The Brief

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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.

(

Fred Greaves

/

CalMatters

)

“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.

The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics kicked off in Milan on Friday evening, local time. Athletes representing over 90 countries march into the San Siro stadium filled with thousands of spectators during the opening ceremony in Milan.

The performance paid homage to Italian music, art and culture with tributes to composers, visual artists and films in a colorful spectacle. Performers included Italian actress Matilda De Angelis, American singer Mariah Carey, Italian singer Andrea Bocelli, Italian rapper Ghali and Italian ballet dancers Antonella Albano and Claudio Coviello, among dozens of other dancers.

Here is a selection of images from the opening ceremony:

Italian ballet dancers Antonella Albano and Claudio Coviello perform during the opening ceremony.

(

Wang Zhao

/

Getty Images

)

Colorful dancers perform under large tubes of paint suspended above them during the opening ceremony.

(

Gabriel Bouys

/

Getty Images

)

Italian actress Matilda De Angelis (center) performs with dancers dressed as the three great masters of Italian opera: Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini.

(

Piero Cruciatti

/

Getty Images

)

Mariah Carey sings during the opening ceremony.

(

Wang Zhao

/

Getty Images

)

Performers dressed in the colors of the Italian flag line up during the opening ceremony.

(

Piero Cruciatti

/

Getty Images

)

Members of The Corazzieri, the Italian Corps of Cuirassiers, raise the Italian flag during the opening ceremony.

(

Wang Zhao

/

Getty Images

)

Two performers are suspended between two large rings.

(

Piero Cruciatti

/

Getty Images

)

The Olympic Rings are revealed above dancers during the opening ceremony.

(

Piero Cruciatti

/

Getty Images

)

An aerial view of the athletes parading into the San Siro stadium.

(

Antonin Thuillier

/

Getty Images

)

Stoats Milo and Tina, the Paralympics and Olympics mascots, dance before the Olympic opening ceremony.

(

Ben Curtis

/

AP

)

MILAN — During the first days of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games, the long shadows of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell spread to touch the Olympic movement.

While in Milan, one of the top organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games faced calls to step aside after his emails turned up in the latest tranche of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Justice Department.

"I will be in nyc for four days starting April 22...can we book that massage now," wrote Casey Wasserman in an email to Maxwell in the spring of 2003. A few days later, Wasserman said, "The only thing I want from Paris is you."

There's no indication of criminal wrongdoing in the emails, which were sent more than twenty years ago. But for a prominent figure like Wasserman, who heads an influential sports and entertainment agency, any association with the pair is fraught.

Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2022 for conspiring to sexually abuse minors. Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial in jail in 2019.

Wasserman has kept a low profile since news of his emails broke. He appeared publicly this week at a gathering of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Milan, where he touted progress developing the L.A. Games but didn't take questions from reporters.

In a statement, Wasserman said he never had "a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein" and he apologized for his flirtatious exchanges with Maxwell. "I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them."

That hasn't quelled the controversy. A growing number of political leaders in L.A. have called for Wasserman to step down from his role as one of the leading public faces of the next Summer Games.

"Casey Wasserman should step aside immediately," L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said in a statement sent to LAist. "Anything less is a distraction and undermines efforts to make sure the Games truly reflect the values of a city that is for everyone."

L.A. city controller Kennith Mejia, who monitors the city's finances, said on social media that "Los Angeles cannot trust our financial future to someone connected with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell." Mejia added that "Wasserman must take accountability and resign."

Questions of Wasserman's future keep surfacing in Milan as the first sports competitions get underway. IOC chair Kirsty Coventry acknowledged at a press conference Thursday that she's been asked repeatedly about the scandal.

"Casey has put out a statement. I have nothing further to add on that," she said. Asked about the fact that Wasserman hasn't spoken directly with journalists, Coventry said, "I'll have them come find you guys and have a little chit-chat."

The head of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Gene Sykes, also faced repeated questions about the matter in Milan on Thursday.

"Casey's made a statement that reflects the perspective he has on what came to light, when the emails were released, with the rest of the Epstein file," Sykes told reporters. "We have nothing to add to that, his statement stands on its own."

