Meet California’s “red flag” law evangelist

That is CalMatters political reporter Ben Christopher, filling in for Emily and hoping she isn’t studying this and is as a substitute having fun with her hard-earned trip.

It occurs nearly each time there’s a brand new mass capturing. 

After Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas and Parkland, Florida and Highland Park, Illinois the query comes up time and again: How can we cease these folks from having weapons within the first place?

“Purple flag” legal guidelines, which make it simpler for authorities to take away firearms from these deemed to pose a risk to themselves or others, have grow to be an more and more widespread reply to that query.

However even when states put these legal guidelines on the books, they’re typically ignored by native legislation enforcement. 

California’s largest exception: San Diego.

CalMatters politics reporter Alexei Koseff spent a while with Deputy Metropolis Lawyer Jeff Booker, who oversees San Diego’s gun violence restraining order unit, to find out how the town turned a mannequin for implementing a legislation that many California gun violence researchers level to as one of many state’s most important.

Since 2017, San Diego’s Metropolis Lawyer’s workplace has efficiently overseen the seizure of greater than 1,600 firearms from 865 folks. That’s turned Booker’s small unit right into a go-to useful resource for companies exterior the town seeking to do the identical. Greater than 100 have referred to as his workplace for recommendation since January alone.

California has a protracted technique to go. 

Even earlier than the state launched its present “crimson flag” legislation in 2016, the state created a database of “armed and prohibited individuals” — individuals who legally bought a firearm however had been later legally disqualified from having one, typically after committing a violent crime. 

As CalMatters has extensively reported, the state, which has among the many hardest gun legal guidelines within the nation, has a awful observe file of really going out and getting these weapons. The results of that failure may be deadly.

Earlier this summer season, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched an $11 million marketing campaign to advertise using gun violence restraining orders to legislation enforcement, home violence survivor help organizations and different group teams.

On Friday, the administration dropped the most recent from the marketing campaign: In a message to the mother and father of school-aged youngsters launched on Friday, the Workplace of Emergency Companies touted these crimson flag orders as “a software that might stop faculty shootings and gun suicides amongst youth, teenagers and households.”

As a part of a collaboration with CalMatters investigating wage theft throughout the state, CBS California is scheduled to run a narrative tonight that includes a Santa Clara County pilot program aimed toward monitoring down employers who’ve skimped on paying their staff. On Tuesday, it’ll take a better have a look at the difficulty from the enterprise perspective.

The tales are aimed to air each nights at 5 p.m. on KPIX 5 in San Francisco, at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on CBS 2 in Los Angeles, and at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on CBS 13 in Sacramento.

Programing observe: In one more indication that California is thru with COVID-19 (even when COVID-19 isn’t solely by with us), California’s public well being officers are actually updating their new case, dying and vaccination counts simply as soon as per week. We’ll put up the brand new numbers right here on Friday morning.

Different Tales You Ought to Know

1
Newsom needs a debate or two

Common publication readers will recall final week that a few of the prime Democratic candidates operating for statewide workplace — together with Gov. Gavin Newsom — didn’t seem all that desirous about debating their electoral opponents earlier than Election Day. 

Perhaps I spoke too quickly.

Not solely is the governor now keen to debate his opponent within the race, Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle from Bieber, Newsom can be apparently additionally eager to debate the governor of Florida about immigration coverage — and maybe the prevalence of various hair-styling merchandise.

Let me clarify.

• A substantive California debate…: On Friday, KQED confirmed that Newsom agreed to take part in an Oct. 23 dwell debate with Dahle, which will likely be broadcast on the radio with a video stream. It’s a return to type for the San Francisco-based NPR affiliate; KQED hosted the one dwell debate of the final gubernatorial election too.

Newsom responded on Thursday by calling upon the U.S. Division of Justice to analyze DeSantis for “kidnapping.” DeSantis retorted that Newsom’s hair gel should be “interfering along with his mind operate.” At that, Newsom — who has repeatedly insisted that he’s definitely not planning a presidential run — challenged DeSantis, extensively seen as a future White Home contender, to a debate.

• Newsom: “Since you may have just one overriding want — consideration — let’s take this up & debate. I’ll carry my hair gel. You carry your hairspray.”

