Capitol Weekly Podcast

We're joined today by Christina Snider-Ashtari, Tribal Affairs Secretary to Governor Gavin Newsom and head of the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs. Snider-Ashtari was first appointed to the position in 2018 by Governor Brown and previously served as Executive Secretary of the California Native American Heritage Commission. We spoke to her about both governors' approaches to Tribal policy, about...

Chris Lehane has a solid gold resume in professional politics: consultant and oppo research in the Clinton White House, Press Secretary to VP Al Gore, and the source of the report on the "vast right wing conspiracy" so infamously cited by Hillary Clinton. Lehane also handles a wide array of corporate, Labor, entertainment and sports clients. Until recently he was Head of Global Policy and Public A...

Republican Suzette Martinez Valladares was elected to the California State Assembly in 2020 and served for two years, narrowly losing a reelection bid for the newly drawn 40th Assembly district, then winning a seat in the Senate in 2024. In the Assembly, Valladares was a founding member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. She also serves as the Minority Whip - the first Senate Republican Whi...

Founded in 1918, the California Manufacturers and Technology Association promotes policies designed to stimulate economic growth and create jobs. Today, CMTA represents 400 manufacturing businesses in California, which is the largest manufacturing state in the country. Heading up that operation is Lance Hastings, who began his career as a capitol staffer and has a long history with California trad...

Today we welcome Amy O’Gorman Jenkins, the state’s preeminent cannabis lobbyist - so much so that she earned the nickname "Pot Girl" back when Gavin Newsom was still just the Lieutenant Gov. Jenkins, was one of the first lobbyists for the state's once-maligned, now coveted, cannabis industry, first when she worked out of Darius Anderson's shop, then later at her own firm, Precision Advocacy. She w...

This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at the California Insurance Crisis, which was held in Sacramento on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 This is Panel 2: The Los Angeles Fires, featuring Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore; Steve Hawks, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety; Kelsey Szamet, Eaton Fire Survivors Network; Nancy Wallace, UC Berkeley Moderated by journa...

This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at the California Insurance Crisis, which was held in Sacramento on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 This is Panel 3: What Next?, featuring Sen. Roger Niello; Alex Hall, UCLA; John Norwood, Norwood Associates; and Denni Ritter, American Property Casualty Insurance Association Moderated by Rich Ehisen of Capitol Weekly Thanks to our Califo...

This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at the California Insurance Crisis, which was held in Sacramento on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. This is Panel 1: The State of the Insurance Industry, featuring Amy Bach of United Policyholders; Rex Frazier, Personal Insurance Federation of California; Meredith Fowlie, UC Berkeley. Moderated by Levi Sumagaysay of Calmatters Thanks to...

This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at the California Insurance Crisis, which was held in Sacramento on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. This is the KEYNOTE – CALIFORNIA INSURANCE COMMISSIONER RICARDO LARA Introduced by Rich Ehisen, Capitol Weekly Thanks to our California Conferences sponsors: THE TRIBAL ALLIANCE OF SOVEREIGN INDIAN NATIONS, WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCI...

In March, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a 22-bill package aimed at reforming the building permitting process in California, an effort to fast-track housing development statewide. Wicks described the package as an effort to “slash red tape, remove uncertainty and to drastically reduce the time it takes to get new housing approved and built” in California....

Our 400th episode! On today's show we welcome April Manatt, Executive Director of the California Problem Solvers Foundation. The California Problem Solvers' mission is to help elected officials find solutions through collaboration and mutual respect, and work in service to the people they represent. In short, to "put people over party," a nearly radical idea in today's hyper-partisan political env...

We have a packed show today: first up, we chat with California Secretary of State Shirley Weber about The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, proposed federal legislation that would require all Americans to reregister to vote, in person, with either a birth certificate or passport. Weber outlines concerns that the law would effectively disenfranchise millions of voters who may not hav...

Jeff Pearlman has been a sportswriter for three decades, and is the best-selling author of ten books on sports, including Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s , which was adapted as the HBO series Winning Time. In February 2025 he turned his attentions to the ultimate contact sport: politics.  His new Substack newsletter, The Truth OC, digs deep into Oran...

