The Brief

Sen. Anna Caballero is one of California’s most influential lawmakers, since she is in charge of a committee that decides in secret to kill hundreds of bills each year, often at the behest of the governor’s administration.

But even though Caballero is the powerful chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and regularly works with the governor’s team, Gov. Gavin Newsom still vetoed seven of her bills this year, the most of any lawmaker.

“I do tough bills,” Caballero, a Democrat who represents the Merced area, told CalMatters. “So sometimes I get lucky, and other times, it’s disappointing. And, you know, you learn to live with it.”

Her vetoed bills include one that aimed to reduce emissions at state ports, another that sought to add oversight for metal shredding facilities and one that sought to train police to investigate foreign governments that target immigrant communities.

In his veto messages, Newsom described those bills as unnecessary since state agencies were already doing similar work. That’s one of the more common themes in Newsom’s 123 vetoes from this legislative session that he finished signing earlier this month. He used the word “duplicative” 16 times, according to an analysis of CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

The analysis highlights how Newsom uses his veto pen to assert authority over a Legislature his fellow Democrats control while rejecting bills he deems too costly, redundant or politically risky. Newsom cited fiscal implications dozens of times in his veto messages, reflecting the challenges of a tough budget year. This year’s vetoes also gave him a chance to throw some shade at Newsom’s biggest enemy: President Donald Trump.

Newsom mentioned Trump by name three times in his vetoes, and he cited Trump’s “hostile economic policies” in almost a quarter of his veto messages, 28 times.

“With significant fiscal pressures and the federal government's hostile economic policies, it is vital that we remain disciplined when considering bills with significant fiscal implications that are not included in the budget, such as this measure,” Newsom wrote, in vetoing Caballero’s bill that sought to exempt hydrogen fuel from sales taxes.

He used a nearly identical line to veto three other Caballero bills, including a measure to provide tax credits for medical equipment, a bill that would have provided grants for carbon dioxide removal and another that sought to incentivize biomass power plants.

The vetoes represented just a small percentage of what Newsom’s did with the 917 bills that were sent to his desk this year. He vetoed just 13.4% of them, a slightly lower rate than previous years, according to Chris Micheli, an adjunct professor at McGeorge School of Law and a veteran lobbyist who keeps detailed statistics on the Legislature.

It certainly wasn’t all vetoes for Caballero. Newsom also signed 10 of her bills into law.

Zombie bills return for a second veto

There was another theme in Newsom’s vetoes: Spiking bills he’d previously vetoed.

He did that six times.

As CalMatters reported, even if a bill gets vetoed one year, lawmakers often bring the legislation back again — often with wording identical to the previous version.

Previously vetoed measures are especially likely to be resurrected if well-funded lobbying groups that donate heavily to politicians are pushing for a new law.

That was the case with two bills Newsom axed for the second time this year.

One was a union-backed bill by Democratic Assemblymember Dawn Addis of San Luis Obispo that sought to make it easier for farmworkers to win workers’ compensation claims against employers for heat-related illnesses. The other was a previously vetoed measure by Democratic Assemblymember Esmerlda Soria of Merced that sought to allow community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing. Nurses unions, hospitals and community colleges supported the bill.

Newsom noted those bills were “nearly identical” to measures he previously killed, and he cited the same reasons.

Newsom again spiked a bill that would require counties to create multidisciplinary behavioral health teams, a proposal to force insurers to pay for menopause treatment, a reparations bill and a measure to fund a study on women veterans’ mental health.

First-year lawmaker Democratic Assemblymember John Harabedian, representing the Pasadena area, had five vetoes this year, the second most in the Legislature. They were mostly related to health insurance and the fallout from last winter’s devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County.

Assemblymember John Harabedian on the Assembly floor in Sacramento on Jan. 23, 2025.

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Newsom vetoed his bill that would have required insurers to pay for up to 12 mental health visits for people living where there has been a recent wildfire. Another would have created a state-led disaster housing task force in Los Angeles County. The governor also vetoed a measure that sought to speed up patients getting the care their doctors recommended.

“Big, transformative policies often take multiple attempts, and I’m proud to keep pushing forward to serve my constituents,” Harabedian said in an emailed statement.

