The Brief

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The bill was dead. Twice dead, in fact: Two times in the past two years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to ban California companies from deploying driverless trucks.

Yet lawmakers have resurrected the idea and inserted it into a new bill — with the Teamsters union hoping the third time will be the charm.

There’s no indication Newsom has changed his mind. Still, Democratic Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, representing the Davis area, said she brought the autonomous trucking bill back because it’s good policy aimed at “protecting our public safety and our jobs.” She said it has nothing to do with the Teamsters’ large donations to lawmakers.

Assembly Bill 33 is an example of a phenomenon in the California Legislature: Even when a bill dies one year, and even if a governor kills it, there’s a strong likelihood it will return, especially if big money interests like labor unions and business groups want it signed into law.

A CalMatters analysis using the Digital Democracy database that tracks the more than 2,000 bills introduced this year found at least 80 measures that are similar – some identical – to legislation that Newsom or other governors have vetoed in previous years. Around a quarter of the resurrected bills had support from prominent labor groups; an almost equal number were backed by business.

CalMatters relied on the Legislature’s bill analyses to determine whether a measure had been vetoed before. If a previous veto was not noted in the bill analysis it wouldn’t show up, meaning the figure is likely an undercount. The analysis didn’t tally the dozens of other resurrected bills pending in the Legislature this year that already died before reaching the governor’s desk.

The previously vetoed bills tackle issues large and small including dangerous cigarette lighters, prevailing wage, jury duty for probation officers, colorectal cancer screenings, reproductive health care access, groundwater use at duck-hunting clubs, statewide guaranteed income, newspaper ads and environmental, labor and social justice measures.

The number of failed bills returning year after year helps fuel one of the Legislature’s most troubling issues. The massive number of bills introduced each year contributes to lawmakers rushing through the democratic process and fosters a culture of secrecy at the Capitol. As CalMatters reported, lawmakers routinely silence members of the public during hearings in order to jam through the huge volume of bills. Lawmakers also regularly make their decisions behind closed doors, in part because there is so little time to debate their hundreds of bills in public.

Experts say that doesn’t necessarily mean bills shouldn’t come back after failing. Some good ideas take time to gain political support. Alex Vassar, a legislative historian at the California State Library, noted that it took decades of failed legislation to pass laws that eventually built the state’s highway system and that gave women the right to vote.

“You can keep an issue on the front of the public’s mind, keep it alive in Sacramento, by using the vehicle of the bill to advance conversations happening outside the capital,” said Thad Kousser, a former California legislative staffer who’s now a political science professor at UC San Diego. “Sometimes, it’s part of a longer-term strategy to move policy forward.”

‘Not here to serve the lobbyists’

The Teamsters union is a major funder in the California statehouse, contributing at least $2.7 million to lawmakers’ campaigns since 2015. Aguiar-Curry received at least $15,950 in campaign cash from the Teamsters and its affiliate unions in that time, according to the Digital Democracy database.

But she said that didn’t influence her decision to try again on autonomous trucking.

“I’m not here to serve the lobbyists,” she said.

Aguiar-Curry said she hopes that tweaks she made to the latest legislation could appeal to Newsom, who has tended to be friendlier to Big Tech companies than legislators are to big labor. Newsom has reportedly given CEOs of major companies cellphones with a direct line to him.

The latest proposal would prohibit driverless trucks from delivering commercial goods directly to a residence or to a business, instead of barring all driverless trucks over 10,001 pounds as in previous legislation. Newsom’s press office declined to do an on-the-record interview for this story.

Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry speaks at a protest calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would require a human operator in all autonomous vehicles in Sacramento in Sept. 2023.

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“The governor’s veto messages speak for themselves,” his spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, said in an email. “And our office does not typically comment on pending legislation.”

Citing polling that shows Californians are leery of fully autonomous trucks, supporters say that if Newsom vetoes it again, they’ll just keep bringing it back until he signs it – or until the next governor does.

“We’re right on this issue,” said Peter Finn, the Western region vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “The only person that’s wrong on this issue is the governor, and just because one person is choosing Big Tech over people and drivers doesn’t mean we should stop pursuing this issue.”