Democratic Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo joined us to talk about her legislative priorities, the Los Angeles Fires, the Chiquita Canyon Landfill environmental crisis, and why cuts to the VA are personal for her. And as always, we tell you Who Had the Worst Week in California Politics. 1:25 Best and worst jobs in California politics? 3:08 Welcome, Asm. Schiavo 3:35 The 3 Hs: housing, homelessness an...

California political data expert Paul Mitchell joins us to talk about his recent polls that explored public reaction to Governor Gavin Newsom's This is Gavin Newsom podcast, and the results of the first Capitol Weekly Insider Survey, which asked how and where the Capitol Community gets its news. 1:11 Capitol Weekly Internship application deadline: April 18 3:40 What about the Gov's podcast? 14:20...

Today we welcome Asm. David Tangipa, the freshman Republican legislator from the 8th Assembly District, and at 29, the youngest member of the California Legislature. Tangipa grew up off Watt Avenue in Sacramento, not for from McClellan Air Force Base. The impact that McClellan's closure had on Tangipa's friends and neighborhood left a lasting impression - and an awareness that policy decisions aff...

Longtime political columnist Dan Walters joins us to talk about his fifty years covering state capitol politics. Walters began covering politics in 1975 - just months after Jerry Brown was sworn in for his first term as Governor - and hasn't stopped since. He began writing his column for the Sacramento Union in 1981 and continued when he moved to the Union's crosstown rival The Sacramento Bee in 1...

Claire Conlon has a long history in the capitol community. She got her start as a legislative aide in 2011, and has held a wide variety of roles since, including Press Secretary for Senate leader Kevin de León and Chief of Staff to Asm. Cottie Petrie-Norris. While building that impressive resume, she did something unusual: she left. In 2017 Conlon left the capitol, the state, and eventually the co...

This Special Episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast was recorded live at Capitol Weekly’s conference The Resistance: California vs. Donald Trump , which was held in Sacramento on Wednesday, February 26, 2025 This is PANEL 2 – CLIMATE AND THE ENVIRONMENT Panelists: Kip Lipper, Chief Policy Advisor on Energy and Environment to the Senate pro Tem; Catherine Reheis-Boyd, Western States Petroleum Associ...

On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, Capitol Weekly presented an online conference, The Resistance: California vs. Donald Trump. This is PANEL 3 – IMMIGRATION Panelists:  Senator María Elena Durazo; Luis Alvarado, Luis Alvarado Public Affairs; Kevin R. Johnson, UC Davis School of Law; David Trujillo, ACLU California Action Moderated by Andrea Castillo, Los Angeles Times Thanks to our California Confer...

On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, Capitol Weekly presented an online conference, The Resistance: California vs. Donald Trump. This is PANEL 1 – HEALTH CARE Panelists: Beth Malinowksi, SEIU California; Devon Mathis, California Assembly (Ret.); Amanda McAllister-Wallner, Health Access California; Dr. Richard Pan, California Senate (Ret.); Moderated by Samantha Young, KFF Health News Please note: Duri...

On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, Capitol Weekly presented an online conference, The Resistance: California vs. Donald Trump. President Donald J. Trump launched his second term with a flurry of executive orders on immigration, energy and climate, health care, civil rights and more. California led the resistance to administration policies during the first Trump Administration, suing the federal gove...

Brian Joseph has worked as a newspaper reporter and investigative journalist for two decades, writing for Capitol Weekly, the Orange County Register, the Sacramento Bee and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, among other publications. He recently released his first book: Vegas Concierge: Sex Trafficking, Hip Hop and Corruption in America . Using public and private records as well as exclusive, first-per...

Our guest today is the Parliamentarian to the Assembly Speaker, Brian Ebbert. Ebbert has spent over three decades in the Assembly starting as an Assistant Clerk in 1991. He served as Assembly Floor Director from 2017 to 2014; he announced his retirement last year (and even got the cake) but agreed at the end of 2024 to stay on one more year as Assembly Parliamentarian What does the Assembly Parlia...

It may not feel like it, but Donald J. Trump began his second presidential term less than three weeks ago. The reality TV star turned GOP president wasted no time implementing his agenda, issuing dozens of Executive Orders, clearcutting opposition officials and entrusting billionaire donor Elon Musk with a broad mandate to revise the functions of the US government, often in seeming conflict with f...