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      What the arrests of Beverly Hills residents say about the US Capitol attack

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      Sign up for the Guardian Today US newsletterBeverly Hills has seen more residents arrested for participating in the US Capitol insurrection than any other city in California.Three of the 14 California residents charged in connection with the pro-Trump riot in Washington on 6 January so far are from the wealthy Los Angeles county enclave: Gina Bisignano, a salon owner, and Simone Gold and John Strand, two rightwing activists who have spread coronavirus misinformation through their roles in America’s Frontline Doctors, an organization that Gold, an emergency room physician, founded.The 11 other Californians who have been charged in the riot are scattered across the state, from San Diego to San Francisco, with three clustered in towns around Sacramento, the state capital, and two from towns in the notoriously conservative Orange county, south of Los Angeles.The prominence of Beverly Hills and the profile of the three residents who have been charged reflects what experts say are broader trends in the backgrounds of the more than 250 people charged so far in connection with the Capitol riot.More than 90% of the people charged in the riots so far are white, researchers at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats found. About 40% are business owners or have white-collar jobs, the researchers found, and compared with previous rightwing extremists, relatively few of them were unemployed.“There’s been this assumption that the most reactionary folks on the frontlines would be what’s often referred to as white working-class, but that’s of course not what we saw,” said Vanessa Wills, a political philosopher who studies the intersections of race and class. “The people who showed up are disproportionately small business owners.”The people charged in the attack so far also did not come exclusively from Republican states or conservative enclaves. In fact, a majority lived in counties that Biden won, like Beverly Hills, nestled next to Hollywood in liberal Los Angeles county.Only 10% of the people charged so far had identifiable ties to rightwing militias or other organized violent groups, the Chicago researchers found. Many more were people who had identified as mainstream Trump supporters.From lockdown protests to the US CapitolSalon owner Bisignano was indicted on seven counts, including destruction of government property and civil disorder.Gold and Strand, the rightwing activists, were indicted on five counts, including disorderly conduct in a capitol building. Gold’s lawyer declined to comment on the charges against her, and Strand and Bisignano’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.All three Beverly Hills defendants were already prominent rightwing protest figures before the events at the Capitol.Bisignano had gone viral in December for shouting homophobic slurs at an anti-lockdown protest outside the home of Los Angeles’ public health director, according to TMZ, which called her “coronavirus lockdown Karen”.“You’re a new world order satanist,” Bisignano told a person filming her at the protest, according to the TMZ video. “You’re a Nazi and you’re brainwashed.”“Is there something wrong with not wanting a lockdown?” she asked. “Is there something wrong with wanting freedom?”Gold, who has been labeled a “toxic purveyor of misinformation” for her public stances questioning the safety of the coronavirus vaccine and touting hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the virus, was part of an anti-lockdown demonstration with other doctors on the steps of the supreme court in July. Video of the doctors spreading misinformation about Covid-19 was repeatedly shared by Trump and by Donald Trump Jr, and ultimately viewed more than 14m times, despite takedowns by multiple social media platforms, the Washington Post reported.Strand, the communications director for America’s Frontline doctors, was also one of the main organizers of the frequent pro-Trump rallies in Beverly Hills before and after the election, the Los Angeles Times reported.“The election is not over,” Strand said at a protest in mid-November after Trump had lost the election, according to footage posted on YouTube. “Yes, we have a chance to win the election.”All three Beverly Hills defendants had spoken out publicly about their participation in the Capitol riot before they were arrested, including in newspapers interviews and on social media.“I’m like, I didn’t know we were storming the Capitol. I should have dressed different,” Bisignano told the Beverly Hills Courier before her arrest, noting that she had worn Chanel boots as well as a Louis Vuitton sweater to the riot.•••It is not clear how wealthy or financially stable Bisignano or the other Beverly Hills defendants are. While many of the Americans charged in the Capitol riots were educated, employed and financially stable enough to afford a trip across the country to attend a pro-Trump protest, a Washington Post analysis also found that many people charged in the attack had some history of financial troubles, and that, as a group, they were twice as likely as Americans overall to have a history of bankruptcy.Understanding the background and social status of alleged domestic terrorists is important to understanding what can be done to counter this kind of radicalization and prevent future attacks. The profiles of the Capitol rioters already present a challenge for these kinds of efforts, researchers say.