When the war in Iran started on Feb. 28, Asia expected to see serious, gradual impacts from losing access to a huge portion of the world’s oil and gas. But the conflict’s economic and social impacts have hit the region harder and faster than officials and experts expected.
Many countries across the Asia-Pacific are experiencing sudden jolts of disruption that they are struggling to manage, with some comparing the crisis’s breakdowns and scope to the Covid pandemic.
Even if there is a peace deal soon, the future of this industrious region that has driven global economic growth for decades will likely include months of canceled flights, surging food prices, factory pauses, delayed shipments and empty shelves for products long considered quick and easy to buy worldwide: plastic bags, instant noodles, vaccines, syringes, lipstick, microchips and sportswear.
My possibly incorrect mental model of all of these things is that the system is incredibly resilient right up until it isn't.
There's extra stuff in the warehouse until suddenly it's all gone.
1. new med is ok. I think it's helping with anxiety/despresh and helping a LITTLE with adhd. My energy is weird. I want to stay up later doing things but I also am still crashing at 9 anyway so, whatever. I miss not NEEDING coffee. Trying to do some stuff with adjusting caffeinie and taking vitamin D.
2. Today i have to do things like: - pick up M from school - take T back to school after a long weekend (hooray! Ty Time) - but first go to cvs and get his refills - Straighten Up continued
3. I told realtor, house is as neat as we can get it for pix & showings.. Dan's gong to obsess and overdo it, and also he's not feeling well today (hooray chronic undiagnosed problem). I hope I can help more with little bits and pieces tonight or like, early tomorrow, but see above.
4. Am getting excited about new house. There is an increasing level of certainty that it'll all work out, I cautioned M that there is a chance (a small one) that it might not work out. (Not anything specific, just - things happen). However, I feel much more confident about the Contingent On Financing piece. I was worried that if our house doesn't sell immediately (or if there's a contingent offer on ours) that the seller would frown on an extension. Realtor Anka points out that we can ask to absorb the mortgage/bills if needed to get the extension and that makes me calmer, like, there's no reason an extension wouldn't work.
5. However, Realtor Katie also notes that it's a sellers' market, and it's hard to find mid-range houses rn like this one. So I feel hopeful it'll go quick, anyway. It's a good house.
6. One of my 'it IS a good house! it's so pretty! why are we leaving, again' answers is that it truly is too big for us right now - we're not using it all. And I don't want to have a house with a whole unused wing. Can't keep up with all the gardening either - it's epic, but it could use someone with more time or money. Or more people. ALSO, Dan is getting increasingly grumpy about dogs barking for extended periods, chainsaws and tractors running all day. I don't know if the new neighborhood will be any les noisy, but it's more suburban. (Word is that some law enforcement lives in the new neighborhood, but I'm ok with that because of the BLM and pride flags in the neighborhood and lack of other gross flags.)
7. a classic Me thing to do: ppl on threads were talking about making friends. I set a date and time for a meetup but didn't go. (I mean for real I couldn't - but also they're adults and didn't need me to DO Anything)
8. A silly thing I'm looking forward to - my commute currently, I have to drive past the cow farm. It smells. Sometimes it's more manurey, sometimes it's more hay + cow, but it smells. I guess I'm a little bit bougie because won't miss that. I mean, you can't even SEE them!
Spring has sprung, and with it our Spring Manga Guide! Come see what new books our reviews are loving, hating, or are indifferent to, and find your next favorite!
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Students work on projects inside a classroom at Orick School in Orick on April 2, 2026. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters
Smaller California school districts — especially ones in isolated, rural areas — cost taxpayers way more money per student. But as school enrollment declines across the state, closing these small districts could risk upending entire communities, writes CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones.
California has over 1,000 school districts and spends an average of $23,000 per K-12 student. For Orick School in Orick, however, each of its nine students cost about $118,000 a year to educate.