Sykes went on to voice confidence in Wasserman's leadership. "I have more confidence today in L.A. 28's operational capabilities, its leadership, the quality of what its doing and how well they're executing than I've had at any point of time," he said, pointing to the L.A. bid's strong fundraising.

A long list of corporate executives, academic leaders, physicians, scientists, politicians, members of European royalty, and others, have been caught up in the Epstein scandal. A growing number of them have resigned, been fired, or been forced to step back from public life.

If you're wondering whether it is truly worth the $8 million to $10 million cost per 30 seconds to air a commercial during the Super Bowl, just ask the creative minds behind the pro-Jesus advertising campaign "He Gets Us."

According to Come Near, the group managing the "He Gets Us" campaign, after airing commercials in three previous Super Bowls, they have seen nearly 10 billion video views, more than 70 million visitors to their website HeGetsUs.com and an awareness of the campaign so high that 40% of adults in the U.S. now know about He Gets Us.

And they expect that awareness to only expand with their fourth Super Bowl ad this Sunday titled "More," focused on the pressures many feel in modern society to pursue more of everything.

"There's not a lot of moments like this. … We're looking for moments where people really congregate," says Simon Armour, chief creative officer for Come Near, which has crafted the "More" ad as part of a campaign called "Loaded Words." "We're constantly asking, 'Are we really meeting people where they're at?'"

Offering a distinctly non-commercial message in the middle of the world's biggest advertising showcase is certainly one way to stand out. But that's only one of the many messages featured in an event that set a record last year — and the year before — as the most watched single telecast in U.S. history.

A dive into the raft of ads airing in the Big Game that were released early, aimed at rocketing around social media to build buzz before their debut Sunday, revealed the typical mix of celebrities, nostalgia, special effects and bold humor we see every year.

New in the mix: A few efforts encouraging fans to build their own Super Bowl commercials, including an option from Uber Eats allowing users to make 1,000 versions of celebrity-filled ads and a contest sponsored by Artlist.io, an AI platform for video creation, offering $60,000 for the best subscriber-created spot.

And, as we have seen in recent years, there's a decided lack of commercials offering any kind of sharp social message. At a time when America seems more divided than ever, most advertisers don't seem keen on spending millions to address the social or political issues of the day.

Of course, the most impressive messages may not surface until the Big Game itself. But here's a look at some of the most interesting commercials unveiled in advance, offering a look at the bold swings marketers are about to take on the biggest stage in media.

Best use of a self-deprecating celebrity, Part 1: Raisin Bran's 'Will Shat'

YouTube

One of the coolest things in modern pop culture has been to watch Star Trek icon William Shatner morph from an overacting, self-serious stick in the mud into a goofy celebrity who begrudgingly accepts that it's better to play along with his peculiar kind of fame rather than resist it. The 94-year-old comes full circle with this ad for Raisin Bran that deftly spoofs both the result of eating all that fiber, Shatner's roots in science fiction and the scatological word game people likely have played with his last name for eons, introducing him in the commercial as a character named Will Shat. My favorite moment: when he looks over at a pet and asks, "Is that dog a Shih Tzu?" As a bonus, the Shat-man even made news in real life, when paparazzi thought he was eating a bowl of cereal while driving (he was actually posing for a photo shoot.)

Most touching reference to Big Brother: Ring's 'Search Party: Be a Hero'

YouTube

Tell people that video doorbell company Ring can remotely link a bunch of cameras to look for something, and many may wonder if they've stumbled into a George Orwell novel. But show people how Ring cameras can be tasked to help find some of the 10 million dogs who go missing every year — using its new, free Search Party feature — and you have a teary, sentimental spot for the Big Game that pulls on the heartstrings while downplaying any concerns about Big Brother invading their privacy (fear not, Search Party is a program you have to opt into).

Best argument to Hollywood for using AI: Xfinity's 'Jurassic Park … Works'

YouTube

Cool as it is to suggest that one tech geek from Xfinity could have kept all the dinosaurs from escaping Jurassic Park, the telecommunication company went one better in this ad – basically showing the potential for de-aging and computerized imagery in film by creating new scenes for the 1993 movie featuring stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. In Xfinity's new spot, they're jogging with herds of dinosaurs and posing for pictures with a T. rex instead of running for their lives. Of course, a happy ending invalidates the film's whole "egotistical man shouldn't meddle with natural ecosystems he doesn't understand" message. But it will probably sell an awful lot of Wi-Fi service.

