bellweather edge pioner
try to figure out why/how this happens
maybe not coincidence that Sil Valley is in CA, we created gig econ but also 1st to regulate it?
also net neutrality
CA AG xavier B blue wall vs trumplandia
aha since political as well as progressive innovation happens in ca and ny, must be stomped out/nipped in bud to prevent spreading eg soda tax, gig worker rights, cafe
lil sis
ur work also helped broader national campaigns aimed at the investors, bankers, insurers, and attorneys behind the fossil fuel industry. Our research on Liberty Mutual’s director Jay Hooley’s board membership with ExxonMobil contributed to action backed by a range of groups, while our profile of the law firm Paul Weiss aided the growing #DropExxon campaign among law students. More recently, we began what will surely be a long project of mapping out the Biden administration’s ties to the fossil fuel industry - in this case, revolving around Ernest Moniz’s influence on Biden energy transition team.
On top of all this, we continued mapping the power in many other ways, from examining the antics of Puerto Rico’s debt vultures and Act 22 investors, to scrutinizing the powerful law firm running Trump’s Justice Department and the efforts ofUber and Lyft to stifle gig worker rights in NYS (see coverage in *Vice* and the *Markup*).
SF also facial recognition
DN NOV 12, 2019
Vowing to End Cash Bail & Reform Justice System, Chesa Boudin Wins San Francisco DA Race
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/can-uber-and-lyft-survive-if-californias-worker-protections-go-nationwide/
passage of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the landmark state law that reclassifies contract rideshare drivers as employees, marked a historic win for gig economy drivers demanding better working conditions. Now Los Angeles is taking the first step toward securing a $30 minimum wage for Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare drivers in the city.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to proceed with an independent study on the average wages and business expenses of the city’s rideshare drivers, and review policies around the country. The motion also asked the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would set the minimum wage to $30, suggesting that drivers will need an additional $15 per hour to pay for business expenses like gas. Currently, the city’s minimum wage for most businesses is $14.25, but will be raised to $15 citywide by 2021. In the state of California, the minimum wage is $12 an hour, and will reach $15 by January 2023....
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aha-let: gov't exerts leverage by what it buys, eg military transistors
Proposed California Law Would Punish Companies for Failing to Limit Harm to the Planet’s Forests
The legislation could affect everything from what paper gets used in state offices to what gets served in California cafeterias.
by Abrahm Lustgarten
Safety, and Now Climate Change
Just as electric utilities' infrastructure is coming under greater scrutiny amid recent wildfires across the state, aging natural gas infrastructure has been a concern in recent years following catastrophic failures. Five years before the Alison Canyon gas leak released up to 109,000 metric tons of methane, forcing thousands of people living nearby to be relocated, a natural gas pipeline explosion killed eight people in San Bruno.
"Because of the San Bruno explosion, and then the Aliso Canyon leak, and other issues and [the] liability of energy in southern California in particular, it's becoming evident that we need to really heavily invest in the natural gas pipeline system in order just to maintain safety and reliability," said Bryan Early, the California Energy Commission's chief of staff.
"At the same time, there is a relatively convincing argument being made that that gas pipeline system is probably incongruous with the state achieving its climate goals, and so we are going to have to reconcile those two."
For some cities, the decision has already been made.
"We have to move to cleaner sources of energy if we are going to have the emissions reductions that we want to reach," said Ken Davies, deputy director ofClimate Smart San José, a climate initiative of the city's environmental services department. "There is really no other choice."
San Jose currently gets more than 80 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources, Davies said. A pending ban on natural gas in new low-rise buildings could take effect as soon as January. "It makes sense right now to move away from a fossil fuel," he said.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23072019/berkeley-natural-gas-ban-california-cities-incentive-all-electric-building-construction-future
Following Berkeley's Natural Gas Ban, More Cities Look to All-Electric Future
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US states split on allowing citizen ballot initiatives
BY DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
October 31, 2018 06:55 AM
NEW YORK
Every two years, citizens across the U.S. manage to place some eye-catching measures on state election ballots, posing questions to voters that can be divisive and sometimes historic. But more than half of states offer no such opportunity.
Twenty-four states — mostly in the Western half of the country — have ways for citizens to bypass the Legislature by gathering signatures and taking proposals directly to voters. In one of those states, Illinois, the process is so restrictive that only one citizen initiative has ever passed.
In the other 26 states, there's no option for ballot measures — and no sign that politicians are eager to create one.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the first state to adopt the initiative process was South Dakota in 1898. Since then, 23 other states have followed suit, but none since Mississippi in 1992.
"Overall, the breakdown isn't changing," said Patrick Potyondy, the NCSL's legislative policy specialist. "Whatever state you're from, you think your process is normal."
States with an initiative process include liberal bastions such as California and conservative strongholds such as Idaho. There's similar diversity with non-initiative states, which include Republican-controlled Texas and Democratic-dominated New York.
In the 1970s and '80s, some leading Texas Republicans favored creating an initiative process, and until 1994 that stance was part of the state GOP's platform. With Republicans in full control of state government since then, there's been no serious discussion at the statehouse of allowing citizen initiatives.
"It hasn't been talked about for 20 years," said Republican Jerry Patterson, who served three terms as state land commissioner. "If you're out of government, you're in favor of initiatives. If you're in government, they become not so appealing."
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said the initiative process became entrenched in many Western states during the progressive area of the early 1900s.
"It was part of the reaction to political party corruption to allow citizens to directly offer initiatives," he said. "Texas has always been more skeptical of citizen involvement. ... The lawmakers and lobbyists think the deals they cut are preferable to any decision the voters might make."
At New York's statehouse, there's been little serious discussion of the initiative process since Republican George Pataki touted the concept during his tenure as governor from 1995 to 2006. With the Legislature and major labor unions opposing any change, it would likely take a constitutional convention to allow it, but 83 percent of voters in 2016 rejected holding such a convention.
Likewise, in the states that allow citizen initiatives, there's been no serious talk of abandoning the process. But political battles have been waged over efforts to restrict it.
In California, Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013 vetoed a bill passed by his fellow Democrats in the Legislature that would have limited the use of paid circulators to collect signatures for proposed ballot measures. Labor unions backed the bill, saying it would "prevent billionaires and wealthy corporations from hijacking the ballot initiative process." Brown said the bill was flawed, but encouraged further efforts to improve the process.
In 2014, Brown signed a bill inviting groups that were promoting initiatives to work with lawmakers in the hopes they could strike a compromise and keep the measure off the ballot.
Because of its size and relatively accommodating initiative process, California has produced some of the most tumultuous and expensive ballot-measure campaigns.
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