2022 Legislative interviews

California's Citizens Redistricting Commission, and the standards they are required to follow, represent the gold standard for independent nonpartisan redistricting. For the 2021 redistricting cycle, the legislature adopted some groundbreaking reforms for for local redistricting, establishing requirements for public outreach, and ranked criteria to be used for city and county redistricting. What changes, if any, would you support for the next redistricting cycle in 2031?

During this year’s redistricting process, it was unfortunate that the commissioners could not visit all parts of the state. Normally, this is how they get public comment and testimony, which is beneficial to the process. It wasn’t the fault of the commission; it was the fault of COVID–19. At least for the statewide and congressional maps level, the commissioners initially appeared to make a lot of decisions that were based purely on data and population numbers, and not fully reflective of different communities and maintaining the interests of those communities. 

In any redistricting process, certain communities get divided, and some cities get cut out. In some cases, it's just impossible to avoid that. But overall, I thought the commissioners ultimately did a good job of listening to many hours of testimony, allowing people to give their feedback, and then to make some adjustments. Some new seats were created, other seats were taken away, and that's just an inevitable part of the redistricting process. I thought they did a pretty good job making the maps, given the challenging circumstances due to COVID–19 and the inability to travel around the state. Hopefully that will not be an issue in 2031.

Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate that the overwhelming majority of the impacts of climate change will be connected to water – drought, floods, unreliable water supplies, poor water quality, and ecosystem devastation.  Historically, in the U.S., low-income communities and communities of color, both urban and rural, have experienced the greatest harm, although global warming affects everyone.  Do you see ways that California can help these communities while dealing with the water effects of climate change on the state? How do we move toward equity and sustainability? 

Water is extraordinarily important. Obviously, we can't live without it. Unfortunately, water is really a barometer on where we are with handling climate change. There is a lot more that we could do concerning water management. 

But we must also look upstream into what is really creating the deficiency with our snowpack, resulting in the lack of water. It goes back to our greenhouse gas emissions, the amount of carbon that we're putting into the atmosphere, and to the warming of our Earth. There are a lot of things that we can do, like reducing our reliance on fossil fuel use in transportation, but also in plastics. We need to move towards renewable energy as well as reduce our reliance on plastics. We've really become addicted to plastics, whether it's in bottled water, takeout containers, or clam shells for our strawberries. One of the worst things about plastic is the myth that it’s getting recycled. Most of it is not. I've been pushing very hard to create a recycled plastic industry in California. 

It’s also critical that we move toward cleaner transportation, reducing our burning of fossil fuel in passenger vehicles, but also in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. 

Lastly, we must be more cognizant of the impact that everything that we are using in our environment has on the Earth, whether it's manufacturing or transportation. We could just be so much cleaner and greener in many areas. We really can't blame anybody other than ourselves for climate change. The lack of water is just a sign of what is to come if we don’t act more aggressively to reduce our impact on climate.

The pandemic has exacerbated existing problems related to the mental health of California’s children and youth, and the ensuing crisis disproportionately impacts under-resourced communities. California's new Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, which allocates $4.4 billion over five years to address these issues, may help reform our overburdened system. The challenges, however, are significant and there have been recommendations made for further legislative action to ensure success. What more needs to be done to address the mental health needs of California’s children and youth? Do you anticipate proposing or supporting any legislation to confront the growing problem? 

The most important thing we did for our youth in last year's budget was to ensure that they went back to school. Because of COVID–19, we gave districts the flexibility to stay home, which I think was the right decision in May of 2020. However, what we discovered is that districts had a very difficult time getting everyone back to school once it was safer. And so, what we did going into this school year was to mandate that in-person school reopen. This has had a huge positive impact on our kids. Being with their teachers and friends, and being able to exercise, has a very positive impact on children’s mental and physical health. Reopening schools was one of the most important accomplishments. In addition, the $4.4 billion budgeted for the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative was absolutely critical.

We have given school districts more flexible funding that they can invest in helping students to recover from COVID–19-related learning issues with programs like after-school tutoring, but it can be used for mental health as well. I think that's a critical component because if you don't address that issue, students can't learn or get jobs. Last year, we began looking at ways to help different counties with their mental health infrastructure to also help families. If kids aren't part of healthy families, they can't thrive.

Speaking more generally on education, last year, we passed a budget that provided the most funding for K–12 education in the state's history. This year, we're going to exceed that. We have a record amount of funding, so there is significantly more money for education, for districts and for schools across the state. I'm sure you’ll see this reflected in our June 2022 budget. In fact, we're finally talking about getting back into the top 0.5% of the country in terms of school funding, something we really haven't even touched since I was a kid, or pre-Prop 13. Money is not the issue now. For whatever reason, districts are having significant workforce challenges. I know that teachers and staff have been under a significant amount of stress. I hope to see greater leadership at the district level, but they are going to have plenty of funding. The state is doing its job to make sure that schools have the resources to support all the kids in the state. And that goes from the rural districts to the densest urban districts.