“What we are dealing with here is not merely a mix of rightwing organizations, but a broader mass movement with violence at its core,” the Chicago Project on Security and Threats researchers wrote in a public presentation on their initial findings. Normal strategies for countering violent extremism, like social programs for the poor, or arrests targeting organized extremists groups, would not work, the researchers concluded: what was needed was “de-escalation approaches for anger among large swaths of mainstream society”.Many Americans had reason to be angry at the failures of politicians and the federal government during the pandemic, which has led to widespread unemployment, disproportionate burdens on people of color, and half a million people dead, but the Capitol attackers were not broadly representative of the US population.Experts have emphasized the importance of recognizing the coded attacks on the legitimacy of Black voters’ ballots within Trump’s rhetoric about “election fraud”, and the value of understanding the Capitol insurrection as an act of racial violence motivated by white supremacist ideas.But the economic and class backgrounds of the alleged Capitol rioters may also be revealing, particularly as many Americans struggle to understand why so many of their fellow citizens were vulnerable to Trump’s lies about election fraud and lurid conspiracy theories like QAnon.The white Americans who showed up at the Capitol did not appear to represent big business or the country’s financial elite, Wills, the political philosopher, said. Instead, they appeared to largely represent people who felt squeezed by bigger companies, resentful towards the government, which had provided a small business pandemic relief program that failed to help many small businesses, and also resentful towards “working-class demands that they see as hostile to their interests as small business owners”.It was no accident that chaotic anti-lockdown protests at state capitols during the early months of the pandemic were a precursor to the attack on the Capitol in Washington, Wills argued: the public health lockdown measures were specifically threatening to small businesses, and their ability to ensure that their employees would return to work.While susceptibility to conspiracy theories involves many factors, she argued, people would likely be more open to embrace wild theories if the theories justified them acting on what was already in their economic interest.“Most people would find it hard to think well of themselves if they confronted the fact that they woke up that morning and decided they are going to frustrate society’s attempts to contain a pandemic for their own private financial benefit,” Wills said. 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      California lawmakers push to stop deportations and end jail transfers to Ice

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      Sign up for the Guardian Today US newsletterCalifornia lawmakers are fighting to protect thousands of residents from deportation with new legislation that would stop state prisons and jails from handing over immigrants to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).California’s controversial practice of coordinating with Ice agents has received widespread scrutiny in past months, including after the Guardian revealed that the state had transferred two immigrant prisoners to Ice for deportation after they had served as incarcerated firefighters on the frontlines – and after they had completed their sentences.Kao Saelee, 41, was scheduled to leave prison after 22 years behind bars in August. But on the day of his release, when his sister was waiting to take him home, California instead handed him over to immigration authorities. He remains in Ice custody in Louisiana. Bounchan Keola, 39, was reported to Ice by California prison officials in October.Both men had served the state as firefighters while in prison and both were threatened with deportation to Laos, a country their families had fled as refugees when they were young children. The two had been locked up since they were teenagers.Assembly member Wendy Carrillo, of Los Angeles, and other lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled legislation that would ensure that immigrant community members eligible for release from state jails or prisons would not be sent to Ice, but instead would be able to re-enter society and reunite with their families.Supporters of Assembly Bill 937, the Voiding Inequality and Seeking Inclusion for Our Immigrant Neighbors (Vision) Act, say that the practice of transferring people from prison to Ice was a cruel form of “double punishment” that indefinitely separated people from their loved ones after they have served their time. “If it wasn’t for where they were born, these Californians would be able to return home,” Carrillo said.California has no legal obligation to report prisoners to Ice, and despite intense backlash last year, Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, has defended the policy and allowed the voluntary transfers to continue. The transfers can affect undocumented people and legal permanent residents, who lose their green cards once they are in Ice custody, due to their criminal records.California has a “sanctuary law”, which means local law enforcement is not supposed to collaborate with US immigration and has a mandate to shield immigrants from deportation threats, but the state has made an exception for local jails and prisons.The transfers are one of the key drivers of deportation in the state. The California department of corrections and rehabilitation (CDCR) transferred an estimated 1,400 people from its custody to Ice last year, according to the Asian Law Caucus, a legal advocacy group supporting the bill. In 2018 and 2019, local jails sent more than 3,700 people to Ice.The practice has been especially concerning during the pandemic when Ice jails and CDCR prisons have both suffered massive and deadly Covid-19 outbreaks in their overcrowded facilities.Keola, who suffered a near-death injury fighting wildfires last year, was freed from Ice custody in January and reunited with his family in the Bay Area for the first time in decades. But the threat of deportation still looms.