Capitol Weekly Podcast

This Special Episode was recorded Thursday, March 9, 2023 at Capitol Weekly's Conference on Housing, which was held live in Sacramento at the California Endowment Conference Center. Panel 1: Office to Housing Conversion. The first panel of the day examines the proposal to convert offices to housing. Panelists: Danny Curtin, California Conference of Carpenters; Dan Dunmoyer, California Building Ind...

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (which everyone calls BART) is a the lifeline of the Bay Area: a heavy-rail public transit system that operates in five counties with 50 stations. Connecting the suburbs to urban cities through 131 miles of track, BART serves a wildly diverse customer base. One of the groups most dependent on BART is the region's homeless population - and that depe...

Earlier this month, the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California (CBHDA) released a study on the number of healthcare workers available to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment in California. The news is not good. "More than 90% of counties reported difficulty in recruiting Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Licensed Marriage and Family Counselors, and psychiatrist...

Educator Marshall Tuck came within a hair of becoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction twice, narrowly losing both the 2014 and 2018 elections (first to incumbent Tom Torlakson, and then to Tony Thurmond).  Tuck first came to statewide prominence as an education advisor to LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who tapped him to head the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. Following his two run...

Los Angeles is never short of political news, and between the mayor's race and the fallout from the leaked recording of city council members, the past few months have been  particularly newsworthy. We checked in with Robb Korinke, a principal, along with Mike Madrid, at GrassrootsLab, and the publisher of several newsletters on California local governments. He gave us an update on how the Bass adm...

With nearly five decades of advocacy under his belt, there are only a handful of people who have lobbied in Sacramento longer than John Norwood. He entered the business in 1974, shortly after graduating from Sac State. To put that in context: Nixon was president, Reagan was governor and Gavin Newsom was in elementary school. Future senator Alex Padilla was still in diapers. A lawyer as well as a l...

In the wake of the horrific January 21 shooting that killed 11 people in Monterey Park, Gov. Newsom visited hospitalized survivors.  His conversation with one patient revealed an added stress for survivors of gun violence and other violent crime: the inability to cover expenses incurred or wages lost due to the incident. "The first thing [the patient] said to me is, 'How many days I'm going to be...

Richard Polanco served 16 years in the legislature, eight years in each house. Elected to the Assembly in 1986, he soon began efforts to build the Latino coalition in the legislature, ultimately helping expand the number of Latino legislators from seven members to 24 by the time he left office in 2002.  Polanco was a shrewd and energetic organizer who grew Latino political power just as anti-immig...

This week marks a huge change at Capitol Weekly, and the end of an era in Sacramento: editor John Howard is retiring. John arrived in the AP's Sacramento Bureau in 1980 and became their California state politics reporter in 1982 - Jerry Brown was governor, and Willie Brown was about to become Speaker. He has covered the capitol every day since, first for AP, then for a variety of publications incl...

High drama prevails in Washington DC this week, where GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has narrowly lost thirteen votes for the Speakership, beating a record that went back to before the Civil War. Speaking of civil war, members of the Freedom Caucus, most vocally Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, are in open rebellion against McCarthy's leadership. With the house narrowly divided, McCarthy can onl...

Podcast hosts John Howard and Tim Foster talk about the biggest California political news stories of the past year - the secret tapes of several Los Angeles City Council members, housing and homelessness, the November elections and more.  Plus, they tell you who had the Worst Week in California Politics. Show Notes: :27 The tape 2:47 Housing and homelessness 4:29 The Southwest Airlines meltdown 5:...

Proposition 30, the ambitious plan to combat wildfires and fund EV infrastructure throughout the state by taxing California's wealthiest citizens failed at the ballot box in November. Early polls found broad support for the measure, but a strong opposition campaign led by Gov. Newsom and the CTA turned the tide and ultimately derailed the measure. We spoke with Bill Magavern, Policy Director of th...

With the results of the November election now finalized, 30% of California legislators are newcomers to their offices. Assemblyman Josh Hoover, (R) turned AD7 red, flipping a Sacramento area seat that had voted for Democrat Ken Cooley for four terms. If Hoover is new to the Assembly, he is no stranger to the capitol: he was chief of staff to former Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, who left to take a seat...