Newsom signed four of Harabedian’s bills.

None of Democratic Assemblymember Ash Kalra’s bills were vetoed this year — for the first time in the San Jose lawmaker’s nine-year legislative career. He had 12 signed into law.

That included a bill aiming to prevent foreign labor contractors from exploiting their workers that was similar to a measure Newsom vetoed before. Kalra said he narrowed the bill to cover only farmworkers to address Newsom’s concerns.

“You have to be persistent,” he said. “Sometimes it takes three, four or five times, or in the case of the foreign labor contractor bill, seven years.”

How other lawmakers avoid vetoes

Other lawmakers also got a lot of their bills past Newsom’s veto pen.

Democratic Santa Ana Sen. Tom Umberg had Newsom sign 16 of his bills, the most behind San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener, who had 21. As the Senate Budget Committee chair, Wiener is the lead author of mandatory budget bills that skew his totals.

Umberg’s bills include one prohibiting streaming providers such as Netflix from playing overly loud advertisements; another to prohibit Elon Musk and others from hosting lotteries to gin up partisan voter registration, one intended to stop puppy mills and an audit of the state’s troubled bar exam.

Umberg, a former federal prosecutor and attorney nearing the end of his term, said his success is due in part to him serving in the Legislature off and on since the 1990s. He’s served under four different governors, so he said he knows what they’re looking for.

“I hope that my years of experience provide some benefit and some expertise in legislating and how to work a bill through the process and how to get a bill signed,” he said.

Newsom vetoed one of Umberg’s bills this year, a measure that would have added new price-gouging protections and penalties in disaster zones. Newsom didn’t like that the bill also would have allowed the Legislature to override a governor’s authority on disaster declarations.

Republicans are vastly outnumbered in the Legislature and not as many of their bills even reach the governor’s desk, so it stands out that Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Republican representing the Folsom area, had the most bills signed among GOP lawmakers, with nine. Hoover is out of the country this week and wasn’t available for an interview, his spokesperson said.

Republican Assemblymember Laurie Davies had seven of her bills signed, the third-most among Republicans.

Assemblymember Laurie Davies addresses lawmakers in Sacramento on May 16, 2024.

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Davies’ bills weren’t particularly controversial and didn’t involve partisan politics. They included a measure that requires schools to provide educational materials to prevent drownings. Another requires the state to tell those who file complaints about a drug and alcohol treatment center the outcome of their complaint. Another of her proposals prohibits selling equipment to modify electric bicycles so they no longer classify as an e-bike.

Davies, who represents a competitive swing district in the Oceanside area, said she wants her bills to solve problems, not take partisan hits that almost certainly won’t get signed into law under a Democratic administration.

“We don’t run bills for social media clicks or cable news invites,” she said.

Newsom did veto one of her bills this year, a measure that sought to make battery storage plants beef up their fire safety plans. Davies opposes a proposed battery storage facility in her district.

Newsom’s veto message used one of his favorite words: “Duplicative.”

“This bill is largely duplicative of existing requirements and mandates a new procedural requirement that risks delaying critical clean energy projects,” he wrote.

Digital Democracy’s Foaad Khosmood, Forbes professor of computer engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, contributed to this story.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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It’s official: Eight Democrats and two Republicans say they have filed paperwork for the June 2 primary ballot in the California governor's race, setting up a wide-open contest in which two Republicans who have consistently led in polls could shut out all other Democrats.

Here are the 10 candidates:

• Xavier Becerra, Democrat, former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and former California Attorney General
• Chad Bianco, Republican, Riverside County Sheriff
• Steve Hilton, Republican, Fox News contributor and former adviser to conservative British prime minister David Cameron
• Matt Mahan, Democrat, mayor of San Jose
• Katie Porter, Democrat, former U.S. representative representing Orange County
• Tom Steyer, Democrat, billionaire entrepreneur and former presidential candidate
• Eric Swalwell, Democrat, U.S. representative from the Bay Area
• Tony Thurmond, Democrat, state superintendent of public instruction
• Antonio Villaraigosa, Democrat, former mayor of Los Angeles and former Assembly Speaker
• Betty Yee, Democrat, former state Controller

Steyer became the last to officially file on Friday, the deadline for submitting candidacy paperwork.