“I want to get on my feet and work and advocate and help people like myself,” Keola told the Guardian after his release, saying he was hoping to start working as a firefighter. “We should all have that opportunity to have that American life. Hopefully Newsom will stop turning over people like myself.”Last week, Bounchan Keola walked free after 22 years behind bars. He was an incarcerated firefighter who California sent to US immigration at the end of his sentence last year.I chatted with Boun + his sister Thong about reuniting after decades apart. LISTEN: (thread) pic.twitter.com/8E9oJY0x0L— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) February 7, 2021
      On Wednesday, Keola spoke at a news conference supporting the bill, urging the governor to also issue pardons to him and Saelee, the other jailed firefighter sent to Ice, so that they would no longer be threatened with deportation due to their criminal records. “At any moment, I could be arrested and be deported to Laos, a country I have no ties to.”Spokespeople for Ice and CDCR declined to comment. More

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      Trump ally Nunes sees CNN Ukraine lawsuit thrown out by New York judge

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      A defamation lawsuit brought against CNN by the California Republican Devin Nunes, a leading ally of former president Donald Trump, was tossed out by a Manhattan judge on Friday.The lawsuit seeking more than $435m in damages was rejected by US district judge Laura Taylor Swain, who said Nunes failed to request a retraction in a timely fashion or adequately state his claims.Nunes alleged the cable news company intentionally published a false news article and engaged in a conspiracy to defame him and damage his personal and professional reputation. His lawsuit said CNN published a report containing false claims that Nunes was involved in efforts to get “dirt” on the then Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.Lawyers for Nunes said in court papers CNN knew statements made by Lev Parnas and included in their report were false.Parnas, an associate of former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, has pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court to making illegal contributions to politicians. His trial is scheduled for October.Parnas and another defendant worked with Giuliani to try to get Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden’s son, prosecutors said. Giuliani has said he knew nothing about the political contributions by the men. He has not been charged.The Ukraine affair led to Trump’s first impeachment, in which the Senate acquitted him in February last year. Trump was acquitted again last week, after being impeached a second time for inciting the Capitol riot.The Nunes lawsuit said Parnas was telling lies to try to get immunity.“It was obvious to everyone – including disgraceful CNN – that Parnas was a fraudster and a hustler. It was obvious that his lies were part of a thinly veiled attempt to obstruct justice,“ the lawsuit said.CNN lawyers said Nunes and his staff had declined to comment before publication on whether Nunes had met with a Ukrainian prosecutor.“Instead of denying the report before it was published, Representative Nunes waited until it appeared and then filed this suit seeking more than $435m in damages – labeling CNN ‘the mother of fake news’,” lawyers for CNN wrote. “In his rush to sue, however, Representative Nunes overlooked the need first to request a retraction.”The lawyers noted that California law, which Judge Swain said was appropriate for the case, requires that a retraction be demanded in writing within 20 days of the publication of a story. Messages seeking comment were sent to lawyers for Nunes and CNN. More

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      California bill would ban fracking near schools and homes

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      [embedded content]
      A new bill introduced in the California state senate on Wednesday would ban all fracking near schools and homes by 1 January 2022 and in the entire state by 2027.
      Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique used to extract huge amounts of oil and gas from shale rock deep underground. It involves injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals into rock. Environmental groups say the chemicals threaten water supplies and public health.
      The bill introduced by the senators Scott Wiener and Monique Limón would halt new fracking permits and the renewal of current ones on 1 January 2022, in addition to banning new oil and gas production within 2,500ft (762 meters) of any home, school, healthcare facility or long-term care institution, such as dormitories or prisons. It would outlaw all fracking in the state by 1 January 2027, along with three other oil extraction methods: acid well stimulation treatments, cyclic steaming and water and steam flooding.