Nestled in northern Humboldt County, Orick School, like other small districts, gets most of its money through grants. Last year it received $774,000 from state and federal government resources, and its budget goes mostly toward salaries, maintaining facilities and transporting students. Its students range from kindergarten to eighth grade and about half are Native American.
To address the issue of under-enrollment and save money, some smaller districts have shuttered, such as Green Point Elementary District in the Klamath Mountains. Last year, it merged with another district when its enrollment dropped to three students.
Carrie Hahnel, senior associate partner at Bellwether, an education research nonprofit: “Do we need to provide a school in every community? … What if that community barely exists? We guarantee a free public education to every child, but do we guarantee a school in every community?”
But in many ways, Orick School is the community — or at least its central hub. For a town with a population of 300 and an average household income under $39,000 a year, the school is one of the few sources of decent-paying jobs. It also operates a food pantry, gives clothes to families in need and has a washer and dryer so residents can do their laundry.
Consolidating Orick School District with a neighboring district 15 miles south would save on facility costs and eliminate one superintendent’s salary. But that would total to less than $200,000 a year in savings, and the new merged school would also have higher expenses, including transporting students 30 miles round-trip every day.
Justin Wallace, Orick Elementary School District’s superintendent: “Close the school? It comes up all the time. But I’d say it’s an equity issue. We have families who can’t afford a lot, and this school provides the most consistent setting for our kids. They’re safe, they’re well fed, they’re learning.”
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Other Stories You Should Know
CA’s contribution rate to CHP retirement falls
The California Highway Patrol hosts a swearing-in ceremony at the CHP Academy in Sacramento on Sept. 13, 2024. Photo by Florence Middleton, CalMatters
From CalMatters’ Adam Ashton:
A surge in hiring at the California Highway Patrol had an unexpected benefit for CalPERS, the state’s main worker pension fund: California’s contribution rate toward officers’ retirement plans is edging down a bit.
Next year the state expects to spend 64 cents on CHP pensions for every dollar it pays in CHP wages, down from 69 cents this year.
That might not sound like much — and of course CalPERS is still underfunded by tens of billions of dollars — but it’s a sign the state’s long-term strategy toward paying down pension debts can work.
Newly hired officers must work longer to earn a full retirement and their pensions max out at a lower rate than officers hired before 2013. Officers hired under the less generous formula account for 48% of the CHP’s workforce, up from 39% a year ago.
That trend, along with recent positive investment returns, is bringing down the state’s required contribution rate for CHP pensions. CalPERS anticipates contribution rates for other state workers to decline a bit over the next few years, too — as long as it keeps hitting its investment target.
CA bill would pressure security firms into labor deals
An ambassador with Marina Security makes their rounds at Laney College on July 12, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters
With the World Cup approaching this year, as well as the 2027 Super Bowl in Inglewood and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, private security firms are pushing back against a bill that would force them to have their workers unionize, reports CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow.
The Senate’s public safety committee on Tuesday will consider a proposal that would require companies that want to provide a higher standard of training — including the power to arrest and use-of-force training — to agree to union contracts. The bill would also raise pay for security guards, requiring them to earn at least 30% above California’s $16.90 minimum wage.
Service Employees International Union is sponsoring the bill, and its author, Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, was a former organizer for an SEIU local affiliate that unionized security officers. In the last five years, SEIU and its affiliates have given at least $119,100 to the L.A. Democrat, according to Digital Democracy.
Security firms argue that the measure would eliminate jobs by adding at least $1 billion to their costs each year.
Getting rid of late-arriving ballots does not solve California’s slow ballot count, which is really due to the sheer volume of mailed ballots and how the state handles them, write Eric McGhee and Mindy Romero, policy director and senior fellow at Public Policy Institute of California and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC Price School, respectively.
Politically engaged communities report better health, and Congress must reject the SAVE Act because it narrows the electorate by making voting complicated and frightening, write R. David Rebanal and Shaina Sta. Cruz, associate professor of Public Health at San Francisco State University and postdoctoral fellow at the Centers for Violence Prevention at UC Davis, respectively.
