The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in Los Angeles to decide on whether it should reduce or alter some pension benefits for California public employees. We also recap some of the bills introduced at yesterday's legislative session; examine the Tejon Ranch project; and more.
Something old, something new: the bills that kicked off the legislative session yesterday
The new legislative session began yesterday, marked by a Democratic supermajority and an increase in women lawmakers, as well as the introduction of close to 60 bills.
Some of those bills are tweaked re-introductions of bills that didn’t make it in the last session. For example, Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) re-introduced his bill to increase apartment housing near transit, with changes that are meant to appease tenant groups. And Assemblymember Phil Ting re-introduced a version of his bill meant to gradually ban gas cars.
One assemblymember pledged to introduce a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to receive Medicaid. Some big picture themes of the new bills included action on wildfires, housing, early childhood education and the gig economy.
We recap some of the bills introduced yesterday. Plus, are these bills a bellwether for the biggest policy fights to come in 2019? How might these bills fare under incoming Governor Newsom?
Guests:
John Myers, Sacramento bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times; he tweets at
Laurel Rosenhall, political reporter for CALmatters, the nonprofit journalism site covering California; she tweets
UC Berkeley settles suit with conservative student group claiming discrimination
The University of California, Berkeley agreed to consider changes to its policy on major campus events as part of a settlement announced Monday in a lawsuit over student access to conservative speakers.
The lawsuit was filed last year after a scheduled appearance by conservative commentator Ann Coulter didn’t take place in the wake of violence before a scheduled talk by another right-wing speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos. It accused the university of discriminating against conservative speakers.
Young America’s Foundation highlighted that the university had agreed to pay plaintiffs $70,000 in attorneys’ fees. It said the settlement was a “victory for free speech.”
As part of the settlement, the university is considering eliminating “complexity” as a criterion for determining whether a campus event is major. The university has also committed to publishing a fee schedule for security costs that student organizations hosting speakers must bear.
With files from the Associated Press.
AirTalk reached out to the University of California, Berkeley, for comment and the school’s campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof sent us this statement:
“We are gratified that our Major Event Policy has been validated,” said campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof. “During the spring semester and the current semester, it has been that very policy that has enabled the campus to work effectively with the Berkeley College Republicans as they hosted numerous events featuring prominent conservative speakers without incident or interruption.”
“Given that this outcome is all but indistinguishable from what a courtroom victory would have looked like, we see this as the least expensive path to successful resolution of this lawsuit,” said Mogulof. “While we regret the time, effort and resources that have been expended successfully defending the constitutionality of UC Berkeley’s event policy, this settlement means the campus will not need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in unrecoverable defense costs to prove that UC Berkeley has never discriminated on the basis of viewpoint.”
Guests:
Bob Egelko, courts reporters with the San Francisco Chronicle
Natalie Orenstein, reporter at Berkeleyside, an independent news site; she tweets
Mark Trammel, associate general counsel for Young America’s Foundation (YAF), which brought the suit against UC Berkeley
Ethical concerns about privacy and transparency clash following launch of leak website ‘Distributed Denial of Secrets’
We live in a world where it seems like we hear about a new data dump, security breach or other mass information disclosure every couple of weeks.
Just last week, hotel chain Marriott International announced that the data of as many as half a billion users had been compromised by hackers. But what about when a trove of data that could be of public interest falls into the hands of people who might want to publish it not to enable others to steal identities or commit financial crimes, but to allow access to researchers, journalists and others who might have a good reason to want to see it.
Enter “Distributed Denial of Secrets,” an online database that de-facto spokesperson Emma Best
as “a collective/distribution system for leaked and hacked data.” It launched Monday morning with the
of being a catch-all for leaked data before it fades into obscurity amid the constantly updating World Wide Web. But the site’s creation has not come without its challenges, maybe most pressing of them all is the ethical question of how to decide what data to publish, what data to hold back, what data to publish in redacted form, and generally how to balance privacy concerns with the desire for transparency. Best notes in a tweet that she and her colleagues expect controversy and debate as data continues to drop.
What, if any, potential utility do you see for a website database of leaked or hacked information? What ethical concerns do you have about how the decision is made to publish or not publish a particular data set?
Guests:
Emma Best, a Boston-based member of the collective behind the “Distributed Denial of Secrets” site
Lisa Lynch, associate professor of media and communications at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey
John Simpson, a consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog in Mid-City, Los Angeles and is the director of the organization’s Privacy and Technology Project
Given threat of wildfires, should the Tejon Ranch project be approved?
Next week, the LA County Board of Supervisors will decide whether to give the Tejon Ranch Centennial Project the green light.
If approved, the contentious housing project would add 19,000 homes to a region that continues to struggle with affordable housing. Even so, critics of the project argue that the new homes would be nestled in a zone prone to wildfires. Is the Centennial Project the answer to LA County’s affordable housing project? Should the high fire risk discourage developers? Larry Mantle sits down with a supporter and a critic of the project to weigh the benefits and the drawbacks.
Guests:
Char Miller, professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College
Barry Zoeller, vice president of corporate communications and investor relations at Tejon Ranch Co.; the company is behind the Centennial development project
Should the Supreme Court reduce or alter pension benefits for California public employees?
The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in Los Angeles to decide on whether it should reduce or alter some pension benefits for California public employees.
In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Public Employee Pension Reform Act (AB 340) that restricts pension benefits for public employees hired after 2013. Cal Fire Local 2881, the union that represents Cal Fire firefighters, filed a lawsuit challenging Brown’s decision. The fire union says this provision violated the “California rule,” a legal theory arising out of a 1955 state Supreme Court ruling that holds that the pensions in place on the day a public employee is hired can never be reduced even for years not yet worked. Brown said that he anticipates the courts will void the “California rule” and enable future leaders to adjust pension benefits.
The governor argues that his reform act will increase the retirement age and save billions of taxpayer dollars by capping employees’ benefits. A win for Brown would put a dent in the so-called “California rule.” The fire union’s lawsuit seeks to undo only a part of the pension reform law. It aims to restore a benefit the law canceled that had allowed public employees to buy “airtime,” which is extra years of service that were credited to their pensions. If the court finds that “airtime” is a vested right, the court could modify the “California rule” that prevents cuts in the pensions of current workers.
We have reached out to Cal Fire Local 2881, the union that filed a lawsuit challenging Brown’s decision, but they declined our request for an interview.
Guests:
Amy B. Monahan, professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, who has written about the “California Rule” and its impact on public pension reform; her focus includes federal taxation and employee benefits law
Terry Brennand, director of revenue, budget, and pensions at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) a labor union representing 700,000 workers in various occupations in California and a member of Californians for Retirement Security, a coalition of more than 1.6 million Californians representing public employees and retirees.
Dan Pellissier, president of California Pension Reform, an advocacy group that that wants to reduce California pension obligations for public employees and retirees.
As Sunset magazine struggles, we look back at the California icon
According to the Los Angeles Times, the 120 year old Western living guide Sunset Magazine is in trouble.
Various editors have quit in the last few months, while some writers are still awaiting on paychecks.
The lifestyle magazine was started by Southern Pacific Railroad to push westward travel. At its peak, it was a platform for decor, travel writing and literary investigations, aiming to take on the role of teaching people how to live in the space of the West.
We look back at the significance and history of Sunset Magazine and its role in the development of the American West, as well as its current struggle to survive as a glossy in the digital age.
Guests:
Bill Deverell, professor of history and director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West at the University of Southern California
Ken Doctor, media analyst who focuses on the transformation of consumer media in the digital age; he is the author of “Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape the News You Get” (St. Martin’s Press, 2010)