Tag: California

Right-wing Hindu Americans now seek to stop California from banning caste bias

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Washington: After failing to prevent the city of Seattle from outlawing caste-based discrimination, right-wing Hindu Americans are girding up to stop the state of California from going down that route.
The Hindu Policy Research and Advocacy Collective USA (HinduPACT USA), an initiative of Vishwa Hindu Parishad America, has launched a campaign to collect signatures to a petition asking the California Senate “to Reject SB-403 to Protect Hindus from Discrimination”.
The Hindu American Foundation, an advocacy body, has opposed the bill in a letter to Democratic state Senator Aisha Wahab, said in a statement it looks forward to “educating” her on the acecomplex issue of caste”.
SB-403 is a legislation introduced by Wahab last week, which according to a press announcement, seeks to clarify California civil rights law to explicitly include protection against discrimination based on a person’s position in a caste.
Wahab is not exactly new to the issue of caste. “I’m familiar with the impact of caste discrimination from witnessing what friends and their families experienced when growing up in Fremont,” she said. “Prior to assuming office, people in my district shared with me their stories of caste discrimination, and I felt they deserved appropriate protections.”
Afghan-descent Wahab announced the bill last week at a press conference, accompanied by activists and long-time campaigners, who were also at the forefront of the effort led by City council member Kshama Sawant that made Seattle the first city in the US to outlaw caste-based discrimination. It has passed in the Seattle city council 6-1, defying a high-decibel campaign launched by right-wing Hindus Americans from around the country.
California could now become the first US state of ban caste-based discrimination if Senator Wahab’s legislation is enacted.
“This bill is about workers’ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights,” Wahab said, announcing the bill at the news conference. “To ensure organisations and companies do not entrench caste discrimination in their practices or policies our laws need to plainly state that discrimination based on caste is illegal.”

The first case of caste-based discrimination to catch make national headlines in the headlines came from California in 2020 when the states’ civil rights department sued Cisco, the networking gear and business software company, on a petition from an Indian-descent employee that the company’s human resources department did not take cognizance of his complaint of caste-based discrimination by two of his Indian-descent seniors.
In 2022, California State University, which is America’s largest public university system, banned caste-based discrimination after years of activism by Dalit students, including Nepalese-descent Prem Pariyar. Several other US universities are said to be planning the same.
Right-wing Hindu Americans oppose the ban arguing, first, that though caste-based discrimination is appalling, any law banning it here in the US puts a target on the backs of the entire South Asian community, specially Hindus, by portraying them all as purveyors of this practice.
Second, they have argued that discrimination based on caste is covered by existing laws that outlaw all kinds of bias and discrimination and there is no need for a new ban.
Their third, and final, argument is that caste bias in the US is rare and not as rampant as it has been made out to be. They have questioned data cited by supporters of the ban.
“We share the admirable goals of standing up for civil rights and eliminating all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including based on caste,” the Hindu American Foundation said in its letter to Senator Wahab the day after she announced the bill.
It added: “So the question is not whether we should deal with any allegations of caste discrimination, but how. As such, if and when incidents of caste discrimination occur, they should be brought to light, thoroughly investigated and rectified under existing law in its current form.”
Wahab has been expecting this pushback, as has happened in the past to all legislative initiatives regarding civil rights.
“My office has already begun to field opposition inquiries to this bill. What the opposition would have you believe is that this bill’s effort to provide clarity of language in state law and protection to caste- oppress Dalits in particular, or formerly known as the untouchables is in turn targeting a different group of oppressed people. That is not the case.”
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 31, 2023
California takes on oil companies again with law that could cap profits in state

