By Christopher : Calmatters – excerpt (includes audio track)

Who’s up and who’s down? When the news broke late Tuesday that new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas picked new committee chairpersons and canned others, the Sacramento political sphere was immediately abuzz with talk of winners and losers.

The winners include Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, the Davis Democrat who was named Assembly majority leader, and Encino Democrat Jesse Gabriel, who is taking over the budget committee, though at a time of budget deficits. He’s replacing Assemblymember Phil Ting of San Francisco, who said that the eight state budgets he helped put together have boosted California’s efforts on child care, climate change and access to higher education and healthcare…

Yes In My Backyard activists — who promote legislation meant to make it easier to build housing of all kinds, even if that comes at the expense of local control over development decisions — have been on a winning streak this year.

The chorus of lawmakers willing to argue that the state doesn’t face a housing shortage, or that the state need not get involved has dwindled in recent years. By the end of the most recent legislative session, with Rivas at the helm of the Assembly, the Legislature passed an array of bills that fast-track “any flavor of affordable housing you could possibly want to build.”…(more)

Not the best news going into 2024. MUST support some new people in
Sacramento. You have until Dec. 8 to talk someone into running. PLEASE Do.