CA counties call out Gov. Gavin Newsom for Prop. 36 funding announcement

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

OH, NO YOU DON’T

California State Association of Counties’ CEO Graham Knaus called out Gov. Gavin Newsom Friday for being misleading about allocating new funding for California’s controversial tough-on-crime law, Prop. 36.

On Friday, Newsom’s office announced there would be “a new round of funding” — $127 million — to fund substance abuse and mental health treatment under two criminal justice mandates, Prop. 36 and Prop. 47.

“This is existing money, already allocated to existing services,” Knaus said in an emailed statement.

“Simply saying it can also be spent to implement Prop. 36 doesn’t magically give counties more money to pay for new, voter-approved mandates on top of existing services.”

Since the beginning of the legislative session, Republican lawmakers and counties have been putting pressure on Newsom and Democratic legislators to fund Prop. 36, which strengthens penalties for repeat drug and theft offenders. Voters overwhelmingly passed the law last November, despite Democratic opposition.

Newsom’s June budget put $100 million toward behavioral health programs and court costs for Prop. 36, a fraction of what lawmakers on both sides of the aisle requested.

CSAC said counties still haven’t received that money.

The governor’s office maintained ambivalence about the Prop. 36 program, even as it announced the funding. One reason is that Prop. 36 and Prop. 47 are linked: As more people are incarcerated under Prop. 36, the savings enabled by Prop. 47 decrease.

“Prop 36 jeopardizes vital funding and resources for mental health and drug treatment, housing services and K-12 school programs,” the release read.

A LIFELINE FOR THE LIFELINE

Via David Lightman...

The U.S. Senate has passed legislation aimed at making the nation’s 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline less vulnerable to cybersecurity problems.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, a sponsor of the measure, cited the need to curb the sort of cyberattack that occurred in December 2022, five months after the line was launched.

Because of the attack, people who tried to call the hotline were “instead greeted with a recorded message informing them of the service outage,” according to Padilla’s office.

The bill, cosponsored by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, would require coordination between the Lifeline and the chief information security officer at the Department of Health and Human Services with the goal of preventing cybersecurity attacks and eliminating known vulnerabilities.

The hotline’s network administrator would have to notify the government of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and incidents within 24 hours of discovery.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“This is the rise of artificial intimacy. If we want to keep eyeballs glued to screens as long as possible, what better business model is there than exploiting our innate need to connect with each other and build relationships?”

— Mill Valley youth advocate Katia Martha, calling for Newsom to sign bills regulating social media and AI companion chatbots

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