This all coalesces in a scene where we get the essence of the manga with the added benefits of an anime adaptation, such as strong voice acting, the benefits of full motion, and a musical score to accentuate everything.
Threatening Music Notation by Threatening Music Notation https://bsky.app/profile/musicnotation.bsky.social checking in again after some time. lots of funny stuff in here for folks who know staff notation via FB
With costs sometimes exceeding $100,000 per student, small districts are often under pressure to close schools.
School closures are an incendiary issue in nearly every corner of California, as enrollment declines and expenses climb. The topic has sparked parent revolts, teacher strikes and school boards’ desperate attempts to keep districts financially afloat.
And then there’s Orick.
The picturesque town in northern Humboldt County has a historic school with five classrooms, a gym, a vegetable garden and an expansive play field. Its current enrollment: nine. Its expenses: $118,000 per student per year, more than five times the state average.
California has dozens of school districts with enrollments under 100 and higher-than-average expenses. Most of these districts are in remote areas miles from the next nearest school. But as urban districts grapple with the threat of school closures and the inevitable backlash from families and staff, rural schools face an even more heart-wrenching scenario: close the school and decimate the town.
“Close the school? It comes up all the time,” said Orick Elementary School District Superintendent Justin Wallace. “But I’d say it’s an equity issue. We have families who can’t afford a lot, and this school provides the most consistent setting for our kids. They’re safe, they’re well fed, they’re learning.”
Most of these rural towns once had booming local economies. Logging, ranching, farming, mining and other industries employed generations of families. In the 1960s Orick had 3,000 people and nearly 300 students in its school. There were seven lumber mills, grocery stores, restaurants, churches, even a movie theater.
But as California’s economy changed and jobs in these towns vanished, many communities struggled to find a new purpose. In Orick, the lumber mills gradually closed, the National Park Service claimed much of the surrounding land and residents moved elsewhere. Now, Orick has about 300 people and an average household income that’s just under $39,000 a year — a third of the state average. According to Orick School’s accountability plan, Orick residents “experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, domestic violence, substance abuse, and run-ins with the criminal justice system due to limited resources and high community rates of intergenerational trauma.”
‘Terrified’ of closure
In towns like Orick, the school serves as a savior, of sorts. It’s a community hub, one of the few sources of decent-paying jobs and a symbol of hope for the future. It’s a central part of the town’s identity. The school in Orick operates as a food pantry for the community, gives away clothes to families in need, hosts Narcotics Anonymous meetings and runs a toddler playgroup. The district bought a washer and dryer so residents have a place to do laundry.
Kimberly Frick is the fifth generation in her family to attend Orick School. She remembers when the classrooms were full, students won trophies and the town was like a close-knit family. Now she’s president of the school board and fights to keep the school open. Saving the school, she said, is tantamount to saving the town.
She and Wallace scour the area to find new students for the school. Every time a new family moves to town, they visit and try to persuade them to enroll their children. Other community members chip in, as well, by fixing up homes, keeping the town clean and participating in the volunteer fire department, water district and other local services.
“I feel terrified about the possibility of the school closing. I’d hate to see it happen on my watch,” Frick said. “The facility is clean, safe, well maintained. We provide a high-quality, individualized education for each child.”
Orick School provides a resource room where community members can access a food pantry, clothing and a washer and dryer. Orick on April 2, 2026. Photos by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMattersJustin Wallace, superintendent and principal of Orick School, padlocks the school garden to keep it safe from elk that frequently wander onto the school grounds, in Orick on April 2, 2026. Wallace built the garden and enclosure with Kimberly Frick, the president of the Orick School Board of Directors. This year, the students are growing radishes, carrots, onions, turnips and leafy greens, which are utilized in school lunches. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters
Orick, whose name originates from the language of the nearby Yurok tribe, sits in a lush valley along Redwood Creek, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Ranges. A herd of about 60 elk roam through the town and are frequent visitors to the school play field. There’s a pizza truck, a small convenience store and a newly refurbished hotel. A rodeo draws crowds every July.