Best use of a self-deprecating celebrity, Part 2: TurboTax's 'The Expert'

YouTube

Adrien's Brody's over the top antics while portraying a TurboTax expert – despite the company's insistence that the program helps keep taxes "drama free" — is a delicious send-up of his own self-serious reputation. (My fave moment is when he screeches "If there's no drama, then there's no Adrien Brody!") It's almost enough to make you forget the record-setting arrogance of his way-too-long best actor acceptance speech at last year's Oscars ceremony. Almost.

Best headfake around men's silly sensibilities: Novartis' 'Relax Your Tight End'

YouTube

What's the best way to let men know there's now a less, um, invasive way of checking for prostate cancer than the old school finger method? This commercial, featuring football heroes like former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians urges men to relax their tight end — complete with shots that seem to depict that relaxation — thanks to the invention of a blood test to check for early signs. It's all a bit of cheeky good fun — OK, I couldn't resist that one — aimed at getting men to get over their hangups and get tested regularly for a disease that has an impressive survival rate if caught early.

Best use of class warfare: Hims & Hers' 'Rich People Live Longer'

YouTube

Fresh off a controversy from last year, which found the telehealth company criticized for not being fully transparent about the side effects of its weight loss drugs, Hims & Hers is back with a spot that declares "the wealth gap is a health gap." Rapper and actor Common provides the voice-over for this spot, which shows wealthy people accessing all kinds of treatments and preventive care as the narration notes, "all that money doesn't just buy more stuff — it buys more time." Watching a big corporation spend millions pitching its products as an affordable way to bridge that gap, at a time when medical expenses are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the U.S., feels a little odd. But it's also a stroke of genius.

Best parody of a competitor: Pepsi's 'The Choice'

YouTube

This spot, starting with a computer-generated polar bear getting confused after picking Pepsi over Coca-Cola in a blindfolded taste test, works in all kinds of ways. It pokes at Coke's longtime use of computerized bears in its own Big Game ads back in the day while indulging a bit of nostalgia. Extra points for a moment later in the ad that references the infamous Coldplay kiss cam incident and a cool cameo from impish director Taika Waititi.

Most questionable joke: DoorDash's 'Beef 101'

YouTube

In the ad, 50 Cent presents the latest iteration of his beef with Sean "P Diddy/Puff Daddy" Combs as an epic exercise in tongue-in-cheek trolling. He reaches into a DoorDash pouch to pull out a bag of Cheesy Puffs, a pack of combs and a bottle of cognac he says is "aged four years … or 50 months. Who's keeping count?" But I bet Combs, now sitting in federal prison after his conviction on prostitution-related charges, surely is. And those who recall the allegations of sex crimes and abuse which surrounded the Combs trial, might not find a commercial seeking laughs by referencing that traumatic situation to be much fun at all.

Most shameless pandering to bro culture: Bud Light's 'Keg'

YouTube

Football legend Peyton Manning, comic Shane Gillis and musician Post Malone seem mostly wasted in a nonsensical ad featuring an entire wedding party tumbling down a steep hill in pursuit of a single keg that fell off a dolly. Gillis gets the punchline, turning to the camera to say, "I give it a week," presumably in reference to the wedding. I'm betting most viewers forget about this uninspired ad even quicker.

Best use of a conspiracy theory I might actually believe: Uber Eats: 'Hungry for the Truth'

YouTube

This spot continues the concept Uber Eats floated in last year's Super Bowl ad, featuring Matthew McConaughey insisting the NFL organized this whole professional football thing as a ruse to sell more food. This time, he's torturing poor fellow movie star hunk Bradley Cooper — who mostly looks like he just wants to be seen wearing gear featuring his beloved Philadelphia Eagles — pointing out all the NFL players named after food. But when he shows Cooper that the NFL Hall of Fame building looks just like a juicer — gotta say, I was nearly convinced.