Paula Treat, the grande dame of Sacramento contract lobbyists, has had a wide range of clients including TESLA, UBER, CCPOA, the California Medical Association and several Indian tribes, over her four decade career. She called in from her cabin in Truckee to do her very first podcast ever, and spoke about the challenges of lobbying during a pandemic, what to expect as California begins to reopen, and what it's like to have a client as unpredictable as Elon Musk.

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Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, joins us to talk about how his members are coping with the Coronavirus, and what to expect as California reopens. What you can't expect is for things to be the same as they were before COVID-19. Businesses are revising work-from-home and other policies, and most of his members expect to see dramatic changes in the workplace in the wake of the pandemic. Wunderman also weighs in on Elon Musk/TESLA's standoff with Alameda County last week and what it means for TESLA's future in the Golden State.

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Today we are joined by Rose Kapolczynski, a veteran campaign and communications strategist with more than three decades of experience. Rose is best known for running Senator Barbara Boxer’s campaigns, from her initial upset victory in 1992 to her final race against Carly Fiorina in 2010. These days she is working with Boxer on efforts to get Democrats elected, and is also handling the congressional campaign of Georgette Gómez. Rose relocated to Washington state last year, so she has plenty of experience working remotely and shares her Three Rules for working from home.

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Today we're joined by Rob Stutzman, longtime GOP strategist, the President of Stutzman Public Affairs, and former communications director for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The race for CA25 was being called just as we taped this podcast - Rob weighs in on what Mike Garcia's victory in a Clinton +6 district means for November, and for the Republican Party in general. No stranger to presidential campaigns, Rob also shares his thoughts on Biden's most likely VP picks and what he thinks Biden's calculus will look like when choosing a running mate.

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Mike Madrid, longtime GOP consultant, and former Political Director for the state Republican Party, joins us to talk about two of his recent skirmishes: a public battle with a squirrel family that occupied an eave of his house, and his even more public battle with the family that occupies the White House. Madrid has made no secret of his distaste for the Trump wing of the Republican Party, calling out the nationalist and sometimes racist rhetoric that comes from the Trump administration and many of its supporters. Joining other disaffected Republicans, Madrid helped launch the Lincoln Project, which made news this week with a hard-hitting anti-Trump ad called "Mourning in America." The ad was seen by thousands when it originally aired on Fox TV, but a latenight Trump tweet tirade about the Lincoln Project drove views well over a million - and they're still climbing.

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As California looks at loosening some restrictions on non-essential businesses, one business has been going about their work as best they can all along: the construction industry. Michele Daugherty, President of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Northern California, joined us to talk about the challenges facing the industry in the midst of a pandemic, and about the efforts being made to keep job sites - and workers - safe as this unprecedented crisis unfolds.

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Political data expert Paul Mitchell joins us by phone (remote from his daughter's packed closet) to talk about the mechanics of a vote-by-mail election in November, how COVID-19 is impacting the prospects for redistricting, and what he learned by turning 50 while on quarantine.

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The California state capitol was the scene of two recent Lockdown protests, the first on Friday April 17, and a second, much larger one, on the following Monday. Documentary filmmaker Karlos Rene Ayala covered both and made a short film about each of the events. The two shorts mark the launch of his STIMULUS series, about life under quarantine. While the economic uncertainty created by the stay-at-home order was a unifying theme, he discovered that the protesters brought with them a range of other notions, including vaccine skepticism, anti-government sentiment and religious fanaticism. Karlos joined John Howard and Tim Foster to talk about his films and what he took away from interviewing people who hold views that were, in many cases, well outside the mainstream.

Following the harrowing scenes of voters braving long lines and exposure to the Coronavirus on Primary Election Day in Wisconsin, there is a renewed discussion of the importance of Vote By Mail options. California has long been a leader in this area, but could we see an ALL VBM election by November? Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation joins us to talk about the positives and negatives of VBM, offering some surprises, including the high number of rejected VBM ballots and the lowdown on voter fraud.

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The state capitol is on Covid-19 lockdown for at least another few weeks, with most legislators and staff working from home. Longtime Senate Staffer Kip Lipper joins us from his Clarksburg digs to talk about how the quarantine is affecting pending legislation, lobbying, the state budget and what it's like doing the people's business remotely in the era of the coronavirus.

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