But much of the town is abandoned or dilapidated. A trailer park near the school is strewn with trash and broken furniture. Many of the buildings are boarded up. There’s no gas station. The post office is only open a few hours a day.
Budget breakdown
California funds its schools based on how many students show up every day. But small districts get most of their money in grants, in order to protect them from wild fluctuations in revenue. Last year Orick received $774,000 from the state and federal governments. The school gets extra money because so many of its students have high needs: all are low-income and more than half receive special education services. Some years, numerous students are homeless or in foster care.
Most of the budget goes toward salaries. The school has four full-time staff: two teachers, an administrative assistant and Wallace’s position, which includes serving as superintendent, principal, literacy coach and special education director. A janitor, cook, counselor, special education teacher and after-school teacher all work part time. Maintaining the school buildings is expensive: heating bills can cost $1,100 a month. So is transportation, because everything is far away. When the students take swim lessons, for example, a driver transports them 30 miles south to McKinleyville. Whatever funds are left over go toward student supplies and enrichment activities like field trips.
Students work on projects inside a classroom at Orick School in Orick on April 2, 2026. Justin Wallace, the school’s superintendent and principal, and Matt Schroeder, an after-school teacher, are filling in for the school’s teacher, who is out sick. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters
An obvious way for the state to save money would be to merge Orick School District with its neighbor, Big Lagoon Union Elementary District, 15 miles south. But the merged district would only save money on facility costs and one superintendent’s salary, totaling less than $200,000 a year, because the new merged school would have higher expenses, such as the cost of transporting students 30 miles round-trip every day.
A merger would also alienate one of the communities, Wallace said. Both communities are highly invested in their schools and prize their independence and local control, he said.
How to close a district
In the early 20th century, California had more than 3,500 school districts, each with its own school board, superintendent and unique traditions. To save money, the state gradually winnowed the number down to the 1,000 that exist today. But there are holdouts. Sonoma County, for example, has 40 school districts, some with only a handful of students.
“It’s one of the most common questions we get: Why do we have 40 school districts?” said Eric Wittmershaus, spokesman for the Sonoma County Office of Education. “Everyone in the community agrees it’s too many. The problem is that no one wants to close their school.”
California has a lax attitude toward closing under-enrolled schools. The state lets a district’s average daily attendance slip below six before it intervenes. In those cases, the county can request a temporary waiver, in hopes that enrollment increases, or start the process of consolidating the district with one of its neighbors. But consolidation rarely happens because local officials and voters have the ultimate say.
Orick School students eat lunch in the cafeteria, which doubles as a gymnasium, in Orick on April 2, 2026. Nine students attend the school, which ranges from kindergarten to eighth grade. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters
In 2011, the Legislative Analyst’s Office recommended upping the minimum district size to 100, but the recommendation was never implemented. In fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s current budget includes a 20% boost in funding for schools that the state deems to be “necessary small schools,” which are elementary schools with fewer than 97 students – or high schools with fewer than 287 students – at least 10 miles from the nearest other school.
Grand juries in Santa Clara and Sonoma counties have recommended consolidating small districts to save money, but neither of those reports led to changes.
Still, some experts say that financial realities may force the issue. Enrollment is declining nearly everywhere and it might not be the best use of taxpayer money to pay for half-empty classrooms and deserted playgrounds.
“Do we need to provide a school in every community? A post office? What if that community barely exists?” said Carrie Hahnel, senior associate partner at Bellwether, an education research nonprofit. “We guarantee a free public education to every child, but do we guarantee a school in every community?”
Now and then, districts will shutter. Last year, Green Point Elementary District, deep in the Klamath mountains, consolidated with a neighboring district when its enrollment fell to three (its per-pupil spending was $108,000 a year). In Sonoma County, Kashia Elementary District, with eight students last year, is at risk of closing next year.