      California has been a leader in combating the climate crisis, with a law in place requiring the state use 100% renewable energy by 2045.
      In 2019, Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, halted new fracking permits and fired the state’s top oil and gas regulator after a report showed a 35% increase in new wells. That moratorium ended last April after an independent, scientific review of California’s permitting process.
      The Democratic governor in September called on lawmakers to ban fracking by 2024 as he ordered regulators to begin preparations to prohibit the sale of all new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles by 2035.
      But the proposal is likely to be one of the most contentious fights in the state legislature this year. The state’s influential oil and gas industry generated $152.3bn in economic output in 2017, which generated about $21.5bn in state and local taxes.
      Wiener on Wednesday called the climate crisis an “existential threat to our community”.
      “We have no time to waste, and California must lead on climate action, including transitioning to a 100% clean energy economy,” he said.
      “If there’s not a bill, there’s not a conversation,” said Limón, “and it is necessary to have these conversations at the state level about environmental impacts and public health as oil production continues near our homes and schools. This bill continues robust policy conversations on fossil fuels and alternative energy production that have been going on for decades.” More

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      California’s governor, once praised, faces backlash over pandemic response

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      California’s coronavirus death toll is continuing to climb. Its vaccination rates remain low. And some of its residents are losing faith in their governor.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has found himself in an increasingly precarious political position: a Republican-led recall movement is garnering support from far-right groups as well as mainstream Republicans and some Silicon Valley bigwigs. And while the effort is unlikely to succeed in unseating him, even long-term allies are publicly questioning his leadership through this latest, most deadly phase of the crisis.He was hailed as a national hero in the early months of the pandemic, but Newsom’s job rating has plunged in recent weeks. Just under a third of voters polled by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies rated the governor’s overall handling of the pandemic well, while 44% said he was doing badly. It’s a complete reversal from September, when 49% of those polled by the institute said Newsom was doing an excellent or good job – and 28% rated him poorly.Criticism has come from all sides. Legislators have been divided over his decision to lift regional stay-at-home orders a week after the state surpassed 3m coronavirus cases. Health workers have been dismayed that some of his recent health directives have diverged from established and emerging scientific research. He has bickered with teachers unions and parents over when and how to reopen the state’s public schools. Activists say he is failing Latino and Black residents, Californians with disabilities and essential workers who are dying at disproportionate rates. And jobless Californians, struggling to access unemployment benefits, have cursed the administration’s bureaucratic inertia.For many across the state, Newsom’s announcements on the economy, vaccine distribution or school reopenings have felt increasingly dissonant from their dire realities as the pandemic progressed.Amy Arlund, an ER nurse in the central valley , said she was enraged that hospitals continued to face staff and equipment shortages. “The trust has been broken with especially our government officials, our leaders and the organizations and the agencies that are meant to protect us,” Arlund said. “It feels like we’re expendable.”Four of her coworkers at the Kaiser Fresno hospital have died because of Covid-19, Arlund said, including a fellow nurse who contracted the virus last summer after the hospital ran so short on PPE and staff resorted to using homemade face shields made of plastic sheets and electrical tape.For Héctor Manuel Ramírez, a disability rights advocate in Los Angeles who had worked on a behavioral health taskforce the governor launched last year, a breaking point was Newsom’s announcement that in an effort to speed up vaccine distribution, the state would start prioritizing people by age, rather than a profession or medical history.The news came as Ramírez was preparing funeral arrangements for their brother, Eduardo.Eduardo was 35, and severely immunocompromised due to Aids, so Ramírez, their family and friends had anxiously watched the state’s chaotic vaccine rollout, hoping his turn would come in the nick of time.It didn’t. Eduardo died – the fourth of Ramírez’s family to have succumbed to Covid-19.Ramírez said Newsom had, unlike many of his counterparts in other states, made a strong commitment to addressing health disparities. “I listened to the governor’s coronavirus updates quite regularly, and his words had always brought hope. Now I feel misled, I feel used. I feel like I am without leadership,” they said.