Abortion opponents to rally at California Capitol. Lawmakers won’t be there to listen
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
MONDAY MARCH
Abortion opponents are returning to Sacramento Monday to pray, rally and march around the Capitol during the morning and early afternoon.
California Family Council CEO Jonathan Keller said it is critical to keep pushing for abortion restrictions, even as residents and legislators have voted to do the opposite in recent years. In one example, nearly 67% of voters in 2022 approved Proposition 1, which amended the state Constitution to say people had a fundamental right to have an abortion.
“We don’t just want to go to the states or the regions that agree with us, but we need to respectfully and lovingly reach out to people that disagree with us,” Keller said.
One goal of the day was to make sure state legislators were around to hear from and speak with abortion opponents. But lawmakers aren’t scheduled to be there Monday because of the Cesar Chavez Day holiday.
Keller called it an unintentional and ”unfortunate scheduling issue.” He said people will be encouraged to follow up with legislators in future trips to the Capitol and in their districts.
“We are needed, I think, more here in some ways, than any other state in the nation.”
SPEAKING OF CESAR CHAVEZ DAY
Via Kate Wolffe ...
Lawmakers honored the Latino icon on the Assembly floor Friday, as they often do in advance of certain holidays. But tensions ran high when Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, chimed in after a series of tributes.
“I am so thrilled to see my Democratic colleagues rise in support of a civil rights leader, an advocate for the Latino community, farmworkers, and someone who’s one of the earliest voices opposing illegal immigration and supporting a secure southern border,” he said.
DeMaio’s words were met with anger from Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley, who said: “it’s time for you to stop,” as he approached DeMaio’s seat. A group of lawmakers stood between the two men.
Reached after the floor session ended, Jackson said he approached DeMaio to “have a personal conversation.”
“When we are honoring a hero, this is not the time to make a political statement,” he said. “If we’re talking about immigration, if we’re talking about budget priorities, if we’re talking about any of those things, those are legitimate times to have that debate.”
TARIFFS AND JOBS
Via David Lightman ...
Could uncertainty about the Trump administration’s tariffs be hurting California’s job market?
The state’s unemployment rate last month was steady at 5.4%, though tied with Michigan for the nation’s second-highest state rate after Nevada’s 5.8%.
Michael Bernick found that California’s job numbers for the past two months “suggest we may be seeing the first impacts of the tariff uncertainties and other economic policy uncertainty on employment.”
Bernick is a former director of the state’s Employment Development Department and now an employment attorney at Duane Morris LLP.
He said state employers “have been speaking about putting hiring on hold and not filling openings due to the uncertainty on whether and to what extent tariffs will impact their industries and related industries.”
Trump has announced tariffs on several countries’ goods, notably automobile imports, starting Thursday.
California’s economy remains healthy, but there’s nervousness among experts about what’s to come. Earlier this month, the UCLA Anderson Forecast issued a recession watch, saying that factors that typically foretell a downturn could be present.
The state employment data found employment in business and professional services, leisure and hospitality and financial activities had the biggest month-to-month declines, while private education and health services jobs increased. Overall, the state lost 7,500 nonfarm payroll jobs from January to February.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I respectfully ask for your aye vote in honor of all of our teams, our communities and California’s rightful title as ‘The Baseball State.’”
- Assemblymember Jessica Caloza, D-Los Angeles, while presenting a resolution Friday honoring Major League Baseball’s opening day. The measure was adopted.
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