Schools reclaimed by nature
Enrollment in Humboldt County has been declining steadily since at least the 1990s, and isn’t expected to rebound any time soon. A century ago the county had about 100 school districts, essentially one in every mill town, but as the mills closed the districts gradually closed, too.
Some of those towns — and their schools — have been swallowed up by the redwood forests. The old logging town of Falk, for example, had a school, mill, post office, dance hall and about 400 residents. After the mill closed, the town gradually emptied out and the Sierra Pacific lumber company, which owned the land, tore down whatever buildings were left in 1979. “Aside from the rose bushes and English ivy, the town of Falk has literally disappeared,” according to the county’s visitor guide.
Students play frisbee golf at Orick School in Orick on April 2, 2026. Nine students attend the school, which ranges from kindergarten to eighth grade. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick for CalMatters
Michael Davies-Hughes, the county superintendent of schools, encourages small districts to plan ahead to avoid abrupt mid-year closures, which are disruptive to students, families and staff.
“We want districts to be proactive, so they have options,” Davies-Hughes said. “For some, the current model may be increasingly difficult to maintain.”
Outdoor ed and Native traditions
In Orick, older students take a bus 40 minutes every day to attend high school in McKinleyville. Wallace and Frick said it’s unrealistic to put younger children on a bus for long distances, especially in bad weather. Humboldt County has long, dark, rainy winters, with roads often blocked by fallen trees, floods or mudslides.
Besides, Frick and Wallace said, Orick School does a great job educating its students, which is reason enough to keep it open. It has an exemplary outdoor education program, with students going on regular excursions into the nearby wilderness, learning about the local flora and fauna, the seasons and forest ecosystem. They raise trout and steelhead to be released in local waterways, test water quality in the creek and watch pollywogs turn into frogs in classroom terrariums.
Wildlife is all around them. In addition to the elk, students can observe condors and falcons soaring overhead, deer and coyotes hanging around the field and even the occasional bear. Students learn to fish, camp, raft and surf.
About half the students are Native American, and the school offers a robust education in Native traditions and history. A Yurok volunteer comes regularly to teach Yurok culture through activities such collecting acorns and making mash, and extracting pine nuts from pinecones to make beads.
“I mean, come on, how many other schools are in such an incredible setting?” Frick said. “Orick is a great place to go to school.”
R. David Rebanal is an associate professor of Public Health at San Francisco State University
Shaina Sta. Cruz
Shaina Sta. Cruz is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California, Davis.
As the U.S. Senate debates the SAVE America Act, the national conversation has focused on voting rights. But for California’s communities of color — and for those of us who study what makes people sick and what keeps them well — this legislation represents something more insidious: a direct assault on public health.
As public health researchers at San Francisco State University, we recently hosted focus groups of Asian American Californians in the Bay Area, and Fresno and Orange counties. We asked them about their neighborhoods, health and relationship to civic life.
What they told us was sobering.
Again and again, participants described how being shut out of political life — through language barriers, mistrust of government and a lack of safe, centralized community spaces — translated directly into unmet health needs: Clinics that didn’t speak their language, mental health services that didn’t exist, health policies that ignored them entirely.
One participant put it simply: when your community has no political voice, nobody fights for your health.
This goes beyond anecdotes; this is science. Political participation is an established social determinant of health and racial equity. Politically engaged individuals report better health and lower rates of physical disability.
Studies of African American communities in racially segregated neighborhoods found that where voter participation was higher, birth outcomes were better. States with higher voter turnout invest more in health infrastructure and Medicaid. The ballot box, it turns out, is a public health intervention.
Now consider what the SAVE Act would do to California.
According to a recent University of Southern California report, nearly 21% of Asian Americans who voted in 2020 did not return to the polls in 2024, the second highest dropout rate of any racial group.
And in the 2024 general election, just 54% of Asian American eligible voters in California cast a ballot — 8 percentage points below the statewide average. Latino eligible voter turnout was even lower, at just 46%.
Approximately 146 million Americans lack a valid passport. Only 21% of Americans earning under $50,000 possess one, compared to 64% of those earning over $100,000.
