Hundreds of bills could die today + New Faulconer TV spot + Capitol interns going unpaid
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME
Via Hannah Wiley...
It’s that time of year again, when the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees purge their suspense files of any bills they deem unnecessary, too expensive or overly complicated for their whole chambers to consider.
Side note — I learned the hard way in 2019 (and two months into the job) while working on a Senate Bill 50 story that Suspense Day can go in unexpected directions. SB 50 died for the year, and so did my story idea.
I’m better prepared two sessions later to deliver the kind of exciting updates we can expect from Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, as they take us through their suspense list.
So far this year, senators have introduced 828 bills, and 264 have already passed to the Assembly, according to lobbyist Chris Micheli. The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider 357 measures today.
The Assembly has introduced 1,593 bills, and 320 are over in the Senate. Assembly Appropriations is expected to review 537 bills, Micheli notes.
It’s going to be bloody. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins on Wednesday announced lawmakers will be limited to 12 bills apiece. If they stick to that target, they’d cull about 1,000 bills.
Some bills we’re watching include a police decertification proposal, housing production measures, broadband expansion ideas and others related to police accountability and COVID-19 recovery.
Follow our CapitolAlert Twitter account and, of course, the SacBee homepage for any news.
FAULCONER AIRS NEW SPOT
Via Lara Korte...
For months, Gavin Newsom has touted his reopening plan as the “California Comeback,” but in a new ad spot, released Wednesday, candidate Kevin Faulconer says he has a plan for the “real” California comeback: tax cuts for the middle class.
In the one-and-a-half-minute spot, Faulconer promotes his proposal, introduced last week, to cut taxes for individuals and families making less than $1 million a year.
“California doesn’t have a revenue issue, it has a government spending and waste issue,” Faulconer says in the ad. “Sacramento has serious problems and we need serious leadership to fix it.”
The California Comeback Tax Cut Plan, as Faulconer calls it, would reduce the marginal tax rate to zero for the first $50,000 earned by individuals and the first $100,000 earned by families.
“We have to make California more affordable, and particularly for the middle class,” he said.
“We can change California from a ‘tax-and-flee-state’ to a tax-free state.”
UNPAID INTERNS AT THE CAPITOL
Via Kim Bojórquez...
After leaving a job in college sports fundraising to pursue a path in politics, then 23-year-old Spencer Bowen took an unpaid internship for Assembly Speaker Rendon.
Bowen, who found out about the part-time internship through a family connection, didn’t mind that it was unpaid. His second internship that summer four years ago with the city of Woodland could cover his living costs, and he wouldn’t have to pay rent living at his parents’ Davis home.
Soon after his internship began, Rendon’s office began to pay him. He was grateful.
In the back of his mind, however, Bowen often thought about those who were left out of these kinds of opportunities:“It’s pretty clear who it excludes,” Bowen said.
“If the only way to get involved is to take an unpaid internship for six months, that’s exclusionary to people who can’t afford that and then the people who can’t afford that are disproportionately (people of color).” low-income students, who were often people of color.
The Democratic-controlled California Legislature is known for churning out progressive policies that often side with labor unions and aim to uplift the state’s working-class residents. But the majority of internships in the state’s Capitol, which assist in creating the next generation of policymakers, go unpaid.
About 96% California Senate interns hired since 2018 were unpaid or so-called volunteers, according to records obtained through a Legislative Open Records Act request. Only 4% of interns hired since 2018 were paid, the records show.
The ratio is almost the same in the Assembly, where about 94% of interns since 2018 did not receive pay from the Legislature.
As of May, the California Senate has 44 interns, 27 unpaid and 17 paid, according to Erika Contreras, Secretary of the Senate. Records show that most internships in the Senate typically take place in the summer.
At the Assembly, 65 current interns are unpaid, four are volunteers who might be receiving a stipend from a third party like a fellowship and four are earning $15 an hour from the Legislature, according to salary records released in late-February and volunteer registration forms.
We have a lot more to tell you about those unpaid internships and who’s left behind in this report today.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Finding out the truth simply should not be a partisan issue.”
- Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, via Twitter. Valadao was the lone California House Republican to vote for the National Commission to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex.
Best of the Bee:
Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s failure to fill requests from local public health agencies for more ongoing funding in his record-breaking $267 billion budget proposal, via Sophia Bollag.
The California Republican Party this week agreed to an $11 million settlement with a man left quadriplegic after being struck on the freeway by a GOP campaign worker, via Andrew Sheeler.
Fact check: Becerra said there’s no federal law on partial birth abortion. Is he right? Via David Lightman.