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“We proved we can actually beat big oil,” Newsom said at a signing ceremony at the Capitol.
That victory came despite the industry deploying “30-plus lobbyists” to stymie the bill, he said.
The industry acknowledges the setbacks.
“I think what we’ve seen is the governor has put this industry in the crosshairs for a number of years now,” said Kevin Slage, a spokesperson for the Western States Petroleum Association, the main lobbyist for the industry in Sacramento. “With a supermajority and the ability of governors to pull levers with legislators, it’s a tough policy environment for us for sure.”
Newsom has aggressively pursued an ambitious legislative climate agenda since last summer, winning praise from environmentalists who once lamented his hands-off approach and adding to executive orders phasing out gas-powered car sales and fracking. And he has regularly denounced oil companies for standing in his way. Last summer, he excoriated the companies for running ads that framed his push last summer as a matter of righteousness and “which side we’re on.”
“Big oil lost,” Newsom told an audience in New York after pushing the package through the Legislature, “and they’re not used to losing.”
He rode the momentum from those victories into a quest to curtail oil industry profits, announcing his plan before the bill-signing period ended. The proposal has evolved substantially, morphing from a windfall profits tax to a framework for the California Energy Commission to investigate earnings. But Newsom’s rhetoric remained the same: oil companies are ripping you off.
Newsom was uncharacteristically engaged with legislators throughout the process, visiting caucuses and speaking with members individually and in smaller groups. After legislators balked at Newsom’s initial idea, expressing fears it would backfire and raise prices, the administration agreed to language requiring the Energy Commission to ensure the benefits to consumers would outweigh harms.

That both assuaged legislators’ fears of unintended consequences and helped lawmakers feel they were being brought in rather than dragged along. A senior legislative staffer called Newsom’s tactic a “sea change” in his approach to the Legislature and a “very significant factor in how this got landed.”
“This is not something the governor is shoving down our throats,” Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) said on the Assembly floor.
Crafting that language took months. The revamped proposal then rocketed through the Legislature in less than two weeks as Newsom and Democrats sought to preempt a counteroffensive. Oil industry opponents protested that Newsom was rushing through an unvetted proposal that would harm consumers by distorting a complex industry. It didn’t matter.
“Fossil fuel obsolescence is on the horizon,” Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-Milpitas) told members.
That hasn’t always been the case. California’s proud environmentalist bent belies the political and economic might of in-state oil extractors and refiners. Industry groups spend millions of dollars to elect allies to the Legislature — often moderate Democrats — where the corridors teem with lobbyists who are tasked with thwarting legislation that hurts companies’ bottom line. The Western States Petroleum Association spent nearly $20 million on lobbying and campaigns in 2021 and 2022.
They have enlisted powerful political allies. That has meant hiring connected players like the former leader of moderate Democrats and California’s former oil and gas regulator. More crucially, the oil industry forged an alliance with a union umbrella group whose members work at refineries — a critical source of influence in a Capitol where organized labor holds significant sway.
Bills to slash emissions or require new oil wells be far from homes and schools could not overcome that opposition. Newsom’s intervention was decisive. Lawmakers revived the measures at the governor’s urging and pushed them to his desk.
“That is perhaps the most powerful political coalition in the state Capitol,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), who has become a vocal critic of oil industry influence. “We’re only able to overcome that with the governor taking the lead and championing climate measures.”
Shifting voter views are also driving political dynamics. A decade ago, a plurality of California voters said strict environmental laws were too costly. By 2021, nearly two-thirds said they were worth the cost. Voters are more likely to call climate change a serious issue as annual wildfires have become more destructive. Both Newsom and the Legislature have taken advantage.
“The governor was more aggressive, and I think that inspired the Legislature to be more aggressive. While there’s allies in both parties to the oil industry, I think a lot of folks were hungry to get stuff done,” said former Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, who helped negotiate last year’s climate package. “The governor deserves some credit but I think here’s some other factors as well with the stars lining up politically so it doesn’t feel like you’re taking such a political hit.”
The money map is changing as well. The climate-focused Energy Foundation spent millions in Sacramento last year, putting it on the same plane as oil companies. The California Democratic Party now refuses oil money. The industry can still shower candidates with cash, but their resources increasingly run up against voter distaste with fossil fuel influence.
The shifting calculus for some lawmakers, Garcia said, has been from “’You’re going to come spend a bunch of money against me, and I could lose my seat” to “you’ll come spend a bunch of money against me and I won’t lose my seat, because the electorate rewards us for being bold.”
Several Democrats who benefited from millions of dollars in oil industry campaign spending voted for Newsom’s oil profits penalty. At the same time, a bloc of Assembly Democrats who were industry beneficiaries withheld their votes.
“A lot of those members rely on campaign support from big oil,” Muratsuchi said.
That support will likely continue. The industry could also undercut Newsom by passing a referendum overturning the oil well setbacks law. But the governor has helped shift the political dynamics around the oil industry, said former Sen. Fran Pavley, an architect of the state’s cap-and-trade system who is now the USC Schwarzenegger Institute’s environmental policy director.
“They are very influential in many parts of the state,” Pavley said, but “I think Gavin Newsom’s done a good job in getting the political wind changing.”
Lara Korte contributed to this report from Sacramento.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 29, 2023
California Democrats pass Newsom’s proposal that could penalize oil company profits

