Students in a classroom at a high school in California on March 1, 2022.
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Salgu Wissmath
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CalMatters
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Topline:
Emotional fights erupted over a controversial attempt this year to counter antisemitism in schools by restricting what teachers teach in classrooms, exposing a political quagmire for California Democrats who needed to balance the needs of Jewish communities against the fury of a growing pro-Palestinian base.
Why now: Stories like Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, as well as Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompted California’s Jewish lawmakers to make countering antisemitism in schools their top priority this year. They sought to create a list of words and ideas that could not be mentioned in classrooms, including heavily disputed claims about Israel. The effort sparked the biggest, most emotional legislative fight of the year: Should the government regulate what can be taught in schools? If so, how far should it go?
The backstory: At issue was Assembly Bill 715, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this month after it went through multiple major, sometimes last-minute rewrites during months of political tussling. Champions have argued the law will protect Jewish students from rising bullying and discrimination, sometimes from teachers. While the state does not collect data on antisemitism in schools, reports of anti-Jewish bias statewide have doubled between 2021 and 2024, according to the California Department of Justice. Last year, more than 15% of all hate crime events in California were anti-Jewish, even though Jewish people make up about 3% of the state population.
Tears welling in her eyes, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan paused mid-sentence to calm herself on the Assembly floor.
Almost a century ago, the Nazis forced her grandmother to flee Austria, leaving behind her great-great-grandmother who died in the Holocaust, the Jewish Democrat from San Ramon told her fellow lawmakers. Last year, she said, her daughter told her that the bathrooms at her school had been vandalized with swastikas.
“My children deserve to show up at school and not have to face hate crimes in their building, to face the symbols that represented the end of their relatives,” she said.
Stories like hers, as well as Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompted California’s Jewish lawmakers to make countering antisemitism in schools their top priority this year. They sought to create a list of words and ideas that could not be mentioned in classrooms, including heavily disputed claims about Israel. The effort sparked the biggest, most emotional legislative fight of the year: Should the government regulate what can be taught in schools? If so, how far should it go?
At issue was Assembly Bill 715, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law this month after it went through multiple major, sometimes last-minute rewrites during months of political tussling.
Champions have argued the law will protect Jewish students from rising bullying and discrimination, sometimes from teachers. While the state does not collect data on antisemitism in schools, reports of anti-Jewish bias statewide have doubled between 2021 and 2024, according to the California Department of Justice. Last year, more than 15% of all hate crime events in California were anti-Jewish, even though Jewish people make up about 3% of the state population.
“We cannot hide from the profoundly unfortunate truth that Jewish kids are being isolated, made to feel unwelcome, and verbally and physically attacked. And far too often, our schools are failing to protect them,” Assemblymember Rick Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat and co-author of the bill, said during a May hearing, when the bill started as merely a promise to curb antisemitism in schools.
Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur speaks to lawmakers during an Assembly floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Oct. 1, 2024.
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By July, it had undergone a major overhaul, including determining that any instruction that “directly or indirectly deny Israel’s right to exist,” equating Israelis with Nazis, or disrespecting “the historical, cultural, or religious significance of Israel to the Jewish people” would count as creating an “antisemitic learning environment.” It reinvigorated debates over whether criticism of Israel’s founding, or even the belief that Jewish people should have an independent country in their ancient homeland, counts as antisemitic — something Jewish thinkers do not agree on.
Mainstream Jewish groups maintain that anti-Zionism, a broad term that generally opposes the idea of a standalone state with a Jewish-majority population, is antisemitic. Many Jewish academics, however, don’t think it is antisemitic on its own, but they agree that blaming individual Jews for the actions taken by the Israeli government is antisemitic.
That July version of the bill drew heavy opposition from a vast coalition of education groups, from teachers unions to school boards, civil rights advocates and Muslim community organizations, who feared censorship of pro-Palestinian voices and infringement upon academic freedom. They would remain opposed through its many iterations, and many of them urged Newsom to veto it.
