Capitol Weekly Podcast

In a surprise move, Senator Kamala Harris suspended her run for the presidency today, ending what had once been a promising campaign, launched with great fanfare in front of 22,000 Oakland supporters. The announcement came after a slate of bad news; unimpressive fundraising numbers, an ugly public departure of key staffers and several devastating media reports describing a campaign in disarray. Ca...

Brian and John Kabateck visit the podcast to answer the question on everyone's lips: what is Thanksgiving like for two brothers who are on opposing sides of nearly every political fight in the state? John Kabateck is a lifelong Republican and longtime spokesperson for the NFIB; Brian Kabateck is a lifelong Democrat and the former head of the Consumer Attorneys Association. The two sat down with Jo...

California's Redwood forests are celebrated worldwide for their beauty and wonder - but few realize that the Redwoods came close to being logged out of existence. The first reports of California's giant trees made it back to the US in the mid 1800s, before statehood. It wasn't long afterward that loggers began harvesting the redwoods, often seeking the largest - and oldest - trees as their prime t...

California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander is celebrating 25 years since the organization was 'relaunched' in 1994 - she sat down with the CW podcast to talk about the history of CVF and what their top concerns are a quarter century after the kickoff. (In short: a paper trail for votes cast.) The Foundation is backing three pieces of legislation that are currently parked on the governor's...

Political data maven Paul Mitchell joins the Capitol Weekly Podcast's John Howard and Tim Foster to talk about the latest buzzword in the 2020 election lexicon -- electability. Electability is that indefinable something that every candidate wants but few have. It's hard to nail down, but you know it when you see it. Mitchell, the founder of the CA120 political column and one of our regular podcast...

We're celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Top 100 list next week, so on the Capitol Weekly Podcast today thought we'd chat with the person who was there and started it all -- Anthony York, a veteran reporter and the founding editor of the revamped Capitol Weekly. What began as a reward-your-friends-and-punish-your-enemies exercise in clickbait and cheek gradually morphed into a document of so...

The new SCOTUS decision on Gerrymandering was the perfect set-up for today's episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast: California State Auditor Elaine Howle sat down with us to talk about the process for choosing California's 2020 crop of Redistricting Commissioners - a fascinating and MUCH more complex process than most realize. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for infor...

Capitol Weekly's Journalism Internship program has been going for over ten years - in that time we've hosted dozens of interns from a variety of schools across the state (and even a few from outside the state!) Capitol Weekly interns have gone on to work at the Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Times, NBC news and even the White House! This semester we have had two interns: Julia Lindbloom of Sierra...

Roger Salazar and Hilary McLean were working together in Governor Gray Davis' Press Office before the current crop of Capitol Weekly interns were born - some may 'recall' that Davis' gig didn't end well. McLean and Salazar have recently have reunited at Alza Strategies, the public affairs/communications firm Salazar founded a few years back. They sat down with us to share stories of interviews gon...

California political data guru Paul Mitchell sits down with the CW Podcast to talk about the 2020 election - who's leading the polls, do the polls matter, who's raising money - and who's spending it. Looking at California, how will the state's new early primary play out, and what impact will the automatic DMV registration process have? All that and plenty more on this episode of the Capitol Weekly...

This week's podcast guest is Carl Guardino, head of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and a member of the California Transportation Commission. Carl Sat down with Capitol Weekly's John Howard and Tim Foster at K Street's bustling Ambrosia Cafe (trust us, it gets quieter after a minute or two) to offer insight into the battles over new housing in the Bay Area (including SB50) and the fierce figh...

Following the long and devastating drought that depleted the state's water reserves, California this year has seen heavy storms - and now boasts a historic snowpack. This week's snow measurement at Phillips Station, a site at 8000 feet in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe, indicates that the snowpack is over 160% of the norm. Chris Orrock of the California Department of Water Resources joins the podcast...

These days, Sami Gallegos is the Communications Director for Lorena Gonzalez, the high-visibility Democratic Assemblywoman representing AD80; but before she went to work inside the building Sami covered the capitol as a journalist. Full disclosure - Sami was a Capitol Weekly intern and later worked as a full time reporter for Capitol Weekly before leaving nonprofit journalism for the glamour and g...

