Politics
Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills
![Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills Black Californians warn Newsom of 'direct impact' on Harris after Democrats kill slave reparation bills](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/AP24244812299639.jpg)
Black activists at the California assembly threatened a “direct impact” on Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign after state Democratic lawmakers held off on two bills that would have greenlighted slavery reparations.
Last week, the California legislature approved proposals allowing for the return of land or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the government, and issuing a formal apology for laws and practices that have harmed Black people. But none of those bills would provide widespread direct payments to African Americans. After hours of heated debate and protests on Saturday, state lawmakers left out two bills – Senate Bills 1403 and 1331 – that would have created a fund and an agency to oversee reparation measures.
“The speaker needs to bring the bills up now, now, now. These are their bills. They have their names on the bills. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor,” one Black man, a member of the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, said in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year on Saturday. “Now listen, they’re gonna see this, and they’re gonna get mad at us. They killing their own bills, and then they’re gonna get mad at us. They’re killing their own bills because they’re scared of the governor. We don’t care. Bring the G– d— bills up now, now, now.”
“We need to send a message to the governor,” a Black woman who is part of the same group chimed in, according to video shared on X. “The governor needs to understand the world is watching California and this is gonna have a direct impact on your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This is going to have a direct impact, so pull up the bills now, vote on them and sign them. We’ve been waiting for over 400 years.”
“We have the votes,” the man added.
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER REACTS TO ‘CRAZY’ BILL THAT WOULD GIVE UNDOCUMENTED FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS MONEY
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, right, talks to members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California about two reparations bills in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
State Sen. Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills failed to move forward out of fear that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.
“We’re at the finish line, and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of chattel slavery, to Black Californians and Black Americans, to move this legislation forward,” Bradford said, urging his colleagues to reconsider Saturday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
“We owe it to our ancestors,” Bradford added, according to the Sacramento Bee. “And I think we disappointed them in a way.”
California Legislative Black Caucus Chair Assemblymember Lori Wilson said Saturday that the Black Caucus pulled the bills, adding the proposals need more work.
“We knew from the very beginning that it was an uphill battle…. And we also knew from the very beginning that it would be a multiyear effort,” Wilson told reporters.
![Black activists demand California lawmakers take up reparations bills](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/AP24244812327525.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California protest in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
Newsom has not weighed in on most of the bills, but he signed a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation. However, the budget did not specify what proposals the money would be used for, and his administration has signaled its opposition to some of them. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign the bills that passed.
SAN FRANCISCO TO BEGIN ‘EQUITY AUDIT’ OF CONTROVERSIAL STATUES: CONCENTRATION OF ‘WHITE SUPREMACY’
Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who is Black, called his bill to issue a formal apology for discrimination “a labor of love.” His uncle was part of a group of Black students who in the 1950s were escorted by federal troops past an angry white mob into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional. The students became known as the “Little Rock Nine.”
![Black reparations activists at California legislature](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/1200/675/AP24244812326156.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Members of Coalition for a Just and Equitable California demand lawmakers take up a vote on two reparations bill in the rotunda on the last day of the legislative year Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Tran Nguyen)
“I think my grandmother, my grandfather, would be extremely proud for what we are going to do today,” Jones-Sawyer said ahead of the vote on the legislation that was passed. “Because that is why they struggled in 1957, so that I’d be able to — and we’d be able to — move forward our people.”
Newsom approved a law in 2020 creating a first-in-the-nation task force to study reparations proposals. New York and Illinois have since followed suit with similar legislation. The California group released a final report last year with more than 100 recommendations for lawmakers.
Newsom signed a law earlier this summer requiring school districts that receive state funding for a career education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender. The legislation, part of a reparations package backed by the California Legislative Black Caucus, aims to help address gaps in student outcomes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Politics
Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president?
![Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president? Opinion: Should a five-time loser with grand juries be president?](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/82a042a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3518x1847+0+252/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F03%2Fad%2F280d56bc423c98543309d3f66721%2Ftrump-capitol-riot-78748.jpg)
By now, two months before the presidential election, we voters ought to have seen a verdict in the federal criminal case against the three-time Republican nominee accused of conspiring to overturn the result of the previous contest. (That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.)
