Supporters held a joint watch party in downtown Oakland Tuesday night for U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and Lateefah Siman, who is running to replace Lee.

While Lee's campaign aides attended the party, Lee skipped them. Instead, she said she would fly back to Washington DC to work.

She was disappointed with the outcome of the race and finished in fourth place. Late Tuesday night, CBS News predicted that Lee will not advance to the November general election.

Before the polls closed, Lee joined her volunteers at her downtown campaign office to urge voters to vote for her. Before leaving the campaign office on Tuesday evening, she spoke about the challenges posed by the Senate race.

“You could see the inequality in money, I mean, come on. Establishment money is not going to a black progressive woman. But we have people, we have donors, we have recurring donors, we have people who have never donated to campaigns before,” said Rep. Lee.

She only answered two questions from the press. Reporters asked her about her future plans, to which she gave no answer.

More from CBS News

And Lin

Da Lin is an award-winning journalist at KPIX 5 News. He joined KPIX 5 in 2012 but has covered Bay Area news since 2007. Da grew up in Oakland and covered the news for five years at three other television stations in Texas before returning to the Bay Area. Southern and Central California. He also reported for KRON 4 for five years.

Read more

The post Rep. Barbara Lee not shifting ahead to Normal Election for California Senate seat appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The Democrats’ delicate majority in the U.S. Senate puts extra pressure on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to quickly pick a replacement for Sen. Dianne Feinstein after her death.

Already, names were being floated Friday in California circles. The situation is complicated and wrought with political risk for Newsom, a term-limited governor with national political ambitions of his own.

The Democratic governor has promised to appoint a Black woman. He has also promised to avoid the field of candidates already running for Feinstein’s seat, which was set to expire at the end of next year and includes Rep. Barbara Lee, one of the state’s most prominent Black women currently serving in elected office.

In filling the Senate vacancy, Newsom has the sole authority to name a successor. He could even pick himself, though that is unlikely.

Newsom made no mention of Feinstein’s replacement in a statement he issued marking her death Friday morning.

“Dianne Feinstein was many things – a powerful, trailblazing U.S. Senator; an early voice for gun control; a leader in times of tragedy and chaos. But to me, she was a dear friend, a lifelong mentor, and a role model not only for me, but to my wife and daughters for what a powerful, effective leader looks like,” Newsom said. “There is simply nobody who possessed the strength, gravitas, and fierceness of Dianne Feinstein.”

FILE – Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., smiles after announcing the introduction of a Senate bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, on Capitol Hill, March 16, 2011.

(AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

On Capitol Hill, Feinstein’s death leaves Senate Democrats with no margin for error until a successor is appointed.

Democrats now have a functional majority of just 50 seats in the Senate, while Republicans hold 49. At the same time, many Democrats are calling for the resignation of the indicted Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., although the embattled Democrat has vowed not to step down.

And while Democrats continue to control Congress’ upper chamber, Feinstein’s absence will make it harder to advance Biden’s judge nominees in the Judiciary Committee.

Newsom’s choices all run political risks.

Should he follow through on his pledge to avoid picking from those already running in the Senate primary, he could select a true caretaker who would be replaced by whomever voters select in next year’s election.

A handful of Black women in office have been floated as possibilities, including Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

Lee and others lashed out at Newsom earlier in the month after he indicated he would select a caretaker instead of picking from the current slate of candidates.

“The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election,” Lee tweeted.

Some California Democrats are still upset about Newsom’s last Senate appointment.

He chose Alex Padilla, then California’s secretary of state, to replace Kamala Harris in the Senate when she was elected vice president. That process took more than six weeks. That made Padilla California’s first Latino senator, but it also left the Senate without a Black woman.

He later promised that if Feinstein’s seat became vacant, he would choose a Black woman to replace her.

“He made the commitment and I do not believe there is any wiggle room for the governor not to honor his commitment,” Kerman Maddox, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist and fundraiser, said before Feinstein’s death.

In a recent interview with Fox 11 TV in Los Angeles, Newsom said he was being swamped with recommendations for how to fill a possible Senate vacancy.

The decision for Newsom is clouded by his personal relationship with the late senator.

Newsom, whose father was a prominent judge in San Francisco, has known Feinstein since he was a child and has spoken recently about their personal connection. He interned in her office in college and said he considers her to be family. He said it wasn’t long ago that she would call him on the phone to discuss a variety of issues, from water policy to forest management.

“I have no objectivity whatsoever,” he said in a recent interview with NBC when asked about Feinstein and her decision to stay in the Senate.

He said he was hoping he would never have to make a decision to fill her seat.

___

Peoples reported from New York. AP writers Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California, and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed.

The post Dianne Feinstein: Who will California Gov. Gavin Newsom decide as Feinstein’s alternative within the Senate appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Colorado Senate Bill 213 will make housing less affordable and increase greenhouse gas emissions. This is exactly the opposite of what its proponents claim.