Naturalized citizens — disproportionately immigrants of color who have gone through the very legal process supporters of the SAVE Act claim to protect — often lack easy access to birth certificates or naturalization papers.
Kansas enacted a similar proof-of-citizenship requirement and blocked 31,000 eligible citizens from registering to vote, far more than any noncitizens ever identified.
Meanwhile, noncitizen voting is already illegal and exceedingly rare: Utah’s exhaustive review of over 2 million voter registrations found exactly one confirmed case.
Proponents of the SAVE Act argue this is election security, but this is history repeating itself.
Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses — every generation of voter suppression has arrived dressed in the language of protection and common sense. The SAVE Act is no different. It narrows the electorate by making participation costly, complicated and frightening — particularly for immigrant communities already wary of federal anti-immigration enforcement.
When those communities are pushed further from the ballot box, the consequences reach into every clinic, every school health program, every community health center that depends on political champions to survive.
Silencing votes doesn’t just change elections. It changes health outcomes.
California’s senators must vote no. And the rest of us — researchers, clinicians, community members — must say clearly that voting rights are health rights. Fighting the SAVE Act is not just about democracy. It’s about who gets to be healthy in America, and who does not.
California’s security guards earn low pay and have dangerous jobs. Legislative Democrats are pressuring companies to unionize.
Unions representing private security guards would gain a new advantage in organizing under California legislation that would compel companies to reach labor contracts if the firms want to provide use-of-force training.
State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas’ Senate Bill 1203 also seeks to raise pay for security guards and it would require their companies to offer more rigorous training.
Smallwood-Cuevas, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said guards on average make around $44,000 a year, the state poverty line, despite their companies generating an estimated $34 billion in revenue. She said guards also are being asked to take on increasingly dangerous roles without enough training.
“This bill asks us to stand up with these officers to strengthen and improve these working conditions and to ensure that across California that we are not only improving safety, but we’re also helping to build a safety pathway for workers in this sector,” Smallwood-Cuevas told the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee last week.
The committee voted to advance her bill to the Senate Public Safety Committee which is scheduled to discuss the measure Tuesday.
Security companies say the measure would add at least $1 billion to their costs each year and lead to fewer guards protecting the public.
“California has led the nation in training requirements, and we applaud that,” Dean Grafilo, a lobbyist for private security firm Allied Universal told the committee. “However, this bill goes much further than is necessary or reasonable, and we simply cannot ignore the staggering financial burden this bill will impose on our industry and, by extension, California.”
There are an estimated 330,000 private security personnel in California, making the industry one of the state’s largest workforces, Smallwood-Cuevas said. California businesses and local governments are increasingly hiring guards to protect them from smash-and-grab robberies and other crimes. Security firms also will be called upon at this year’s World Cup games in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, the 2027 Super Bowl in Inglewood and the 2028 Olympics in California.
The measure, according to the business committee’s analysis, would expand training standards, increase annual training for security guards and require companies to compensate guards for time spent training.
It would only allow companies to provide “power to arrest” and use-of-force training if agreed to in union contracts. Those agreements would require workers to earn at least 30% above California’s $16.90 minimum wage and get overtime.
The bill also would require state regulators to review and set minimum wages for security guards by 2028. Security industry officials say even a $1-an-hour raise for security workers would add $750 million to their costs each year.
“SB 1203 will eliminate jobs making companies that seek to automate security functions more competitive thereby displacing the very people the bill intends to help,” David Chandler, president of the California Association of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards & Associates, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
Labor is a powerful Capitol force
The bill is the latest effort by labor unions to use the Legislature to pressure companies to allow unionization. The most notable recent effort was a multi-year legislative push that successfully got ride-share companies to back legislation that allowed their drivers to unionize.
About 20% of private security guards are unionized, according to the industry, slightly higher than the rest of the state’s workforce, in which about 15% of workers are unionized.