But there is no verdict against defendant Donald Trump, U.S. history’s biggest sore loser, thanks to the Supreme Court. Its right-wing super-majority — half of whom were selected by Trump, and two of whom should have recused themselves — dallied for half the year before issuing a surreal ruling in July granting the former president, and all future presidents, broad immunity from criminal liability for official acts, even for purportedly official acts intended to dynamite democracy’s foundation: free and fair elections.
Opinion Columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
So much for no person being above the law.
Thanks to special counsel Jack Smith, however, voters at least have a revised indictment against Trump in the Jan. 6 case. On Tuesday a new grand jury charged him with the same four conspiracy and obstruction crimes alleged in last year’s indictment, stripped of supporting material that might run afoul of the Supreme Court’s new tests for what is or isn’t an official act.
It’s far too late for a trial, and hence a verdict, before Nov. 5. And Trump’s team almost certainly will argue all the way back to the high court that Smith’s “superseding indictment” violates the justices’ immunity ruling.
Yet if nothing else, the retooled indictment is a useful refresher for those who’ve forgotten about, or become inured to, Trump’s antidemocratic outrages, the ones that made him the first American president to resist the peaceful transfer of power.
And more than that, the charges are a reminder about just why Trump wants to be president again: to avoid criminal liability and possibly prison. If reelected, he could thwart the rule of law, not uphold it as the oath of office demands. Trump could — would — make the Jan. 6 case go away, along with the separate federal charges against him for keeping classified documents. While he’s at it, he has promised to pardon hundreds of charged and convicted Jan. 6 insurrectionists, whom he grossly calls government “hostages.” He could also pardon himself, of course, for his alleged federal crimes (but not state charges).
After the grand jury action last week, former Justice Department official and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann helpfully tweeted, “For those counting, FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”
Yes, for all of Trump’s daily lies that he’s being railroaded by “the Biden-Harris Regime” and its “weaponized” Justice Department, the facts are that many average Americans have heard evidence and decided against Trump. They’ve done so not only in those five grand juries, but also in several state trial juries that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star from voters before the 2016 election.
With that last judgment, Trump achieved another contemptible first: No other president has been convicted of felonies. Sentencing in the hush money case, in New York, was delayed until Sept. 18, thanks to the confusion spawned by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, and Trump has asked for a further delay — past election day, natch. Judge Juan M. Merchan should proceed with the sentencing. Sure, Trump would cry foul. But all we’ve seen to date is excessive legal deference toward the lawless former president, his incessant whining about witch hunts notwithstanding.
Which brings us back to Smith’s overhauled Jan. 6 indictment, and its welcome reminder of Trump’s unprecedented power grab. The 36 pages are a maddening must-read for undecided voters, a ticktock of his falsehoods and scheming from the 2020 election through the violence of Jan. 6, 2021. Yet nearly four years later, instead of being held responsible, Trump is a candidate for reelection.
Smith strained to steer clear of Trump’s supposedly official acts, in keeping with the Supreme Court’s warped ruling. Out, for example, are accounts of his vile efforts to force Justice Department aides to lie about election fraud, as a pretext for lawsuits; they were his executive branch employees. But campaign advisors should be fair game for the prosecutors, and the indictment still recounts Trump’s refusals to accept their assertions and proof that he’d lost, that there was no fraud. Trump instead kept his aides spreading lies — “conspiracy s— beamed down from the mothership,” one wrote in an email cited in the indictment — and working on illegal slates of alternative state electors.
The document retains some details of Trump’s belittling pressure on Vice President Mike Pence. “You’re too honest,” the liar in chief once erupted, exasperated that Pence wouldn’t agree to throw out the electoral votes of pro-Biden battleground states during Congress’ Jan. 6 certification. And it includes Trump’s private and public haranguing of state officials to do his illegal bidding; they’re not feds, and presidents have no official role in states’ vote-counting.
Alas, for now all we have, still, are the charges, no trial and no verdict. But that fact defines the stakes for the 2024 election: A vote for Trump is a vote against his accountability. It’s really that simple.
@jackiekcalmes
Politics
Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery
![Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery Gold Star families slam Kamala Harris for 'playing politics' over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/kamala-graves-arlington-1.jpg)
Vice President Kamala Harris was recently excoriated by Gold Star family members who accused the Democratic presidential candidate of politicizing an incident at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.
The messages were posted on former President Trump’s Instagram account. Eight videos, each featuring different parents of service members killed by ISIS-K terrorists amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021, were published in total.
