Will Newsom get his bill on CA gas prices?

Assemblymember Joe Patterson, a Republican from Rocklin, speaks during a press conference on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s special session to regulate gasoline prices in the state, at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Sept. 18, 2024. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

I’m CalMatters Capitol reporter Alexei Koseff, and I’m subbing for Lynn today.

The state Capitol would normally be fairly empty this time of year, as lawmakers scatter to their districts across California to work on constituent services or run for re-election.

It is not, however, a normal year.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has summoned the Legislature this fall for a special session to address gasoline prices, asking them to pass additional regulations on oil refinery inventory and maintenance after he failed to jam through his proposal at the end of the regular session in August.

So more than a dozen members of the Assembly convened in Sacramento Wednesday to commence that process with an informational hearing on the petroleum supply chain and California’s planned transition away from fossil fuels.

It was long. It was highly technical. And if it was intended to give wavering Assembly members the confidence to support Newsom’s bill — which aims to avert gas shortages and price spikes at the pump by requiring refiners to maintain an inventory of fuel that they can tap into when they go offline for maintenance — it’s unclear that it moved the needle.

“I think they’re more confused,” Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Carson Democrat, joked to CalMatters during a break in the hearing. He has introduced his own bill to delay new emissions reductions regulations for oil tankers that dock at California ports.

The Assembly is where the governor’s proposal ran aground last month. Amid skepticism about the policy, which the oil industry argues would actually drive up prices by creating an artificial supply shortage, and frustration over Newsom’s last-minute tactics, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said his members needed more time to consider the bill and declined to bring it up for a vote.

Though Rivas has already set a floor session for Oct. 1, when the Assembly would presumably vote on the refinery regulations, it’s uncertain whether the measure has enough support among the supermajority Democratic caucus to advance — or is on a path to get there in the next two weeks.

Republicans hate the proposal but are thrilled by Newsom’s timing, eager to make high gas prices — which they blame on California’s frequent regulatory incursions into the gasoline market — an issue for vulnerable Democrats in the November election.

Assemblymember Joe Patterson, a Rocklin Republican, at a press conference: “The proposals coming out of Sacramento have not brought the relief that Californians need.” 

The governor has amped up his own public messaging to make the case that the oil industry is gouging Californians and the state needs to take action to bring down prices. His office issued a lengthy prebuttal ahead of the hearing “debunking Big Oil’s lies.”

But Newsom’s voice may not ultimately ring loudest for lawmakers. At one point during the hearing, Gipson asked Tom Robinson, the president of an independent chain of Northern California gas stations, how California could fix the problem of not having enough gasoline supply.

“I don’t think you can,” Robinson said. “I think that all you can do is make it worse.”

A police officer puts up crime scene tape near the site of a truck explosion in the Wilmington section of Los Angeles on Feb. 15, 2024. Photo by Eric Thayer, AP Photo

Despite the vocal opposition of Gov. Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders, California voters are poised to overwhelmingly pass Proposition 36 this fall.

The ballot measure, proposed by law enforcement groups and major retailers, would increase the penalties for repeat theft and drug crimes that voters rolled back a decade ago, making them felonies again.

A new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California finds that 71% of likely voters support Prop. 36, while only 26% oppose it — even after months of Newsom warning that the initiative would usher in a new era of “mass incarceration” in California.

Crime has become a top concern for voters in recent years, following a drumbeat of coverage of soaring shoplifting and commercial burglary rates during the coronavirus pandemic. (CalMatters justice reporter Nigel Duara has a new story sorting through the facts and dispelling six myths about where crime really stands in California.)

That has fueled a backlash to previous efforts to loosen California’s historically tough sentencing regime, including Proposition 47, approved by voters in 2014 to reduce some theft and drug offenses to misdemeanors, which police blame for driving up property crime rates and homelessness.

Newsom, who recently signed legislation to crack down on retail theft, has dismissed Prop. 36 as an underhanded effort to return to a failed war on drugs, replacing rehabilitation with incarceration. But the shift in public sentiment on crime has encouraged other Democrats to increasingly jump on board the campaign, which argues that Prop. 36 will push more people into drug treatment as a means of avoiding prison time.

Among other findings of the PPIC poll — which asked voters about the entire November ballot — an effort to limit the use of forced labor in California prisons, Prop. 6, is narrowly losing among likely voters, 46% yes to 50% no. Solid majorities support Prop. 3, the constitutional amendment affirming gay marriage; Prop. 4, the $10 billion climate and water bond; and Prop. 35, the tax on health care plans. 

Brad Butterfield in his RV in Arcata on Aug. 24, 2024. Due to the high cost of education, Butterfield lived in his vehicle on campus at the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt until the university prohibited students from doing so in the fall of 2023. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

As California college students struggle with the growing costs of an education, more of them are turning to living in their cars to make ends meet — setting off a simmering battle with school administrators over how to accommodate a scourge of homelessness in higher education.

California College Journalism Network fellow Briana Mendez-Padilla reports that responses have ranged from Long Beach City College, which has established a safe overnight parking program that connects students with resources such as showers and wi-fi, to Cal Poly Humboldt, which began enforcing a policy last fall to evict students found sleeping in their vehicles on campus.

Many colleges, as well as the California State University system, oppose bringing overnight parking programs onto their campuses because of concerns about liability, cost, safety and sanitation. They also argue that it is not a permanent solution to campus housing problems, which some students sleeping in their cars say ignores the urgency of their situations.

Brad Butterfield, who was living in an RV on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus: “It’s really difficult to be pretty much told that you can’t exist.”

Several efforts to expand access to safe overnight parking at California colleges have failed in the Legislature in the face of this resistance, including a bill this session that would have established dozens of pilot programs. Read more from Briana, who spoke to lawmakers, students and administrators across the state to explore the tension over what to do about homelessness on campus.

People discuss a ballot proposition in groups at a voter education event hosted by CalMatters and the Lost Coast Outpost to inform voters about state propositions on the ballot, at the North of Fourth bar in Eureka on Sept. 12, 2024. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters

CalMatters is offering more ways to learn about what’s on California’s Nov. 5 ballot. Just posted are a TikTok and an Instagram reel on Proposition 34, a health care funding measure aimed at one particular political player on rent control. 

They are the latest in our collection: a TikTok and Insta on Prop. 33 on local rent control; a TikTok and Insta on Prop. 3 on same-sex marriage; a TikTok and Insta post on Prop. 32, which would increase the state minimum wage; and a TikTok and an Insta reel on Prop. 6, which would prohibit forced labor in prisons.

CalMatters is also hosting a series of public events. The next ones are at noon today at Lake Tahoe Community College; Monday at San Joaquin Delta College, co-hosted by Stocktonia; and Tuesday at Sacramento State, co-hosted by CapRadio. Sign up here, and find out more from strategic partnerships manager Dan Hu.

And find out about all the ways to access our award-winning Voter Guide — digital, social media, even in print — from our engagement team.