Their concerns lingered even as the bill was ultimately watered down in the final days of this year’s legislative session to address bias more broadly: The final version no longer mentions the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bars using professional development materials that violate the state’s anti-discrimination laws. It also requires “factually accurate” instruction that is free of “advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship” — a controversial element the bill’s authors said they ran out of time to tackle and promised to “clean up” next year.
“In its current form, this bill only reinforces broader national trends of silencing constitutionally protected speech, erasing historically relevant curriculum, and persecuting anyone who expresses even the slightest opposition to the federal administration,” said Assemblymember Robert Garcia, a freshman Democratic lawmaker from Rancho Cucamonga and former teacher and school board member, who ultimately abstained from voting on the measure.
The squabble over the bill was messy, marked by hundreds of attendees, hourslong hearings, and accusations of bad faith from both sides. Bauer-Kahan called a teachers union advocate who opposed the bill antisemitic. After the bill passed out of the Legislature, a handful of pro-Palestinian activists protested from the Assembly gallery for more than an hour, yelling: “You will all have blood on your hands!”
Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan speaks in support of SCR 135, which would designate May 6, 2024 as California Holocaust Memorial Day on the Assembly floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024.
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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.
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The tension highlights the discomfort for California Democrats, who, despite having traditionally defended Israel, have had to reckon with a base growing increasingly critical of Israel. They faced a tough choice: Support the bill and risk upsetting some of the most powerful labor allies as well as their pro-Palestinian constituents, or oppose the bill and risk being labeled as antisemitic or unwilling to combat antisemitism. Amid the pressure, some Democratic lawmakers voted for the bill even as they warned it could be used to censor free speech. Others abstained instead of taking a side.
“I'm actually surprised that California state legislators would want to even touch it, because it's just so radioactive right now,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor at Sacramento State University. “It just feels like at this political moment, we want to lower the temperature, not shine a spotlight on ways in which we might target each other.”
The issue was such a hot potato that many lawmakers avoided tackling it early in the legislative process, when policy differences are often ironed out, said Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a freshman progressive Democrat from Pasadena who chairs the Senate Education Committee. When the bill arrived in her committee in June, it still had no substantive language. Some lawmakers told her to not touch it either, while others left it up to her to “take care of it,” she said.
“The ball got thrown to me,” she told CalMatters. "And people knew that they were doing that."
'People would end up being very angry on both sides'
The Gaza war has forced a tidal shift within the Democratic base, as voters’ support for Israel’s military campaign tanked over the past two years. That has forced some Democrats, even moderates who have historically backed Israel, to condemn the country and pull away from pro-Israel donors. Young Democrats are also more critical of Israel than their older peers, so any vote that could be perceived as silencing pro-Palestinian voices is risky.
“A very strong part of Democratic and leftist values that we are seeing expressed now is anti-genocide or anti-war,” Nalder said. “(For) my students who are politically active, this is one of the chief issues that they care about.”
The bill also came as President Donald Trump ordered immigration agents to arrest student activists critical of the Israeli government and withheld billions of dollars in funding from universities for their alleged failure to protect Jewish students. At least half a dozen other state Legislatures sought to fight antisemitism in schools this year, with some adopting a highly disputed definition of antisemitism in state education codes. Enraged, some opponents accused California Democrats of taking a page out of Trump’s playbook.
But the Democratic lawmakers had to balance all that with the risk of upsetting the Jewish community, a key voting block. A no vote could be construed as antisemitic, making the lawmaker vulnerable to challenges in the next election, Nalder said.
The bill was the sole priority of the 18-member California Legislative Jewish Caucus, which is composed entirely of Democrats and led by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of Encino and Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, who chair the budget committees in their respective chambers.
Neither would speak with CalMatters about what happened with the bill. Gabriel’s office did not respond to several CalMatters emails seeking an interview, whereas Wiener declined to comment, pointing CalMatters to the bill authors instead.
David Bocarsly, executive director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, which sponsored the bill, said the caucus’ backing was crucial.
“The Jewish caucus was able to leverage their influence and respect with their colleagues and effectively represent the Jewish community’s needs,” he said.
Pérez acknowledged the political challenge, telling CalMatters she would have preferred to hold the bill until next year, but said legislative leaders had promised to deliver a bill the governor could sign this year. She said some colleagues told her it was “an impossible situation” to navigate.