Lenny Mendonca, newly-appointed as Governor Newsom's Chief Economic and Business Advisor, wears a lot of hats: he is also Chair of California's High Speed Rail Commission, Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company, and one of the founders and owners of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. We caught up with Lenny in his 18th floor office on J Street to chat about High Speed Rail, taxes - and...

California state senator Tom Umberg is one of the most prominent Democrats to break with Governor Gavin Newsom on his decision this week to put the death penalty on hold in the Golden State. A former federal prosecutor, Umberg argues that some crimes are so heinous that they deserve the ultimate penalty. We spoke with Senator Umberg about his stance on the issue and what to expect next from propon...

Sacramento lobby firm Capitol Advocacy celebrates 20 years this month - founder John Latimer sat down with the Capitol Weekly Podcast to talk about the nuts and bolts of the of lobbying business, the impact - or not - of term limits, and what's changed since he launched the firm two decades ago. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and...

With the new administration, the capitol has seen an influx of fresh staffers, many of whom are new to the Sacramento area. Where, they ask, does one go to eat, drink and be merry in this burg? If this describes you - no worries, Becky Grunewald has you covered. The longtime Sacto food critic offered a short list of favorites in a recent Capitol Weekly article (http://capitolweekly.net/newbies-eat...

Bob Wieckowski is more than just the Senator from California's 10th Senate District - he's also a bankruptcy lawyer, giving him unique insight into utility giant PG&E's recent bankruptcy declaration. John Howard and Tim Foster visited the Senator in his office to chat about the difference between federal and state bankruptcy laws, what happens to the companies with existing or pending contract...

Pacific Gas and Electric filed for bankruptcy protection on January 29, citing billions of dollars in potential liabilities from the utility giant's likely role in sparking a series of devastating California wildfires. San Francisco Chronicle reporter JD Morris has been covering the case and joins John Howard and Tim Foster to discuss the ramifications of bankruptcy including the possibility that...

Longtime California environmentalist Paul Mason sits down with Capitol Weekly's John Howard and Tim Foster for a wide-ranging discussion covering wildfires, the status of California's forests, Julia Butterfly Hill, John's 1980 Volkswagen Scirocco and the shifting focus of the state's environmental movement in the face of global climate change crisis. Also: a shameless plug for Capitol Weekly's int...

Columnist and reporter Dan Walters has been covering the career of Governor Jerry Brown since 1975, first in the pages of the Sacramento Union, then the Sacramento Bee, and currently for CALmatters. A frequent critic of the quixotic governor, Oakland Mayor and near-perennial presidential candidate, Walters has had a unique vantage point on Brown's many ups and downs - tracking his peripatetic care...

Here it is, December 11 and the final count of ballots cast in California's November 6 election was certified less than a week ago. And, as Jim Brulte and Kevin McCarthy have sadly noted, many GOP Election Night "wins" fell to Democrats as the final votes were tallied. Why? How? Nooner publisher and all-around politics expert Scott Lay joins us to talk about California's vote-counting pr...

In the wake of declining registration numbers and a devastating election in November, California Republicans are searching for a path back to relevance in the Golden State. Many Latino Republicans have voiced strong opposition to the GOP's current direction, decrying the Nationalist-leaning "Trump Wing" of the Party that has embraced loaded racial rhetoric and calls for a wall between Ca...

Former Assemblyman Dennis Mangers was elected to represent Orange County's AD73 in 1976 - swept to power in the Democratic wave that followed Watergate. The district reverted to form four years later when Mangers lost his seat to Republican Nolan Frizzelle. The district voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 - the first Dem presidential candidate to capture Orange County since FDR - and this month elec...

Assemblymember Ian Calderon's "Straw Law," AB1884, seeks to lessen the number of single-use plastic straws that end up in the ocean and other waterways. The bill, which has passed both Senate and Assembly and is now awaiting concurrence before heading to the governor's desk, would require sit-down restaurants in California to forgo automatically placing a straw in every drink, and instea...