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“My biggest fear was that the penalty would just be passed on to consumers,” Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) said during Monday’s Assembly floor debate. “That is a bipartisan concern. This measure, it doesn’t require penalties, it doesn’t require any maximum profit caps.”
Instead, he said, it adds transparency to the oil market and requires the Energy Commission to justify any penalty.
The bill, which cleared the Senate on Thursday, passed in the Assembly in a 58-19 vote — with opposition coming from the chamber’s 18 Republicans and from Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bain (D-Kern County).
“This is an industry that has been allowed to operate in the shadows,” Lauren Sanchez, Newsom’s senior climate advisor, told the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee Monday morning. “It has lacked the accountability, the transparency and the oversight that we have long required of other critical sectors.”
The Assembly floor vote came after Newsom’s administration introduced amendments that appeased lawmakers who expressed concern over unintended consequences of tinkering with a complex market.
Republicans and oil industry representatives blasted the bill’s hasty passage, raised doubts that it would work as intended and expressed concerns for oil workers.
“The bill that you’re rushing through the process adds bodies, adds bureaucracy at the California Energy Commission, adds audits, adds penalties,” Eloy Garcia, a Western States Petroleum Association lobbyist, told the committee. “What it does not do is add supply. It does not expedite port or pipeline infrastructure.”
Assemblymember Jim Patterson (R-Fresno), noted the bill had not gone through the chamber’s Appropriations Committee despite an Energy Commission estimate that it would cost $9.4 million to hire 34 people for the new division.

Newsom first called for a windfall tax on oil companies last fall after average gas prices in California reached more than $6 per gallon. Oil companies reported record-high profits and their margins were higher in California than in the rest of the country.
He called a special session of the Legislature in December to address what he called the companies’ “price gouging.” At his request, Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) introduced a proposal that would have set a cents-per-gallon cap on oil companies’ profits and penalized profits above the margin.
Working with Newsom’s administration, Skinner introduced amendments to the proposal on March 20 to create the Petroleum Market Oversight Division at the Energy Commission. The legislation directs the division to collect data and analyze every link of the oil supply chain and then tailor solutions to their findings, including an optional penalty on profit margins.
“This does not guarantee a penalty,” Skinner said Monday. “It sets up a mechanism to do so if it is warranted. But, of course, if the oil companies’ practices are such that it is not warranted then the penalty would never be used.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 28, 2023
Khanna’s pass clarifies California Senate race — and his political future

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Beyond the timing, simple math would have posed a challenge. Porter, Lee and Schiff are all vying for the same finite pool of Democratic and independent votes as they jostle to make it out of the primary. Two Democrats could advance under California’s primary system, which allows the top two vote-getters to move on to the general.
Progressives are already wary of Lee and Porter dividing the left-leaning vote in a way that locks both Congressional Progressive Caucus members out of the top two, allowing the more-centrist Schiff to advance and face a likely-doomed Republican in the general (the GOP has not yet fielded a candidate).
Khanna could have further fractured the progressive vote given his standing among California’s substantial bloc of Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters. Khanna co-chaired Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and said on Sunday that he had heard “enthusiasm from Bernie folks.”
“If Khanna had gotten in the race, progressives risked splitting the vote three ways and giving Schiff a boost,” said Rose Kapolczynski, a Democratic consultant who worked for former Sen. Barbara Boxer. “While Schiff is a progressive by most measures, progressive activists have been backing Porter or Lee.”
Now, some of that Sanders support could flow toward Lee, whom Khanna endorsed as he bowed out. Lee’s camp is counting on an energized progressive base vaulting the East Bay fixture into the top two.
“We need a strong anti-war senator, and she will play that role,” Khanna said Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Khanna’s deep Silicon Valley ties could make him a conduit to powerful donors and help Lee make up a steep cash-on-hand deficit compared to Schiff and Porter, both of whom are prolific fundraisers.
“Congressman Khanna’s endorsement is a much-needed boost in these early days of the race, but Rep. Lee still has a steep climb ahead,” consultant Anna Bahr, who worked for Sanders’ 2020 California campaign, said in a text message. “It won’t be easy to get on level footing with the front-runners in the race.”

