Here's your daily briefing...
Brand new session, same old issues: Lawmakers return to work today as a brand new legislative session gets underway in Sacramento. Democrats hold wide majorities in both houses and the governor’s office. Potholes and California’s exorbitant cost of housing remain perennial issues lawmakers vow to tackle. Again.
Filling cavities in Denti-Cal funding: There’s a political showdown in Sacramento over the state’s underfunded dental insurance program for the poor. In something of a turn-around, Republicans are urging that the program receive more money and urging officials to take the cash from the proceeds of newly raised tobacco taxes.
Becerra put forward as new AG: With Kamala Harris joining the US Senate in Washington D.C., legislators will be considering Governor Jerry Brown’s pick, U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra as the state’s next attorney general.
Simon says ‘go snow’: Despite record precipitation in October and some good soakers in November and December, California’s first official monthly snow survey provided underwhelming results. According to measurements taken by hand, the current water content in the snow piled up in the Sierra stands at just 53 percent of normal. Electronic measurements suggest the figure is closer to 70 percent. Those figures might be a lot different in a week’s time as heavy rain and snow is expected over the next seven days.
Keep on truckin’: Those dependent on State Route 299 are going to have to endure painfully long detours for at least an extra week. Caltrans estimates that the highway, buried since Dec. 12 beneath 100,000 tons of rock, won’t reopen until Jan. 15 at the earliest. The slide is about halfway between Weaverville and Willow Creek.
And on KQED’s California Report: California lawmakers hire former US Attorney General Eric Holder to represent legislature as state Democratic leaders prepare to go toe-to-toe with the incoming Trump Administration. A lawmaker’s editorial on a law decriminalizing child prostitution generates a firestorm. Snow survey comes in low, and a bill in the legislature addresses the so-called precariat, the 3.5 million California workers with no set work schedule, living on and often stumbling into poverty. The bill would require employers to offer new hours to existing part-time workers before they could hire new part time workers or outsource the hours to contract workers.