San Francisco’s efforts to fight homelessness. Now, as mayor, he’s declaring his first official public-private partnership to that effect — with the charity he founded. J.D. Morris in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/25

Education

New test score labels seek positivity, ditching the term ‘standard not met’ for ‘below basic’ -- Officials to decide Wednesday how to describe student performance on state tests. New plan moves away from using ‘inconsistent’ for lowest-scoring students. Howard Blume in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

AI chatbots can cushion the high school counselor shortage — but are they bad for students? -- The more students turn to chatbots, the fewer chances they have to develop real-life relationships that can lead to jobs and later success. Tara García Mathewson CalMatters -- 3/4/25

Street

30 L.A. County probation officers indicted over ‘gladiator fights’ at juvenile halls -- Thirty officers from the Los Angeles County Probation Department have been indicted on criminal charges after an investigation into allegations they allowed — and in some cases encouraged — fights between teens inside the county’s juvenile halls. James Queally and Rebecca Ellis in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

S.F. DA files felony charges against man in $16K theft at Walgreens -- A Pittsburg man who prosecutors say stole over $16,000 in merchandise during retail theft incidents at a San Francisco Walgreens store was charged with multiple felonies, including two counts of grand theft, officials said Monday. Jordan Parker in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/25

California deputy seized fentanyl during an arrest, then OD’d while on duty, report says -- Morales later told sheriff’s officials that he had ingested the drug “with the intent to commit suicide” because he had been suffering from depression. The investigation would reveal, however, that this was not the first time Morales had used drugs he’d seized. Karen Garcia in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Also

After exam fiasco, California State Bar staff recommend reverting to in-person exams -- After California’s bar exams were plagued last week with technical problems, the State Bar of California is recommending that the agency return to in-person tests as it scrutinizes whether the vendor behind the new testing system met the obligations of its contract. Jenny Jarvie in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Towing companies can sell your car — and the DMV gets to keep the profit without telling you -- Since 2016, the DMV has collected more than $8 million from nearly 5,300 car sales, according to a CalMatters analysis. Byrhonda Lyons CalMatters -- 3/4/25

Walters: Reflecting on 50 years of writing about California’s politics — and still counting -- This week is a personal milestone, marking a half-century of writing about California’s ever-changing political ambiance. My move into the Sacramento Union’s Capitol bureau on March 3, 1975, was part of its effort to become more competitive with The Sacramento Bee. Dan Walters CalMatters -- 3/4/25

POTUS 47

Trump halts military aid to Ukraine -- President Donald Trump on Monday evening hit pause on all U.S. military aid to Ukraine, a show of force following last week’s dressing down of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office aimed at pressuring him back to the negotiating table. Eli Stokols Politico Nancy A. Youssef, Alexander Ward and Jared Malsin in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/25

Trump's Tariffs on Canada and Mexico Take Effect, With Added Duties on China --President Trump’s 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada took effect Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time. U.S. stocks fell Monday after Trump confirmed that the tariffs would go ahead. In response, Canada said it intends to immediately impose 25% tariffs on nearly $100 billion of imported U.S. goods in two waves. The item is in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/25

Stocks Drop as Investors Weigh Prospects of Global Trade War -- The S&P 500 added to recent losses in early trading. German automakers, many of which have plants in Mexico that make vehicles that are sold in the United States, were especially hard hit. Joe Rennison, Eshe Nelson and Melissa Eddy in the New York Times$ Katy Barnato and Karen Langley in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/25

From Groceries to Cars, Tariffs Could Raise Prices for U.S. Consumers -- President Trump’s tariffs target countries that are major suppliers of a wide range of goods to the United States. For American families, the likely result is higher prices nearly everywhere they turn — in grocery aisles, at car dealerships, at electronics stores and at the pump. Danielle Kaye in the New York Times$ -- 3/4/25

From beer to barley: How Trump’s Mexico tariffs could affect your wallet -- Mexico makes all kinds of things the average American uses. It manufactures 88 percent of the pickup trucks sold in America; a 25 percent tariff could add about $3,000 to the price tag of that new Ford or GM truck, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said recently. Mexico supplies around half of America’s imported fruit and two-thirds of imported vegetables, in dollar terms — tomatoes, berries, bell peppers, cucumbers. Mary Beth Sheridan and Valentina Muñoz Castillo in the Washington Post$ -- 3/4/25

Trump Tariffs Usher in New Era of Protectionism -- The U.S. economy entered a new era at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, as President Trump’s tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada took effect. The new tariffs on imported goods ended decades of free trade among the three countries, and stood to disrupt entire industries. Konrad Putzier and Justin Lahart in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/25

Dems’ DOGE problem may be bigger than they thought -- Publicly, Democrats are practically salivating at the made-for-midterms message that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk seemed to give them with the chaos of the federal cuts backed by the Department of Government Efficiency. Privately, however, they’re sounding a note of caution that attacking DOGE may not be a slam dunk. Adam Wren and Elena Schneider Politico -- 3/4/25

Trump Threatens to Pull Funding From Universities Over Protests -- President Trump threatened to take away federal funds from universities that allow what he called “illegal protests,” a move legal experts say would violate the First Amendment. Alyssa Lukpat and Ken Thomas in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/25

Trump vs. the media: Press access, wild accusations and big-money lawsuits -- An emboldened president and his allies have launched a vigorous campaign to use levers of government to intimidate an increasingly fragmented and polarized media, experts say. Meg James in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25

Asylum requests surge in Mexico amid U.S. border crackdown -- Over the last decade, the annual number of asylum applications in Mexico has grown a hundredfold. There are growing fears that Mexico’s asylum system is unprepared to deal with the increase. Kate Linthicum in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/25