The videos were released in the wake of a statement published by Harris on Saturday, where the vice president criticized Trump for taking photographs at a wreath-laying ceremony event on Monday. The Army said this week that an Arlington National Cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” while interacting with Trump’s staff.
“As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times,” Harris said. “It is not a place for politics. And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff.”
TRUMP IMPERSONATES ELON MUSK TALKING ABOUT ROCKETS: ‘I’M DOING A NEW STAINLESS STEEL HUB’
Kamala Harris was called out by Gold Star families over a statement she released about Trump on Saturday. (Getty Images)
“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” she claimed, before adding that she would “never politicize” such an event.
The Gold Star family members maintained that they had asked Trump for photographs, as opposed to Trump taking pictures to advance his campaign. In one video, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz called Harris’ post “heinous, vile and disgusting.”
“Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign,” Mark Schmitz said in the video. “We wanted a leader. That explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call.”
Darren Hoover, the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, said that Harris lacks “empathy and basic understanding” about Monday’s event, and stressed that Trump’s appearance was respectful.
HARRIS SLAMS TRUMP OVER ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY ALTERCATION, PROMPTING FIERY RESPONSE FROM JD VANCE
![Trump Harris split image](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Copy-of-Side-by-Side-split-9.png?ve=1&tl=1)
Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump over last week’s incident at Arlington National Cemetery. (Getty Images)
“In keeping with the reverence and respect that is given to all members of our military that are buried there, we invited President Trump,” he said. “We are the ones that asked for the video and the pictures to be taken at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
Hoover also added that Trump has “been there for us from the very beginning,” and criticized Harris for “playing politics” over the incident.
“You should be ashamed and embarrassed [about] your lack of empathy and decency as a human being,” the father added. “You are only in this for the power and prestige. You don’t care for our military or the citizens of this country.
![Trump at Arizona rally](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/AP24237043125176.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“You should hang your head in shame at your actions or lack thereof.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
Politics
Newsom calls Legislature into special session after lawmakers reject his latest salvo at Big Oil
![Newsom calls Legislature into special session after lawmakers reject his latest salvo at Big Oil Newsom calls Legislature into special session after lawmakers reject his latest salvo at Big Oil](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ee191b6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x3150+0+425/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fef%2F49%2Ff7cb056a4f068ffb16d2167d7768%2F1470574-me-panda-ceremony-18-mjc.jpg)
Gov. Gavin Newsom called California lawmakers into a special session Saturday after Assembly Democrats pushed back on his request to approve new requirements on oil refineries in the final days of the regular legislative session that ends Saturday night.
The unusual maneuver effectively pushes the Legislature into overtime to address the complex and politically sensitive issue of energy affordability just as campaign season heats up in advance of the Nov. 5 election.
Newsom’s order requires that lawmakers formally open a special session today, but it’s unclear when they plan to hold hearings to consider the bills or how long the session will go. Lawmakers were scheduled to leave Sacramento this weekend for four months in their home districts.
“It should be common sense for gas refineries to plan ahead and backfill supplies when they go down for maintenance to avoid price spikes. But these price spikes are actually profit spikes for Big Oil, and they’re using the same old scare tactics to maintain the status quo,” Newsom said in a statement.
“Calling the session now allows the Legislature to begin that work immediately so that the state can resolve this important matter now to establish the necessary rules to prevent price spikes next year and beyond.”
It’s the second time in two years that Newsom has called a special session focused on the economics of the oil industry, an issue that divides Democrats as they navigate a desire to fight climate change with ambitions to lower prices at the pump. Newsom has blamed high gas prices on the industry, which he accused of gouging consumers. Oil companies point to the state’s climate change and tax policies as drivers of higher prices.
Two weeks ago, Newsom announced a proposal to require that petroleum refiners maintain a stable inventory in order to prevent fuel shortages and price spikes when refinery equipment is taken offline for maintenance.
As the oil industry lobbied heavily against the proposal, Democrats in the Assembly and Senate squabbled over how to move forward. Lawmakers said they were frustrated with Newsom’s attempt to push the plan through the Capitol at the last minute.
In a statement Friday, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said his caucus agreed with the governor about the need to urgently address affordability and would deliver results if a special session was called. But he refused to take up the bills for a floor vote by Saturday’s deadline.
“What I’m not going to do is push through bills that haven’t been sufficiently vetted with public hearings,” Rivas said. “Doing so could lead to unintended consequences on Californians’ pocketbooks.”