“They felt like there was no winning,” she said. “Regardless of what they would try to do to make amendments to it … people would end up being very angry on both sides.”
A debate over academic freedom
The clash over AB 715 is the latest episode of yearslong strife over how to teach about marginalized communities in California’s K-12 schools and who should be included.
In past years, the fight primarily focused on ethnic studies — a mandatory high school course on the history and culture of groups such as Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans and Native Americans. The state adopted a model curriculum in 2021, after years of fine-tuning amid disputes over which ethnic minority groups to teach about and criticism from Jewish advocates, who accused past versions of being antisemitic.
Jewish lawmakers championed a bill earlier this year that aimed to tackle antisemitism by restricting the ethnic studies curriculum, but the effort was stopped early in its tracks, and legislators turned to AB 715 instead.
“This is a bill about protecting Jewish students, and it shouldn't have been controversial,” said Bocarsly, of JPAC. “If we don't teach empathy and understand it, we're going to build a generation of intolerance, and that's what we're trying to correct for.”
He said AB 715 was “the hardest political fight in JPAC’s history” and that the initial definition of an antisemitic learning environment was only meant to offer teachers guidance.
But opponents had two major concerns: that the bill’s initial definition of antisemitic learning environment risked silencing discord about Israel, and that even in its final watered-down version it could chill free speech and open teachers up to lawsuits for teaching about anything controversial.
“Jews are most safe when democracy flourishes, when pluralism flourishes, not when rights are taken away,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association and a Jewish father to three children who attend public schools.
A classroom at a high school in Imperial County on Dec. 12, 2023.
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Kristian Carreon
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What’s safe for Jews was itself a matter of disagreement among the bill’s backers and dissenters. Bocarsly said CTA leadership’s opposition to every version of the bill shows that they “have little interest in supporting a bill that would protect Jewish students.”
Goldberg, in an interview, called that accusation “a lot of chutzpah, frankly.”
The fact the bill even tried to prescribe what an antisemitic environment looked like in classrooms was concerning to Kenneth Stern, a scholar on hate. More than 20 years ago, he was the lead author of the highly controversial definition of antisemitism that’s been adopted by some states this year. It all but labels anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism. Now, nearly 50 countries, including the U.S., have embraced the definition.
Though Stern wrote the definition, he opposes using it to restrict speech in schools, arguing that it could threaten academic freedom and fuel censorship by chilling discussion about controversial topics. Stern said despite all the revisions made during the process, the final version will likely make antisemitism worse.
The law creates an antisemitism prevention coordinator to advise education and legislative leaders and says the person in that role should use federal guidelines published under former President Joe Biden as “a basis” for decision-making. The controversial definition of antisemitism Stern wrote is labeled as the most prominent definition of antisemitism in those guidelines, though it mentions others.
“I understand why people care about (preventing antisemitism in schools),” he said. “They want the Legislature to do something. I think the legislators are sincere that they want to do something. This is the wrong thing.”
Educators like Goldberg worry the bill could allow bad-faith critics to also dispute a wide array of controversial topics taught in schools. Will it become the basis for critics of the transgender community to pressure teachers to say there are only two genders, he wondered.
Gabriel Kahn, a Jewish teacher in Oakland who said he’s being investigated by his school district after challenging the content of an antisemitic training last year, said he fears prosecution for voicing the need to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israel.
“What I’m most afraid of is that in the Democratic state of California, we can pass a censorship bill that protects a foreign nation from criticism implicitly,” he said. “What does that say about the future of academic freedom in our country?”
CalMatters reporter Carolyn Jones contributed reporting.
Two of California’s largest courts are testing an AI tool that can draft orders and produce research memos. Judges so far are using it primarily for civil cases, but documents obtained by CalMatters indicate the possibility of expanded applications in criminal cases, where people’s freedom and access to justice are on the line.
