Paffrath takes the debate stage + Angelina Jolie backs a bill + Bonta goes to the Supreme Court

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

A PIPELINE TO THE MISSISSIPPI?

Via Sophia Bollag...

In his first debate, the top-polling Democrat running in the recall, Kevin Paffrath, called for filtration systems in California buildings to protect against COVID-19 and proposed a pipeline to the Mississippi River to address California’s drought.

Paffrath, who has made his name providing financial advice on YouTube, argued that vaccine mandate decisions should be left to individual businesses and schools, and promised to protect Californians from COVID-19 by increasing availability of N95 masks and HEPA filtration in schools and buildings.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who could lose his job to Paffrath or one of the other candidates if he is recalled, has approved billions of dollars for schools for ventilation, masks, and COVID-19 tests and has purchased hundreds of millions of N95 masks for frontline workers. Paffrath did not say how he would pay for his proposal.

Read the full story here.

RIP MICHAEL J. GAGE

Michael J. Gage, a former assemblyman from Napa and deputy mayor of Los Angeles, has died.

Gage, who was 76, was a close political ally of former Gov. Jerry Brown.

“Mike Gage was a force of nature — always on the move, always exploring, never narrow. As a legislator, river rafter and lifetime explorer, he exuded energy and sheer aliveness. In my first term as governor, he helped me pass the law that gave farmworkers the right to join a union,” Brown said in an obituary for Gage.

Gage was elected to the California State Assembly in 1976, and served until 1980. Jock O’Connell, who worked as a legislative aide for Gage, remembered his former boss in the obituary.

“One thing I remember is that Mike unfailingly introduced his staff as the people who worked with him, not for him. In a world of fragile egos, that humility was exceedingly rare,” O’Connell said.

A passionate advocate for environmental issues, Gage “loved the land,” according to friend and co-worker Lynn Sadler, who worked with Gage on one of Brown’s election campaigns.

“Whether he was fighting for it in the Army, preserving and restoring it at land trusts, showing it off as a river guide, saving it from climate change, exploring it as a casual ambassador or using it to feed a community, he fully inhabited this earthly home,” Sadler said in the obituary.

ANGELINA JOLIE WEIGHS IN ON CHILD CUSTODY BILL

Actor Angelina Jolie has come out in support of SB 654, a bill by Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, that would require California courts to consider a parent’s history of violence and substance abuse before allowing that parent to have unsupervised child visitation, and also to make written findings before children are placed in such situations.

In a letter to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which is considering the bill after it passed out of the Senate with a unanimous vote, Jolie wrote, “Whether parenting time is labeled ‘custody’ or ‘visitation,’ children’s health, safety, and welfare are of paramount concern under the law, and SB 654 carries out a court’s obligation to ensure children are safe under custody and unsupervised visitation orders.”

In addition to being an accomplished actor, Jolie has been an outspoken advocate for children’s rights, working with the United Nations Refugee Agency for 20 years and co-founding the group Kids in Need of Defense. She also is the author of a new book, “Know Your Rights and Claim Them: A Guide for Youth,” published by Amnesty International.

Min praised Jolie for her advocacy in a statement provided to The Bee.

“SB 654 is at a critical juncture, and we need it to pass to save lives. When a parent has a documented history of violence and substance abuse, allowing unsupervised visits with his or her children without ensuring the children’s safety is irresponsible. I thank Ms. Jolie for endorsing this legislation and for her history of advocacy internationally and domestically, and I am optimistic that with her support, along with the many other individuals and groups who are backing this bill, we will be successful in getting it passed into law,” Min said.

The Assembly Apppropriations Committee meets Thursday to discuss the bill, which has been placed on the suspense file.

BONTA GOES TO CA SUPREME COURT OVER LGBT NURSING HOME LAW

Attorney General Rob Bonta is calling on the California Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that found that struck down portions of a law aimed at protecting LGBTQ nursing home patients.

The California Third District Court of Appeals in July issued a unanimous, three-judge ruling that found that parts of a 2017 “LGBTQ Senior Bill of Rights” requiring nursing home staff to use correct names and pronouns for transgender and nonbinary patients “violates staff members’ rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, and freedoms of thought and belief, and is vague and overbroad.””

In his Supreme Court filing, Bonta called the Appeals Court decision “erroneous” and he urged the highest court in the state to restore the law to its full effect.

“Discrimination isn’t about one person or one community. When people are unlawfully subjected to hateful, demeaning rhetoric, it hurts all of us,” Bonta said in a statement. “State law protects people from racist speech in the workplace — and, likewise, there’s no exception just because it’s transphobic instead.

The 2017 law’s author, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, issued a statement thanking the attorney general for stepping in on behalf of the law.

“In response to the dangerous decision by the Court of Appeal to overturn key protections for trans seniors, Attorney General Bonta is stepping up to appeal this bad decision. It’s never ok to intentionally and repeatedly misgender a transgender person.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You can be an incumbent who gets 49% of the vote and is replaced by someone who gets 20% of the vote!”

- Liberal commentator Chris Hayes, summarizing California’s recall process, via Twitter.

Best of the Bee:

• Fact check: Did Gavin Newsom cast doubt on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine? Via Andrew Sheeler

• California voters are deciding now if Gov. Gavin Newsom gets to keep his job. Their verdict could reverberate far beyond the state, via Alex Roarty

• Nearly everyone in California could be required to prove they’re fully vaccinated before entering restaurants, bars, movie theaters, gyms, hotels, stadiums and other indoor establishments under a draft of a proposed new law, via Wes Venteicher.