This year’s bill easily passed the Assembly floor on Thursday with only a handful of Republicans voting “no.”

Doctors again fight private equity

Business groups, meanwhile, are pushing at least 20 other bills that Newsom or other governors have vetoed.

A prominent example is Senate Bill 351, co-sponsored by the California Medical Association, which lobbies on behalf of the state’s physicians. The organization wants to regulate private equity groups and hedge funds when they try to buy medical and dental practices.

Last year’s legislation sought to give the California attorney general power to block the sale of health care companies to for-profit investors.

In vetoing the measure, Newsom said it wasn’t necessary. This year’s bill doesn’t go as far, but it contains nearly identical language that would prohibit investors from “interfering with the professional judgment of physicians or dentists in making health care decisions,” according to the bill’s analysis. The measure also would allow the attorney general to sue if an investment firm violates the rules.

“Private equity firms are gaining influence in our health care system, leading to rising costs and undermining the quality of care,” Erin Mellon, a spokesperson for the medical association, said in an email.

CMA has given at least $3.5 million to legislators since 2015, according to Digital Democracy. The doctors lobby also has donated at least $9,500 to this year’s author, freshman Democratic Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, the former mayor of West Sacramento.

Cabaldon said in an interview that he introduced the bill because it’s about “taking care of the patients.”

“Doctors and other health care providers,” he said, “are leaving their practices, or in some cases, leaving the industry altogether, because their ability to practice as clinicians and deliver the best possible care has been under threat by overly aggressive private equity operators who are putting the profits first.”

Cabaldon’s proposal passed the Senate last week with Republican opposition.

Lawmakers bring back passion topics

While wealthy groups push for their favored bills to come back, other pieces of legislation return simply because a lawmaker is passionate about the subject matter.

That’s why Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, who represents the Chico area, reintroduced a bill Newsom vetoed last year that would have given families legal authority to visit loved ones in health care facilities during pandemics. Gallagher said he hated not being able to visit his dying aunt during the Covid-19 outbreak.

“It’s wrong, man, especially if it’s a loved one,” he said.

Newsom vetoed the first measure, saying that California’s pandemic visitation policies struck the right balance, and he was concerned Gallagher’s bill would “result in confusion and create different access to patients.”

Gallagher’s newest version of the bill didn’t get a hearing this year.

For Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican representing the Palmdale area, it bothers him that victims of the 2020 Bobcat Fire in his district have to pay state taxes on settlement payments they received from the power company whose lines started the fire.

“It’s brutal,” he said. “I mean, ‘Here’s your money to try to restore yourself, but, oh, by the way, you can’t have it all. We want some of it back.’ … It’s a second kick in the mouth.”

It’s why he reintroduced a settlement tax relief bill this year after Newsom vetoed it last year along with a number of other similar bills.

Lackey said he hopes his latest bill is unnecessary. Newsom noted in his veto message that the settlement tax provisions “should be included as part of the annual budget process.” Newsom’s proposed budget this year includes tax breaks for some disaster settlements. Lackey hopes that will include the Bobcat Fire.

Social justice bills come back

Other previously vetoed bills seek to address social justice issues that are important to lawmakers. They include proposals to create anti-discrimination awareness campaigns, putting non-English language accent marks on government forms and diversity audits for gubernatorial appointees. Newsom has vetoed “substantially similar” diversity audit bills six consecutive times.

Democratic Assemblymember James Ramos, representing the San Bernardino area, is the Legislature’s first Native American member. He believes that California’s first peoples have been silenced and marginalized for too long.

It’s why he’s authored two bills that have been previously vetoed. One would remove requirements from school administrators to approve the cultural regalia students wear at graduations. Former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill, saying “principals and democratically elected school boards” should decide what’s appropriate to wear. Another previously vetoed Ramos bill seeks to expand tribal police forces. He’s also a co-author of a previously vetoed measure seeking to provide resources to locate missing Indigenous people.