Shaquille O'Neal. The Golden State Killer. Governors Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newson.  Longtime Associated Press Photographer Rich Pedroncelli has photographed them all - and just about every other prominent person to make an appearance in California's capitol city. Now, after over three decades behind the lens, he is hanging up his press pass. Capitol Weekly's John Howard of...

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso emerged from the Los Angeles mayor's race primary as the only serious contender to the frontrunner, Congresswoman Karen Bass. Bass, a former Assembly Speaker who was rumored to be on Joe Biden's shortlist of VP candidates, had the name ID, but Caruso had the money. A lot of it. By the end of the bruising campaign, Caruso had burned though over $100 million - mostl...

This episode was recorded Thursday, November 10 at Capitol Weekly's Post-Mortem of the 2022 Election, which was held via Zoom. This Panel, the third of the day, analyzed the results of the midterm and offers a look ahead. What happens now? Does Gov. Newsom push ahead with a presidential campaign? What does the Speakership battle portend? What’s next in the battle over abortion rights? And what’s w...

This episode was recorded Thursday, November 10 at Capitol Weekly's Post-Mortem of the 2022 Election, which was held via Zoom. The Keynote of the Post-Mortem was a conversation between Mike Madrid, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project and noted expert on Latino voting trends, and John Howard, the editor of Capitol Weekly. Support for Capitol Weekly's Election Post-Mortem was provided by The Tribal...

This episode was recorded Thursday, November 10 at Capitol Weekly's Post-Mortem of the 2022 Election, which was held via Zoom. This Panel, the second of the day, was a rundown on the Ballot Measures up for approval. California voters confronted unprecedented campaign spending, even by California standards, and an array of familiar themes – tax the rich, gambling, abortion rights and the environmen...

This episode was recorded Thursday, November 10 at Capitol Weekly's Post-Mortem of the 2022 Election, which was held via Zoom. This Panel, the first of the day, was a rundown on key California races – the battles for the constitutional offices, Congress and the Legislature, and major local elections, including the LA mayoral race. Our panelists talk about this very atypical Midterm election and pr...

With the 2022 election just days away, we asked longtime political party animals Jim Brulte and Garry South to weigh in on what they expect to see on Tuesday and make predictions on . Brulte, the former head of the California Republican Party, predicts a good night for Republicans nationally and expects tight CA congressional districts to swing the GOP's way. Garry South, a high profile Democratic...

It's our Halloween episode, so it's an appropriate time to look at an attempt to bring a dead bill back to life! Democratic Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, who was elected in June to finish Autumn Burke's term in the 62nd District, has promised to reintroduce AB 1577,  Asm. Mark Stone's bill to unionize the legislature. The bill died in committee earlier this year after receiving substantial support...

Gambling is big business in California, and it could be even bigger business, depending on what happens with propositions 26 and 27, each of which would expand sports betting opportunities in the state - albeit in very different ways. However, current polling indicates serious trouble ahead for each of these measures: despite nearly $600 million spent by various factions, the most likely outcome a...

Los Angeles saw the most intense political implosion in decades last week after an anonymous source released a secretly-taped recording of LA City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, and Ron Herrerra of the Los Angeles County Labor Federation, disparaging colleagues, making racist remarks and discussing strategies to reduce the political clout of Los Angeles' Black communi...

Political data-cruncher, and frequent Capitol Weekly Podcast guest, Paul Mitchell joins us to read the political tea leaves, 30 days out from the 2022 election.  Hang on! 27: What to look for, 30 days out 4:55 Candidate quality 7:43 Could control of the House come down to California's congressional delegation? 9:48 "There is a 60% chance that one party will win both (House and Senate)" 10:25 How d...

Today we look at Proposition 28, an Initiative on the November 8 Ballot that would guarantee substantial annual funding (+/- $1 billion per year) for Arts and Music programs in California schools, without raising taxes. If that sounds like it should be a popular idea, it is: Proponents say that the measure is polling above 70%. Perhaps most telling is the official opposition: There is none. Propon...