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.
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Issue No. 17 - July 3, 2020
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- Congress’ first-ever committee dedicated exclusively to climate change released a 538-page action plan Tuesday, stating that California and other US states face “an existential threat” from climate change and require robust government response. The report calls for 12 pillars of action, including reducing carbon pollution, making communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change and building a more equitable energy economy. Specific targets include bringing the US to net zero emissions by 2050 and delivering $8 trillion in health and climate benefits. Locally, it calls for the creation of “clean energy” jobs, a field in which more than 100,000 workers in California have been laid off due to the coronavirus pandemic, and recommends timely action on several California-introduced climate bills, including the Wildfire Defense Act and the West Coast Ocean Protection Act.
- Fossil fuel and utility companies are attempting to use COVID-19 to request delays in regulations. On Monday, state oil and gas regulator CalGEM blocked Southern California Gas Co.’s effort to delay required safety testing at the company’s Aliso Canyon storage field, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stay-at-home orders. The Aliso field was the site of a record-setting gas leak that spewed more than 100,000 tons of heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere and sickened residents of the nearby Porter Ranch neighborhood.
- The state of California has passed a budget that attempts to address the economic impact of the continuing COVID-19 crisis. While school funding remains level with last year, many payments are being delayed, with local districts having to plug the gaps in the interim. Restrictions on drawing from the state’s welfare assistance program are being eased. Additional funds have been earmarked for converting hotels into housing for the unhoused ($550 million to purchase and renovate, another $50 million to counties for operation), and reducing business tax breaks is a component in reducing the budget shortfall. Newsom’s campaign promises of a single-payer healthcare system, walked back even before the current crisis, have been essentially abandoned despite a Democratic supermajority in the state government.
- The Los Angeles Board of Education voted 4–3 in favor of a 35% reduction to the budget of the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD). Following a week of sustained pressure from activists groups, including Black Lives Matter-LA and LA Students Deserve, board members compromised by folding elements of the motions proposed last week into an amendment to this year's budget. The amendment cuts the LASPD budget by $25 million, restricts officers from wearing uniforms and limits them to the perimeters of school campuses. A task force convened by Superintendent Austin Beutner, thought after last week's impasse to be taking over the issue of police reform, will now play catch-up in studying how best to implement the board's decision. The commander of the LASPD resigned the following the day.
- As protests continue against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s killing of Andres Guardado, the Los Angeles Times has sued the department for withholding public records related to deputy misconduct in violation of the recently passed California Public Records Act. The suit comes as the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training has refused to publish information on the surveillance technology it uses, citing copyright laws. Andres Guardado’s family is also demanding that the results of his autopsy be released.
- Citing cost, California is halting its plans to expand COVID-19 testing into rural towns and urban neighborhoods — right as cases and hospitalizations surge in the state.
- Black and Latinx Angelenos have double the mortality rate from coronavirus as white residents. In addition to disproportionately working in low-wage front-line jobs at higher risk of exposure to the virus, Black and Latinx residents face health challenges caused by structural racism, limited access to healthcare, and chronic stress.
- Asian American Californians have reported over 800 incidents of racist verbal abuse, shunning and physical assaults since the beginning of the pandemic.
- In the same week that construction crews at SoFi Stadium finished raising a 2,200-ton video screen over the field, nearby residents are organizing to prevent landlords from pushing them out with escalating rent. The Lennox-Inglewood Tenants Union has accused landlords of renovating empty units near the Rams and Chargers’ new stadium to attract new tenants while disregarding units — held by long-standing tenants of color — that have fallen into disrepair. “The big capitalists saw Inglewood, and they saw money signs,” said one organizer. “It was always the plan to get long-time tenants out, Black and brown, poor and low-income tenants out, and get a different demographic with a different income bracket in here.”
- Members of the Kumeyaay Nation, which spans both sides of the California–Mexico border, physically blocked construction of the border wall on Monday. Community members are protecting ancestral lands from desecration and are demanding an immediate halt to construction of the wall on Kumeyaay land.
- More than 900 coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in the last two weeks alone at San Quentin state prison, bringing the total number of cases to over 1,100 infected out of the 3,700 people being held at the prison. The new outbreak began after a transfer of 121 inmates from the California Institute for Men in Chino, a prison with an existing coronavirus outbreak. The transfer has been denounced by public health officials.
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