Unions have tremendous clout in the Legislature, due in large part to the money they spend on the political campaigns of Democratic lawmakers. Unions also deploy their networks of organizers to advocate for their chosen candidates.
Service Employees International Union, the bill’s sponsor, is arguably the most influential labor organization in the state. The union and its affiliates have donated at least $21.4 million to lawmakers’ campaigns since 2015, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.
Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story.
Meanwhile, 33 of the 120 members of the Legislature are current or former union members, according to a California Labor Federation tally.
Some, like Smallwood-Cuevas, used to work for the unions that would benefit from their legislation.
Before entering politics, Smallwood-Cuevas once worked as an organizer for a local affiliate of SEIU that unionized security officers. Her campaigns have received at least $119,100 from SEIU and its affiliates since 2021, according to Digital Democracy.
Committee backs union bill
The union’s political clout as well as lawmakers’ sympathies for underpaid workers doing a dangerous job was on display last week at the business and professions committee. No committee members voted against the bill.
Sen. Bob Archuleta, a Democrat representing Norwalk, asked Smallwood-Cuevas if he could be added to the bill as a symbolic co-author.
“We use the term ‘first responders,’” he told the committee. “Sometimes it is these individuals and individuals like them that are first responders.”
Archuleta, a former reserve officer at the Montebello Police Department, said he used to arrive at crime scenes and “sure enough, there was a security officer there,” telling police “I got your back.”
Archuleta’s campaign has received at least $79,600 from SEIU and its affiliates, according to Digital Democracy.
One Democrat on the business committee expressed concerns.
Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat representing the Van Nuys area, said she didn’t have a problem with the bill’s intent to raise wages for guards. After all, she said she worked for five years as a security guard.
But she said she felt the bill’s training requirements were duplicative or would override a law that the Legislature had passed last year on security personnel standards and training.
She said she also had concerns the requirements in the bill could end up preventing companies from hiring qualified training consultants due to restrictions limiting who’s authorized to do that work.
“Right now, there are certain retired police officers that are turned to by security companies to provide that training,” she said. “And they’re no longer going to be given that option.”
Despite her concerns, she did not vote on the bill instead of casting a formal “no” vote.
As CalMatters has reported, legislators regularly dodge tough votes instead of voting “no” to avoid angering influential lobbying organizations.
Menjivar’s campaign has received at least $16,900 from SEIU, according to secretary of state filings.
“There were provisions within SB 1203 that she liked and a hard ‘no’ vote would send the signal that there is nothing the author or sponsors can do to move her to an ‘aye’ vote down the line,” Menjivar’s spokesperson, Teodora Reyes, said in an email.
Eric McGhee is policy director and senior fellow at Public Policy Institute of California
Mindy Romero
Mindy Romero is director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC Price School
In recent years, California’s ballot counting has been the slowest in the country.
With control of Congress sometimes hanging in the balance, California’s slow count has led to frustration and even unsubstantiated accusations of fraud. The intense attention has spurred a search for ways to speed things up.
California’s policy of counting ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive up to seven days after has become something of a scapegoat. It doesn’t help that the US Supreme Court, in a case out of Mississippi, seems inclined to ban the practice for the entire country.
But regardless what the Supreme Court does, late-arriving ballots aren’t the real issue. And eliminating them risks disenfranchising voters without actually addressing the problem that is meant to be solved.
To say a ballot comes in late sounds bad. However, these “late” ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, so they would be considered entirely acceptable if they had been cast any other way.
A ballot mailed in a post office box outside a polling location is no different than one dropped off inside at the same time. Yet the second one would be counted on Election Day and the first might not be received until several days later. Such arbitrary discrepancies should be avoided.
Critics claim that allowing Election Day postmarks simply encourages procrastination without actually counting more ballots.
But the evidence suggests otherwise. According to data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, allowing Election Day postmarks has cut the state’s rejection rates for lateness in half.
Moreover, the link between Election Day postmarks and slow vote counting is weak. Election Day postmarks amount to a small fraction of the ballots left to be counted after Election Day.
