Cap-and-trade vote, and an obscure rule that harms farmworkers’ families
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Jack Ohman charts Gov. Jerry Brown’s explanation of cap and trade. See other graphs here.
Our take
Editorials
Jerry Brown wheels and makes deals, as the cap-and-trade vote goes down to the wire: Negotiators worked over the weekend to induce more legislators to support the energy deal.
With the best of intentions, a California rule leads to dropouts and splits families: An obscure regulation governing a basic aspect of California’s migrant farmworker housing has the unfortunate consequence of disrupting the education of the children, and splitting families. It is outdated and must be fixed.
Columns
Sergio Lopez: They’re just words on paper. Aracel Fernandez can’t read them, but she knows what those words mean. California’s Office of Migrant Services has something called the 50-mile regulation. The policy – which defines migrant workers differently than any other state or federal agency – requires that those who live in any one of California’s 24 migrant housing centers move every six months, at least 50 miles away.
Op-Eds
Matt Rexroad: So far, 17 counties in California have taken the step to adopt Laura’s Law. Conservative county supervisors regularly contact me to ask why I voted to adopt our version, and how it’s working. A few years ago, I probably would not have been so encouraging. But I’ve since found that lives can be changed. And lives can be saved.
Joe Mathews: Southern California is less famed for its smarts than Northern California, but the L.A. Metro system’s Gold Line rivals the train from Stanford to San Francisco in intellectual attractions. So is L.A.’s “Brain Train” smarter than the Caltrain? Discuss.
Their take
San Diego Union-Tribune: Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, has once again been thwarted in her attempts to put the interests of students – not teachers – first in California’s public education system. As a result, the state’s deeply flawed teacher tenure law – which allows new teachers to gain lifetime job protections after just 18 months – will remain in place.
San Francisco Chronicle: California won’t be able to rely on the revenue from cigarette taxes as it now does. State legislators should begin planning for declines in this revenue right now.
Mercury News: With all the buzz about Google’s big ideas for downtown San Jose, Adobe Systems came in under the public radar Thursday with a plan for a fourth high rise near its corporate headquarters. Best. Downtown. News. Ever.
Orange County Register: Much has been written about the shortage of housing in Orange County, but several recent examples show just how difficult it is to get even commercial developments through local governments’ planning and review processes.
L.A. Times: as California ramps up investments in major infrastructure projects like the LAX people mover, state leaders ought to be looking for ways to ensure CEQA isn’t an impediment to progress.
Raleigh News & Observer: North Carolina’s Republicans boast about their “conservative budgeting approach of spending restraint,” but they actually have taken a radical path of deferring basic spending and cutting revenue in prosperous times.
Lexington Herald Leader: If President Donald Trump raises tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, as he’s threatened, one of the leading possible targets for retaliation is Kentucky bourbon.
Syndicates take
Paul Krugman: Trumpcare would be a disaster.
David Brooks: It takes generations to hammer ethical considerations out of a person’s mind and to replace them entirely with the ruthless logic of winning and losing. It took a few generations of the House of Trump, in other words, to produce Donald Jr.
Gail Collins: Emmanuel Macron was such a successful host that Trump seemed to develop second thoughts on the global warming thing.
Nicholas Kristof: American teachers unions and some of their progressive supporters misconceive trials of private management of public schools abroad.
Ross Douthat: We know that Francis is a liberal pope, but apart from the remarriage debate we don’t know what priority he places on any given liberal-Catholic goal.
Maureen Dowd: How Donald Trump is like 'Game of Thrones'.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: A handful of Republican senators will decide whether the Affordable Care Act will remain part of the fabric of our nation’s life, the latest in a long series of steps toward a more humane society.
Timothy Egan: The most odious of those who are letting President Trump drag the United States into the gutter include Vice President Mike Pence, the leaders in Congress and the pious shepherds of a white evangelical community that continues to give an awful man a pass for every awful thing he does.
Paul Krugman: Previous iterations of Trumpcare were terrible, but this one offered by Mitch McConnell is, incredibly, even worse. This is still a bill that takes from the poor to give to the rich; it just does so with extra stealth.
Dana Milbank: To visit Australia, a stalwart ally, and talk with its people was to see how the United States, in the space of just a few months, has utterly lost leadership in the world under Donald Trump.
Ruben Navarrette: President Trump may be many things, but he’s no isolationist. The fact that Trump gets stuck with that label so often is an indication of how the global elitists don’t “get” this president. They don’t have the foggiest idea why he appeals to those around the world who know oppression and expect the United States to do something about it.
Kathleen Parker: Donald Trump has brought Republicans and Democrats together as only just wars can. He’s brought women, scientists, minorities, teachers, journalists, professors – and no, they’re not all liberal – out of their favorite laptop seats and moved them to march, protest and, most important, run for public office.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: President Trump has taught us to live in a state of perpetual chaos and continuous crisis. Six months later, the White House commands the same horrified attention as a car wreck or a house fire.
Mailbag
“Campaign officials meeting with Russian state operatives a nothing burger? Do you want prison stripes with that?” – Spencer P. Le Gate, Sacramento
And finally,
Kansas City Star: Amelia, we just can’t get enough of you. Eighty years after her July 2, 1937, disappearance over the Pacific on an attempted flight around the world, we’re all still puzzling over what really happened to the most famous daughter of Atchison, Kan.
This story was originally published July 17, 2017 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Cap-and-trade vote, and an obscure rule that harms farmworkers’ families."