Here's your daily briefing...
State Dems hire Holder to fight Trump: Democratic legislators have hired former US Attorney General Eric Holder to defend state environmental and workplace protections as well as defend California’s more lenient stance on immigration from being overruled or dismantled by the incoming Trump administration. The 90-day contract gives Holder $25,000 a month. Republicans dismissed the move as a publicity stunt. North State Senator Jim Neilsen (R)-Gerber called the move wasteful, noting the state already pays an Attorney General to defend state law.
Speed up the tunnels: In a move that conceivably could shorten the regulatory timeline, Obama administration officials ordered the federal Fish and Wildlife service to release a preliminary environmental opinion on the Delta tunnels project. The multibillion dollar plan would move the intakes for the state water project pumps from the Delta upstream into the Sacramento River. Supporters say the tunnels will provide water to growers with fewer interruptions, opponents say the project will worsen already tenuous environmental conditions in the Delta.
Legislature considering stiffer penalties for ‘Stoned’ Driving: Drivers under the influence of marijuana already face the same penalties as drunk drivers or those caught behind the wheel ‘high’ on any drug, but a bill before the state Senate would add an additional misdemeanor or infraction. State Senator Jerry Hill, a co-sponsor of the bill is pushing it, annoyed that Prop 64, which legalized recreational cannabis, didn’t introduce new penalties, other than outlawing open containers of marijuana in motor vehicles.
Manson in hospital: Charles Manson, 82, the man convicted for orchestrating the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders was whisked from Corcoran State Prison Tuesday to a hospital in Bakersfield for treatment of an undisclosed medical emergency.
And on KQED’s California Report: More on Holder’s hire to defend state law from likely conflict with the Trump administration, and some big-city California school districts are declaring their facilities ‘sanctuary schools’ for undocumented immigrants.