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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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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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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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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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.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

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J.W. Hendricks

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In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.

A local favorite mom-and-pop bookshop in Eagle Rock is facing displacement due to a steep rent hike. The owners say theirs is just one of several small businesses along Eagle Rock Boulevard struggling to keep up with lease increases.

Over the past 19 years, many in the neighborhood have come to love READ Books for its eclectic collection of used titles and shop dog Florence.

Co-owner Jeremy Kaplan said it’s been a delight to grow with the community over the years.

“Like seeing kids come back in, who were in grade school and now they’re in college,” Kaplan said.

But the building where Kaplan and wife Debbie rent was recently sold, and the rent increased by more than 130% to $2,805 a month, Kaplan said. He told LAist it was an increase his small business simply could not absorb.

Kaplan said he originally was given 30 days notice of the rent increase. After some research, assistance from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office and some pro-bono legal help, Kaplan said he pushed back and got the 90-day notice he’s afforded by state law.

California Senate Bill 1103 requires landlords to give businesses with five or less employees 90 days’ notice for rent increases exceeding 10%, among other protections.

Systems Real Estate, the property management company, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What can small businesses do? 

Nadia Segura, directing attorney of the Small Business Program at pro bono legal aid non-profit Bet Tzedek said California law does not currently allow for rent control for commercial tenancies.

Outside of the protections under SB 1103, Segura said small businesses like READ Books don’t have much other recourse. And even then, commercial landlords are not required to inform their tenants of their protections under the law.

“There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about SB 1103. And then it’s very sad that they tell them they have these rent increases and within a month they have to leave,” Segura said.

She said her group is seeing steep rent hikes like this for commercial tenants across the city.

“We are seeing this even more with the World Cup coming up, the Olympics coming up. And I will say it was very sad to see that also after the wildfires,” Segura said.

Part of Bet Tzedek’s ongoing work is to advocate for small businesses, working with landlords who are increasing rents to see if they are willing to give business owners longer leases that lock in rents.

What’s next 

After READ Books posted about their situation on social media, commenters chimed in to express their outrage and love for the little shop.

While he looks for a new spot, Kaplan says he’s forming a coalition of local businesses and activist groups to see what can be done to help other small businesses facing similar displacement. He wants to address the displacement issue for businesses like his, which have made Eagle Rock the distinctive neighborhood that it is today.

Owl Talk, a longtime Eagle Rock staple selling clothing and accessories in a unit in the same building as READ Books, is facing a “more than double” rent increase, according to a post on their Instagram account.

Kaplan said he’s been in touch with the office of state Assemblywoman Jessica Caloza and wants to explore the possibility of introducing legislation to set up protections for small businesses like his, including rent-control measures or a vacancy tax for landlords. Kaplan said he also reached out to the office of state Sen. Maria Durazo.

By his count, Kaplan said there are about a dozen businesses within surrounding blocks that are at risk of closing their doors or have shuttered due to rent increases or other struggles.

When READ Books was founded during the Great Recession, Kaplan said he knew it was a longshot to open a bookstore at the same time so many were struggling to stay in business.

“It was kind of interesting to be doing something that neighborhoods needed. That was important to me growing up, that was important to my children, that was important to my wife growing up,” Kaplan said.

“And then somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re gonna over double your rent.”

Topline:

Frozen budget: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. The amount people pay depends on the kind of property they own and how much they benefit from lighting. A typical single-family home currently pays $53 annually, and in total, the assessments bring in about $45 million annually for the city to repair and maintain streetlights. Changing the amount the Bureau of Street Lighting gets from the assessment requires a vote among property owners who benefit from the lights.

Ballots: L.A. City Council’s vote gives city staff the green light to prepare and send out those ballots. Miguel Sangalang, who oversees the bureau, said at a committee meeting earlier this month that he expects to send out ballots by April 17. Notices about the ballots will be sent out prior to the ballots themselves.

Near unanimous vote: L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was the only “No” vote Tuesday, saying she wanted to see a more current strategic plan for the bureau. Sangalang said the bureau developed a plan in 2022 that lays out how money will be spent. Councilmember Imelda Padilla was absent for the vote.

Vote count: Votes will be weighted according to the assessment amount. Basically, the more you’re asked to pay yearly to maintain streetlights, the more your vote will count. Ballots received before June 2 will be tabulated by the L.A. City Clerk.

How much more money: According to a report, the amount needed in assessments from property owners to meet the repair and maintenance needs of the city’s streetlighting in the next fiscal year is nearly $112 million.

Use of the money: Sangalang said at a March 11 committee meeting that the extra funds would be used to double the number of staff to handle repairs and procure solar streetlights, which don’t face the threat of copper wire theft. That would all potentially reduce the time it takes to repair simple fixes down to a week. Currently, city residents wait for months to see broken streetlights repaired. The assessment would come with a three-year auditing mechanism.