Crunch time on CA ballot measures

This is CalMatters Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang, filling in for Lynn, who will return in Tuesday’s WhatMatters.

It’s make-or-break month for which ballot measures will actually go before California voters in November.

The Legislature has until June 27 to make deals with proponents to pull initiatives off the Nov. 5 ballot. One measure that is the subject of intense negotiations is a business-backed push to repeal the California law allowing workers to sue their bosses, using private lawyers on the state’s behalf. 

As I report today, part of those negotiations to change the Private Attorneys General Act and avoid a costly ballot campaign has to do with a fund reserved for labor law enforcement, which gets millions of dollars a year from these lawsuits. Despite record backlogs in wage theft claims, legislators and the governor have used the cash to fill budget holes and have left millions unspent in the fund. 

Business and labor agree that more money should be spent to beef up the Labor Commissioner’s office to hire more staff and help clear that backlog. For more on this issue, read my story.

These kinds of legislative deals came about in 2014, when lawmakers responded to very long ballots full of often very technical measures by giving proponents the chance to revise or remove their initiatives later in the process. The goal was compromise via the Legislature to avoid costly campaign battles, but critics complain it leads to political extortion. 

Retail theft: Another measure on the November ballot, at least for now, is already provoking a huge fight. It would overhaul Proposition 47, approved by voters in 2014 and blamed by some for retail thefts.

Democratic leaders in the Legislature plan to push ahead this week on a 14-bill bipartisan package to combat retail theft. But there’s a huge catch, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times: Some of the bills will be changed so they would take effect immediately if signed into law — but be automatically repealed if the ballot measure passes.   

That pressures the measure’s proponents to pull it from the ballot. But the backers aren’t having it, calling the maneuver “political gamesmanship at its worst.” One district attorney is trying to rally state law enforcement officials to fight the “imminent threat” to fix Prop. 47. 

Republican leaders in the Legislature also oppose the Democrats’ move. Senate GOP leader Brian Jones of San Diego and Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher of Chico fired off a letter to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire of Santa Rosa, arguing that Californians shouldn’t be forced into “a false choice between legislative reforms and necessary modifications to Proposition 47.”

Gallagher, in a statement: “These poison pills show that Democrats aren’t serious about ending the crime wave — they just want to look like they’re doing something.”

The Democratic leaders hit back: In a statement, McGuire said Republicans are “intent on setting California back decades with policies of mass incarceration that devastated Black and Brown communities and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.” 

And Rivas spokesperson Nick Miller accused Republicans of “political grandstanding” themselves.

Miller, in a statement: “The amendments to the package will ensure that there are no conflicts and inconsistencies in policies that move forward.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t saying whether he would sign the bills with the Democratic amendments, but did tell KCRA on Friday he opposes the ballot measure: “Why have something on the ballot that doesn’t actually achieve the goals that are intended? Why do something that can be done legislatively, with more flexibility?”  

From CalMatters higher education reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn:

An Orange County Superior Court judge sided with the University of California to temporarily halt the academic worker strike gripping the prestigious public system, limiting the impact of the walkout at six of the 10 campuses just as final exams begin this week.

The judge said he’ll hold another hearing June 27. The union’s members granted leadership permission to strike until June 30.

That the UC won a temporary restraining order against UAW 4811 — which represents more than 40,000 researchers, teachers’ assistants and graders — is a bit of a legal surprise after a state labor board twice rejected UC’s effort to stop the strike. The Public Employment Relations Board told the UC it lacked the evidence to justify stopping a strike that the academic workers may be lawfully allowed to conduct — but left the door open for UC to try again.

“May” is the operative word. UC has maintained that the strike is illegal because the union contracts include no-strike provisions. The union said it has every right to strike, citing federal precedent allowing unions to strike when working conditions deteriorate. The union says the strike is over the arrest and suspension of some members who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and encampments in May, plus sudden employee disciplinary changes.

UC argues the strike isn’t about that, but rather over the union’s opposition to the war in Gaza and UC’s financial investments in weapons and the Israeli economy. If it’s the latter, UC argues the strike isn’t at all about working conditions.

A UC spokesperson told CalMatters that UAW can probably appeal the Orange County judge’s ruling.

But this saga is far from over. Both UC and UAW accused each other of unfair labor practice violations. An administrative law judge with the state labor board is expected to hear a case over the violations in the next two to three months. Any ruling may be appealed, first with the labor board, then an appellate judge, and finally the state supreme court.

In other UC news: The state Auditor last week found the UC system doesn’t always properly monitor the contractors it uses for online instruction, primarily for public, non-degree programs or continuing education courses. The audit found UC campuses are not always transparent about using contracted online programs rather than UC instructors, which “may have misled potential students about the industry value” when they bore UC branding materials. 

Many lawsuits targeting COVID-19 vaccine requirements haven’t gone very far in California. But now there’s an exception, as CalMatters K-12 education reporter Carolyn Jones explains.

On Friday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to allow a suit against Los Angeles Unified to move forward, even though the district already dropped its school staff vaccine rule almost a year ago. 

The case was brought by an attorney for a handful of employees and an Idaho-based group called the Health Freedom Defense Fund that’s filed several other COVID vaccine lawsuits. The attorney, John Howard, told Carolyn some L.A. Unified employees lost their jobs over the 2021 vaccine rule. 

The judges who made up the majority in the Friday ruling were appointed by former President Donald Trump. They wrote that the district hadn’t proven that it will not impose similar policies in the future, and most notably they indicated they are open to the plaintiffs’ arguments that the COVID-19 vaccine does not stop the spread of the virus. 

Health experts have widely found the vaccine slowed transmission of early virus variants and reduced the risks of serious illness, hospitalization and deaths for those who were infected. 

Read more on the case in Carolyn’s story.

The cost of going to college — finding financial aid to get on campus and repaying student loans after graduating — is much in the news these days. There’s a new network of nonprofits to help, but also a looming deadline for a one-time offer on federal student debt forgiveness. Find out more in Mikhail’s latest story. And catch up on this issue with his explainer on California college costs.