Newsom blasts Prop. 30 + Parents pen emotional letters + Ban testing on dogs and cats?
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
NEWSOM CUTS AD OPPOSING PROP. 30
California Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t like Proposition 30, and he’d like you to know that. To that end, he cut an ad against the ballot measure, as first reported by KCBS Radio San Francisco’s Doug Sovern.
“Fellow Californians, I need to warn you about Proposition 30, one company’s cynical scheme to grab a huge a huge taxpayer-funded subsidy. Don’t be fooled, Prop. 30’s being advertised as a climate initiative. But in reality it was devised by a single corporation to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company. Put simply, Prop. 30 is a Trojan horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state. Vote no on Prop. 30,” Newsom says in the ad.
That one company? Lyft, the main financial supporter of the ballot measure to impose a tax on high earners to fund, among other things, electric car infrastructure in the state.
The California Clean Air Coalition, which has been running the political campaign in support of Prop. 30, responded to Newsom’s ad with the following statement:
”Prop 30 is supported by the American Lung Association, California state firefighters, and California Democratic Party because it will prevent catastrophic wildfires and reduce the tailpipe emissions polluting our air and threatening the health of our families.
It is disappointing that the Governor would side with the California Republican Party and a handful of San Francisco billionaires who would rather kids breathe toxic, polluted air than pay their fair share.
Californians deserve clean air.”
According to Sovern, this will be the only ad, for or against, that Newsom will do for ballot measures this election season. A statement from the No On Prop. 30 campaign said that this will be a “high seven-figure” ad buy intended to reach millions of Californians across the state.
Though his party supports Prop. 30, the governor is in rare alignment with the California Republican Party in opposing the measure.
PARENTS WRITE TO NEWSOM URGING HIM TO SIGN AB 2273
California lawmakers passed AB 2273 (authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Jordan Cunningham, R-San Luis Obispo), a bipartisan bill to require social media companies that have child users to adhere to certain standards, including privacy and data protections.
Now, Newsom must decide whether he will sign the bill.
The advocacy group Parents Together Action, hoping to spur the governor’s signature, has sent him 10 letters from across the country by parents whose children were harmed by social media.
Two are from California: Neveen Radwan of San Francisco, whose 17-year-old daughter developed an eating disorder while using apps like Instagram, and Judy Rogg, from Santa Monica, whose 12-year-old son died after playing “the choking game,” which was promoted on various social media apps.
“Since Erik’s death, hundreds — if not thousands — of other kids have died from these idiotic challenges because they think it’s safe and fun. The ‘safe and fun’ is promoted across social media platforms encouraged on by ‘likes,’” Rogg wrote in her letter.
“(Social media company) algorithms are designed to not only bombard (children) with harmfulness content, they also allow this content on their platforms with absolutely no restrictions. My daughter cites an enormous amount of triggering content that she could not get away from on these apps,” Radwan wrote in her letter.
HUMANE SOCIETY CALLS ON NEWSOM TO SIGN ANTI-ANIMAL TESTING BILL
The Humane Society of the United States has 108 reasons for Newsom to sign SB 879, which bans contract testing facilities from conducting toxicology experiments on dogs and cats.
That organization’s San Diego chapter recently came into the custody of 108 beagles that were specially bred to serve as laboratory test animals at a facility, where they would have been used to test drugs, pesticides and other substances.
The beagles, which were seized by the U.S. Department of Justice, arrived in San Diego from a Virginia facility on Aug. 31, and were medically evaluated and vaccinated. Since then 50 have been placed with local rescue partners, while the remaining 58 will remain in Humane Society foster homes until they can be spayed or neutered and made available for adoption.
“I’m proud to welcome 108 of these amazing beagles to California,” said bill author Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, in a statement. “Thank you, Humane Society of the United States, for your incredible work. These beagles are a perfect example of why we need to ban unnecessary testing on dogs and cats. Animals deserve to live long and healthy lives.”
Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the legislation.
According to San Diego Humane Society CEO Gary Weitzman, “Advances in technology are offering alternative methods that are more affordable, more predictive and clearly less harmful to animals. As more alternatives to animal testing are identified for all areas of research and we move closer to a time when no animals are used for toxicity testing, California can be a leader now by enacting SB 879.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“California’s Supermajority is vowing to exempt Biden’s student debt relief from state taxes. This may be the first tax they’ve ever been against.”
- Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, via Twitter.
Best of The Bee:
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, California state department leaders decided which of their employees were essential and which weren’t under guidelines issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration. Those deemed essential had to keep reporting in-person to prisons, state hospitals, fire stations and office buildings while others could work from home. Now the administration is issuing $1,500 pandemic bonuses to state law enforcement officers, health care facility employees and firefighters, but not other employees. That’s drawing claims of unfairness from some union representatives, via Wes Venteicher.
Last week’s extreme heat event in California caused an outage at a key Twitter data center in Sacramento, CNN reported Monday, leaving the social media platform vulnerable in the event of another outage at a different data center, via Michael McGough.
Gasoline prices are falling fast around the country — but in California, prices are going up. And they’re likely to go up even more, via David Lightman.