The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.

Issue No. 214 - September 6, 2024

State Politics

• The state legislative session ended on August 31; hundreds of bills now sit with Governor Newsom to sign or veto by the September 30 deadline.

• Governor Newsom has called for a special legislative session in the fall, specifically to pass SB 950, legislation that is intended to prevent spikes in the cost of gas. The Assembly did not vote on SB 950 this session, after it was passed in the Senate.

• Several bills this session were the result of work done by the California Reparations Task Force, which released it final report in 2023. However, two significant bills – establishing a statewide reparations agency and establishing a reparations fund – were withdrawn during the last week of the session. Activists protested the decision this weekend.

• The legislature considered several bills regulating the use of artificial intelligence this session. CalMatters covers what passed and what failed to pass, and which bills Governor Newsom is under pressure to veto. Thursday, the Governor issued a much derided statement that he “seeks to harness the power of GenAI to address homelessness.”

City Politics

• LA Public Press marks the progress through the LA City Council of a bill calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

• The “protest bubble” motion, which would ban protests across a wide swath of Los Angeles and was introduced by Councilmembers Yaroslavsky and Blumenfield to target pro-Palestine protests, has been agendized for next Tuesday’s Committee on Public Safety meeting.

Labor

• Video game performers represented by SAG-AFTRA are now on strike for the sixth week. At issue are AI protections for video game performers. Over 80 games have signed interim agreements with the union, agreeing to the strike demands.

• The LA Times notes how little this legislative session delivered for the working class, especially compared to last year’s “hot labor summer.”

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Despite historically high starting salaries, one in six positions on the California Highway Patrol are unfilled.

Transportation

• Metro has expanded its “tap to exit” program to all ten end-of-line stations, after concluding that the pilot in North Hollywood had demonstrated that the policy decreases crime on Metro trains.

• The legislature passed several bills to combat speeding this session, including one that would mandate that all cars sold in state warn drivers when they are ten miles per hour over the speed limit, and another that would install speeding cameras on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

• Another piece of legislation allowing municipalities to seek federal loans for transportation infrastructure may allow the acceleration of the planned extension of the K-Line from LAX to Hollywood, which is currently on a three-decade timeline.

Environmental Justice

• Capital & Main rounds up some of the bills the legislature passed this session to regulate in-state oil drilling, as well as the millions spent by the oil industry on ads to lobby the public against them.

• Following severe landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, utility companies have shut off power to several hundred homes. Governor Newsom has declared a state of emergency.

• In the final weeks of the summer, Southern California faces a relentless heat wave.