Jack Ohman johman@sacbee.com

Opinion

Jerry Brown’s cap-and-trade plan, the Trumps’ collusion, fighting rape on the cheap

By Dan Morain

July 12, 2017 5:31 AM

Good morning. On behalf of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board, welcome to The Take, your opinion-politics newsletter. Please sign up for it here.

Jack Ohman is in the ER with Speaker Anthony Rendon and the California Nurses Association. Watch the operation here.

Our take

Editorial

Here’s why to support Jerry Brown’s cap-and-trade deal: Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 will be tough. Jerry Brown, legislators and others who fashioned the extension of cap and trade sought to limit economic disruption.

Column

Foon Rhee: Instead of spending real money to cut the backlog of untested rape kits, legislators are considering a bill to let Californians donate toward the cause by checking a box on their state tax returns. Is this the best we can do?

Op-Eds

Assemblyman Bill Quirk: On Wednesday, the Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee will consider a bill that is critical if California is to stay at the leading edge of technological innovation.

Dianna MacDonald: On Wednesday, the Senate Education Committee is scheduled to vote on Assembly Bill 1220, which seeks to strengthen California’s tenure law by providing new teachers with more time and support to earn permanent status.

Leticia Perez and Moira Kenney: Assembly Bill 1250, sponsored by the labor unions SEIU and AFSCME, is scheduled to be heard Wednesday by the Senate Governance and Finance Committee. It would handcuff counties from contracting with community-based organizations, nonprofits, local businesses and others.

Take a number: 58 percent

The nation’s partisan divide is showing up in how Americans view higher education, according to a new Pew Research survey. Now, 58 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that colleges and universities are having a negative effect, up from 45 percent last year. On the other hand, 72 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners say colleges have a positive effect, about the same as last year. The change for Republicans comes after high-profile controversies and violence over conservative speakers at campuses, notably Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley in February. Not too surprisingly, the partisan gap on the media also widened, with 85 percent of Republicans saying that the media has a negative impact, compared to 44 percent of Democrats. – Foon Rhee, @foonrhee

Their take

Lexington Herald Leader: Welcome to Lexington, Vice President Mike Pence. Hope you get to enjoy the descent. That view never gets old. We understand that your touch down for a “listening session” is not so much about listening as rallying divided Senate Republicans behind a bill that is deeply unpopular. Did we mention that it would hurt Kentucky probably more than any other state?

Salt Lake City Tribune: Last week was particularly bad for Utah's homeless problem. A homeless man attacked a visiting professional baseball player from Nevada and sent him home with a concussion. He hit him over the head with a tire iron. The state needs to take a larger role.

San Jose Mercury News: A bill that would give huge telecom companies a financial break and unprecedented rights to use public property at almost no cost is sailing through the Legislature this summer. Why? Money, of course. Telecom companies measure profits in the tens of billions. California lawmakers understand this, so that’s whose side they’re on.

East Bay Times: President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission is a sham. That said, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s response to the commission’s records request casts a disturbing political pall over what should be a nonpartisan determination.

Los Angeles Times: Most readers know by now that deep cuts to Medicaid over the next decade are a central feature of the healthcare reform proposal before the U.S. Senate this week – and a terrible policy that would put health coverage out of reach for millions of Americans. But here’s yet another reason why senators should think twice about voting for the Better Care Reconciliation Act: Doing so would pull the rug out from under those fighting to stop the raging opioid epidemic.

Orange County Register: July 1 was the day that law-abiding Californians almost became criminals without leaving their homes or lifting a finger. That’s when Proposition 63’s ban on the possession of high-capacity magazines, those that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, was scheduled to go into effect. U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez agreed with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the magazine ban.

Takes on Trumps’ collusion

Kansas City Star: Whether you are R, D, I or none of the above, the Russians, whose cyber capabilities are second only to our own, are coming for your power grid, your voter rolls, and your democracy. Which we know because they already have done all of those things.

Charlotte Observer: Donald Trump Jr. has done what his father’s political opponents hadn’t – provide verified proof that the Trump campaign actively tried to work with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Denver Post: We see clear evidence that the top-most members of Trump’s campaign met with a Kremlin-connected attorney to receive what was said to be damaging information on Clinton from Russian government files.

David French, National Review: There now exists evidence that senior members of the Trump campaign tried unsuccessfully to facilitate Russian government efforts to defeat Hillary Clinton.

Syndicates’ take

Frank Bruni: Donald Trump Jr.’s emails erode whatever credibility President Donald Trump and those in his inner circle had when they call investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible cooperation with Russia a “witch hunt.” The notion of such a concerted effort was dangled before the eyes of Trump’s eldest son, who responded with glee.

Ross Douthat: The benefit of the doubt on direct collusion between Donald Trump’s inner circle and Russian officialdom during the 2016 campaign is now over.

Kathleen Parker: Donald Trump Jr.’s emails are at least “collusioney.” Smoking guns don’t need to be nearly this hot to capture Washington’s attention, but these latest revelations should be enough to make every American take a deep breath.

Dana Milbank: Sarah Huckabee Sanders has no earthly idea what’s going on in the White House she purports to represent.

David Brooks: As life has gotten worse for the rest in the middle class, upper-middle-class parents have become fanatical about making sure their children never sink back to those levels, even if that means excluding other people’s children.