Polls show that 80 percent of Americans want to live in single-family homes. Recent census data shows that more than 80 percent of residents in 14 states live in single-family homes.

Colorado isn’t one of them.

Census data also shows that more than 80 percent of residents in more than 30 percent of the country’s urban areas live in single-family homes.

The Denver metropolitan area is not one of them.

Neither are the Boulder, Ft. Collins or Longmont urban areas. However, more than 80 percent of residents in the urban areas of Colorado Springs and Pueblo live in single-family homes. In the Pueblo it is almost 85 percent.

Boulder and Denver don’t miss out, with more people wanting to live in apartments than other parts of the country. But because the planners deliberately made the single-family house more expensive by making new construction outside the city limits more difficult.

Boulder has a vast green belt that has helped make it the least affordable urban area in the nation outside of California or Hawaii. Denver has an urban growth frontier that has nearly doubled the cost of single-family homes. Meanwhile, El Paso and Pueblo counties have some of the least restrictive zoning in the state, allowing more Colorado Springs and Pueblo residents to achieve their single-family home dreams.

Dense does not mean affordable

SB-213 supporters claim it will make housing more affordable. In fact, this makes it less affordable.

The House amended bill requires many cities to change zoning ordinances to allow developers to demolish single-family homes and replace them with high-density housing developments near busy bus routes and light rail stations (a statewide mandate for such upzoning was removed from the Senate bill). ).

In other words, the bill will reduce the supply of housing that at least 80 percent of Colorado residents want to live in. This will drive up the price of the remaining single family homes in these areas and make housing less affordable, not more affordable.

Imagine there was a shortage of pickups. Since pickup trucks are used by plumbers, electricians, and other contractors, the shortage drove up all sorts of costs. A pickup weighs as much as two small cars. To alleviate the shortage, the Colorado legislature is proposing a bill to scrap pickup trucks and use the materials to build small cars. Would that alleviate the pickup shortage? Obviously not. Still, some Colorado lawmakers believe that replacing homes that people want with homes that people don’t want will make housing more affordable. It will not.

SB-213 also asks cities to allow the construction of so-called transit-oriented developments. You may have seen these mid-rise (four- to six-story) apartment buildings popping up all over Metro Denver and other Colorado cities.

These stack-n-pack developments are hardly affordable. As California developer Nicholas Arenson recently testified before a planning commission in San Francisco, the need for more steel, concrete and elevators makes building such apartments much more expensive per square foot than single-family homes. The demand for living in them is low, so most of them are subsidized.

Even with subsidies, these mid-size apartments are only “affordable” because they are broken up into small apartments, often 1,000 square feet or less. In some of these buildings, the rent for a 900-square-foot apartment is more than the monthly mortgage payment for a 2,000-square-foot home in Colorado Springs or another city that doesn’t severely restrict rural development.

SB-213 is based on a flawed premise: that denser cities are more affordable. In fact, the opposite is the case. As can be seen from the chart comparing housing affordability versus density in the country’s 100 largest urban areas, the country’s densely populated urban areas are the least affordable, while the cheapest urban areas have the lowest density.

click to enlarge

As the blue trendline shows, census data shows that density is making housing less affordable. The 2020 census calculated the population density of the largest urban areas in the country. The Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey measured median home values ​​and median family incomes in 2020. Housing affordability is commonly measured by dividing median housing value by median family income; 3 or less is affordable, 4 is marginally affordable, 5 or more is unaffordable. For the 100 largest urban areas in the country shown in this chart, the correlation between density and unaffordability is 0.8, meaning this is far from coincidental.

Sprawl is not a swear word

Planners also say urban growth limits and other rural land-use restrictions help protect farms, forests and open spaces. But the 2010 census found that all urban areas in Colorado covered just 1.5 percent of the state. Data from the 2020 census shows it’s still just 1.5 percent. So-called urban sprawl (which is really just people living the American single-family dream) is no threat to Colorado’s farms, forests or open spaces.

Density does not reduce greenhouse gases

The planners admit that SB-213 will build homes that people don’t want to live in. But they say Colorado needs to force people to live in denser settlements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are wrong about that too.

Data from the Department of Energy suggests that people living in more densely populated areas tend to drive slightly less. But data shows they also slow down in heavy traffic, which wastes more fuel. As a result, driving in densely populated urban areas uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases per capita than driving in sparsely populated areas. If Colorado is to be climate-friendly, it must allow more people to live in sparsely populated single-family neighborhoods.

Senate Bill 213 is not about making housing more affordable. Nor is it about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s about government trying to force people to do things they don’t want to live, including a commitment to forcing more people to rent cramped apartments rather than owning their own homes. The legislature should resolutely reject this bill.