L.A. and Riverside counties: The Los Angeles County Superior Court began a pilot program in February to test a tool created by the company Learned Hand. Learned Hand uses a combination of language models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google to act as an AI clerk for judges. In Riverside County, which has a $10,000 agreement with the company to test the program, civil and probate attorneys are primarily using the tool to draft research memos that help judges reach their decisions.
Why it matters: Use of AI in courts has been controversial because of the propensity of AI models to cite falsehoods and to produce sycophantic text. Models from major companies like Google and Anthropic can reduce critical thinking and brain activity, according to a 2025 MIT study. Language model hallucinations have already made it into the judicial system. Researcher Damien Charlotin has documented hundreds of instances of litigants, lawyers, and judges making mistakes when using AI to do their jobs including nearly 90 cases in state or federal courts based in California since August 2024. A majority of California's superior courts now have generative AI use policies.
Two of California’s largest courts are testing an AI tool that can draft orders and produce research memos.
Judges so far are using it primarily for civil cases, but documents obtained by CalMatters indicate the possibility of expanded applications in criminal cases, where people’s freedom and access to justice are on the line.
The Los Angeles County Superior Court began a pilot program in February to test a tool created by the company Learned Hand. Other courts may follow, according to Learned Hand founder and chief executive officer Shlomo Klapper.
Learned Hand uses a combination of language models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google to act as an AI clerk for judges. The company says it tests for bias and accuracy, but it has not yet published results.
In Riverside County, which has a $10,000 agreement with the company to test the program, civil and probate attorneys are primarily using the tool to draft research memos that help judges reach their decisions. It’s typical for research attorneys to assist judges as they review cases.
Los Angeles County Superior Court has a roughly $314,000 contract that includes a roadmap to test the tool’s use in criminal, family and probate divisions. Officials would not describe in detail to CalMatters the criteria they’re using to evaluate whether use of the tool can safely expand to criminal and family courts, where the stakes are often much higher than in civil cases.
One judge who spoke to CalMatters on condition of anonymity due to judicial rules of conduct was alarmed when their colleagues at a recent luncheon said the technology could be used one day to evaluate appeals from people who believe their conviction or sentence was tainted by racial bias. California courts are handling a wave of those claims after lawmakers passed the Racial Justice Act in 2020.
“I think it is outrageous,” said the Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. “AI cannot and never will be able to replace human judgment in evaluating complex social dynamics. Ultimately, that will erode the public’s confidence in the competence and fairness of the judiciary.”
A majority of California's superior courts now have generative AI use policies, according to documents obtained by CalMatters via public records requests, which they were required to create by the state Judicial Council before using the technology. Roughly a dozen of the 51 courts that have responded to CalMatters’ requests said they are using AI-powered tools from LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Microsoft’s Copilot.
Use of AI in courts has been controversial because of the propensity of AI models to cite falsehoods and to produce sycophantic text. Models from major companies like Google and Anthropic can reduce critical thinking and brain activity, according to a 2025 MIT study.
Language model hallucinations have already made it into the judicial system. Researcher Damien Charlotin has documented hundreds of instances of litigants, lawyers, and judges making mistakes when using AI to do their jobs including nearly 90 cases in state or federal courts based in California since August 2024.
Klapper, who previously worked as a clerk for a federal appeals court and for surveillance technology company Palantir, said the judiciary needs AI in order to reduce backlogs and increase efficiency.
“Could we hire more people?” he told CalMatters. “Maybe, but it’s not going to keep pace with the exponential increase that’s coming, nor is it going to be able to adequately solve the crisis of today. I think the only solution is to give every single judge and staff attorney their own AI clerk.”
Klapper said he’s aiming to combine the best parts of what human judges can do with the best parts of what machines bring to bear.
“I’m not saying all machines aren’t biased,” he said. “I’m not saying my machine isn’t even biased. I’m saying we can test it and people have tested it. And that is the benefit over humans.”
Generative AI use policies for the Los Angeles and Riverside County superior courts only require disclosure if a motion, decision, or other document is written entirely with generative AI.
Both courts refused to say whether plaintiffs are aware that the tool is being tested on their cases. In a statement to CalMatters, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Superior Court said testing is done on motions that have already been decided, separate from live case environments. However, the contract allows for testing on live cases.
