California Policy and Politics Friday

Union boss behind billionaire tax bullied, tried to ‘extort’ staffers over the measure, reports find -- The investigation, which took place between April and July 2026 and was conducted by the New York-based labor law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon, partially substantiated allegations against Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, as he was working to get Proposition 40 onto the November ballot. Hannah Wiley, Sara Libby in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Taryn Luna in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Jury finds former Windsor mayor Dominic Foppoli sexually assaulted 7 women, awards $12.6 million -- A civil jury in Sonoma County has found that former Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli sexually assaulted seven women in separate incidents spanning two decades, awarding them a combined $12.6 million in damages and delivering a powerful legal vindication for the women who first came forward in 2021. Julie Johnson, Cynthia Dizikes in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

 

The ‘hand grenade’ in Gavin Newsom’s lap -- The calculation reflects the bind that Proposition 40 poses for Newsom. If it passes despite his early warnings, he risks looking disconnected from populist fury over inequality and President Donald Trump’s health care cuts. If it fails, Newsom and his allies would be vindicated — but Democratic rivals on the left could still point to the defeat as a sign that he is overly attuned to anti-tax tech billionaires. Jeremy B. White and Melanie Mason Politico -- 9/11/26

California enacts laws restricting chatbots and banning teens from ‘addictive’ social media -- The law on addictive social media may be the most controversial. It will require social media companies to either stop offering “addictive” tools like infinite scroll and autoplay to users under 16 or to keep those users off their platforms entirely. Colin Lecher Calmatters Queenie Wong in the Los Angeles Times$ Tyler Katzenberger and Christine Mui Politico Stephen Hobbs in the Sacramento Bee$ Jocelyn Wiener Calmatters Hannah Knowles and Ian Duncan in the Washington Post$ -- 9/11/26

Post-production workers and Mayor Bass press Gov. Newsom to sign first-of-its-kind tax credit -- Hollywood’s film and TV post-production workers took their case directly to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday, urging him to sign a bill that would create the state’s first standalone post-production tax incentive. Cerys Davies in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Skid Row residents were paid to sign ballot petitions with stolen identities, feds charge -- Federal authorities arrested a Victorville man on Thursday, charging him and two others with paying people on Skid Row to sign petitions using the stolen identities of registered voters. Brittny Mejia in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

After a backlash over votes on sex offenders, two California parole board members were dropped -- Two parole board members who authorized the release of men convicted of sex crimes were ousted after Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón declined to take up their appointments. Criminal justice advocates are concerned. Kate Wolffe Calmatters -- 9/11/26

Black lawyers asked an S.F. judge to stop allowing the N-word in court. He refused -- A San Francisco Superior Court judge said he uses the anti-Black slur “n—” in his courtroom without a euphemism or abbreviation because he believes it’s important to fully illustrate the racism of the speaker. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

Water

Walters: California’s future water supplies depend on the outcomes of four intertwined battles -- Since the earliest years of its history, California has been a political battlefield over divvying up the state’s water. The intensity of the multisided conflict, like water itself, ebbs and flows. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 9/11/26

Power

California survived the hottest August on record without needing Flex Alerts. Here’s why -- Over the last few years, California has quietly but dramatically increased the resiliency of its electrical grid through a significant expansion in battery energy storage. These batteries hold onto solar energy captured during the day, so it can be sent to the grid as demand peaks in the evening and morning, when most people are at home running air conditioners and other appliances. Clara Harter in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

AI

Anthropic Says Iran Used Its American AI Model to Target U.S. Navy Warships -- An Anthropic report says Iran used American-developed AI models to try to target U.S. Navy ships in the Middle East. Anthropic said it disrupted the plot, which used its Claude model to track warships and look for communication vulnerabilities. Robbie Gramer, Michael R. Gordon and Omar Abdel-Baqui in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 9/11/26

Here’s why it’s so hard to keep AI agents from going rogue -- The techniques that made chatbots more capable can also bake in a tendency to hack and evade human oversight. Gerrit De Vynck and Nitasha Tiku in the Washington Post$ -- 9/11/26

Workplace

San Francisco AI start-up apologizes for ‘Stop Hiring Humans’ billboards -- Artisan, the San Francisco AI start-up behind the “Stop Hiring Humans” billboards that startled Bay Area commuters and helped make the company a viral name in tech says it was retiring its slogan. Aidin Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

California clears the way for Uber and Lyft driver union -- The California Gig Workers Union will give drivers a seat at the table to negotiate pay, working conditions and benefits, union organizers said. California is the third state to allow ride-hailing drivers to unionize, following Washington in 2022 and Massachusetts in 2024. Caroline Petrow-Cohen in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

SpaceX can still be sued for discrimination in California after move, court rules -- A state appeals court says Elon Musk’s SpaceX can be sued for discrimination against a female employee in California, where the giant aerospace company was then based, rather than in Washington state where she worked. California civil rights laws are generally stronger than laws in other states. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

ICE

Controversial ICE detention center near Gilroy may hinge on one issue: Toilets -- Whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement can continue construction on a controversial planned detention center outside of Gilroy could come down to one messy detail: toilets. Sara DiNatale in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

Confusion over protected status leaves employers and Salvadoran immigrants scrambling -- With a crucial deadline passed and no clear decision on Temporary Protected Status, 170,000 Salvadoran immigrants nationwide remain in legal limbo, including 36,000 in California. Some Salvadoran TPS holders have already been fired, while others were reinstated after the federal government announced that their work authorization continues for now. Itzel Luna and Andrea Castillo in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