Ramos said he applauds Newsom for doing more than other governors have to apologize for the historic harms done to Native people, but more work needs to be done.

“When the state became a state, they did not include the voices of California’s first people,” he said. “So these bills do a lot more than other bills in the Legislature. These bills educate, and they move forward for reckoning and atonement.”

Should Newsom decide to veto Ramos’ bills again – or any of the others he or other governors have previously killed – it’s unlikely lawmakers will push back.

As CalMatters reported, nearly all of the 189 bills Newsom vetoed last year had support from more than two-thirds of lawmakers — a threshold large enough to override the governor’s veto.

But that almost never happens. The last time the Legislature overrode a governor’s veto was in 1979 on a bill that banned banks from selling insurance.

Digital Democracy's data analysis intern, Luke Fanguna, contributed to this story.

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

With fewer than six weeks to go before the June election, candidates running for City of L.A. and Los Angeles Unified School District offices have raised a combined $19 million, according to records from the L.A. City Ethics Commission.

Campaigns for mayor, District 11 City Council member and city attorney have emerged as the most funded races.

Here’s how they stack up:

L.A. mayor

Mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Adam Miller are leading all L.A. city candidates in fundraising, with $3.7 million and $2.7 million raised so far, respectively.

The candidates have tapped into very different sources to fund their campaigns.

Miller, a tech entrepreneur and leader of multiple nonprofits, has loaned $2.5 million to his own campaign and raised just $223,000 from donors since entering the race in February.

Bass, on the other hand, had already gathered more than $2.3 million in contributions by January. She’d received some of those donations as far back as July 2024.

The city’s matching funds program has also given Bass a nearly $874,000 boost over Miller, who did not qualify to receive a 6-to-1 match from the city on donations that meet certain criteria.

Nithya Raman, City Council member for L.A.’s District 4, has had the quickest growth in donor support out of all candidates for mayor after entering the race in February.

She’s received a combined $1.1 million from direct contributions and matching funds from the city.

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt has received about $538,000 in contributions, and Presbyterian minister and community organizer Rae Huang has taken in about $273,000.

District 11

Traci Park, who is the current City Council member for the 11th district, has brought in about $1.4 million so far through contributions and matching funds.

Faizah Malik is an attorney at the nonprofit law firm Public Counsel and is challenging Park for her council seat. She has raised about $632,000.

This race also has the largest amount of outside spending across the city and LAUSD.

About $972,000 has been spent in support of Park, including about $634,000 from the Los Angeles Police Protective League and $297,000 from a committee sponsored by United Firefighters of L.A. City.

Unite Here, a labor union representing hospitality workers, has spent more than $220,000 in support of Malik.

City attorney

Hydee Feldstein Soto, the incumbent city attorney, has raised nearly $1.2 million in contributions and matching funds.

Marissa Roy, deputy attorney general, has raised nearly $1 million in her race to unseat Feldstein Soto.

Deputy District Attorney John McKinney and human rights attorney Aida Ashouri have raised about $73,000 and $14,000, respectively, in the race.

WASHINGTON — An appeals court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump's executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border of the U.S., a key pillar of the Republican president's plan to crack down on migration.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that immigration laws give people the right to apply for asylum at the border, and the president can't circumvent that.

The court opinion stems from action taken by Trump on Inauguration Day 2025, when he declared that the situation at the southern border constituted an invasion of America and that he was "suspending the physical entry" of migrants and their ability to seek asylum until he decides it is over.

The panel concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn't authorize the president to remove the plaintiffs under "procedures of his own making," allow him to suspend plaintiffs' right to apply for asylum or curtail procedures for adjudicating their anti-torture claims.

"The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA's mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals," wrote Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.

"We conclude that the INA's text, structure, and history make clear that in supplying power to suspend entry by Presidential proclamation, Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts," the opinion said.

White House says asylum ban was within Trump's powers

The administration can ask the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling or go to the Supreme Court.

The order doesn't formally take effect until after the court considers any request to reconsider.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News, said she had not seen the ruling but called it "unsurprising," blaming politically-motivated judges.