“It is important to note that even with successful evaluation and thorough testing, the Court remains several months, if not years, away from implementing this type of tool,” said the spokesperson.
The contract allows the tool to be used for two critical motions in the criminal division: A motion to suppress, which is designed to determine what type of evidence the prosecution is allowed to present at trial, and motions for post conviction relief, which are filed by people who have already been convicted and want another shot at freedom.
That’s the “greatest concern” for Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. When he reviewed the contract, he referred to the motions as “two incredibly important motions in the criminal justice system.”
“When you’re dealing with someone’s liberty — as opposed to in the civil setting, which is everything other than liberty — the stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Hochman. “I don’t want to take the chance, particularly in a criminal case, that AI happens to get it wrong. And now someone’s constitutional rights have been infringed. Someone has gone to prison who shouldn’t have, or on the flip side, that somehow someone gets off.”
'An extremely perilous road'
In Los Angeles, some judges first heard about the new Learned Hand contract during a March presentation by Superior Court Judges Yvette Verastegui and Olivia Rosales. They lead the criminal branch and visit courthouses throughout the county as part of an annual roadshow, where they update judges on court operations, discuss workload and field questions. During a luncheon, Verastegui and Rosales said the tool could be used to assist with Racial Justice Act petitions in the future.
California’s Racial Justice Act allows people to challenge a criminal conviction or sentence that they believe was based upon racial bias. Petitions are filed directly to the court from people in state prison. If a case is found to have merit, the process includes appointing legal counsel, filing briefs and setting evidentiary hearings before a judge would decide whether to grant the petition.
That process could look different with a tool like Learned Hand. Verastegui and Rosales explained that, following an incarcerated person’s petition, the tool could generate tentative decisions for judges to consider in denying or advancing cases to the next stages, according to one judge who attended the luncheon.
“The concern, of course, that I have is that the courts will utilize that as a reference point and then get stuck to that initial analysis,” said the judge. “It’s an extremely perilous road to go down. Putting aside the inaccuracy, which will be a significant concern, it dehumanizes the whole process. It does not treat people as individuals with lived experiences. It essentially reimposes a one-size-fits-all style of justice.”
A second Los Angeles Superior Court judge who spoke with CalMatters on the condition of anonymity remembered the presentation and said they would not trust nor use the tool to summarize a Racial Justice Act petition.
Public defenders who spoke with CalMatters echoed those concerns.
Elizabeth Lashley-Haynes, a deputy public defender at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, said it would be “highly problematic and bordering on unethical” for a judge to use the tool to review Racial Justice Act petitions, which she described as “incredibly nuanced.”
“They’re like nothing else in the legal system that has ever really been done,” said Lashley-Haynes, who specializes in Racial Justice Act cases. “Words that are used in these cases that have racial undertones or racial meanings are way beyond the realm of anything that artificial intelligence could do.”
In interviews with CalMatters, Klapper and Los Angeles County Superior Court Executive Officer, David Slayton, denied that the court has any plans to use the tool for Racial Justice Act petitions. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Superior Court later confirmed in an email to CalMatters that the contract permits the tool to be used in such a way “but that possibility has not commenced in any way.”
Klapper said if they were to build out a Racial Justice Act module, the tool would need to be evaluated for bias and co-developed with the court.
“The timing very fortuitous, right?” he said. “It’s a very fraught decision, I’m not going to lie…extremely high stakes — a scenario where I understand people might be very concerned. Especially with criminal, I have even more hesitancy, even more guardrails than normal about, because there are liberty interests at stake.”
Extending beyond civil cases
In Los Angeles, six superior court judges and their research attorneys are primarily using the Learned Hand tool to conduct research, summarize motions and assist in drafting tentative rulings, according to Slayton. He says the tool won’t move beyond the civil division “until the court leadership is comfortable.”
