Issue #211: Happy New Year (maybe)
ICI brings you this week's news highlights
The new Independent California Institute poll kicked off January 6!
US loses net neutrality; California doesn’t
Hundreds of new laws just went into effect
Newsom balances state budget, provided Trump doesn’t poke holes in it
Please, please ask anyone you know to subscribe to this newsletter. The next four years are going to be tremendously challenging for California, and we need to organize as many Californians as we can to fight back.
Remember… 58% of Californians think we’d be better off as our own country!
WELCOME TO 2025!
Get up to speed fast on these new California laws taking effect in 2025
Here are some of the most noteworthy 2025 laws that go into effect on Jan. 1.
CalMatters
A new California law bans your boss from ordering you to attend anti-union meetings
Troubled California teens gain protections under a new law
California’s lemon law is changing and car buyers have fewer protections in the new year
New law could help tenants facing eviction stay in their homes
California bans schools from forcing teachers to ‘out’ LGBTQ students
California limits junk fees: New law blocks fines for declined ATM withdrawals
New California voter ID ban puts conservative cities at odds with state
Most medical debt can no longer hurt your credit score under new California law
California stiffened penalties for theft — and more changes are coming
Emergency room workers are facing more attacks. A new California law increases penalties
New law inspired by ex-lawmaker’s DUI adds to alcohol education in California schools
More new 2025 laws
Fox 11 Digital Team
AI in Hollywood: Live actors’ voices may not be replicated without permission and dead actors’ voices may not be used without permission.
It is now illegal to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk, marked or unmarked.
It is now illegal for job postings to require applicants to have a valid driver’s license unless vital for performance of duties.
Private colleges which accept state funding may not give preference to legacy applicants.
Public libraries may not ban books due to race, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, or political affiliation of a book's subject, author, or intended audience.
SB 450 requires local governments to drop certain zoning requirements to make it easier for homeowners to divide their homes into as many as four separate units.
Also known as The Interim Housing Act, SB 1395 makes it easier for cities to build tiny homes for homeless residents.
And yet more: no commercial octopus farming
Animal Legal Defense Fund
“These animals have significant cognitive abilities and can learn new skills, navigate complex mazes, are known escape artists, and even use tools. Due to their complex mental ability, octopuses have high enrichment needs that simply cannot be met in farming environments. Intensively confining these highly intelligent, solitary animals in unnatural farming conditions is inhumane, as there is a high likelihood of stress, aggressive activity, and high mortality among octopuses in these settings. Methods of slaughtering octopuses have historically been highly inhumane, including clubbing, slicing, asphyxiation, and chilling..”
Here are the new state labor laws that may affect your workplace
Ryan Fonseca, LA Times
“Senate Bill 399 prohibits employers from calling mandatory meetings designed for management “to communicate the employer’s opinion about religious or political matters,” including views on unions.
Senate Bill 988, dubbed the Freelance Worker Protection Act, aims to ensure independent contractors are paid in a timely manner. It requires a person or business that hires freelancers to provide written contracts for services if they are paying the worker more than $250.
Senate Bill 951 passed in 2022, but a boost in paid family-leave benefits from that law kicked in this year.”
California minimum wage increases
Perkins Coie
“In addition to the general state minimum wage increase, employers should be aware of changing minimum wages for certain sectors.”
Fast food: now $20 per hour, inflation index increase to be announced.
Health care workers also have a separate minimum wage.
And many localities have higher minimum wages than the state.
New California laws banning toxic chemicals in cosmetics and clothing
Shannon Handy, CBS 8
“On January 1, 2025 three new California laws will ban more than two dozen chemicals found in cosmetics, personal care products, and clothing.
The new laws going into effect are the Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act of 2020 (AB 2762) the PFAs-Free Beauty Act of 2022 (AB 2771), and the California Safer Clothes and Textiles Act of 2022 (AB 1817).
Among the banned substances are polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called "forever chemicals" due to their slow decomposition rate. These chemicals have been linked to various health issues, including reproductive and developmental problems, immune system suppression, and breast cancer.”
