California in Focus

After decades of promoting plastics recycling, California adopted a total plastic shopping bag ban and filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, claiming plastic recycling is a “public relations stunt.” With the state’s outbreak of fecal-transmitted hepatitis among homeless individuals correlated with the onset of the state’s first single-use plastic bag ban that required reusable plastic bags to be purchased for ten cents, the new complete ban could worsen the disease’s spread. In 2016, California voters passed a more limited plastic bag ban that required stores to sell reusable plastic bags, or paper bags, at checkout for ten cents instead of providing bags for free. State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, sponsored legislation to completely ban plastic bags after research found Californians’ plastic waste per capita increased 50% after the ban due to the use of much thicker bags to qualify as “reusable.” 

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_e666c2ce-7b78-11ef-9a42-779d5ac64ade.html

While California Governor Gavin Newsom touted California’s fast food jobs growth in a Fox News opinion column Wednesday, seasonally adjusted federal employment data contradicts the governor’s claims, finding that overall fast food employment is down since the start of the year. The $20 per hour fast food minimum wage is credited by businesses as driving cuts on available shifts and employment, and even store closures. 

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_7930c78e-761b-11ef-9134-97ae9cf8fb93.html

As California’s homeless population rises to a CalMatters-estimated 186,000, Republican legislators are demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom sign a bill requiring the state to track homelessness spending and outcomes. AB 2903 by Assemblymember Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, passed without any opposing votes, and would require any “state agency or department that administers one or more state homelessness programs” to report “cost and outcome data for each program the agency or department administers” to the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. ICH would then be required to make those costs and outcomes available to the public. 

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_9bdd15b6-7473-11ef-950f-77f86b356b45.html

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced it is piloting an automatic avocado peeler and pit remover at one California location, and an automatic bowl and salad machine at another as higher minimum wages increase relative yields from automation. Earlier this year, Chipotle raised its prices up to 7% in California to account for the state’s new $20 per hour minimum wage for fast food employers. Chipotle says it invested $100 million across the two companies making specialized robots for its stores; given Chipotle says it takes staff 26 seconds to pit and peel each of the 129.5 million pounds of avocados it uses each year, an estimated two avocados per pound would mean the Autocado machine could save almost 1.9 million staff-hours per year, or just over 238,000 days of workers’ labor — that’s over $37 million per year at $20 per hour. 

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_5f87860e-7479-11ef-8711-3bb1bc9609ca.html

The California Public Utilities Commision is voting later this month on whether to allow illegal immigrants to use the state’s cellphone subsidy program that makes most cellphone service plans either low cost or free, and self-fund and provide the additional federal subsidies undocumented immigrants are unable to qualify for. If adopted, the new plan would allow individuals to use Mexican voter registration cards, foreign passports, consular identification cards, or AB 60 California drivers licenses issued to individuals not legally in the state to access the subsidies. 

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San Francisco’s former district attorney is leading a class action lawsuit requiring the state to follow through on a 1973 statute signed into law by then-governor Ronald Reagan to pay prisoners who have served more than six months $200 upon their release as “gate money.” Including interest, the case could cost taxpayers $5 billion. With former SF DA Chesa Boudin, now Executive Director at UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, estimating California releases approximately 30,000 prisoners each year, his case says the class action body “exceeds hundreds of thousands of individuals.” Boudin says the legislature’s statute was quite clear in providing $200 (worth almost $1,500 in current dollars when it first went into effect) to prisoners when they exit prison if they aren’t being transferred to federal prison or another state.

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_96d69ff8-7151-11ef-b639-97a162c0d8f9.html

A federal appeals court sided with Elon Musk and X Corporation against a California law requiring companies to report and create definitions for a wide variety of speech violations, finding the law violates the First Amendment by unlawfully compelling companies to provide opinions on contentious matters, including defining what hate speech or misinformation is. The Ninth Circuit Court reversed a lower district federal court’s ruling initially in favor of California, and instructed the district court to enter a preliminary injunction on portions of the law, AB 587. AB 587, signed into law in 2022, was marketed as a transparency-oriented measure to have social companies make their content moderation policies and statistics available in public reports filed with the California Attorney General starting in January of 2024. The law requires social media companies to create and define moderation categories for hate speech, racism, extremism, radicalization, disinformation, misinformation, harassment and foreign political interference. 

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 A judge in Los Angeles County ordered the county to rapidly produce court-ordered homelessness program audit data, saying, “If there isn’t documentation of work being done, it’s not being done.” Judge David O. Carter is overseeing a settlement from two years ago between the LA Alliance for Human Rights and both Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles. The City of Los Angeles’ separate settlement requires the city to bring shelter online in each city council district for some 60% of the city’s unsheltered homeless based on the 2020 homelessness count; once each district reaches that threshold, it can begin enforcing anti-camping ordinances. 

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_4dcd71a2-6b06-11ef-b95e-3fea83a80f32.html

Shake Shack announced the pending closure of nine locations nationwide, six of which are in California, writing, “These Shacks are not projected to provide acceptable returns in the foreseeable future,” in a SEC filing. While Shake Shack did not respond to requests for comment regarding the impact of California’s $20 per hour fast food minimum wage that took effect earlier this year, high commercial rents combined now with even higher labor costs have driven other fast food chains, including Rubio’s and Blaze Pizza to shutter stores.

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_51528a7c-6658-11ef-8941-37b777f704b9.html

The California legislature passed a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to make use of the state’s $150,000, 0 down, 0 interest home “loans.” The bill now goes to the governor’s desk, where he must either veto or approve the bill by the end of September. California has one of the worst home shortages in the nation, with an estimated 4.5 million home shortage, and a nearly $1 million median home price. California’s Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loans program allows applicants to secure “loans” of up to $150,000 or 20% of the home’s purchase price — or, about what a typical down payment is — with zero down payment on this state “loan,” and no payments. In exchange, the state receives the original loan amount plus 20% of the appreciated gain when the home is refinanced, sold, or transferred. 

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Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_57ac795c-659d-11ef-8cbd-871f41ee2960.html