“The court is being very deliberate and careful about how we use technology like this,” he said. “So until we evaluate it and determine that it is effective in those areas, we will not extend it to other areas.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court's Hollywood Courthouse, in Los Angeles, on March 12, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters The tool will be evaluated on a quarterly basis to determine its future application, Slayton said, but he did not specify what kind of evaluation that entails. In an email to CalMatters, a spokesperson later said that Learned Hand is evaluated “against the same substantive expectations applied to law clerks and research attorneys: accurate legal research, sound analysis, neutral and judge-ready writing, and reliable work product that supports judicial decision-making.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Samantha Jessner, who chairs the Judicial Technology Advisory Committee, said she was unaware of the possibility that the tool could eventually be used outside of the civil division until recently. Judges are not privy to contract negotiations due to certain ethical limitations, she said.
“I think we have a duty and obligation to explore whether or not there is a place for artificial intelligence in what we do as a judicial branch and that’s exactly what this pilot is intended to afford us the opportunity to do,” said Jessner.
Riverside County Superior Court signed an agreement with Learned Hand in February. In emails obtained by CalMatters, Klapper proposed to two Riverside County Superior Court executives, Jason Galkin and Sarah Hodgson, that the court use the tool for a common civil court motion and “then expand quickly once we earn our stripes.” He suggested that Hodgson assemble a list of motions and workflows “that generate the most pain,” citing examples that included the Racial Justice Act.
Roughly two weeks later, Hodgson described the most laborious motions “that want to drive us into retirement,” including discovery motions and attorney fee motions. For criminal cases, the court suggested that Klapper focus on “things with the largest paper records,” citing death penalty habeas petitions and parole revocation.
Since the pilot started, seven civil and probate attorneys have been granted access to the tool. Galkin, the chief executive officer of the Riverside County Superior Court, said they are “kicking the tires on the product” to see what tasks it can do. The tool is not being used to draft tentative rulings, he said.
“We don’t even know if expansion is likely so there is no set criteria for what expansion might look like or thresholds for that because right now, the core question is: Does this help staff and does it advance what they’re trying to do in their roles?” said Galkin.
As testing is underway, attorneys like Hochman say that use of AI is inevitable, but would be better suited for low-level, repetitive and routine tasks.
“It’s the analysis of the case itself, coupled with the conclusions that will be reached, that I’m very hesitant to trust AI at this point — in large part, because I don’t know all of the inputs that AI is using to make its decision. The only thing I’m 100% sure of is that AI didn’t go to law school,” said Hochman.
Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.
Kevin Tidmarsh
is a producer for LAist, covering news and culture. He’s been an audio/web journalist for about a decade.
Published May 25, 2026 12:53 PM
One of the birds in the care of the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care & Education Center.
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Courtesy UC Davis' Oiled Wildlife Care Network
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Topline:
The Oiled Wildlife Care Network said it has taken in 25 birds affected by an oil spill as of Sunday night. The pipe rupture Friday released more than 2,000 gallons of crude oil into an East Los Angeles neighborhood, affecting the Los Angeles River.
About the rescue: Trained responders have stabilized the birds and taken them to the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care & Education Center for additional care. According to UC Davis’s Oiled Wildlife Care Network, the responders include UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, International Bird Rescue, and Huntington Beach’s Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center.
If you see oiled animals: Don't touch them. Instead, call the Oiled Wildlife Care Network’s hotline at 1 (877) 823-6926. The sooner you call it in, the better the animal’s chance of survival.
Why you shouldn’t handle them: The same reason the birds need to be rescued – touching oil and breathing in fumes is dangerous to animals (including humans). Instead, call the hotline and leave it to people with proper training.
Where you might see oiled wildlife: It’s more likely close to or downstream from East L.A., though the oil sheen reached as far down as Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach. Oil-absorbing mechanisms kept it from reaching the ocean, and efforts to mitigate the spill appear to be working, the city of Long Beach said yesterday.
How the incident occurred: Crews drilling a fiber optic cable in East L.A. reportedly struck a 16-inch petroleum pipeline early Friday morning. See here for the backstory.
For people near the spill: Learn more about the health risks, and how to keep yourself safe from them, here.
Kyle Chrise contributed reporting.
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Three current California lawmakers are competing for seats on the Board of Equalization, the nation’s only elected tax board. They’re among some two dozen candidates on the ballot for its four elected positions, which are divided by geographic districts.