“There has been so much fear and desperation in my community,” they added. “Whether it’s intentional or unintentional, it feels like our leaders have forgotten about us.”I feel misled, I feel used. I feel like I am without leadershipCriticism has also mounted over the state’s handling of school reopenings and unemployment aid. As many of the state’s businesses reopen Newsom has found himself caught up in crossfire between parents of 6m public school students who are anxious to get their children back to class and teachers unions who are worried it’s not safe enough to return.Newsom late last year had proposed a $2bn plan to help schools reopen in the spring, but school leaders, unions and lawmakers have said it’s inadequate. In a heated meeting with the Association of California School Administrators last week, Newsom responded to demands that all teachers receive vaccines before returning to in-person schooling: “If we want to find reasons not to open, we’ll find plenty of reasons.”Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment agency has been under fire over a scathing audit last month, which found that as millions of jobless Californias are still to access unemployment benefits the agency paid out more than $11bn on fraudulent claims.At a hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers from both parties were furious that constituents were queuing in snaking lines at food banks and sleeping in their cars while the state held up aid. “Californians are frustrated, they are infuriated, they are fed up,” said Rudy Salas, a Democratic assemblyman representing parts of the rural Central Valley.Making life-and-death decisions about who should get the vaccine first, balancing the need to address the state’s economic crisis alongside its health crisis, discerning what is and isn’t safe amid a once-in-a-century pandemic, is of course, impossibly difficult, said Dr Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the UCSF medical center in San Francisco. Through much of last year, while Donald Trump denied the severity of the pandemic and hawked false miracle cures, Newsom and other governors became “beacons of leadership for the whole country”, Chin-Hong continued. Another poll, from Morning Consult, found that though Newsom’s job ratings had dipped in recent weeks, he’s more popular now than he was before the pandemic struck.As the pandemic has progressed, people have higher expectations“But as the pandemic has progressed, people have higher expectations,” Chin-Hong said – they expect leaders to explain the reasoning behind public health decisions.Newsom failed to do that two weeks ago, when he suddenly announced that he would be lifting the state’s most restrictive stay-at-home orders, Chin-Hong said. Even state legislators said they were taken off guard.“If you think state legislators were blindsided by, and confused about the shifting and confusing public health directives, you’d be correct,” said assemblymember Laura Friedman after Newsom’s announcement. “If you think we have been quiet about it in Sacramento, you’d be wrong.”Health workers said it doesn’t help that Newsom initially kept the data and reasoning behind the changing rules and guidelines opaque. “The reopening announcement was so sudden. People were so confused because outside hospitals there were mobile morgues full of the body bags of people who’d died from Covid-19,” said Chin-Hong. “It really made people feel unsafe.”“There’s definitely a communication problem,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. “We’re finding that about half of the public is saying that they don’t have trust in the governor.”Newsom’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on such critiques. Many of the groups questioning the governor’s recent policies said he could easily earn back their trust – if he’s willing to work with them.Christian Ramirez, a policy director for SEIU-USWW, a union that represents more than 45,000 service workers in California, said he was excited to hear Newsom announce last month a plan to send $600 to low-income Californians, including undocumented immigrants. “There has been a willingness from Governor Newsom to ensure that essential workers regardless of their immigration status are not left to fend for themselves,” Ramirez said. But the proposal has not yet been signed into law.Ramirez said he’d like for the governor to collaborate with unions and advocacy groups to deliver on his promises. “We know how to reach our community – we have mobilized a record-breaking number of folks to go to the polls and vote in recent elections,” he said. The union could easily leverage its network to help hundreds of thousands of workers quickly fill out the paperwork for unemployment benefits, or sign up for vaccination appointments. “We’re not expecting the governor to do it all alone – and we’re willing to stand with him,” Ramirez said. More

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      A Letter to My Liberal Friends

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyA Letter to My Liberal FriendsIf you want to know what worries conservatives, look at California.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 1, 2021, 8:08 p.m. ETCredit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressLast Wednesday, Nick Kristof addressed his column to his conservative hometown friends in Yamhill, Ore., urging them to hold liberals accountable while doing the same for right-wing extremists, kooks and charlatans. In that spirit — and with Nick’s cheerful acquiescence — I offer a rejoinder in the form of a letter to my liberal friends.Dear Friends,No, I can’t relax! And no, I’m not worried that the Biden administration is going to send Trump voters to “re-education camps,” impose Cuban-style socialism or put out the welcome mat for MS-13. I’m just afraid that today’s Democratic leaders might look to the very Democratic state of California as a model for America’s future.You remember California: People used to want to move there, start businesses, raise families, live their American dream.These days, not so much. Between July 2019 and July 2020, more people — 135,400 to