California Federation of Republican Women
Officially Chartered by the National Federation of Republican Women
and the California Republican Party
From the Desk of Lydia Kanno, CFRW President
Submitted by Jeanne Solnordal, CFRW Legislative Analyst
January 29, 2024
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CA LEGISLATORS RETURN TO WORK
Here is what they have been up to:
Elections: To avoid another “Fong fiasco,” Assembly elections committee chairperson Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat, authored a measure to prohibit a person from filing nomination documents for more than one office at the same election. In the same vein, Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, a Los Angeles Democrat, introduced a bill that establishes when a candidate files to run for a second office, they automatically withdraw their candidacy from the first office.
Quick recap: The bill is in response to the recent court battles of Assemblymember Vince Fong. In December, the Republican from Bakersfield filed paperwork to run for both his state Assembly seat in 2024 as well as for Congress to succeed former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Despite state election officials rejecting his candidacy for Congress, a ruling by a Sacramento County Superior Court judge has allowed him to run in multiple races. The judge appeared to suggest the need for a fix, ruling that while “it somewhat defies common sense to find the law permits a candidate to run for two offices during the same election,” she was “compelled to interpret the law as it is written by the Legislature.”
Public transportation: Saying that there “is no reason for there to be 27 public transit agencies for just the Bay Area,” Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab of Fremont gut-and-amended a bill about electric vehicles into legislation that aims to consolidate the various public transit agencies operating across nine counties in the San Francisco Bay area. With several transit agencies across California struggling to avoid a “fiscal cliff,” some officials, including BART Board President Janice Li, view consolidation as a key step towards stability.
Cannabis: In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked a bill to legalize “cannabis cafes” — where retailers can sell regular food and drinks to customers — arguing that it would undermine the state’s “long-standing smoke-free workplace protections.” Now Assemblymember Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco and author of that bill, is trying again. In a statement Thursday, Haney announced he was reintroducing the measure to allow “businesses where smoking (cannabis) is already happening to sell coffee and food…”
Articles courtesy of CalMatters: Lynn La