Few doubt Khanna’s ambition. He primaried another Democrat to win his spot in Congress. He has become a television fixture who touts a progressive agenda while seeking to export Silicon Valley’s economic might to other parts of the country, making a case for forging inroads beyond coastal blue bastions. He is a stalwart Sanders supporter who is comfortable hobnobbing with deep-pocketed tech libertarians.
This marks the second time Khanna flirted with a Senate run but decided against it; he also chose not to challenge Sen. Alex Padilla when the recently appointed senator was running for a full term. Khanna said on Sunday he was bowing out of contention in part because “the most exciting place to advance bold and progressive policy right now is in the House.”
He will remain there rather than forfeiting a spot in Congress for a long-shot Senate bid. But that doesn’t mean Khanna intends to stay in the House forever. Some Sanders backers sought to draft Khanna to run in 2024 should President Joe Biden not seek a second term.
While Khanna has steadfastly supported Biden, he is widely seen as a future presidential contender. That prospect would diminish if he were to give up his House seat for a Senate run and fall short, depriving himself of a platform for policymaking, public visibility, and fundraising.
“If Ro Khanna goes all-out for Barbara Lee and she makes it into the runoff, that could be a big proof point for him as he pursues other things,” Kapolczynski said. “That he helped elected the only Black woman in the Senate is a pretty good talking point if you have national ambitions.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 27, 2023
Ro Khanna endorses Barbara Lee for Senate in California

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“We need a strong anti-war senator, and she will play that role,” he said.
Lee is facing off against fellow Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, who have each already picked up key endorsements, from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), respectively. As a leader in the House Progressive Caucus, Khanna’s endorsement could help Lee shore up progressive support in what’s expected to be a competitive — and expensive — race.
“I have respect for them,” Khanna said of Porter and Schiff, “but Barbara Lee is a unique voice. She was the lone vote against the endless war in Afghanistan. She stood up so strongly against the war in Iraq. She worked with me and stopping — trying to stop the war in Yemen and the war powers resolution.”
Khanna also noted that there are currently no African American women in the Senate, and Lee would fill that void. “Frankly, Jake, representation matters,” Khanna told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“The other two are formidable candidates, but I think Barbara Lee is going to be very, very strong.”
Feinstein, the longest-serving woman in Senate history, announced her plans to forgo a 2024 bid last month. The 89-year-old’s retirement was widely expected, so much so that Porter and Schiff both launched their campaigns before she officially bowed out (though Schiff said his run was predicated on Feinstein’s retirement.)
California’s primary system allows the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election regardless of party, a system that’s likely to pit two Democrats against each other in November 2024 in a solidly blue state.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 26, 2023
Newsom skips State of the State and heads out on a tour of California

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Newsom will shine that spotlight as he rides political momentum into his second term. He overwhelmingly defeated an attempted recall in 2021 and then cruised to victory last November. Republicans who argue the governor has failed to allay pressing issues like homelessness and poverty have little power to impede his agenda in a Democrat-dominated Legislature.
The governor’s tour will traverse California. He will kick things off by highlighting housing construction efforts in Sacramento, an issue that is top of mind for many people in the state. From there he’ll journey to the notorious state prison at San Quentin— where officials dismantled the execution chamber four years ago on Newsom’s orders — to talk about his criminal justice plans. He’ll outline a public health plan in Los Angeles and conclude his weekend by proposing mental health policies in San Diego.
The decision to bypass his traditional speech doesn’t mean Newsom has ignored Sacramento’s political class. In January, he stood before the Capitol and delivered an inaugural speech to hundreds of lawmakers, interest group representatives, and constitutional officers, contrasting his progressive agenda with the policies of red-state rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
This month he’s taking a different approach to “checking the box constitutionally,” senior communications adviser Anthony York said.
“We didn’t feel like there was a particularly loud clamor for another Gavin Newsom podium speech,” York said. “There are some times that, in Sacramento, talking to ourselves can feel a little cloistered, and things get lost. He likes the idea of going out into the state and talking to communities that are impacted.”
This isn’t the first time Newsom has broken the mold on required speeches. As mayor of San Francisco, he famously gave a seven-and-a-half-hour State of the City speech on his personal YouTube channel. He gave his 2021 State of the State address in cavernous Dodgers Stadium, seeking to mark California’s pandemic progress while acknowledging the loss of life with thousands of empty seats.
He does things differently in part because of a lifelong struggle with dyslexia. The learning disability makes reading speeches difficult — which is why Newsom loathes using a teleprompter, Clegg said.
“To this day you’ll never see me, including at a press conference today, ever read anything,” Newsom said on a February podcast with David Axelrod, “with one exception: those torturous exceptions where a teleprompter is required, and I will have to spend 100 hours on a one-hour speech just to feel comfortable with the words on the screen.”