Former Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon exited the race earlier this week, endorsing Swalwell instead.

What's next?

The secretary of state’s office says it will verify the paperwork their campaigns submitted and publish an official list of primary candidates by March 21.

The top two vote recipients in the primary, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. But the two Republican frontrunners enjoy more consolidated support from their base than their Democratic counterparts, who risk fragmenting the Democratic vote. At the February state Democratic Party convention, delegates were so split that no candidate earned enough votes for the party endorsement.

With the current field, there’s a 27% chance of a Republican faceoff in November, according to statistical modeling by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell.

The prospect is worrisome for many Democratic leaders, including state party leader Rusty Hicks, who earlier this week penned an open letter calling for those without a “viable path” to victory to drop out before the Friday deadline to file paperwork. And for those who remained, he pleaded, drop out by April 15 at the very latest if they couldn’t make “meaningful progress.”

The call appeared to fall on deaf ears, as eight of the nine announced Democratic candidates stayed in. Even if someone drops out now, their name will still appear on the primary ballot as long as they qualify, risking siphoning votes away from other Democrats.

Discounting the risk

When asked about the risk of a November shutout at a Thursday gubernatorial forum, several Democratic candidates brushed it aside while insisting they each would be voters’ best choice.

Villaraigosa told CalMatters the GOP base will coalesce behind just one candidate when President Donald Trump makes an endorsement.

“When that happens, that person is going to surge up and the other (Republican is) going to go down, it’s as simple as that,” he said.

Of the Democratic attendees at the forum, only Porter acknowledged the risk of a crowded field of Democrats.

“I think it is terrifying to think about what Trump would do to Californians if we had a governor who at every turn cooperated with him rather than stood up for our California values,” she said. “So I don’t think it’s a certainty, but I do think it’s a risk, and I think the stakes are very, very, very high.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

James A. Garfield High School in East Los Angeles is headed to state after winning the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 45th annual Academic Decathlon.
The Eastside school claimed the top prize — the Superintendent’s Trophy — earning 44,336.10 points out of 60,000 points. Abraham Lincoln High in Lincoln Heights scored 40,181.70 and is among the eight LAUSD schools advancing to the state competition.

The LAUSD teams will compete at the California Academic Decathlon on March 19-22 in Santa Clara. 

Decathletes representing Garfield High are Derek Dominguez, Ana Santos, Davian Valladares, Joseph Villa, Liana Lopez, Julie Lopez, David Ventura, Kimberly Palacios, and Briana Zuniga.

Villa was among the top students who earned the highest district-wide scores, coming in third with 8,267.5 points out of 10,000 points.

Board member Rocío Rivas, who represents East LA, said Garfield’s win “reflects the real progress taking shape across our district and the momentum we’re

building as they represent our communities at the California Academic Decathlon.”

The district said it holds 23 state titles – more than any district in California – and 19 national titles. 

“At Los Angeles Unified, we are proud to represent one of the most diverse student communities in the nation,” said Academic Decathlon Regional Director Dr. Neena Agnihotri in a statement.

“Our Decathletes come from many cultures, languages, and life experiences, and that diversity is one of our greatest strengths,” Agnihotri said.

Also competing in the California Academic Decathlon are: Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, Van Nuys High School, John Marshall High School, Bell High School, The Science Academy STEM Magnet and Dr. Richard A. Vladovic Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy.

This story appeared first on LA Local.

FIFA World Cup organizers expect more than 150,000 extra visitors to flood the Los Angeles area during eight World Cup games this summer, and all of them are going to need places to sleep.

AirBnB, the short-term rental giant, is kicking up its efforts to recruit more properties to the platform by offering a $750 bonus to first-time hosts in World Cup cities.

The company courted new hosts with lunch and a special workshop Thursday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the games will be played. Other short-term rental companies — like Vrbo and Booking.com — are also promoting rentals near World Cup stadiums.

Renting out houses, apartments and rooms in Los Angeles and Inglewood is less of a cavalier process than it was a decade ago.