El Niño

California coast braces for another battering as new El Niño-related wave emerges in Pacific -- This isn’t a surfable wave, and it wouldn’t be overtly noticeable to swimmers or boaters either. But it is expected to increase the sea level off the California coast by another 6 inches or so, and its effects could last months, according to Dillon Amaya, an expert on coastally trapped waves and an assistant professor at North Carolina State University’s Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Rong-Gong Lin II in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Dana Point declares local emergency after at least 16 homes are damaged by strong surf -- City officials deemed nine oceanfront homes unsafe for inhabitants as of Wednesday night, “red-tagging” them — adding two from prior evaluations. At least seven homes are now “yellow-tagged,” city officials said, which indicate some structural damage. Only two had been yellow-tagged the day prior. Grace Toohey in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

31 homes red-tagged in Malibu after sinkhole swallows Nicolas Cage’s driveway -- As of Wednesday in Malibu, 31 homes were red-tagged, residents were evacuated, and a state of emergency was declared after pounding surf and coastal erosion opened a massive sinkhole at actor Nicolas Cage’s beachfront home early Tuesday, threatening the integrity of nearby structures along Sea Level Drive. The item is in the LA Daily News -- 9/11/26

Emergency declared to save Highway 101 from beach erosion in Carlsbad -- Carlsbad declared a local emergency Wednesday to expedite repairs of coastal erosion that threatens to undermine Carlsbad Boulevard, also known as the historic Highway 101. Phil Diehl in the San Diego Union Tribune -- 9/11/26

Insurance

L.A. County probes Farmers Insurance Company’s handling of wildfire claims -- Los Angeles County launched a probe into Farmers Insurance Company’s handling of claims by policyholders impacted by last year’s devastating Eaton and Palisades wildfires, after a growing number of residents complained of delays, denials and underpayments. Melody Petersen in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Housing

L.A. renters dream of Las Vegas, but outsiders steer clear of L.A., survey shows -- A Zillow report highlights how severe rent burdens and years of underbuilding in Los Angeles are driving residents out, even as immigration masks the local exodus. Annika Duneja in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

VA homeless housing in West L.A. estimated to cost a record $1.25 million per unit -- A long-promised makeover of the VA’s West L.A.’s historic Building 13 will create just 24 units of homeless veteran housing at an estimated $1.25 million per apartment, likely a record-setting cost. Doug Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Education

Teaching 9/11 to a generation that didn’t live through it: ‘We just heard tales of it’ -- Trent Nettles was a toddler on Sept. 11, 2001. Now 27, Nettles is an 11th-grade Advanced Placement U.S. history teacher — too young to remember the day but responsible for teaching it to students who weren’t yet born when it happened. His challenge was to make this lesson more than just another unit on the syllabus. Jaweed Kaleem, Howard Blume and Emily Woodruff in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Street

‘Inedible’ food ranked the worst of San Francisco jail conditions -- In a recent survey of various quality-of-life conditions inside San Francisco jails, incarcerated people reserved their most negative ratings for the taste and quality of food. Abigail Vân Neely in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

Also

Trump administration says California can’t ban disposable camping propane canisters -- The Trump administration this week moved to block California's plan to phase out sales of the single-use propane cylinders that campers use to fuel their camping stoves. Gregory Thomas in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/26

POTUS 47

Contractor Blames Its Own Repairs, Not Vandals, for Reflecting Pool FailureContractor Blames Its Own Repairs, Not Vandals, for Reflecting Pool Failure -- The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose, according to government documents reviewed by The New York Times. David A. Fahrenthold and Maxine Joselow in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/26

Diesel Jumps Above $6 a Gallon, Adding to Inflation Pressure -- Mounting fears that widening clashes in the Middle East could further disrupt energy supplies briefly pushed the price of oil to about $110 a barrel on Friday, while U.S. diesel prices rose above $6 a gallon. Gregory Schmidt in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/26

Prosecutor brought in to lead investigation of Trump foes tells AP that he has resigned his position -- The departure injects instant tumult into an investigation targeting former government officials who have investigated Trump over the last decade, including in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer Associated Press Alan Feuer in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/26

Kimmel says interview with James Talarico won’t air on TV under pressure from the FCC -- Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said the agency that regulates television “threatened” the show and that an interview with James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, will not air on television but on YouTube — thus bypassing any control or regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. Jesse Bedayn Associated Press Meg James in the Los Angeles Times$ Joe Flint in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 9/11/26

Questions swirl over Trump’s pledge to give $5,000 payouts if GOP wins -- President Trump vowed to send every U.S. adult a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” if Republicans keep control of Congress, a stunning midterm gambit that would cost more than $1 trillion and need lawmakers’ approval. Economists balked at the proposal, questioning whether any future Congress — regardless of party control — would pass a plan that would balloon the national debt and annual deficit. Ana Ceballos and Michael Wilner in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

Behind the Scenes, Vance Gathered Unvarnished Views of the Iran War -- Vice President JD Vance received sobering assessments about the war that did not line up with what he, President Trump and other top administration officials were saying publicly. Jonathan Swan, Adam Entous and Maggie Haberman in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/26

The Trump administration wants to revise the latest National Climate Assessment—three years after publication -- The Trump administration is moving to amend the 2023 National Climate Assessment to recast worst‑case climate scenarios as implausible and limit their use in federal decision‑making. Hayley Smith in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/26

25 Years After 9/11, Trump Personifies a Nation Moving On -- Of all of America’s five living presidents, none was closer to ground zero on the day that hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center than Donald J. Trump. But on the 25th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, none will be farther away. Peter Baker in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/26