Why it matters: California’s Board of Equalization is a coveted spot once again for state lawmakers looking for a new gig almost a decade after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law gutting the organization of any serious governing responsibility.
What else: The board has long been a launching pad to higher offices in California politics — Fiona Ma served on it before becoming state treasurer, as did Betty Yee and Malia Cohen before each being elected state controller.
The backstory: The agency itself is a throwback to the 19th Century. It’s rooted in an 1879 constitutional amendment that created it and charged it with “equalizing” county property tax assessments statewide.
Read on... for more about the race to join the board.
California’s Board of Equalization is a coveted spot once again for state lawmakers looking for a new gig almost a decade after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law gutting the organization of any serious governing responsibility.
This year, three current state lawmakers are competing for seats on the nation’s only elected tax board. They’re among some two dozen candidates on the ballot for its four elected positions, which are divided by geographic districts.
The board has long been a launching pad to higher offices in California politics — Fiona Ma served on it before becoming state treasurer, as did Betty Yee and Malia Cohen before each being elected state controller.
The agency itself is a throwback to the 19th Century. It’s rooted in an 1879 constitutional amendment that created it and charged it with “equalizing” county property tax assessments statewide.
From that narrow mandate, it swelled to become a juggernaut that collected a third of the state’s tax revenue and provided a venue for people and businesses to contest their tax bills in front of the elected board. It survived numerous efforts by governors to kill it outright, including attempts by Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That is until 2017, when a cascade of allegations about board members misusing the office to promote themselves led to an authoritative state audit that lawmakers could not ignore.
Brown signed a law stripping the agency of any powers beyond what voters gave it in 1879 and created two new departments that report to the governor instead of the elected board: one to collect sales and use taxes and another to hear taxpayer appeals.
After that, Board of Equalization elections tended to be lower profile contests. Ted Gaines, a former Republican state lawmaker from the Sacramento area, won a seat. Former Democratic Assemblymember Sally Lieber is up for reelection on the board this year. The other members had experience in local politics instead of inside the Capitol.
“We’re lean but we’re not mean,” said Lieber, the incumbent for District 2, which includes 19 counties centered on the Bay Area. “I think the Board of Equalization is the right size in the system right now…I do really believe that the board has a role to play in being a forum for taxpayers to come forward to.”
This year voters will see more contentious elections for the tax board:
In District 1 representing inland California, Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield has more than $900,000 in a campaign account and name recognition from her representing the San Joaquin Valley in the Legislature since 2010. Democrats are putting up a fight for the district. Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza is running with the party’s support.
In District 2 representing coastal California north of Los Angeles, incumbent Lieber faces San Mateo Community College District Trustee John Pimentel. Lieber has the Democratic Party’s endorsement, but a number of Bay Area Democratic leaders are backing Pimentel, including state Treasurer Ma and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
In District 3 representing the Los Angeles area, former Monterey Park City Councilmember Yvonne Yiu put up $760,000 of her own money and has about $1 million on hand. The race has another heavyweight in Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Democrat from Gardena who has served in the Legislature since 2014.
District 4 representing the San Diego area has an especially crowded race with Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, San Ysidro school board member Martín Arias, San Diego Unified School District board member Cody Peterson, and Denis Bilodeau, a Republican supported by San Diego Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Reform California organization.
A forum for California taxpayers
The board was always popular among taxpayer advocacy groups, who liked that it provided a forum to focus on tax issues in a capital where debates often center on labor and business.
“It’s a very useful elected body that answers to the voters,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Some of this year’s candidates are thinking of ways to make the most of the agency.
Arias believes the board could do more to assist homeowners and potential homeowners. As a taxpayer advocate in the San Diego County Assessor’s Office, he says he works with the Board of Equalization every day and has a front seat to how the system works.
“I think there’s a bigger opportunity here to make the Board of Equalization the constitutional office that it is — that it should be,” he said. “There’s a clear opportunity here for us to start advocating at the state level for all of our taxpayers, including those that don’t speak English.”
Umberg said he’d like the board to have more investigative power and resources. Citing instances in which San Bernardino and Los Angeles assessors have been arrested on felony charges, he said he’s most interested in the board’s oversight of property tax assessors.