Lawmakers in many places have developed tighter short-term rental regulations in hopes of cracking down on neighborhood disruption, collecting more tax dollars and preventing scarce housing stock from being converted into full-time vacation rentals.

If you’re a local who is hoping to make a few extra bucks by renting out your place this summer, here are three tips to get you started, straight from active short-term rental hosts and property managers.

Get the ball rolling soon

It takes time to get a space properly listed for short-term rental.

Many local governments, including the city and county of L.A., as well as Inglewood, require hosts to apply for permits. Approvals can take two to four weeks in the city of L.A., said Lisa Giuntoli, whose company Nonpareil Stays manages 45 short-term rentals in the area.

Giuntoli said short-term rental listings perform better in web searches the longer they remain online, and for the World Cup, in particular, visitors are booking places well in advance.

“It takes a minute to get up to speed,” she said. “If you’re interested, do it now.”

Do your homework on local rules

Each local government sets its own guidelines for short-term rentals. Several have revamped their ordinances in recent years.

Hosts can bear some responsibility for how their rentals affect the neighborhood. Inglewood, along with the city and county of L.A., requires permitted hosts to keep their renters up to speed on noise regulations and other local rules.

Not everyone can get a permit. Inglewood requires permit applicants to have lived within the city for 10 consecutive years. In the city of L.A., secondary residences and rent-stabilized properties aren’t eligible to become short-term rentals.

Perrita King, a Leimert Park resident, said she has still been able to keep her extra space listed by renting to people looking to stay longer than a month, such as traveling nurses.

If you live in the city of LA, you can check here to see if your property falls under rent stabilization.

If the logistics seem daunting, consider a specialist

If you’re not interested in waking up at 1 a.m. to help out a renter who lost their key, there are a few different ways to hire a specialized short-term rental manager.

Companies like Nonpareil Stays manage portfolios of dozens of short-term rentals. King, the Leimert Park host, said she goes through a web-based company called Fairly.

You can also narrow your search through Airbnb’s co-host network, which allows you to filter prospective managers by location and other factors.

Longtime Republican Rep. Darrell Issa will not seek reelection, he announced Friday.

His decision comes four months after his San Diego-area congressional district was redrawn to favor Democrats and shortly after San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Republican, filed papers to run in the same district.

Issa, a longtime GOP stalwart, said he was endorsing Desmond in a statement announcing his decision to retire.

“This decision has been on my mind for a while, and I didn’t make it lightly,” he said. “But after a quarter-century in Congress — and before that, a quarter-century in business — it’s the right time for a new chapter and new challenges.”

A history of reshuffling

Issa represented the San Diego area in Congress for more than 20 years. He briefly retired in 2019 when his seat, now represented by Democrat Mike Levin, became more competitive. He returned to Congress in 2021 after winning a seat in the 50th District, which was redrawn after statewide redistricting later that year. He moved to his current seat in the 48th District in 2023.

The newly configured seat attracted a slew of Democratic challengers after it became more competitive when voters approved Proposition 50 last fall. The redistricting measure was designed to give Democrats up to five additional seats in the U.S. House and counter similar redistricting efforts in other states that favored Republicans.

Desmond had previously announced that he would run in the 49th District against Levin.

“They drew me into this district, but the truth is I’ve been serving this community for years,” Desmond said in a statement to CalMatters. Prior to Prop. 50, Desmond lived in the 49th District. He now lives in the 48th. “I’ll fight every single day to make life more affordable, more safe and more free.”

Crowded field of Democrats

In the 48th District, two Democratic candidates — Ammar Campa-Najjar, a former opponent of Issa's, and San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert — lead a crowded field eager to flip the district blue. No candidate garnered enough support for the party’s endorsement last month.

California Republicans have been reshuffling for months as their districts were redrawn.

Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, one of the longest-serving members in Congress, is now running in the 40th District against Republican incumbent Young Kim of Orange County. His present district, the neighboring 41st, was moved entirely out of conservative pockets of Riverside County to Los Angeles County.

Issa briefly contemplated a congressional run in Texas in December after the new districts were created but decided against it.