What you missed over the weekend + Why seniors worry about the May Revise + GOP (mostly) splits from Howze
Welcome back from your Memorial Day holiday. We hope you had some time to remember the men and women who’ve died while serving in the military, and to celebrate their legacies.
WEEKEND RECAP
YOU CAN PRAY TOGETHER: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday released new guidelines allowing churches to reopen, but the state continues to “strongly” recommend that houses of worship provide remote services.
The guidance follows a warning letter the state received from the Justice Department last week that stressed Californians’ right to practice their faith, lawsuits and protests from religious leaders.
RNC SUES: The Republican National Committee on Saturday filed a lawsuit against the Newsom administration challenging an executive order he handed down directing counties to prepare for a vote-by-mail election in November.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a statement said “Newsom’s illegal power grab is a recipe for disaster that would destroy the confidence Californians deserve to have in the security of their vote.”
California counties are on board with the executive order. They, like Newsom, say they want to provide a safe way to vote this fall.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla on Twitter questioned the RNC’s motive in filing the case. “This lawsuit is just another part of Trump’s political smear campaign against voting by mail. We will not let this virus be exploited for voter suppression.”
A majority of California voters already uses mail-in ballots. In 2016, 59 percent of the 8.5 million votes cast in California’s general election were absentee ballots. In 2018, the ration climbed to 68 percent, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
AB 5 ON THE BALLOT: You might have missed the late Friday AB 5 news: Voters in November will see a ballot initiative backed by Uber, Lyft and DoorDash that would exempt their companies from the state’s new employment law that requires companies to give benefits to more workers.
WHY SENIORS ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE MAY REVISE
Despite the difficulties of riding a bus due to her knee and back problems, Valentina Zakatova took one every weekday to Altamedix, an adult day center in Sacramento, before the coronavirus pandemic.
She and her family now are worried that state funding could be pulled from the center’s programming under Newsom’s revised budget, limiting her access to a place that makes her feel like a “full person.”
“For people like her who are living their last few years ... they will feel very lonely if the government does not care about them,” said her daughter Natalia Chacon.
Newsom’s revised budget plan, announced earlier this month, seeks to close a projected $54.3 billion budget deficit brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. It includes about $646 million in proposed cuts that worry seniors and their advocates because they would reduce health care options and access to programs that allow elderly residents to stay at home and out of nursing homes, which have been hotbeds for COVID-19 outbreaks.
Patricia McGinnis, executive director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said the proposed cuts are “taking away the only safety nets that we have to be able for (seniors) to remain at home.”
Newsom is appealing to Congress and the Trump administration for relief, but if California doesn’t get the help, the cuts could take effect.
The SacBee’s Elaine Chen has a breakdown of the proposed cuts. They’d trim in-home support, services, adult day centers and recently expanded Medi-Cal services. Read more here.
GOP CANDIDATE LOSES (MOST) SUPPORT
In one of California’s competitive congressional races, Republican candidate Ted Howze lost the vast majority of his endorsements after Politico uncovered batches of posts on social media accounts that showed disparaging remarks about immigrants and Muslims.
On Saturday — after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the posts “disturbing” and after the California Republican Party retracted its endorsement — the California College Republicans released a statement affirming its support for Howze.
“Unfortunately, the CAGOP has decided instead to undermine our few chances of retaking the House of Representatives. Our party is about ideas, not virtue signaling about how ‘diverse’ our board is,” said Kim Gandall, chairman of the California College Republicans, in a statement released over Twitter.
As for Howze’s opponent, Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock: he drew attention to Howze’s posts over the weekend and appealed to his donors to chip in for the campaign.
WHO’S HURTING MOST IN THE JOB MARKET?
Women, people under 25 and people of color are getting hit the hardest by the massive cutbacks in jobs, a new study has found.
California’s unemployment rate jumped from 5.5 percent in March to an all-time high of 15.5 percent last month, and those groups have been seeking jobless benefits far more often than whites and older workers, according to a new study by the California Policy Lab at UCLA.
One big reason is that they tend to work disproportionately in areas where the economy has been battered by the coronavirus outbreak, such as retail, lodging and food services.
“That’s the most obvious explanation,” said Till von Wachter, faculty director of the California Policy Lab, which conducts regular studies of the state’s employment situation.
The findings were no surprise to those who follow and study employment trends. Unemployment among young people and people of color has long been higher than unemployment for whites.
“The sectors of the economy that have been hardest hit by the current crisis are primarily low-wage, which disproportionately impacts young workers and people of color,” said Steve Smith, California Labor Federation communications director.
While this is not a new dynamic, he said, “The crisis just exposed these inequities on a scale we’ve never seen.”
Read more in this story by McClatchy’s David Lightman.
Best of the Bee:
California veterans home eyed for closure in Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget cuts, via Andrew Sheeler
Nursing home ‘prisons’ open to visitors in Europe. Here’s why California won’t do the same, via Ryan Sabalow and Jason Pohl
California state unions have three weeks to negotiate pay cuts. Can they avoid furloughs? via Wes Venteicher
About 2,000 people protested California’s stay-at-home order Saturday outside the Capitol. One attendee gave haircuts. The California Highway Patrol was there. It unfolded without conflict, via Sam Stanton and Dale Kasler