How well is CA racial justice law working?

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Racial Justice Act into law in September 2020, following the police murder of George Floyd. For the first time, defendants can put bias from any brush with the criminal legal system — from arrest to sentencing — on the stand.

However, a Garrison Project and CalMatters analysis of the Racial Justice Act found only about a dozen successful cases in which judges took action on racial bias in the legal process, an indicator of the “uphill battle,” as one attorney called it, to convince judges to bring these challenges.

The state, home to the largest criminal legal system in the U.S., does not keep data on Racial Justice Act cases. There’s no courthouse code for a motion made under the act, leaving no systematic way to track cases. Successes tend to spread by word of mouth, while the details of rejections are buried in court filings. In the absence of comprehensive data, the Garrison Project spoke with more than 40 attorneys, legal experts, and advocates, across more than a dozen counties to understand its effectiveness.

The results so far are mixed. A review of court documents, appellate rulings, and interviews with defense attorneys indicate the true power of a Racial Justice Act proceeding: the ability to add evidence of bias to the court record through motions.

• Elizabeth Lashley-Haynes, a deputy public defender for Los Angeles County: “You don’t know the importance of just going into the court and fighting it and having these conversations. It’s incredibly meaningful to be able to articulate and say to a judge, ‘No, this officer doing that is biased.’”

Read more on the Racial Justice Act in the story by Sean Kevin Campbell, a contributing reporter with The Garrison Project.

Californians consistently rank jobs and the economy as among the most pressing issues facing the state. And while the tech and entertainment industries grab a lot of Gov. Newsom’s attention, workers outside the Bay Area and Los Angeles are getting some focus, too.

As CalMatters economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay explains, the governor was in Fresno Thursday promoting a 20-year economic development plan submitted by counties in the Central Valley. The 502-page plan outlines how the region proposes to boost its agricultural industry and prepare for climate-related jobs. 

The Central Valley is one of 13 regions throughout the state working on these plans. In March, Newsom announced $182 million in grants to put the plans into action. In the Central Valley, where 1 in 5 people live below the poverty line, counties are asking for $58 billion in public and private investments by 2045, according to an August draft of its plan. 

The governor is expected to release a statewide blueprint in January based on the other 12 regional plans.

Read more about Newsom’s vow to leave no region behind in Levi’s story.

Trump prep: Newsom also said that the special legislative session he called is needed because even when he got along with President-elect Donald Trump during his first term, he still assaulted California on policy and money.

“We have the receipts,” Newsom said in response to reporters’ questions.

And Trump is proving with his appointments and rhetoric that he’s “hellbent” on doing more when he returns to the White House in January, the governor said. Specifically, Newsom said he’s concerned about the “chilling effect” of Trump’s mass deportation threats on legal immigrants and mixed status families.

It’s been three days since California’s first major storm of the rainy season sloshed ashore and hopefully everyone is staying safe and dry. (My windowsill leaked rainwater Wednesday, causing a small puddle to soak my living room rug, so that’s where I’m at.) 

This atmospheric river, intensified by a bomb cyclone from the Pacific Northwest, is expected to keep battering the West Coast into early next week. Flood warnings are in effect in parts of Northern California through Friday, and heavy snow is expected in the Sierra. The storm’s powerful winds have caused power outages and knocked down trees. But as of late Thursday, no major flooding in California had been reported.

But if there are devastating floods again, will aid quickly reach those in need?

Not if you look at what happened to families in Planada, a Latino-majority town in Merced County devastated by flooding in January 2023. 

As CalMatters’ Felicia Mello documents, only about $4 million of the $20 million in relief has been spent, most in payments to affected residents.

It took months for the state to send the money to Planada. And once it arrived, there was tension between residents who wanted direct aid and local officials who wanted to use some to fix infrastructure. Many residents work in low-wage agricultural jobs and are undocumented, which means they aren’t eligible for federal emergency aid. 

Read more on flood relief in Planada, as well as Pajaro in Monterey County, in Felicia’s story.

As California public schools struggle to bring student attendance back up to pre-pandemic levels, the latest state report offers a glimmer of hope.

In the new California School Dashboard — the state’s key data source that provides a snapshot of how K-12 students are faring — absenteeism dropped to 20% in 2023-24, which is better than the 30% rate in 2021-22, writes CalMatters K-12 education reporter Carolyn Jones. 

It’s evidence that schools’ efforts to reduce absenteeism are working, but it’s not as low as the pre-pandemic rate of 12%.

The dashboard, released Thursday by the California Department of Education, also shows that the high school graduation rate ticked up (86.4% from 86.2%), and suspension rates dropped slightly (from 3.6% to 3.3%).

But there is one cause for concern: While slightly more students are graduating high school, only about half of these graduates meet the admissions criteria from the University of California and California State University, and the number of those who are eligible dipped slightly from 45.2% last year to 44.9%.

Learn more about the dashboard’s latest findings in Carolyn’s story.

Speaking of graduation rates: Cal State reported this week that the university has fallen short of its goal to graduate 40% of its students who start as freshmen. As CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn explains, officials reported that the four-year graduation rate hit 36.2% this spring. While an all-time high, it’s still short of Cal State’s 2025 target. Graduation rates among Latino and Black students also hit well below the goals. Among transfer students who come from community colleges and graduate within two years, however, Cal State is closer to its 45% target, with 44% graduating.