CA borrows $3.4B to cover Medi-Cal budget gap

To cover a budget gap in Medi-Cal — which provides health insurance for roughly 15 million disabled and low-income Californians — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is borrowing $3.4 billion from the state’s general fund. 

As CalMatters’ Ana B. Ibarra and Kristen Hwang explain, the move comes during a time when the state is facing a limited budget and potential cuts to the program from the federal government.

Republican legislators are attributing the Medi-Cal budget shortfall to the state’s expansion of the program over the years to immigrants regardless of their legal status, which began under Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 when undocumented children were eligible to enroll in Medi-Cal.

About 1.6 million undocumented immigrants are enrolled in Medi-Cal, and expanding Medi-Cal to cover them costs around $8.5 billion a year.

• Senate GOP Leader Brian Jones of San Diego: “Democrats and the governor are … prioritizing people that have come into our country illegally over people who immigrated here legally, people that are citizens.”

Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican and vice chairperson of the budget committee, said that “the completely opaque nature of the request … is entirely inappropriate.”

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the state’s finance department, acknowledged Medi-Cal spending has risen, in part, due to larger enrollment numbers from California’s undocumented population (a population that also contributes around $8.5 billion in taxes a year). But the Newsom administration argues that there are other reasons why Medi-Cal costs are rising, and that California is not the only state facing these issues.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, for example, reported an increased number of seniors — who have comparatively more complex and expensive needs — enrolling in the program over the last four years.

Read more here.

In other Capitol news: Joined by 19 other Democratic-led states and Washington D.C., California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing President Donald Trump’s administration to block the mass firings at the U.S. Department of Education. Trump has repeatedly pledged to dismantle the federal department, and on Tuesday the department laid off half of its staff. 

The U.S. Secretary of Education said in a statement that the layoffs reflect the department’s “commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most.” But Bonta argues that shutting down the department will have “catastrophic consequences” and “is blatantly illegal.” Read more from CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones and Mikhail Zinshteyn.

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang:

California Republicans are gathering this weekend for their first convention since the November election. 

They’re likely to be in a celebratory mood: They flipped two seats in the state Assembly and one in the Senate in November; Trump increased his share of votes in most counties; and voters statewide rejected several liberal ballot initiatives and overwhelmingly passed a tough-on-crime measure opposed by Democrats. 

But the Republicans also have plenty of work ahead.

Midterm elections have historically been challenging for the party in power nationally. Trump’s on-again, off-again moves to enact stiff tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China and now France have led to a nearly 10% drop in the S&P 500 and retailers promising price increases. It could hurt Republicans, who regularly lambast Democrats for California’s unaffordability — and whose November gains were driven in part by voters’ dissatisfaction with inflation. 

That could be why, despite a full-throated embrace of Trump nationwide, some California Republicans shied away from him this week. At a panel on the future of the state GOP in Sacramento, several Republican lawmakers declined to elaborate on their alignment with Trump, seeking to focus on California issues.

• Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Folsom Republican, on the question of whether he voted for Trump: “That is a major oversimplification of where the people of California are. I try to stay focused on issues and try not to get sucked into the morass that is the national political scene.”

Party members will likely strike a different tone at their convention. Day one includes both a “California MAGA Open House” and a “Make California Great Again” event. The party has booked as one of its primary speakers Riley Gaines, the former college athlete and crusader against letting transgender athletes compete in women’s sports. 

Mike Morrell, a former state senator running for party chair, said Republicans will boost their numbers by focusing on parental choice in education, crime and loosening California regulations he says are cumbersome to businesses. But he called culture-war issues like the focus on trans athletes “equally as important.” He’s running against party vice chair Corrin Rankin, who declined to be interviewed.

Describing the loss as “irreplaceable,” the federal Bureau of Land Management said that petroglyphs at Volcanic Tableland near the city of Bishop were defaced last week.

The site is protected under federal law and serves as an important religious and ceremonial site for members of the Paiute tribe, according to the federal agency. The petroglyphs are estimated to be between 1,000 to 4,200 years old. 

• Sherri Lisius, the bureau’s Bishop Field Manager, in a statement: “Those responsible have destroyed an irreplaceable part of our national cultural heritage.”

Though the agency does not track the number of visitors to the site, it will continue increased surveillance, work with tribes to restore damages and improve signage, the agency said in an email to CalMatters. Investigators are offering $1,500 for a tip leading to an arrest and conviction and are interested in speaking with visitors who have been to the site in the past three months.

On Thursday Assemblymember Rick Zbur said he has withdrawn his controversial Assembly Bill 1333 from consideration. The Los Angeles Democrat introduced the measure to address gun violence by narrowing the standards for justifiable homicide. Zbur’s office said he does not intend to revisit the proposal at a later date. Learn more about the bill and the blowback it drew from Republicans.