Could San Bernardino County really split from CA?

If you want to see the resistance to California’s liberal governance up close and personal, meet Jeff Burum. 

He’s a real estate developer who is behind the secession effort in San Bernardino County, and CalMatters Capitol reporter Alexei Koseff spent some time with him to understand his reasons and motivations.

After moving to California to attend college in Los Angeles County, Burum grew increasingly frustrated with the state government and how it became “inefficient through its growth.” He was especially exasperated by the state’s handling of its budget surplus two years ago, which he said was “porked out, instead of being invested in our future.” 

Contending that California has deprived San Bernardino County of its share of resources, Burum persuaded the board of supervisors in 2022 to put a measure on the local ballot asking voters whether the county should look into options to “obtain its fair share of state and federal resources,” including secession. A little more than half of voters supported the proposal. 

Burum: “People are revolting because they can’t relate to the purpose of government when we were created. When the government doesn’t realize it’s become one of the bad actors, it’s time to speak up.”

There are other places in California where conservative backlash is rising: In Huntington Beach, the city council has banned the Pride flag from City Hall and created a review panel to monitor library books. A handful of school boards across the state have also enacted policies requiring staff to notify parents if their children identify as transgender. And local resistance against abortion clinics has emerged in Beverly Hills and the Inland Empire. 

But there has been backlash to the backlash as well. Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing Huntington Beach to stop its voter identification requirement, and a bill in the Legislature would prevent them statewide. In March, voters in Orange and Woodland recalled school board trustees who opposed transgender inclusivity. Another school trustee could be booted Tuesday in Temecula Valley.

Conservatives elsewhere in California, however, are not going as far as breaking away from the rest of the state, like San Bernardino County.

But Burum’s mission may meet a similar fate as the 220 other failed attempts to break up California since its founding: By June 11, the county plans to release an analysis on the feasibility and financial impact of secession. At that point, the numbers may reveal that it will not make any sense to go further.

Read more about this latest secession effort in Alexei’s story.

Reminder: While Democrats control most of the power in California, Republicans are still in the fight. And while former President Donald Trump lost to President Biden in 2020, Trump still won more than 6 million votes.

The California Republican Party also remains firmly in Trump’s grasp. It’s unclear whether last week’s 34 felony convictions in the New York “hush money” case will move the needle, but it’s unlikely: State GOP leader Jessica Millan Patterson responded with a full-throated defense of Trump, calling the verdicts a “dark day for our justice system” and election interference by Democrats.

And starting Thursday, Trump plans to headline three days of high-dollar fundraisers in San Francisco, Beverly Hills and Newport Beach.

In California’s push to build more affordable housing, advocates often point to a hurdle written into the state’s constitution. Article 34 prohibits the development, construction or acquisition of government-funded, low-income rental housing unless local voters say “yes.”

Critics also say the provision, adopted by voters in 1950, leads to racial discrimination in housing. So in 2022, the Legislature placed Senate Constitutional Amendment 2 on the November 2024 ballot to repeal those provisions.

But now one of the amendment’s primary champions is pulling back: Sen. Ben Allen has introduced a resolution to remove it from the November ballot. 

The El Segundo Democrat says that the Nov. 5 ballot (which includes 12 measures and likely more) is too crowded, making it costly to reach voters, and that his Senate Bill 469, which passed last year, addresses many of the key issues. 

Allen, in a statement: “Our focus with this right now must be in determining if recent efforts to boost housing production — including SB 469 — is making a significant dent in addressing the problem.”

Lawmakers have until June 27 to take measures off the ballot. 

In other legislative news: 

Corporate tax breaks: A bill that would have limited corporations from choosing who receives their online sales taxes has stalled, explains CalMatters Digital Democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow. Currently, sales tax revenue for online goods goes to the location of the seller. And because retailers have a big say about choosing their “point of sale” for tax purposes, they often receive tax kickbacks from cities. The bill by Sen. Steve Glazer would have funneled sales tax revenue to the city where the transaction took place. Though the Orinda Democrat had bipartisan backing, opposition to his bill was also bipartisan and it failed on the Senate floor last month. Of those who voted “no,” many represented a city that had an existing tax-sharing agreement with a major retailer. Read more on the tax fight in Ryan’s story.

Health care wage: Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed into law a bill that delays a higher minimum wage for health care workers to July 1. The phased-in $25 an hour wage had been set to take effect on June 1, but the budget crunch got in the way.

The University of California student worker strike is set to expand to three more campuses this week, bringing the total involved to six of the nine undergraduate UCs and the number of employees called to action to more than 31,000.

The new campuses are San Diego and Santa Barbara today and Irvine on Wednesday, joining Los Angeles and Davis, where workers began striking last week. The work stoppage started at UC Santa Cruz, where police cleared a protest encampment Friday. And as CalMatters higher education reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn has explained, it’s not about pay or working conditions, but mostly about how administrators handled student-led pro-Palestinian protests.

Rafael Jaime, president of UAW Local 4881, in a statement: “UC has used and condoned violence against workers and students peacefully protesting on campus for peace and freedom in Palestine.” 

The union wants all criminal charges and campus disciplinary actions dropped. 

The UC, however, says the strike is illegal and is urging a state labor board to stop it.

The president’s office, in a statement: “We are disheartened that UAW continues … encouraging its members to disrupt and harm the ability of our students to navigate finals and other critical year-end activities successfully. UAW’s goals of ‘maximize chaos and confusion’ have come to fruition, creating substantial and irreparable impacts on campuses and impacting our students at a crucial time of their education.”

In other education news: CalMatters tech reporter Khari Johnson dives into the use of artificial intelligence in the classroom — not by students but by teachers.

Though AI can help students write essays and complete other assignments, it can also help teachers evaluate students. English teachers in particular report that AI tools help grade papers faster and give students feedback about their grammar — saving them time and allowing them to focus on other writing aspects, such as creativity. 

But guidelines over school’s AI usage are lacking. The California Department of Education does not keep track of which schools use AI, or how much they are paying for it. Major tech groups that work with teachers on AI also have not issued guidelines using AI for grading. Read more on AI in schools in Khari’s story.

Bay Area transit agencies, like others across California, say they’re in financial distress. But a regional funding bill got put on hold. Find out why from CalMatters Capitol reporter Sameea Kamal.