In 2024, the California Secretary of State reported 243,976 unprocessed Election Day postmark ballots at the end of election week and 4.1 million unprocessed ballots that had arrived on or before Election Day. Eliminating Election Day postmark ballots would barely dent the post-election workload.
The real causes of California’s slow count are the sheer volume of mailed ballots and how the state handles them.
Since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the state mails every voter a ballot by default. All the extra process for mailed ballots now applies to nearly twice the volume as in 2018.
Signatures must be checked for each ballot to ensure the correct person submitted it. This is an election security measure meant to instill the confidence in elections that critics of the slow count say they want.
A true fix would focus more squarely on the counting process itself, seeking to tighten it up without disenfranchising voters.
California’s generous rules for checking signatures and correcting problems are designed to ensure voters are not disenfranchised, but the deadlines for that process are much later than in any other state. Accelerating things might make sense.
Likewise, the deadline for certifying California’s elections is among the latest of any state. Moving the certification deadline earlier — and providing more funding and resources for registrars to implement new technologies and improve the process — might get the job done faster.
Allowing Election Day postmarks doesn’t mean voters should mail their ballots as late as possible. In fact, changes to the way the US Postal Service processes the mail have made postmarks a less reliable date stamp for many rural voters.
We should encourage voters to mail their ballots as early as they feel comfortable or to drop them off at an official voting location.
If a voter still mails a ballot and it arrives late, the state should accept it for the sake of voter access. Abandoning late ballots sent by Election Day would cut off some voters from our democracy, with no clear gain from this loss.
California’s slow ballot count is frustrating. There is no reason to accept it as inevitable. We should explore policy solutions that might speed things up. But proposals to accelerate the process — in California or any other state — must show clear evidence they will work and will accommodate voter access. Anything less is a disservice to voters.
Yes, CalPERS is still digging out from lawmakers’ overpromises and past investment losses. But you can see a trend that could save taxpayers money over time in a new analysis from the pension fund.
There’s a surprise in the upcoming budget for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System: The cost of paying for pensions is actually starting to come down.
But a new CalPERS analysis projects the state’s contribution rate toward pensions will decline over the next few years.
It’s most evident in what CalPERS expects to bill the state for California Highway Patrol pensions. This year, the state is paying 69 cents toward CHP pensions for every $1 it spends on wages for officers.
The formula reflects both the costs of investing for current officers’ retirements as well as extra money the state plows into pensions to pay down debts from past CalPERS losses.
CHP pensions were especially expensive because until 2013 those officers and other public safety employees were eligible for generous pension formulas that allowed them to retire at age 50 with retirement income worth 90% of their salaries.
Next year, the state’s contribution rate for CHP pensions will drop to 64 cents for every dollar in offer pay.
Hey, that beats a number with a 7 in front of it.
Recent strong investment returns are part of the reason the contribution rate is declining a bit. Another is that the state has been on a hiring spree for CHP officers. That means more employees are paying into the fund. They put 14.5% of their earnings into CalPERS.
The new hires also earn benefits under a less generous formula and work longer to earn a full retirement. Officers hired under the post-2013 retirement formula now make up 48% of the CHP workforce, according to CalPERS.
Further out, CalPERS anticipates pension contribution rates will drop for other state workers, too.
These results, of course, are subject to change. If CalPERS misses its investment earnings targets, the state will have to kick in more money to make up for the loss. Today, CalPERS is considered underfunded because its assets are worth about 80% of what it owes over time to its beneficiaries.
The New York Times has a long article where the author lays out an impressive array of circumstantial evidence that the inventor of Bitcoin is the cypherpunk Adam Back.
I don’t know. The article is convincing, but it’s written to be convincing.
I can’t remember if I ever met Adam. I was a member of the Cypherpunks mailing list for a while, but I was never really an active participant. I spent more time on the Usenet newsgroup sci.crypt. I knew a bunch of the Cypherpunks, though, from various conferences around the world at the time. I really have no opinion about who Satoshi Nakamoto really is.
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