Who is picking up an outspoken California lawmaker’s bills now that he’s left?

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THE FATE OF ESSAYLI’S ORPHANED BILLS

Now that Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona, has resigned and started a new role as the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles, his Republican colleagues have been dealing with the question of how to handle the 25 pending bills he introduced at the start of the session.

We have some answers, confirmed by Assembly Republicans Communications Director Jim Stanley (who also confirmed Friday was his last day in the Legislature):

• Assemblymember Stan Ellis, R-Bakersfield, will take the lead on AB 1226, which aims to make prescribed burning easier and safer, and AB 1227, which would exempt some wildfire prevention projects from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

• Assemblymember Leticia Castillo, R-Corona, will now helm AB 1382, to prohibit the sale of unnecessarily genetically modified pets and AB 1482, which would study overcrowding in pet shelters and expand the definition of a dog breeder.

• Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, is considering taking on AB 68, which would require school districts to hire or contract with at least one armed school resource officer per school in their district.

That means Essayli’s bills that would make undocumented citizens ineligible for Medi-Cal, prohibit investor-owned utilities from making campaign contributions, and require law enforcement to notify federal immigration authorities about any felon leaving custody will be dropped.

Essayli’s bills were not popular among the Democratic supermajority and often didn’t get a hearing, but that wasn’t the point, Essayli told CalMatters last year.

“Ultimately, we use a lot of bills to communicate issues and to get the Democrat Party on record on where they stand on common sense policy positions,” he said.

CALIFORNIA’S UNEMPLOYMENT REMAINS HIGH

Via David Lightman...

There was good news and bad news in the latest California unemployment report.

The state’s jobless rate in March dropped slightly to 5.3%. But that remained well above the national rate of 4.2%, and was the nation’s third highest state rate. Only Nevada and Michigan were higher.

California’s unemployment rate decreased 0.1 percent, compared to an increase from February’s 4.1% at the national level.

Michael Bernick saw California falling behind other states and the nation in jobs added and in the unemployment rate. Bernick is a former director of the Employment Development Department, which manages the state’s unemployment system, and is now an employment attorney at Duane Morris LLP.

While the state saw steady job growth between 2022 and 2024, he said, this year “California has seen its total payroll job numbers decline, even as other states and the nation overall gained jobs”

Government and private education and health services sectors gained jobs.

The services area was boosted by big job gains in nursing care facilities, individual and family services and child day care services.

Government jobs were up, despite the federal cutbacks. “The federal reductions are not a significant cause of the job numbers,” Bernick said.

The state had 147,000 federal workers in January, less than 1% of the state’s workforce. Some workers may not be counted as laid off at this point since they may be on paid leave.

The less sunny news: the transportation and utilities sector lost 10,200 jobs, mostly from normal seasonal losses in transportation, warehousing and utilities. Leisure and hospitality and construction employment also had sizable drops.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You scared?” - Gov. Gavin Newsom on X in response to the Trump administration requesting to move California’s tariff lawsuit out of the state

Best of The Bee:

• Democrats say Rep. Valadao moves to ‘shut down America’s schools.’ Is it true? via David Lightman

• Trump administration asks to move Newsom’s tariffs lawsuit out of California via Lia Russell

• Yolo County families will suffer from federal cuts, says food bank via Mathew Miranda

This story was originally published April 21, 2025 at 4:55 AM.