be precise — left the state than moved in, one of only a dozen times in over a century when that’s happened. The website exitcalifornia.org helps keep track of where these Golden State exiles go. No. 1 destination: Texas, followed by Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Three of those states have no state income tax, while Arizona’s is capped at 4.5 percent for married couples making over $318,000.In California, by contrast, married couples pay more than twice that rate on income above $116,000. (And rates go even higher for higher earners.) Californians also pay some of the nation’s highest sales tax rates (8.66 percent) and corporate tax rates (8.84 percent), as well as the highest taxes on gasoline (63 cents on a gallon as of January, as compared with 20 cents in Texas).Some of my liberal friends tell me that tax rates basically don’t matter in terms of the way people work and economies perform. Uh-huh. Still, I’d have an easier time accepting the argument if all those taxes went toward high-quality government services: good schools, safe streets, solid infrastructure or fiscal health.How does California fare on these fronts? The state ranks 21st in the country in terms of spending per public school pupil, but 37th in its K-12 educational outcomes. It ties Oregon for third place among states in terms of its per capita homeless rate. Infrastructure? As of 2019, the state had an estimated $70 billion in deferred maintenance backlog. Debt? The state’s unfunded pension liabilities in 2019 ran north of $1.1 trillion, according to an analysis by Stanford professor Joe Nation, or $81,300 per household.And then there’s liberal governance in the cities. In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin has championed the calls for decriminalizing prostitution, public urination, public camping, blocking sidewalks and open-air drug use. Click this link and take a brief stroll through a local train station to see how these sorts of policies work out.Predictably, a result of decriminalization has been more actual criminality. Recent trends include an estimated 51 percent jump in San Francisco burglaries and a 41 percent jump in arsons. For the Bay Area as a whole, there has been a 35 percent spike in homicides.Yes, homicides have been rising in cities around the country. But those trends themselves owe much to liberal governance in like-minded jurisdictions like Seattle and New York, with their recent emphasis on depolicing, decarceration, defunding, decriminalization and other deluded attempts at criminal-justice reform.Funny, you don’t hear this about the places Californians are fleeing to. Austin, the preferred destination of San Francisco exiles, remains one of the safest big cities in America (and it’s run by a Democrat). Another thing you don’t hear from Texas: a board of education voting — as San Francisco’s just did — to strip the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Paul Revere from their respective schools, on grounds of sinning against the more recent commandments of progressive dogma. Not that it really matters, since all these schools remain closed for in-person learning thanks to the resistance of teachers unions.And then there is California’s political class. Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats, 42 of its 53 seats in the House, have lopsided majorities in the State Assembly and Senate, run nearly every big city and have controlled the governor’s mansion for a decade. If ever there was a perfect laboratory for liberal governance, this is it. So how do you explain these results?For four years, liberals have had a hard time understanding how any American could even think of voting for Republicans, given the party’s fealty to the former president. I’ve shared some of that bewilderment myself. But — to adapt a line from another notorious Californian — Democrats won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore, meaning the consequences of liberal misrule will be harder to disguise or disavow. If California is a vision of the sort of future the Biden administration wants for Americans, expect Americans to demur.My unsolicited advice: Like Republicans, Democrats do best when they govern from the center. Forget California, think Colorado. A purple country needs a purple president — and a political opposition with the credibility to keep him honest.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'California is America, only sooner': how the progressive state could shape Biden's policies

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      Following Joe Biden’s presidential win in November, the governor of California quickly learned he had some big job vacancies to fill. With so many top officials in the state being recruited to help Biden build his new administration, Gavin Newsom joked that he might have to start trying to convince staff members to stick around.It was already a given that Californian interests would be well represented in Congress, with Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco serving as speaker of the House and Vice-President Kamala Harris, born and raised in the Bay Area, holding the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. But Biden has also tapped several Californians for key cabinet positions.Biden called on the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, to run the US health department. He nominated the former Federal Reserve chair and University of California, Berkeley, professor Janet Yellen to serve as treasury secretary. Yellen’s colleague Jennifer Granholm was nominated as the next energy secretary.Six others slated for top spots in the new government either teach at or graduated from Berkeley. Alejandro Mayorkas of Los Angeles is