Different California political information you might need missed over the weekend:

• Mud to mud: It would quickly be authorized in California to compost human stays, offering the dearly departed a brand new state-sanctioned technique to shuffle off this mortal coil. Newsom signed the invoice that legalizes the apply — and units a statutory price of $8.50 per “discount” — Sunday night. You’ll be able to examine that one, together with different notable laws the governor did, didn’t or has but to signal, at CalMatters’ 2022 invoice tracker.
• Gómez out: The particular election between San Diego Assemblymember David Alvarez and former Metropolis Council President Georgette Gómez was one of the crucial costly within the state earlier this yr. We gained’t be getting a sequel in November. Gómez, who misplaced to Alvarez within the particular however was working to unseat him within the often scheduled basic election, mentioned she’s ending her campaign. 
• One other referendum within the making: On Friday, Lawyer Common Rob Bonta revealed a title and abstract for a quick meals industry-backed petition to dam a brand new state legislation regulating wages and dealing situations at franchise eating places. To qualify for the 2024 poll, supporters have till early December to collect 623,212 signatures.

2
Pay hike coming to CSU?

A invoice sitting on Gov. Newsom’s desk would require California State College to provide its non-faculty staff — staff whom college directors acknowledge are underpaid — a sequence of raises over the subsequent 15 years. 

However there’s a catch: The invoice wouldn’t truly give the college system any cash to fund the upper pay.

That places Newsom in a political bind, writes CalMatters greater training reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn. 

His choices are: 

• Signal the invoice and climate the political fallout. If the state doesn’t present new funding, directors warn they might want to enhance tuition, lower providers or each. One projection: The college system must lower 6,300 courses to pay for the primary yr of pay hikes alone.
• Veto the invoice and incur the wrath of the 30,000 unionized staff denied a elevate.

Sen. Connie Leyva, a Chino Democrat who declined to hunt reelection this yr, isn’t significantly sympathetic to the college’s grim monetary prognostications.

• Leyva: “Sure, we don’t wish to see college students endure, however what message are we sending to college students that you just get to return and get this training on the backs of those staff.”

Newsom has promised to comply with by with sufficient new state money to pay for the raises after which some, however guarantees may be damaged. Critics say future funding is especially precarious given mounting fears of a recession, a priority that Newsom has telegraphed in a sequence of veto messages this month.

• Cal State Assistant Vice Chancellor Ryan Storm: “Whereas there’s a dedication by the governor to suggest extra funding that’s in extra of a billion {dollars}, there’s no assure of it both, however there can be a assure of prices if this invoice would go.”

3
Have you ever ever seen the rain?

Startled residents throughout the northern half of the state had been handled to an uncommon meteorological phenomenon this weekend: Drops of water fell from the sky. 

A fall rain storm, barreling south out of Alaska, comes as a welcome reprieve for a drought-parched state nonetheless recovering from a thermometer-busting warmth wave earlier this month. 

The storm can be welcome information for firefighters who’re nonetheless battling to include the Mosquito Hearth within the Georgetown Divide area within the Sierra foothills. As of Sunday afternoon, the blaze was solely 34% contained, although the colder temperatures, humidity and precipitation will make it simpler to hem within the flames additional, CalFire mentioned in a standing replace. 

However rain on a recent burn scar raises its personal perils. 

Two years in the past the El Dorado Hearth, sparked by an ill-advised “gender reveal” celebration, torched the hills across the San Bernardino Nationwide Forest. When Tropical Storm Kay dumped rain over the area final week, there was little vegetation in place to maintain the fire-baked soil from sliding off these hillsides. 

This weekend, a search-and-rescue workforce discovered the physique of a 62-year-old girl who was buried in mud and particles in her Forest Falls house.

Different issues value your time

Some tales could require a subscription to learn

California near blocking overseas patrons from its farmland // VOA

Majority of Latino voters out of GOP’s attain, new ballot exhibits // New York Instances

Play ‘Sim Nimby’: A recreation impressed by the housing disaster // San Francisco Commonplace

San Diego’s D.A. gained’t cost Dem celebration chair // Instances of San Diego

Choose halts sheriff’s pc search in supervisor investigation // LAist

California nonetheless letting oil firms use scarce high-quality water // Inside Local weather Information

Lawmakers name for probe into “retaliatory habits” at immigrant detainees // KQED

The California county the place MAGA took management // New York Instances

Why don’t homeless advocates help Proposition 27? // San Francisco Chronicle

Thousands and thousands of scholar mortgage debtors might obtain computerized refunds quickly // CNBC

After California misfire on hid weapons, sheriff underneath scrutiny // Mercury Information

Uncommon yellow-legged frogs returned to San Gabriel Mountains // Los Angeles Instances

As California braces for extreme flu season, docs urge photographs // San Francisco Chronicle

Honoring the East L.A. chef who rejected the Mexican combo plate // Los Angeles Instances

Opinion: California able to attempt nearly any tactic on homelessness — besides the one which works // Sacramento Bee