California Legislature: Lots of private meetings

Today, California lawmakers are preparing to hold a series of high-stakes meetings — behind closed doors.

The House Legislative Ethics Committee — a bipartisan panel made up of three Democrats and three Republicans — is scheduled to meet in private to consider a complaint filed against a lawmaker or other public official or employee, according to the legal code cited in the notice of the meeting. .

It’s the first time the committee has met since June 27, 2019, said Katie Talbot, a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.

In order for the commission to hold a hearing, it must first find that “the verified complaint alleges facts … sufficient to constitute a violation of any standard of conduct” and then conduct a preliminary investigation that determines “there is cause to reasonable to believe the claims of the complaint”, according to the Rules of the Assembly.

• Veteran Sacramento lobbyist Chris Micheli told me: “It is unique because the Legislative Ethics Commission meets rarely. In fact, they have not met since 2019. And this is the first time they have met during the current two-year session, as the session ends in barely three weeks. And the other unique aspect of it is that they are looking into a complaint against a public official. We don’t know who that official or public employee is, and that’s why they meet in closed session.”
• Adam Silver, the committee’s chief counsel, wrote in an email: “Information and data related to complaints received by the Ethics Commission are considered confidential according to the Standing Rules of the Assembly.”
• However, certain information will eventually be made public, according to the Standing Rules: If the commission dismisses the complaint, this is a public record – and if the commission finds that the respondent has breached any standard of conduct, it will submit a report to Parliament along with a resolution that includes recommendations for disciplinary action.

The office of Democratic Assemblywoman Akilah Weber of San Diego, who co-chairs the committee, did not respond to a request for comment. Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham of San Luis Obispo, the other co-chairman, declined to comment.

Also today, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee will begin the first of two closed-door meetings to discuss candidates for California’s next state auditor, according to online meeting notices.

Once the committee selects the final three nominees — a process officials say may or may not happen this week — it will send those names to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will then name the agency’s next leader. independent in charge of evaluating his performance. own administration.

California has been without a permanent state auditor since the beginning of the year following the retirement of Elaine Howle, who resigned after leading the office for 21 years. The office has continued to produce unsavory reports under Acting State Auditor Michael Tilden, who recently released an audit criticizing the state water board for failing to urgently provide assistance to systems that serve unsafe drinking water nearly 1 million Californians.

The end of the coronavirus: As of Thursday, California had 10,024,326 confirmed cases (+0.4% from the previous day) AND 93,056 deaths (+0.2% from the previous day)according to state data it is now only updated twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. CalMatters is also tracking coronavirus hospitalizations by county.

California has administered 78,998,017 vaccine dosesAND 71.8% Eligible Californians are fully vaccinated.

Other stories you should know

1
Unemployment benefits are too hard to get, report finds

“People should be fired for this.” That was Fresno Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson’s response to a scathing report Monday from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office that found California’s unemployment department delayed payments to nearly 5 million workers amid the pandemic and denied them inappropriate for 1 million others. The report found that the Employment Development Department placed a higher priority on cutting costs and preventing fraud than making benefits available to workers, resulting in hundreds of thousands of backlogged claims, blocked phone lines and frozen accounts many Californians desperate for funds. they had to stay afloat — even as the agency paid out at least $20 billion in fraudulent claims, including nearly $1 billion to prisoners and inmates.

Grace Gedye of CalMatters breaks down some other key points from the report:

• More than half of unemployment benefit denials in California are overturned on appeal. meaning those workers should have received the benefits in the first place.
• In reports to the Legislature, the EDD mischaracterized how many claims it was disqualifying or denying. From the start of the pandemic through June 20, 2021, the EDD reported disqualifying or denying 705,000 claims — when it actually disqualified at least 3.4 million. About 78% of the 200,000 workers who appealed won their claims.
• The EDD disqualified about 1 in 4 claims for unemployment benefits during the pandemic for failing to respond to requests for additional information — or because it was unable to process the additional information provided in the specified time frame.

Michael Bernick, a former EDD director who is now special counsel with the law firm Duane Morris, countered that many of the anti-fraud measures blamed for slowing payments are required by the federal government. And EDD spokesman Gareth Lacy said many of the legislative analyst’s recommendations, “such as limiting improper claim denials and minimizing delays, have been incorporated into EDD’s actions over the past year.”

2
California, Texas make bounty hunting new again

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: After the US Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law that allows private citizens to sue abortion clinics and anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy and raise at least $10,000 per violation, Newsom responded with a proposal — which he recently signed into law — allowing private Californians to raise the same amount of money to successfully sue anyone who manufactures, distributes or sells certain illegal weapons. Both of these laws essentially transfer law enforcement authority from the state to individual people — and in doing so add to a long and fraught history of bounty hunting in the United States, CalMatters’ Nigel Duara reports.

• Randy Beck, professor at the University of Georgia School of Law: “There’s a good reason lawmakers have banned their use, and … I’m concerned that a group of lawmakers are repeating history that we don’t want to repeat. … It takes place as part of this cultural war, a state taking revenge against another state. These things are not good in practice.”

Other things worth your time

Some stories may require a subscription to read

FBI raids Mar-a-Lago, says Trump. // Politico

A quarter of San Francisco public school students have been chronically absent last year. // San Francisco Examiner

Many Bay Area school board meetings have turned in person, but not all are allowing parents to participate remotely. // Mercury News

1 million Californians qualified for federal student loan relief, but only 10,000 reimbursed, lawmakers say. // KCRA

Nearly two-thirds of LA’s $1 billion in COVID relief funding went to police and firefighter salaries. // LA Taco

Nowhere is safe: California freeway shootings double in two years reveal the data. // Caretaker

The driver in the fiery crash in Los Angeles that killed 5 people accused of murder. // ABC News

Anne Heche in coma after fiery Mar Vista crash faces a slew of potential charges. // KTLA

The grand jury investigating the LA County Sheriff’s Department the treatment of the deputy who knelt on the prisoner’s head. // Los Angeles Times

SFDA Brooke Jenkins is officially running to keep the job in November. // San Francisco Chronicle

14 Starbucks stores have now joined in California. // Los Angeles Times

Child care providers in California struggle to ‘retire with dignity’. // Los Angeles Times

As the downtown recovery lags, a tangle of business taxes encourages working from home. // The San Francisco Standard

United, the pilots have scored victories in California Wage Statement Dispute. // Bloomberg Law

San Francisco went quiet about tracking the monkeypox contract the week before. // Mercury News

First Suspected Monkey Pox Case ID’d in SF Jail, Staff tired of COVID. // The San Francisco Standard

Billionaire Marc Andreessen says he’s all for more new housing, but public records tell a different story. // The Atlantic

Why Lyft Funds California Proposition 30 in electric cars? // San Francisco Chronicle

Why companies that clean scalpels and IV now they are in the question of California. // Daily news

In dry California, salt water creeps in on the main waterways. // Associated Press

Poseidon failed to initiate wetland restoration in time, says the Coastal Commission. // San Diego Union-Tribune

How young Californians are doing with climate anxiety. // Los Angeles Times

McKinney Fire: ‘Highly respected’ Forest Service fire watcher for decades among four people killed. // Mercury News

McKinney Fire: With Lives in Danger, did the alarm system work properly? // Mercury News