expected to become the first Latino to head the Department of Homeland Security and Isabel Guzman, current director of California’s office of the small business advocate, is likely to run the US Small Business Administration – to name a few.Now, instead of having to fight a federal government to enact policy priorities, California will have friendly faces in top spots. “It goes from headwinds to tailwinds, and that’s pretty obvious,” Newsom said at a press conference in November. “On early childcare … health and education, issues related to the environment and environmental stewardship and low-carbon, green growth,” he added, ”broadly, that’s a California agenda.”The Biden administration’s agenda is also expected to be modeled on some policies enacted or planned in California, and the new administration is likely to use the state’s successes and failures as a guide.“There is a wealth of ideas on the policy side that can come out of California,” said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Pastor pointed at the state’s stances on immigrants’ rights and the minimum wage and its investments in climate mitigation.California has served as a living laboratory for progressive ideas, Pastor said, and there’s enough evidence that will help the federal government embrace the California approach. “California is America, only sooner,” Pastor added. “It’s no surprise that now we have an administration trying to reach into a place that’s always been on the edge of the future.”On his first day alone, Biden signed 17 new executive orders to undo some of the measures of the Trump administration, and the new president has promised to swiftly shift direction in the country.The new administration is looking into some of California’s signature policies – and even taking some a step further. Biden has proposed raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour (almost double what it is now), promised to bring “peaceful protesters, police chiefs, police unions, as well as civil rights groups” to the table to talk police reform, and made moves on new legislation for immigration reform.Biden is especially likely to follow California’s lead on the environment. “Where California will have its most influence is on climate change-related policies,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at Stanford University and the director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. “While Trump was shutting down a lot of the climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, California continued to chug along.”Even after Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, California remained committed to keeping pace and brought 23 states on board with it. Now that Biden is preparing to re-enter the accord, the Democratic party’s environmental taskforce, co-chaired by the former secretary of state John Kerry, has told Biden to look to California for help, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Immediately convene California, due to its unique authority, and other states with labor, auto industry, and environmental leaders to inform ambitious actions,” the taskforce’s report read.While California officials are happy to help, it’s clear they hope the offer goes both ways. Calling their new partnership a “game-changer for Californians” in a letter to Biden, Newsom championed the new administration’s goals and acknowledged the role he expects his state will play shaping national policy.“Congratulations on your historic victory and for setting America on a path to build back better,” Newsom wrote. “California is eager to support your bold agenda by sharing our experiences implementing progressive policy on everything from workers’ rights to climate change.”Newsom included several requests, including reinstated funding for the high-speed rail that’s far behind schedule and badly over budget, help with financing programs to house the homeless, and additional emergency aid beyond what was already promised to the state in the December stimulus.Newsom also hopes the federal government will push back to 2023 the date when California’s unemployment debts – expected to reach close to $50bn this year – come due.Eric Schickler, a political scientist and co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, said he didn’t expect Californians to get everything they want out of the new administration. After all, even among Democrats, residents of the state – and their representatives – are highly diverse. “In terms of shaping the Democratic agenda, California Democrats are certainly in an advantageous place,” he said. Still, with the state facing significant challenges, including on housing, inequality, and the devastating impact from the Covid crisis, it will be helpful to have more allies than adversaries controlling the purse strings. “The state is facing some daunting challenges and will be looking to the federal government for help,” Schickler said. “The Biden administration is much more likely to be sympathetic to that.”At the very least, California won’t have to continue big battles against the federal government. Pastor sees this as the biggest opportunity for the state to push forward. “Not being in a war of resistance with the Trump administration will give California a chance – a needed chance – to reflect on its own shortcomings,” Pastor said. “The weight of hate has been lifted. And once it is lifted, you can look around and ask, well, how are we screwing up? California still has a lot of things it needs to fix.” More

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      California has environmental allies once again with Biden in the White House