Republicans are not impressed. They accuse Newsom of dodging accountability on crises like pervasive homelessness and high gas prices.
“The guy has nothing to tout, so it’s kind of amazing to me,” said Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). “It just continues to show his disdain for the Legislature.”
But aides say Newsom has little desire to speak in that setting.
“He doesn’t love the idea of lecturing and standing before 120 legislators,” said political adviser Brian Brokaw. “That’s not really his comfort zone or his brand.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 16, 2023
Biden mourns with families of California shooting victims and moves to close gun loophole

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His remarks framed what the White House portrayed as a significant advance in gun safety, an executive order intended to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.
The executive action directs Attorney General Merrick Garland to close a gray area in existing gun sales laws that have allowed some vendors to operate without conducting background checks. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Biden signed into law last summer, requires anyone who sells firearms for profit to run background checks. Garland will be tasked with defining who qualifies as a gun dealer.
“It’s just common sense to check whether someone is a felon, a domestic abuser before they buy a gun,” Biden said.
Among other directives, the executive order asked Biden’s Cabinet to focus on public awareness campaigns around red flag laws and safe gun storage and encouraged the Federal Trade Commission to publish a report on how manufacturers market firearms to adults and minors. The action also calls for his administration to speed up the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
The president’s move comes as state leaders renewed calls for federal action amid a violent start to 2023, which has already witnessed 164 victims in 110 mass shootings — incidents where at least four people are shot.
“I know what it’s like to get that call,” Biden told the crowd on Tuesday. “… I know what it’s like to lose a loved one so suddenly. It’s like losing a piece of your soul.”
While the White House has made historic strides on gun policy, the flurry of mass shootings this year has spurred a renewed pressure campaign from gun safety advocates. Now with a split Congress, gun safety groups have said Biden has a responsibility to roll out further reform. Advocates have pushed administration officials on Tuesday’s executive order for months.
Biden used his speech to re-up his calls for lawmakers to take further action on gun violence.

“Let’s be clear: None of this absolves Congress from the responsibility of acting,” he said. “Pass universal background checks. Eliminate gun manufacturer immunity and liability. And I’m determined, once again, to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines.”
Two of the three deadliest mass shootings this year have taken place in California, according to the Gun Violence Archive, despite the state having some of the country’s strictest firearm policies and a gun death rate 37 percent below the national average. Just days after the Monterey Park shooting, a disgruntled worker killed seven people at a mushroom farm in rural Half Moon Bay.
In the case of the Monterey Park shooting, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna has said the semi-automatic handgun used by the 72-year-old gunman was most likely acquired illegally.
State leaders nationally have also said more needs to be done at the federal level in light of a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down New York’s concealed carry law. That has given rise to subsequent challenges to state gun laws, including California’s longstanding ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and a provision barring 18-to-20-year-olds from buying semi automatic weapons.
After Tuesday’s speech, Biden was scheduled to meet with first responders and victims’ families as he has done so many times before in the wake of a mass tragedy. He’ll once again be surrounded by immense grief, just as he was in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., less than a year ago.
But he ended Tuesday’s remarks with a line of hope. It’s a piece of advice he’s shared with other survivors and family members along the way — something he draws from his own experiences with grief.
“It takes time, but I promise you,” Biden said. “I promise you, the day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 15, 2023
California court lets gig companies keep treating workers as contractors

