Capitol Weekly Podcast

A special edition of the Capitol Weekly Podcast broadcasting panels from our annual look at health care in the Golden State. We focused this year on the unprecedented public health emergency: COVID-19. Exactly six months and one day after the first Shelter-in-Place order, we examined the response to the crisis and looked at what comes next. A digital version of the program for the event, with spea...

Lobbyist Jennifer Fearing operates Fearless Advocacy, a small "white hat" lobbying outfit that represents nonprofits, animal rights groups, environmentalists and other clients with feel-good causes. With clients like these, Fearing isn't the highest-billing advocate on the block, but her record at the capitol is the envy of many of her peers. She shared her most immediate concern: the pa...

Republican political strategist Jon Fleischman has been a significant voice in California conservative circles for well over a decade; he formerly served as the Executive Director of the state GOP and his Flash Report blog, founded in 2005, was one of the first (and for a time, perhaps the most influential) insider political blogs in the state. While Fleischman is a rock-ribbed conservative with p...

Last week saw dramatic developments in the ongoing Dynamex/AB5/gig economy saga: following the August 13 ruling that confirmed an August 20 deadline for Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers as employees, the two companies announced that they planned to cease operations in California rather than comply. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo issued statements calling o...

Lobbyist Aaron Read is the definiton of "venerable" in Sacramento's Capitol Community: he began his lobbying career advocating for California state employees while Reagan was governor and Willie Brown was still just the Assemblyman from the 13th District. Read formed Aaron Read and Associates in 1978 and has been a major force in Sacramento ever since. He has a bevy of clients, many of w...

It's that time of year again, and Capitol Weekly's Top 100 is upon us! Once again, we take our annual stab at outlining the semi-visible UN-elected power structure that surrounds the elected officials who make legislation, regulations, etc -- the lobbyists, staffers, donors, lawyers, activists, campaign strategists, labor and business leaders and even journalists who play a HUGE role in the develo...

Today's guest is Dr. Barbara O'Connor, a Professor Emeritus at CSU Sacramento, and a household name for folks with deep roots in California public policy. She worked the McGovern campaign, has been an AARP board member, and was named one of Newsweek’s “50 for the Future,” a feature on the 50 people who will set policy and direction for global communications. And, she started Sacramento's first NPR...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created havoc for California’s economy and closed thousands of schools across the state. Families, students and business owners are relying more heavily than ever on high-speed internet connectivity - but for many Californians, access to this essential technology is limited. Many do not have access to high speed broadband or lack the essential computers/cell phones to uti...

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented heretofore-unseen challenges to students and teachers who have suddenly found themselves the "guinea pigs" in a massive distance learning experiment. With coronavirus infections and deaths climbing in California, a growing number of districts have said they will not be returning to in-person classes in the fall, leaving teachers scrambling to create co...

California's Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission is generally regarded as a model of its kind, achieving balance and representation through a carefully constructed mix of quotas, political gamesmanship and random selection. How then, did the first round of new commissioners selected on July 2 (eight of a total of 14)fail to include a single Latino, the state's largest ethnic group? When...

Senator Kamala Harris looms large on Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden's list of potential VP picks - he has said that he will pick a woman as running mate, and Harris is leading the 'pundit polls' as the most likely choice. If Harris is selected, and the Biden/Harris ticket goes on to win the November election, she will vacate her Senate seat in January 2021, with Governor Gavin Newsom ta...

Longtime Clean Air activist Bill Magavern joins us to chat, and brings some welcome good news: with the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people out of their cars, many areas of California have seen a decrease in air pollution. Those gains may dissipate as Californians return to the roads, but two coming environmental rule changes could have a big impact going forward: the Advanced Clean Truck Rule will r...

Politics often get ugly, and there is nothing uglier than Opposition Research: digging up dirt on your opponent - or sometimes your own candidate. No one knows Oppo better than Joe Rodota, who honed his dark art in the Reagan White House, the Schwarzenegger campaign and other high-profile races in California and across the country. Joe just launched a new podcast, Oppo File, where he examines the...