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said he wouldn’t rush Newsom’s energy proposal through the Legislature.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
Newsom’s office began talking with the Senate and Assembly earlier this summer about legislation that would allow his administration to require that petroleum refiners maintain a stable inventory in order to prevent fuel shortages in California.
After gathering more insight about pricing from laws passed in a previous special session on oil that ended last year, state regulators had reported that charges at the pump increase when the oil companies do not maintain enough refined gasoline to backfill production shortfalls or protect against the impact of unplanned maintenance.
Western States Petroleum Assn. leaders said the governor’s refinery proposal will drive up fuel costs in California and reduce supplies in Arizona and Nevada. The argument raised a potent political concern that the state policy could become a national headache for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats in a critical election year.
“It’s noteworthy that legislators are considering such radical energy policies at a time when the nation is closely examining how the ‘California model’ will impact their families and pocketbooks,” Catherine Reheis-Boyd, CEO of the Western States Petroleum Assn., said in a statement this week.
The warning from WSPA, Chevron and other industry players spooked Assembly Democrats, who were also irked by the late introduction of the proposal.
In an effort to reach an agreement with Democratic lawmakers, the proposal was tied together with other bills in the Senate and Assembly during negotiations with leaders of both houses. But environmentalists opposed some of those proposals, leaving Democrats with a suite of bills that angered both ends of the environmental policy spectrum.
One of the Assembly bills, which would cut energy and climate programs that fund HVAC improvements in schools, installation of energy storage and generation technologies in vulnerable communities and solar energy systems on multifamily affordable housing to achieve a meager one-time customer credit on electricity and gas bills, drew sweeping opposition from a coalition of environmental, education, housing and energy groups. Another bill, which ratepayer advocates supported, would have required the Public Utilities Commission to develop a framework for analyzing total annual energy costs for residential households.
The bills didn’t offer enough incentive for Assembly Democrats to slam the plan through this week. They also soured on efforts by Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) to leverage the moment to pass Senate bills that would accelerate environmental reviews for clean energy and hydrogen projects, save ratepayers money by lowering requirements for utility wildfire mitigation plans and make it harder for companies to terminate utility service to customers.
The drama marked another effort by a governor on the cusp of the final two years of his second term to push last-minute bills through a Legislature guided by two new leaders. Earlier this summer lawmakers similarly balked on passing a bill that would have placed his measure targeting retail crime on the ballot.
Newsom’s decision to call for a special session also marks the second time he’s sought to toughen California’s oil laws outside the typical two-year process to hear bills, which runs from January through August or mid-September each year.
The governor called a special session two years ago to penalize oil companies for excessive profits as gasoline prices spiked. But lawmakers were ultimately reluctant to adopt a penalty and Newsom refined his request to instead demand more transparency from the industry.
Instead of enacting a cap and penalty on oil refinery profits, Newsom and lawmakers gave state regulators the ability to do so in the future. Consumer advocates and the governor celebrated the resulting law as a groundbreaking tool that could keep gas prices from escalating.
But Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo of Nevada joined the industry and his party in May when he sent Newsom a letter warning a cap could “further raise gas prices for both of our constituencies” because his state’s gas largely comes from refineries in California.
On Friday, Andy Walz, president of Americas products for Chevron, sent a letter to the California Energy Commission saying that Newsom’s new refinery proposal “risks the safety of refinery operations, the orderly functioning of markets and would leave industry and labor experts without a voice in key policies.”
“The physical, operational and cost burdens to sustain unnecessary inventory are also a concern,” he wrote. “Building just one new storage tank can take a decade and cost $35 million. These costs would likely be passed onto the consumer. And given the current regulatory regime, with constraints on permits and a gasoline vehicle sales ban, there is no opportunity to recover capital invested to build additional tanks, which could be the ‘last straw’ for the state’s energy market investors.”
The timing of a second special session on oil regulations could work in Newsom’s favor if lawmakers immediately get to work.
Newsom will finish signing the bills on his desk by Sept. 30, which means he could have the political upper hand if the special session begins before that period concludes. If the special session begins after bill signing, the governor could lose some of that leverage.
But when, and, if, they ultimately pass new mandates on the oil industry or lower electricity bills could also affect the election.
Legislation that saves consumers money could give them something to tout to their constituents. Laws that potentially raise gas prices could be weaponized in California races or national contests.
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