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But the ruling could still hand a significant victory to unions and worker advocates. It invalidated a provision of Prop 22 that sets a high bar for the Legislature to pass laws allowing workers to organize.
“We are grateful that the California Court of Appeal has affirmed that companies like Uber, Lyft, Doordash and Instacart can’t keep drivers from joining together in a union through their deceptive ballot measure,” plaintiff and driver Mike Robinson said in a statement.
The legal battle has extended a long-running fight over the status of gig workers in California. In 2019, the state passed a law that made effectively compelled companies to classify their workers as employees, not contractors, by enshrining a California Supreme Court Decision.
After failing to block the law in Sacramento, tech companies fought back at the ballot box by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into passing Prop 22. A labor-backed coalition then challenged the law as unconstitutional.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 14, 2023
McCarthy returns to his home state to rally beleaguered California Republicans

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McCarthy’s speech comes as California Republicans could be poised to play an important role in the March 2024 primary, which is early enough in the year that the state’s large delegate pool could influence a potential race between former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The speaker avoided presidential politics in his speech at a downtown hotel, though he did take cracks at Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running to replace retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Gov. Gavin Newsom for his support of a high-speed rail system planned to eventually cut through the state’s Central Valley.
“The only thing I think Gavin spends more time on than high speed rail is spending time on his hair,” McCarthy said.
The speaker, who is from the Central Valley city of Bakersfield, is in familiar territory in Sacramento, where he served in the Assembly as the Republican leader before he was elected to Congress. His influence is welcome to a party that has fallen on hard times in California.
“He may be the highest-ranking Republican in the nation,” said California Republican Party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson, who was picked for the job by McCarthy in 2019. “But as a California Republican, he will always be one of us.”
While the speaker and Patterson avoided talk of the presidential race, it was clearly on the minds of many at the weekend convention.
Trump was by far the dominant name at the convention, with vendors hawking bedazzled “Let’s Go Brandon” hats, MAGA flags and rhinestone-encrusted purses shaped like stilettos and guns emblazoned with “Trump.” But many spoke fondly of DeSantis.
“I know what I get with Trump,” said Susan Walsh, a delegate from Nevada County who was attending the convention with her dog, a Portuguese podengo named Trump. “I want DeSantis to stay [in Florida], just in case I need to flee.”

Marty Miller, a resident of nearby Lincoln, Calif., was the only vendor offering DeSantis merchandise on Friday, including a blue “DeSantisland” t-shirt written in Disney font.
A native of Florida, Miller said California Republicans are open to DeSantis, but many are waiting to see what Trump does.
“They like Trump,” he said. “But he’s got to keep his mouth shut.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 12, 2023
California to halt $54 million Walgreens contract after company restricts sales of abortion drug

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“This is an attempt to call the question ‘Which side are you on? Whose side are you on?” Newsom said in an interview with POLITICO ahead of the announcement. “Are you going to just cower in the face of bullies? Are you going to just roll over?”
Walgreens will no longer provide medications to inmates in California’s sprawling correctional system as a result of the decision.
Newsom says this is just the first step in an “exhaustive review” of all of the state’s ties with Walgreens, some of which he may need to work with the state Legislature to terminate.
Walgreens has faced criticism after appearing to both commit to distributing the abortion drug Mifepristone in states where it is allowed while saying it would provide it in Republican-controlled states.
Newsom said he was nixing the contract in part because the company could not provide clear answers.
“They were unwilling or incapable of doing anything more than repeating a statement that only reinforces the ambiguity,” Newsom said. “That made me conclude they’re not serious about this, and we are.”
Newsom’s move also demonstrates his willingness to wield California’s financial might in an intensifying national battle over abortion access. The governor and legislative Democrats have already allocated hundreds of millions of dollars and enacted new laws to make California a sanctuary for abortion-seekers from other states.
“Ironically, we’re the size of 21 states’ populations combined,” Newsom said, referencing the 21 states where Walgreens has told GOP state officials that they do not plan to dispense the pills. “And likely, when the dust settles, we’ll be the fourth largest economy in the world. So, we have, we believe, moral authority, but we also have formal authority and will exercise it in partnership with the Legislature, and in the absence of that, through executive action.”

States have been on the frontlines of abortion policy struggles after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal right to the procedure. While California responded by aggressively expanding abortion access, Republican states have sharply restricted it.
Florida lawmakers this week introduced a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks. As national Democrats rebuked the proposal, California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Floridians repulsed by the “despicable” bill they would be “welcome in California.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 9, 2023