"They are not acting as true litigators of the law. They are looking at these cases from a political lens," she said.

Leavitt said Trump was taking actions that are "completely within his powers as commander in chief."

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Department of Justice would seek further review of the decision. "We are sure we will be vindicated," she wrote in an emailed statement.

The Department of Homeland Security said it strongly disagreed with the ruling.

"President Trump's top priority remains the screening and vetting of all aliens seeking to come, live, or work in the United States," DHS said in a statement.

Advocates welcome the ruling

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that previous legal action had already paused the asylum ban, and the ruling won't change much on the ground.

The ruling, however, represents another legal defeat for a centerpiece policy of the president.

"This confirms that President Trump cannot on his own bar people from seeking asylum, that it is Congress that has mandated that asylum seekers have a right to apply for asylum and the President cannot simply invoke his authority to sustain," said Reichlin-Melnick.

Advocates say the right to request asylum is enshrined in the country's immigration law and say denying migrants that right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger.

Lee Gelernt, attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case, said in a statement that the appellate ruling is "essential for those fleeing danger who have been denied even a hearing to present asylum claims under the Trump administration's unlawful and inhumane executive order."

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, welcomed the court decision as a victory for their clients.

"Today's DC Circuit ruling affirms that capricious actions by the President cannot supplant the rule of law in the United States," said Nicolas Palazzo, director of advocacy and legal Services at Las Americas.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a partial dissent. He said the law gives immigrants protections against removal to countries where they would be persecuted, but the administration can issue broad denials of asylum applications.

Walker, however, agreed with the majority that the president cannot deport migrants to countries where they will be persecuted or strip them of mandatory procedures that protect against their removal.

Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was nominated by Democratic President Obama, also heard the case.

In the executive order, Trump argued that the Immigration and Nationality Act gives presidents the authority to suspend entry of any group that they find "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

The executive order also suspended the ability of migrants to ask for asylum.

Trump's order was another blow to asylum access in the U.S., which was severely curtailed under the Biden administration, although under Biden some pathways for protections for a limited number of asylum seekers at the southern border continued.

Migrant advocate in Mexico expresses cautious hope

For Josue Martinez, a psychologist who works at a small migrant shelter in southern Mexico, the ruling marked a potential "light at the end of the tunnel" for many migrants who once hoped to seek asylum in the U.S. but ended up stuck in vulnerable conditions in Mexico.

"I hope there's something more concrete, because we've heard this kind of news before: A district judge files an appeal, there's a temporary hold, but it's only temporary and then it's over," he said.

Meanwhile, migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have struggled to make ends meet as they try to seek refuge in Mexico's asylum system that's all but collapsed under the weight of new strains and slashed international funds.

This week hundreds of migrants, mostly stranded migrants from Haiti, left the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on foot to seek better living conditions elsewhere in Mexico.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California’s trial courts will have to collect and report data on civil arrests at their facilities, including those by federal immigration agents, under a rule approved Friday by the state’s judicial policymaking body.

The new requirement by the Judicial Council of California comes in response to an unprecedented rise in detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at superior courts across California’s judicial system, the nation’s largest. Attorneys, judges and public safety advocates have criticized the practice.

“Our court users have expressed concern and hesitation about coming to court. That concern has been amplified by additional visits to the Oroville courthouse by federal officers,” Sharif Elmallah, the court executive officer of the Superior Court of Butte County, told the council of mostly judges and attorneys Friday. “We know that when individuals fear potential arrest and enforcement actions, many will choose not to appear, even when required to by court order.”

Elmallah said immigration enforcement officers apprehended several people who had cases before the court in Oroville on a single day in July. The agents have kept operating at the court, he added, including as recently as Wednesday of this week.

Victims of crimes such as domestic violence, sexual abuse and wage theft, advocates say, are declining to seek relief in court out of fear of encountering immigration enforcement there, hurting people’s access to justice.

“Making courthouses a focus of immigration enforcement hinders, rather than helps, the administration of justice by deterring witnesses and victims from coming forward and discouraging individuals from asserting their rights,” California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said in earlier statements.

The Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, seen on April 2, 2019.

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California already prohibits arrests related to immigration offenses and other civil law violations at court buildings, except when the enforcement agency has a written order signed by a judge, known as a judicial warrant. But immigrant advocates, public defenders and others say the state law lacks teeth, arguing that ICE has flouted it without any repercussions so far.

Meanwhile, a bill working its way through the state Legislature aims to strengthen the ban on courthouse civil arrests and expand protections for people going to and from courts.

Under the Judicial Council’s separate new rule, the state’s 58 trial courts starting in June will be required to track and report whether officers identified themselves, presented a warrant or took an individual into custody, as well as the date and location of each incident.

While the move will help state officials understand the scope of the issue, it won’t protect people’s fundamental right to access the courts, said Tina Rosales-Torres, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law and Poverty who estimates that ICE has conducted hundreds of arrests at California courts since January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office.

“That’s a good first step. It is good to have data. I do not think it is sufficient to meet the crisis that we are in,” she said.

“So it is going to be helpful to kind of see at least a snippet of what is happening,” Rosales-Torres added. “But then what? The Judicial Council hasn’t proposed a solution, and data is only as effective as we use it.”

Immigration arrests at California courthouses used to be rare, reserved for cases involving national security or other significant threats. As recently as 2021, during the first year of the Biden administration, top ICE officials recognized that routinely apprehending people in or near courts would spread fear and hurt the fair administration of justice.

Since last year, as authorities moved to fulfill Trump’s mass deportation promises, federal officers have approached and handcuffed at least dozens of people at court hallways, exits and parking lots in Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento and other counties. In San Bernardino, TV cameras filmed agents in black vests restraining several men at the Rancho Cucamonga court parking lot in a single day this month.

Some attorneys now warn clients they could see immigration enforcement in court.

Witnesses are failing to show up, and others are opting out of fighting legitimate cases, said Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association. She and Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods wrote an opinion piece condemning ICE’s presence in state courts after the agency arrested a man leaving a court hearing in Oakland in September.

“It’s a foundational element of democracy to have a functioning court system,” Chatfield said. “And when people are afraid to go to court for whatever reason, you’ve really denied justice to an entire segment of our residents.”

SB 873, the bill that would strengthen California’s ban on civil arrests at courthouses, would also authorize the attorney general and those who are arrested to sue over violations. People would be entitled to damages of $10,000. The bill, by state Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, D–San Bernardino, is supported by the California Public Defenders Association, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and other groups.

It is part of a larger pushback in California against a surge in immigration enforcement netting more people without criminal convictions in cities’ public areas, parking lots of stores like Home Depot and at routine immigration check-ins. SB 1103, for instance, would require big-box home improvement retailers to report ICE enforcement activity at their facilities.

Other states, such as New York, also prohibit the civil arrests of people at courthouses or those traveling to and from such facilities unless an officer has a judicial warrant. The Trump administration challenged New York’s law last year, but a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

The restaurant:

If you’re driving along York Boulevard toward Eagle Rock, you’ll see a variety of Mediterranean, Mexican and pizza spots.

Queen’s Raw Bar & Grill stands out as a seafood spot with a menu that offers oysters, fish-centric entrees and desserts like their derby pie. The restaurant has been around since 2023, brought to life by business partners Ari Kolender, who's executive chef, and Joe Laraja, who serves as managing director.

The food: 

Queen’s Raw Bar & Grill takes inspiration from South Carolina’s seafood scene, where Kolender grew up. Unlike the New England feel of their other restaurant, Found Oyster, Queen’s focuses on southern classics and refreshing raw bar food.

The interior of Queen's Raw Bar and Grill, including the signature oyster bar.

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What we tried: tuna tostada, mackerel tartare and pimento cheese sliders.

The verdict:

“The flavor is so incredible [and] intense,” said AirTalk Friday host Austin Cross about the tuna tostada. “Everything comes together perfectly.”

“It’s got the acids down pat,” Austin said of the mackerel tartare. “The capers are doing their part, and then the dill does give it that finish you get traditionally in some Jewish foods.”

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