“Although it’s not a high-profile job, it’s a critically important job, especially when we’ve got so many revenue challenges in California,” Umberg said in an interview with CalMatters.
Questioning BOE’s relevance
Advocating for the board’s expansion has drawn criticism from former board members and employees. Yee, a board member from 2004 to 2014, has been vocal about abolishing the board entirely because she believes that its limited responsibilities could be easily transferred to another department or agency.
“I just really do question how this board continues to have relevance,” she told CalMatters. “I sometimes feel like the board is really doing a lot of work in search of finding problems to solve. …I know with each of the board members, they feel very strongly about being a taxpayer advocate. But frankly, every public official should be a taxpayer advocate. ”
Democrats stopped short of killing the agency entirely because they would have had to put that question to voters.
“They should have just chopped the head of the snake off and done away with the Board of Equalization altogether,” said Mark DeSio, a former communications director for the board. “They didn’t do that. They left enough of the cancer to grow back.”
He cooperated with the audit that revealed misspending at the agency that appeared intended to promote its elected members as well as another that showed widespread nepotism in its hiring practices. He then lost his job in the reorganization and filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the state.
DeSio believes lawmakers want seats on the Board of Equalization because it allows them to maintain a high profile until they can run for office again.
“That was the recipe for disaster a few years back,” he said. “Somebody better watch these guys. They’re not there for the policy. It’s for the exposure.”
Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.
A man charges his car at an electric vehicle charging station in Burlingame.
(
Martin do Nascimento
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CalMatters
)
Topline:
Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids.
What's holding buyers back from EV's: Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. f fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines.
The lure of hybrids: The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began.
Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids.
Sales of new EVs fell roughly 18 percent from March to April, according to the latest data from Edmunds, an auto research firm. Another company, Cox Automotive, pegged the drop at closer to 6 percent. Either way, experts said it’s clear that high gas prices aren’t leading to a significant shift toward EVs.
“There was a lot of window shopping,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, noting that searches for electrified vehicles on the company’s site were strong. “It did not translate to tire-kicking and purchases.”
Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Drury. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines, Cox reported.
“It’s still a cost hurdle,” said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “You don’t know how long it’s going to take to get that back.”
At Thursday’s average gas price of $4.56 per gallon, an EV buyer would have to drive more than 40,000 miles to make up the difference with a car that gets 30 mpg. Savings on maintenance, like oil changes, could accelerate that timeline, but factors such as higher insurance prices and having to install a home charger could make the payback period even longer. If fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks.
“It’s very difficult for people to wrap their head around, ‘Hey, if I spend this $55,000, I might over time save’,” said Drury. “It requires a bit more math than most people want to go through.”
The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. A Honda CR-V, for example, gets around 29 mpg while the hybrid version gets 37. More and more popular models are only available as hybrids, a strategy that Toyota has perhaps embraced most notably. Last year, it ditched the gas-only version of the Camry sedan. The 2026 RAV4 followed suit.
Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. Sales of gas-powered gas are up about 11 percent over those same two months.
“I think this is going to be a hybrid moment,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “There are a lot of options.”
Used EVs provided another somewhat bright spot, she said. The segment saw a 3 percent increase in sales from March to April and a price premium of only $1,096 over used internal combustion vehicles. Used EVs also sold faster than their used gas-powered counterparts. “They’re really selling efficiently,” said Valdez Streaty, who added that there should be a glut of EVs available throughout the year as leases end. “I don’t think the inventory will be an issue.”
With Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz and summer travel season looming, gas prices appear set to keep climbing — which would only make an EV more appealing. Other parts of the world have seen significant jumps in sales since the conflict began, with Europe experiencing a surge and China setting an export record in April, according to BloombergNEF.
In the United States, though, it seems that only people already in the market for EVs are making the leap. “Edge-case people,” as Brinley called them. Dramatic pump readings “might nudge them because they were already in that direction,” she said. “But what we’re unlikely to see is a shift in current [internal combustion car] owners just fundamentally making that change simply because of gas prices.”