New California laws that might affect your 2025
CapRadio
Here is a compendium of important new laws taking effect. No one list can capture them all.
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TRUMP 2.0 SET TO BEGIN
Can California keep ICE away from schools? Lawmakers want to try as crackdowns loom
Carolyn Jones, CalMatters
“A pair of bills in the Legislature — AB 49 and SB 48 — aim to keep federal agents from detaining undocumented students or their families on or near school property without a warrant. The bills are a response to President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to deport undocumented immigrants, a move which could have major consequences for schools in California, which funds its schools based on attendance and where 12% of students have at least one undocumented parent.
Both bills would make it harder and more time-consuming for agents to enter schools or day care centers. But they can only delay, not stop, arrests.”
Newsom aims to limit unhealthy food in California, getting ahead of Trump administration and RFK Jr.
“The order directs state agencies to develop recommendations to limit the health harms of ultra-processed foods and calls for proposals to reduce the purchase of candy, soda and other unhealthy foods made with synthetic dyes or additives by recipients of government food benefits.”
How sanctuary laws could throw a wrench into Trump’s deportation plans
Hilary Beaumont, Capital and Main
“Trump has vowed to carry out mass deportations on his first day back in office. However, that agenda will likely face significant obstacles in jurisdictions like California, where sanctuary laws limit cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. During his first term, immigrant advocates secured the passage of a sanctuary law known as Senate Bill 54, or the California Values Act. Today, 11 states, including Oregon, Colorado and New York, have sanctuary laws that prevent information sharing with ICE, to varying degrees. Immigrant advocates are hopeful that these laws will thwart Trump’s agenda.
But the incoming administration is already devising ways to get around these laws, including increasing the presence of ICE agents in sanctuary jurisdictions. Trump’s second term is likely to spark a cat-and-mouse game between the administration and sanctuary states, with federal officials ramping up immigration enforcement and threatening to withhold funding from states, while states prepare legal defenses and bolster policies to shield undocumented residents.
Still, the lack of cooperation from sanctuary cities is significant. Local and state law enforcement officers act as a force multiplier for ICE agents. More than 70% of ICE arrests made inside the U.S. are the result of handoffs from other law enforcement agencies, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national nonprofit that advocates for immigrant rights. Sanctuary laws prevent these handoffs by blocking local and state agencies from sharing information or cooperating with ICE.”
Newsom’s state budget plan comes with a Trump-sized asterisk
Ryan Fonseca, LA Times
“President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House will almost certainly be followed by a number of major policy shifts in the form of tariffs, mass deportations and federal budget cuts. That includes threats to withhold disaster funding in fire-prone California.
The potential effects of those policies on the labor market and inflation “would radically change our outlook,” Newsom said. “We really have to see what fire and fury comes from Trump in the next few weeks.”
Newsom also mentioned the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, led by two people: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.’”
Challenging Trump, California to pay for migrant deportation defense
California in Focus podcast
”’President-elect Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations could have a major impact on California, which hosts approximately 2.7 million undocumented immigrants. “If it’s legal assistance, legal advice, legal support, that’s just the California way,” Padilla said when asked if the state would fund legal defenses of undocumented immigrants facing deportation. “We embrace our diversity. Our diversity has made our communities thrive and our economy thrive.’”
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CALIFORNIA IN THE NEWS
Federal court decision won’t change California net neutrality law
Meg James, LA Times
“California has one of the nation’s strongest laws on net neutrality, the principle that internet traffic must be treated equally to ensure a free and open network. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure into law in 2018, months after federal regulators in President elect-Donald Trump’s first administration repealed the net neutrality rules put in place under President Obama.
“Absent an act of Congress, the FCC has virtually no role in broadband any more,” Ernesto Falcon, a program manager for the California Public Utilities Commission, said in an interview. “The result of this decision is that states like California, New York and others will have to govern and regulate broadband carriers on our own.’”