The Capitol Weekly Podcast welcomes Maeley Tom, a longtime legislative staffer and Democratic Party stalwart who played a pioneering role as one of the first Asian women in California's capitol. Tom's new memoir, "I'm Not Who You Think I Am" has just been published, and she joins (from a safe social distance) editor John Howard to chat about her career in Sacramento and the amazing backs...

Paula Treat, the grande dame of Sacramento contract lobbyists, has had a wide range of clients including TESLA, UBER, CCPOA, the California Medical Association and several Indian tribes, over her four decade career. She called in from her cabin in Truckee to do her very first podcast ever, and spoke about the challenges of lobbying during a pandemic, what to expect as California begins to reopen,...

Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, joins us to talk about how his members are coping with the Coronavirus, and what to expect as California reopens. What you can't expect is for things to be the same as they were before COVID-19. Businesses are revising work-from-home and other policies, and most of his members expect to see dramatic changes in the workplace in the wake of the pandemic. W...

Today we are joined by Rose Kapolczynski, a veteran campaign and communications strategist with more than three decades of experience. Rose is best known for running Senator Barbara Boxer’s campaigns, from her initial upset victory in 1992 to her final race against Carly Fiorina in 2010. These days she is working with Boxer on efforts to get Democrats elected, and is also handling the congressiona...

Today we're joined by Rob Stutzman, longtime GOP strategist, the President of Stutzman Public Affairs, and former communications director for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The race for CA25 was being called just as we taped this podcast - Rob weighs in on what Mike Garcia's victory in a Clinton +6 district means for November, and for the Republican Party in general. No stranger to presidential c...

Mike Madrid, longtime GOP consultant, and former Political Director for the state Republican Party, joins us to talk about two of his recent skirmishes: a public battle with a squirrel family that occupied an eave of his house, and his even more public battle with the family that occupies the White House. Madrid has made no secret of his distaste for the Trump wing of the Republican Party, calling...

As California looks at loosening some restrictions on non-essential businesses, one business has been going about their work as best they can all along: the construction industry. Michele Daugherty, President of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Northern California, joined us to talk about the challenges facing the industry in the midst of a pandemic, and about the efforts being made to k...

Political data expert Paul Mitchell joins us by phone (remote from his daughter's packed closet) to talk about the mechanics of a vote-by-mail election in November, how COVID-19 is impacting the prospects for redistricting, and what he learned by turning 50 while on quarantine. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal da...

Following the harrowing scenes of voters braving long lines and exposure to the Coronavirus on Primary Election Day in Wisconsin, there is a renewed discussion of the importance of Vote By Mail options. California has long been a leader in this area, but could we see an ALL VBM election by November? Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation joins us to talk about the positives and negatives...

The state capitol is on Covid-19 lockdown for at least another few weeks, with most legislators and staff working from home. Longtime Senate Staffer Kip Lipper joins us from his Clarksburg digs to talk about how the quarantine is affecting pending legislation, lobbying, the state budget and what it's like doing the people's business remotely in the era of the coronavirus. Hosted by Simplecast, an...

Longtime journalist Steve Weigand joins John Howard and Tim Foster to talk about his new book, "The Dancer, the Dreamers, and the Queen of Romania: How an Unlikely Quartet Created America's Most Improbable Art Museum." The book tells the story of the Maryhill Museum in Klickitat, Washington and the wildly different individuals, including SF socialite Alma Spreckels, and Queen Marie of Ro...

The Kabatecks, John and Brian, join us for another special KabaTalks episode of the Capitol Weekly Podcast. As usual, the brothers find themselves on opposite sides of a contentious issue – namely employer rights vs. workers’ rights in the age of coronavirus. John, a voice for small business, maintains that AB5 should be suspended in the face of a worldwide calamity that is swamping small business...