Placer County Elections & Politics Digest

Some Democrats are pushing bills that could put their colleagues on the hot seat in an election year. The authors say they’re representing their constituents and there’s never a perfect time for votes.

The Sacramento Bee explains Proposition 6, the initiative to ban involuntary servitude.

The Sacramento Bee explains Propisition 36, the anti-crime measure on the November Ballot.

Proposition 32 to increase the minimum wage from $16 isn’t as far-reaching as when it was first proposed. Fast food workers are already making more, and health care employees are on track. But worker groups are already pushing for more.

Legislators and Gov. Newsom are working behind the scenes to draft energy legislation before the end-of-the-month deadline.

A voter at a polling center at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana on March 5, 2024. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

Although the initiative process — proposing new laws via ballot measures — has been in California’s constitution for more than a century, its use was fairly uncommon until the 1970s.

There never was much of a chance that California Gov. Gavin Newsom would be running for president this year, even if President Joe Biden were to step aside.

California failed to ban private detention centers. Now, it’s focusing on their working conditions, for immigrants who toil for $1 a day.

The Republican hopeful brought in more cash than Democratic rival Adam Schiff for the first time this campaign during the latest quarter, but still has less to spend.

CalMatters launched Digital Democracy in April, and its impact has rippled across the Legislature.

California lawmakers met into the night on July 3 to finish the November ballot before heading off on summer vacation until Aug. 5.

Much is expected of the California voter.

Small and low-income school officials say the bond measure deal is unfair. The money is allocated through matching grants, so wealthier districts that can raise more local funds will get more money from the state.

In their June 11 meeting, the Placer County Board of Supervisors approved advancing a 1/2 cent sales tax increase to fund road and highway improvements to the November ballot.

On June 11, Solano County elections officials announced the verification of necessary signatures for the California Forever sponsored initiative to amend the county General Plan to be on the November ballot.

The two-day CalMatters Ideas Festival wrapped on June 6 with more than a dozen events examining critical policy issues impacting the lives of millions of Californians.

California is hailed as a national leader for voting access. But visually impaired voters and their advocates say they still face unnecessary barriers, despite bills and lawsuits. Some election officials raise security concerns.

After University of California students were arrested or suspended for protests, student workers are striking at three campuses. The Office of President says the strike violates the union contract.

It’s time for the folks in California’s Capitol to play let’s-make-a-deal – or actually, many deals.

California lawmakers voted to offer an official apology for the state’s role in supporting slavery and moved several reparations bills but let others die.

The job action starting today at UC Santa Cruz isn’t about pay, but instead is in response to how UC deployed police to clear pro-Palestinian encampments on campuses.

The state’s multibillion-dollar shortfall shapes which spending bills survived the ‘suspense file’ hearings by the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees.

More than half of the U.S. House supports a bill to extend the funds, but it can’t get out of committee.

At many universities across the country, graduation for the Class of 2024 will feel more like making it through airport security than a procession through a free-flowing campus green or a cheering stadium crowd.

A bill to rein in a proposed monthly fee on California electric bills would let California’s largest for-profit utility companies charge customers $24 per month — with fees as low as $6 for lower-income customers — as a kind of membership fee for the power grid.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new ad blasts GOP efforts to make it harder for people to leave states with abortion bans and seek treatment elsewhere.

Alejandro N. Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in California, is the first U.S. Cabinet official impeached in nearly 150 years.

Anti-tax groups in California have qualified a measure for the November ballot that would make raising state and local taxes much more difficult. It’s a showdown that’s been building for nearly five decades.

Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chose Oakland to announce his vice presidential pick on Tuesday, so it wasn’t too much of a shocker that his pick was Nicole Shanahan, a Bay Area tech attorney and philanthropist.

Lawyers from the conservative Christian group that won the case to overturn Roe v. Wade are returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in pursuit of an urgent priority: shutting down access to abortion pills for women across the country.

A judge ruled GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene can move forward with their lawsuit against two California cities where rallies were canceled.