If Colorado wants to make housing more affordable, it should remove city growth limits and other constraints on rural land development. Yes, that could result in urban areas covering 1.6 or 1.7 percent of the state instead of just 1.5 percent. But isn’t that better than forcing young families to leave the state because they can’t afford housing in Colorado?

Randal O’Toole is a land use and transportation policy analyst, director of the Thoreau Institute and director of the Independence Institute’s Transportation Policy Center.

The post O’Toole: Density mandate in Senate Invoice 213 will not do what planners declare – Full Colorado appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SACRAMENTO (CBS / AP) – California lawmakers on Wednesday tabled three criminal justice reform bills, including one that could end the careers of police officers with bad apples. That idea failed last year despite the public killing George Floyd in public in Minneapolis.

But even some proponents made it clear that the Senate-approved bill needed more work in the congregation to clear what language they termed vague and rebalance a disciplinary committee that they said could be biased against law enforcement be.

CONTINUE READING: UPDATE: 9th victim dies in mass shooting at VTA Light Rail Yard in San Jose; Family and friends pay tribute

Senators separately brought the bills forward to lower bail bail for lower-level misdemeanors and crimes to $ 0 and limit the use of criminal enhancements that can add many years to offenders’ sentences.

The disciplinary measure for police officers would add the nation’s most populous state to the 46 that already have options for decertifying officers. Hawaii, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have no such law.

Los Angeles Democratic Senator Steven Bradford’s bill is designed to prevent officers convicted of serious crimes or dismissed for misconduct, including violating civil rights, from moving to another police station. It would create a mandatory new state license or certification that could then be revoked.

“It’s easier to lose a license for getting a bad perm than it is for killing an unarmed man,” Bradford said, noting that the state already licenses many other professions from doctors to hairdressers.

The same bill puts new limits on police immunity when sued for civil rights violations, though Bradford had to cut that portion of his move when it almost failed to clear a Senate committee.

The measure was passed with a 26-9 vote against the Republicans, although no one spoke against it.

“That is the right thing. And a no to this measure means that I’m fine keeping my knee on the Californians’ neck. I can keep a knee on the neck of Americans, especially blacks, ”said Bradford, the black being an indication of Floyd’s death.

In the Senate, he shared his own experiences when he was wrongly stopped by the police and named many who had died in such confrontations.

Several Democratic fellow Senators reiterated the law enforcement organizations’ objections that Bradford’s proposed nine-member disciplinary committee would include only two police officers and seven members with professional or personal backgrounds speaking out against police misconduct.

“There certainly seems to be a tendency towards people who will be quite skeptical of the police,” Senator Ben Allen said during the 75-minute debate.

CONTINUE READING: Mass shooting in San Jose: 10 dead, including shooter at VTA Rail Yard; Victim identities released

Senator Sydney Kamlager countered that the board would not necessarily be biased if it included people of color.

“Have some confidence in people,” she said. “Short Messages: Black, brown people are pretty conservative when it comes to law enforcement. We want to be sure too. “

Senator Henry Stern was one of those who said the legal definitions in the bill were too ambiguous and needed tightening in the congregation.

Stern also said there is tension against white senators like him who support the bill but want improvements – “that it’s kind of racist to ask questions, especially when you’re white.”

“It is unfair and inappropriate for this body to flagellate or demonize colleagues because of their race,” said Stern, whose district includes Thousand Oaks and other suburbs north of Los Angeles.

He later added, “We need to make sure that on the way to the worst – the people who dishonor the profession – we don’t also prevent young people from becoming good officials because we still need law enforcement officers in the state of California, the honor and who wants to serve. “

Senators pushed the bail reform bill after voters rejected a bill in November that ended bail in favor of risk assessment.

Opponents have said this will legally bind the legislature as voters have spoken, but Democratic Senator Robert Hertzberg argued that his law reforms the existing system without ending it. He said it implemented a California Supreme Court ruling in April requiring judges to consider suspects’ solvency when setting bail.

It also provides that bail must be returned if the criminal complaint is eventually dropped or dismissed, or if the defendant shows up for any necessary court appearances.

Along with the third measure, a party line was passed to implement a recommendation by Governor Gavin Newsom’s committee to revise the penal code that judges should restrict the use of more than 150 penal amendments.

It is said that judges should generally not impose improvements if the offense is not violent. related to mental health problems, childhood trauma or previous victimization; or is triggered by an old belief, especially if someone was a teenager. They should also consider whether the improvement would have “different racial effects”, whether a weapon used in the crime was unloaded, and whether the improvement could result in a prison sentence of more than 20 years.

MORE NEWS: UPDATE: The investigation into the bomb squadron at the home of the San Jose VTA mass rifleman extends into the night

© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The post California State Senate Approves Taking Badges From Unhealthy Officers – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.