Catching up from a holiday week + Legislators press Bank of America for answers

Good morning, happy Monday and welcome to the last day of the month. Where has this year gone!?

CATCHING UP FROM LAST WEEK

Did you spend last week in a turkey-induced coma? Caught up in a holiday haze? Not to worry, we’ll catch you up on all the news that broke during Thanksgiving week.

First up, all eyes are on Los Angeles County, where skyrocketing COVID-19 case numbers have sent the nation’s largest county into lockdown.

The county exceeded 4,500 cases over a five-day period, triggering a “Safer at Home” mandatory order that will last until Dec. 20, with only essential workers and those securing essential services allowed to leave their homes. In addition, a mandatory 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew also has gone into effect.

Of course, if you follow state politics at all, it would have been hard to miss the thunderclap that struck the Capitol last week: News that California inmates perpetrated a billion-dollar fraud against the state Employment Development Department, which Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert called “one of the biggest fraud(s) of taxpayer dollars in California history.”

Indeed, some of California’s most notorious convicted killers, including Scott Peterson and serial killer Cary Stayner, were named in fraudulent unemployment claims.

While those allegations are shocking, they also are just the latest in a series of woes for the troubled EDD, something that State Auditor Elaine Howle has been warning for months now.

Will EDD be an albatross around the neck of Gov. Gavin Newsom as he faces a 2022 re-election campaign and rumored designs on a future White House bid?

Lest you think that the EDD was the only story happening last week, here’s a quick recap of other stories you may have missed:

• Former Republican Rep. David Valadao narrowly won the U.S. House seat held by Democratic Rep. TJ Cox, in a rematch from 2018.
• Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, called for an investigation into whether California prison guards are covering up misconduct.
• California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols is rumored to be on President-elect Joe Biden’s shortlist to run the federal Environmental Protection Agency, securing California’s clout on environmental issues for the next few years at least.
• Think “SLAAYRR” and “QUEER” are too offensive for a license plate? The California Department of Motor Vehicles did. A federal judge disagreed. And now PETA is wondering if they can finally get their “ILVTOFU” license plate approved. That stands for “I love tofu,” they insist. The DMV saw another interpretation.

LEGISLATORS PRESS BANK OF AMERICA

Via Jeong Park...

Dozens of legislators are asking Bank of America for answers on why hundreds of thousands of Californians can’t access their unemployment insurance.

Under the state’s contract with Bank of America, most recipients of unemployment insurance get their money on the bank’s debit card. But the bank has frozen or taken money away from the recipients’ cards, reportedly due to potential fraud.

The freezes have left at least 350,000 Californians unable to access their benefits, the legislators said in their letter, citing various media reports (https://calmatters.org/economy/2020/11/how-bank-of-america-helped-fuel-californias-unemployment-meltdown/). Less than 8% of cases involving the debit card have been resolved, the state’s Employment Development Department told the legislators.

“The only recourse that EDD and our offices can currently provide constituents is to call Bank of America when these problems occur,” legislators said in their letter to Bank of America’s CEO Brian Moynihan sent Tuesday, Nov. 24 (https://a19.asmdc.org/sites/a19.asmdc.org/files/pdf/b-letter-ceo-fnl.pdf). “However, constituents report they are unable to get through to your call centers, or when they do, the issue is not resolved. Many of our own staff have also tried to reach Bank of America to no avail.”

The legislators asked Moynihan to answer why and how Bank of America is freezing funds and taking money away, and whether the company will commit to resolving the issues soon.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It’s called a ‘K Shaped Recovery’ bc when we ask what the next COVID stimulus is and when is it being sent, the feds reply ‘k.’”

– Assemblyman-elect Alex Lee, D-San Jose, via Twitter.

Best of the Bee:

• Six months after the Trump Administration blocked Sacramento officials from opening a large homeless shelter under the W-X freeway, Caltrans is allowing the project to move forward anyway, via Theresa Clift.

• “There are huge racial disparities among those behind on their payments,” a UCLA report read. “Compared with non-Hispanic whites, Blacks and Latinxs are two- to two-and-a-half times more likely to experience this housing hardship,” via Theresa Clift and Kim Bojórquez.

• In an effort to measure the impact of California’s new board diversity law, the Latino Corporate Directors Association has launched a new tool that will measure the number of Latino directors in California’s public board rooms, via Kim Bojórquez.