We are also funding other mental health projects, such as the “warm line,” which is similar to a suicide hotline, except that one can call and talk about anything of concern. We have also invested over a billion dollars in reimagining our entire mental health infrastructure through our CalAIM program [California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal], which should have a very positive impact on mental health. An important thing we can do for our young people is just acknowledging that mental health is something that you must manage, you have to keep working at, it's not something that you should take for granted. And that having issues around mental health doesn't mean you're a problem, or that you're abnormal. The social acceptance of mental health issues, not just for youth, but for adults too, is critical. It’s an area that is under-invested in, so we are starting to look at more investment statewide. Our infrastructure for mental health hospitals and professionals has been neglected from the federal government on down. The pandemic has really brought to light our shortcomings on mental health. Unfortunately, we have a shortage of mental health professionals. We saw a lot of people burnout and leave those fields because it was just so stressful. And unfortunately, we're not seeing people take their places, because it's not easy to get trained in those fields. So we have to plan long term: can we do more workforce training? Can we assist with more graduate education and make it more appealing to go into these fields? Unfortunately, it's going to take years, obviously, to see the results of that investment.

In recent years especially, there has been some awful rhetoric coming from across the country that takes a toll on the mental health of LGBTQ youth and adults, on our AAPI and African American communities, on other people of color, and on women. As elected representatives, we can certainly condemn that horrific language, making it clear that it is not welcomed here in California. We can speak out against it on many levels and, of course, work to protect people with legislation.

On a typical day, the San Francisco Police Department responds to 179 homelessness-related calls for service (65,000 calls per year). These “C-level” (non-criminal, non-medical, non-emergency) calls result in move-along orders, citations, and destruction of property. Policing exacerbates biases against people of color, people who are disabled, and people experiencing poverty. This approach systematically limits homeless people’s access to services, housing, and jobs, while damaging their health, safety, and well-being. Policing is a costly, ineffective and punitive response to homelessness.

LWVSF is an active member of the campaign for the Compassionate Alternative Response Team, or CART. The CART program emerged in January of 2019 when the San Francisco Police Commission endorsed developing a non-police response to homelessness. CART is a community-led, government-funded response that holds those who are on the margins of our community at the center of proper systems of care that result in community building — instead of criminalization. CART will address the social and behavioral health needs and conflicts of unhoused people in public spaces while uplifting them. Unfortunately, CART has faced significant challenges in funding and implementation.  Are there ways you can help implement CART? How do we move toward a non-police response to homelessness calls for service? Please tell us about both proposed and potential legislation and funding sources. 

Police are all funded locally at the city level, and so cities have complete discretion as to how to fund their own public safety. Governor Newsom does have a proposal to develop much more coordination around retail theft. This makes a lot of sense because we are seeing an organized effort by thieves to target retailers and sell goods on a mass scale on the black market on the internet.

The police have a difficult job, and I think they should be more focused on violent crimes, which is their area of expertise. Regarding non-violent societal issues, such as homelessness, panhandling, and domestic disputes, it does make sense to train social workers to handle these types of situations, rather than resorting to police.

Are there any personal priorities that you'd like to share with us?

We have covered a lot of them. In addition, I am concerned that we are experiencing a major housing and homelessness crisis in California. It's absolutely critical to build housing to accommodate more of our population, as well as those who continually arrive from other parts of the country and from around the world. California provides a beacon of hope to many communities from elsewhere who want to come here. The lack of housing has not only created a huge spike in the cost of living, but it has also driven the largest homeless population that the country has seen. So, these are major issues that we need to address.

We talked already about climate change, but I’d emphasize that it's so important to be looking at cleaner, greener forms of energy. And we need to make greater efforts to reuse and recycle. Our disposable income economy has made it so easy to consume things. People are often unaware of all the waste that they're creating from take-out food, disposable bags, and packaging as everything is delivered to their door. It’s wonderfully convenient, but it creates a significant amount of waste.

I am also working on measures to control gun violence. I have introduced a bill allowing victims of gun violence to sue gun manufacturers, distributors, and gun stores. These organizations need to be held accountable for the weapons that they put on our streets and the damage they cause in our communities.

We are also interested in decreasing frivolous penalties. I carried a bill on jaywalking last year, which I’ve re-introduced this year, because we shouldn't be penalized for walking, whether it’s across the street, to school or to get groceries. We want to encourage more people to walk, and I can't imagine a bigger disincentive than getting a ticket for jaywalking from a police officer.

I'm also working on closing more prisons through our budget process, which we’ve worked on since Governor Brown's administration. I’m proud that Governor Newsom is on board with this, and I’m happy to see the prison population coming down. I hope to spend less money on incarcerated individuals. I am also working to see better results on people not going back to prison. Currently we spend over $100,000 per prisoner and we really don't see the best results or the best treatment. We can do so much better.