LGBTQ endorsement for AG + Abortion access bill introduced + New reopening lawsuit
Good morning and welcome back to the A.M. Alert!
BREAKING: The nearly statewide stay-at-home order that’s been in place since early December should be lifting today, according to a memo released late Sunday by the California Restaurant Association. The association in its letter to members reported that it heard from senior officials in the Governor’s Office about the expected news.
Two regions of the state, Northern California and the Sacramento area, are already under relaxed coronavirus rules that allow outdoor dining and some other business activity. Today’s announcement is expected to apply to the rest of the state, meaning the Bay Area, Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.
NATIONAL LGBTQ+ ORG ENDORSES ZBUR FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL
Via Lara Korte...
Two LGBTQ advocacy groups asked Gavin Newsom last week to appoint an out member of the LGBTQ community as Attorney General. Namely, Equality California leader Rick Chavez Zbur.
In a letter to the governor, the LGBTQ Victory Fund, one of the nation’s largest advocacy groups, said appointing Zbur would grow the handful of LGBTQ elected officials who serve in a statewide capacity across the country.
“Rick would bring to this role a high level of experience as a distinguished lawyer, a policy expert and a successful nonprofit leader,” the group wrote. “Rick would join just two other members of the LGBTQ community who service in this capacity in their states: Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Dana Nessel in Michigan.”
California’s main Latinx LGBTQ+ group, HONOR PAC, also gave its seal of approval to Zbur, who grew up in an economically disadvantaged community in New Mexico, and went on to attend Harvard Law School before moving to Los Angeles in 1985.
He was the first openly gay partner at his L.A. law firm, and in 2014 left to become the executive director of Equality California.
“This unprecedented selection would further cement your legacy as one of the key national leaders in our ongoing fight to achieve full, lived equality for Latinx people and the LGBTQ+ community,” HONOR PAC wrote to Newsom.
Newsom hasn’t indicated when he’ll make a decision on who should replace outgoing AG Xavier Becerra, but coalitions are already starting to grow behind candidates.
Some are calling for an Asian Pacific Islander, like Assemblyman Rob Bonta, to get the job. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is also rumored to be a strong contender.
Becerra has been nominated to run President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services, but still has to pass a Senate hearing before he leaves his post in California.
LAWMAKER INTRODUCES ABORTION ACCESS BILL ON ROE V. WADE ANNIVERSARY
California insurers would be required to cover abortions without imposing a co-pay, deductible or any type of cost-sharing, under a new bill introduced by Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach.
Gonzalez introduced SB 245 on Friday, the 48th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortions.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the inequities that exist within our healthcare system, and unfortunately, reproductive care is not the exception to these shortcomings,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “Everyone should have the right to make their own decision about when, if and how to start a family. Yet when it comes to Black, Latinx, Indigenous, trans and non-binary individuals, people with disabilities, young people, low-income and rural families and women of color—that choice, that constitutional right can quickly disappear under the financial strain of co-payments, deductibles and debt.”
SB 245 is co-authored by 10 members for the Democratic Legislative Women’s Caucus, and currently awaits referral to a Senate policy committee for consideration.
The bill is championed by several groups, including Access Reproductive Justice, the National Health Law Program, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the Black Women for Wellness Action Project and NARAL Pro-Choice California.
“We cannot truly be considered a reproductive freedom state until all Californians are able to access--and afford--abortion care. By removing cost barriers to abortion, this bill is an important step toward guaranteeing that all Californians, regardless of their financial circumstances, have equitable, timely access to the care they need,” said Shannon Olivieri Hovis, director of NARAL Pro-Choice California, in a statement.
SALONS, RESTAURANTS UNITE TO SUE NEWSOM
A group of beauty salons and a restaurant have launched a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom, demanding to be allowed to reopen. Representing the plaintiffs are Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos and conservative attorney, and San Francisco Republican lawyer Harmeet Dhillon.
The lawsuit is being championed by the Professional Beauty Federation of California, which has been an outspoken critic of Newsom’s stay-at-home order.
“Our small businesses, less financed and politically connected than multinational corporations, Hollywood and other so-called ‘essential businesses’, have become the go-to sacrificial lambs to the Covid gods”, said federation advocate Fred Jones in a statement. “This has been ruinous for thousands of our establishments and the livelihood of tens of thousands, without any justifiable basis.”
The lawsuit alleges that restaurants and salons are suffering under the state’s restrictive public health order, meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“What has become obvious is that the governor and so-called health officials never followed ‘science or data’ on closing down outdoor dining or capricious lockdowns of safe barbershops and beauty salons. Instead of following the science they followed the Lobbyists and allowed film companies to utilize hairstylists and makeup artists, while preventing the same services to be done in salons by the very same trained professionals. By definition this is ‘unequal treatment under the law,’” Geragos said in a statement.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“On Monday, I am re-introducing a bill to allow Capitol staff the right to unionize if they choose to do so. I currently have 19 co-authors. Think we can get more before crossing this important bill? Thank these amazing co-authors!!!”
- Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, via Twitter.
Best of the Bee:
Californians will decide whether the state should ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, such as menthol cigarettes, in the 2022 midterm election, via Andrew Sheeler.
The amount of bacteria discovered in a shower head at a CalPERS’ headquarters building should have alarmed the contractor that found it in 2019, according to an expert on the kind of bacteria that was found, via Wes Venteicher.
The California state prison guards’ union has canceled a planned trip for its leaders to Las Vegas next week, citing infections in prisons, via Wes Venteicher.