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      California has led the resistance to Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental regulations in the past four years, with the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, filing a whopping 122 lawsuits challenging Trump administration rules, most of them focused on climate and public health.Now, following Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s swearing in on Wednesday, the Golden state once again has allies in the White House when it comes to environmental protections.Faced with a host of challenges caused by the climate crisis, including growing water scarcity, intensifying heat waves and an ever more dire wildfire risk, environmental regulations are high on California’s policy priority list. The Biden administration shares many of the state’s concerns, and isn’t wasting any time in addressing the deregulation efforts of the previous administration.On his first day in office, Biden released a long, non-exclusive list of Trump policies that will be up for review as part of his new initiative to prioritize public health and climate change. The list is intended as a roadmap for US officials, especially those at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Interior where Trump made significant headway in gutting regulations, and shows how the president plans to use his ambitious environmental goals to bring the country back in line.Many of his outlined priorities neatly align with California’s goals and will ring familiar in the state. “The really ambitious goals that [Biden] has in his plan, a lot of them are modeled on California,” said Jared Blumenfeld, the state’s top environmental regulator, told Politico. “We really want to work with the administration to show what is possible. Whether it’s his goal of getting 2035 carbon-free energy or how we think about zero-emission vehicles or building standards or all the things we’ve done over the last 30 years, what we want to do is work with him to scale that.”Here’s a look at some of the key environmental issues for California in Biden’s plan.Vehicle standardsCalifornia has long set its own pace for climate policy, but the Trump administration sought to stomp out the state’s attempts, particularly when it comes to fuel-efficiency regulations. The EPA revoked the state’s Clean Air Act waiver, barring California from setting its own greenhouse gas standards on vehicles.Biden is expected to reverse that decision and his presidency will pave the way for California to have more control on car manufacturers, a crucial part of the state’s carbon-cutting plan. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has proposed a plan to stop the sale of gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks in the next 15 years, a move that, if approved, will push the industry to move faster toward electric.Oil and gas drillingUnder Trump, the Bureau of Land Management changed its evaluation process for leasing to the oil and gas industry to fast-track and expand development on public lands. At the end of 2019, the agency, which is housed under the US Department of the Interior, moved forward with a plan to open up roughly 1.2m acres across California’s central valley for oil and gas drilling. Environmentalists are hopeful the Biden administration will reset the rules and revoke leases that are already underway.California also challenged Trump’s repeal of regulations governing hydraulic fracturing – the process more commonly known as “fracking” that uses high-pressure injections of water, chemicals, and other substances, to extract natural gas housed in underground rock formations. The process has been tied to increases in seismic activity and can cause dangerous substances to leach into the water supply. Trump overturned regulations that required companies to detail plans to prevent leakage and data on chemicals used, and those repeals are now under review.Water warsTrump waded deep into California’s complex water wars with a plan to divert more of the scarce and valuable water resource from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farmers in the central valley, who are among his strongest supporters in the state. Trump openly ridiculed California’s conservation policies, including protections for a fish called the delta smelt, which is nearing extinction from long periods of drought. California officials bristled at the intervention, arguing that it would harm delicate ecosystems and the endangered fish, and fishermen also filed a suit to challenge the rules. Biden’s review list includes the changed determination for the smelt, and California officials may have the final word.Protecting animalsThe Trump administration in 2019 revised the Endangered Species Act of 1973, adding new criteria for listing and removing animals that may be at risk. The changes increase the opportunity to remove some animals from protection or weigh commercial and corporate needs when considering how to designate critical habitat. Biden has put the rule change up for review, as well as some specific cases where changes in designation have already been made. The northern spotted owl, an inhabitant of the forests in the Pacific north-west, had 3.5m acres – more than a third of its habitat – slashed to give the timber industry more access. The monarch butterfly, which migrates across the US to Mexico each year, didn’t make the list last year even though less than 2,000 were counted in an annual tally taken along California’s coast this year. That marks a 99.9% drop since the 1980s. Protections for the sage-grouse, an imperiled bird known for their unique mating dances that lives in a geographically isolated area along the California-Nevada border, were eased by the Trump administration to pave the way to open up mining and drilling in the area. More