Biden to create two new California national monuments protecting tribal lands
Clara Harter, LA Times
“The sites are in the rocky, mountainous desert near Joshua Tree and amid dense forests and pristine lakes near the Oregon border.
In the coming days, Biden will sign proclamations creating the 644,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California and the 200,000-acre Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, a source who requested anonymity confirmed to The Times. The news was earlier reported by the Washington Post.
In taking this action, the president will be fulfilling the wishes of tribal members and environmentalists who have fought for generations to protect these sacred Indigenous lands and their rich natural resources from industrialization, development and degradation.”
California property tax map: How much homeowners in every ZIP code are saving due to Prop 13
Check out interactive map here.
Emma Stiefel, SF Chronicle
“The assessed value of the property can increase each year, but only up to 2%, to keep pace with inflation. As long as a property’s market value increases more than 2%, the owner effectively receives a tax subsidy because they pay less than they would under the pre-Prop 13 system. The value of a property is reassessed at market rate only when it gets a new owner.
As a result, similar homes can have wildly different property tax bills.
For example, the owner of one of the six famed Painted Lady houses in San Francisco paid about $44,000 in property taxes in 2023. This house was sold in 2020 for $3.55 million, and its assessed value in 2023 was $3.7 million. The owner of a nearly identical Painted Lady paid just $1,100 in 2023 property taxes. The home hasn’t changed hands since 1974, so its assessed value is $94,000, far lower than its $1.7 million estimated market value.
On average, California homeowners save about $4,000 in property taxes per year thanks to Prop 13, according to the Chronicle’s analysis of Redfin data. But some places have much higher subsidies.”
Opinion: In our California county, we’ve been abandoned by both parties
Gil Rebollar, San Jose Mercury News
“Since the conclusion of the election, much of the media have painted Imperial Valley as having dramatically shifted its politics. With President-elect Donald Trump jumping from 37% of the 2020 vote in the region to 49% this year, many now claim that it has “flipped” from blue to red. Are we a once-blue county making a revolutionary realignment toward the Republican Party, or one growing more purple?
The truth is neither. The Imperial Valley is not living through a left-versus-right war, a storyline far too easy and convenient for pundits to resist as they lazily view our region as a political novelty. Trump’s strong local finish does not mark a sudden conservative awakening, just as the region’s previous Democratic lean did not reflect an unwavering progressive faith.
The truth is more damning. The Imperial Valley is neither red nor blue. Instead, it is a place that feels betrayed by both parties.”
The great California exodus has ended -- thanks in part to legal immigration
Terry Castleman, LA Times
“The state’s population rose slightly in 2024 after three years of precipitous decline, according to data from the state Department of Finance.
California’s population is more than a quarter foreign-born, the highest figure in the nation, according to Census data. Net immigration from foreign countries into the state rebounded from nearly zero at the height of the pandemic to its current levels in just two years, helping to dampen the impact of the California Exodus, in which an increasing number of residents relocated to other states.”
AND SECESSION
Breaking away: The case for secession, radical decentralization, and smaller polities
Book review: Mises Institute
“For decades, when American readers have encountered the topics of secession and political decentralization, the discussion has generally been confined to a narrow range of topics around the American Civil War, American constitutional law, and race relations in America.
This book barely mentions any of those things.
Rather, Breaking Away differs from countless other books on secession and decentralization in that it considers examples and benefits of secession and radical decentralization in a much broader historical, geographical, and theoretical context. That is, this book isn’t necessarily for Americans at all, but for anyone interested in how issues of secession and decentralization come up again and again worldwide as communities of human beings seek self-determination, freedom, and economic prosperity. An examination of these topics also necessitates a look at small states which often only exist because they have successfully resisted efforts at political centralization, or have been formed from successful secession movements of the past. Small states are often the success stories.
Fortunately, scholars in recent decades have begun to focus in greater detail on secession, decentralization, and small states. For many decades, the study of states has focused overwhelmingly on large states and great powers. “State-building” has long been of central interest to many scholars. But the processes of breaking states apart—secession and decentralization—have commanded far less attention.”