legislation

SACRAMENTO — Long the epicenter of the global tech industry, California is taking more action to shield its children, communities and workers from the threats posed by the very industry that’s become central to the state’s identity and enviable economy.

State lawmakers on Monday passed new safeguards around social media and artificial intelligence — and are poised to approve restrictions on data centers — at a time when technology has become intertwined with people’s daily lives.

Efforts to rein in the power of Big Tech extend beyond concerns that TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms are harming young children.

Unions and workers worry that AI will take their jobs, and lawmakers are trying to tackle privacy and safety issues as AI features get added into smart glasses and toys. Californians are concerned that the proliferation of data centers will increase their electricity bills and strain water supplies.

“There’s a heightened level of tech anxiety right now, and that manifests itself from social media to data centers to AI taking jobs,” said Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). “People are coalescing and they’re demanding that policymakers make change.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has previously vetoed some bills aimed at adding restrictions on Silicon Valley businesses, will still have to weigh in on whether to sign the pieces of legislation into law.

The Democratic governor has acknowledged the challenge of adopting regulations that protect the public without going too far and potentially stifling the technology industry’s growth, which brings critical revenue to the state budget.

“I think that’s the constant tension,” Newsom said in an interview earlier this summer. “We’re constantly sort of fighting that balance.”

The governor, who has close relationships in the technology industry from his time in San Francisco, said only a couple other states have attempted to regulate artificial intelligence like California. The state, he said, leads on regulation of social media.

“We’re not rolling over, certainly,” Newsom said. “We’re leaning forward, and we’re iterating. We will push the boundaries and litigate.”

The looming restrictions on social media follow a landmark Meta Platforms legal settlement aimed at making social media safer for young people. Parents, politicians and child advocacy groups are worried that social media is contributing to depression, anxiety, eating disorders and other issues.

The actions being pushed in the California legislature are more sweeping than that settlement, however. One of the bills passed by lawmakers on Monday, Assembly Bill 1709, would bar certain online platforms from providing an “addictive feature” to users under 16 years old and add ways to verify users’ ages.

Under the bill, prohibited addictive features include autoplay and feeds that display recommended content.

The addictive nature of autoplay and other features is “harmful, full stop, and that they’re not appropriate for the developing brain,” said Lowenthal, who authored the bill.

After watching technology “run free” in California for years, legislators are now seeking to “pump the brakes a little bit,” said Samantha Vigil, a UC Davis researcher who built a registry tracking social media legislation in states across the country.

“They want to reevaluate what is working,” said Vigil. “What is healthy and beneficial, and what is progress just for the sake of having a new iteration of something?”

All 50 states have introduced or passed some type of digital media or technology-related legislation, tackling smartphone use in schools, social media and chatbots, Vigil said.

Other countries have taken more stringent steps to limit social media use among young people. Australia banned social media use for those under 16, but enforcing the law has been challenging because young people have tried to get around the restrictions.

California isn’t trying to ban social media; instead, it’s trying to limit how platforms design their features.

Parents and state attorneys general have not waited for policy makers to act. They have sued Meta, Google and other tech companies over the alleged harms their products have done to young people.

In late August, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed to pay up to $17 billion and make child-safety changes to resolve a multi-state lawsuit alleging the tech company designed and deployed harmful features while misleading the public about potential harms. Meta and YouTube also lost a social media addiction lawsuit earlier this year in Los Angeles.

Assembly Bill 1709 goes further. For example, Meta’s settlement gives teens the option to pick a non-algorithmic feed and turn off autoplay but, unlike in the legislation, it’s not mandatory. The bill would also apply to other platforms outside of Meta. Meta declined to comment.

Tech industry and business group opposing the bill say it is too blunt and could cut off access to social media’s benefits, according to the bill’s analysis.

“The durable path is to enforce the targeted laws California already has and to strengthen parental tools rather than an overlapping framework whose scope can be redrawn by regulation,” said Robert Boykin, TechNet’s Executive Director for California and the Southwest.

California lawmakers passed another Lowenthal bill aimed at holding social media liable for harm caused to children. Under Assembly Bill 2, social media companies could face fines of up to $1 million per child for negligent harm.

California lawmakers this year also attempted to tackle two other perils of the technological world — the rapid development and implementation of artificial intelligence and the proliferation of the massive data centers that are essential to sustaining the AI universe.

National and state union leaders have urged California legislators and Newsom to protect workers from the threats of AI to replace workers, saying it posed an existential threat to the foundation of a healthy, productive democracy.

“AI must remain a tool controlled by humans, not the other way around,” said Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton).

The state Legislature on Monday approved McNerney’s bill, Senate Bill 947, which would bar employers from “solely” using automated decision-making systems to discipline or fire employees. If an employer primarily relies upon this system, a human must verify the decision.

Lawmakers also approved Senate Bill 951, introduced by Sen. Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-Colton), which would require employers to provide a 60-day advance notice to workers and local and state governments before AI-related layoffs. Lawmakers also approved Assembly Bill 1609, which requires large private businesses that serve customers to provide access to human customer service representatives and to disclose to use of chatbots.

They passed another bill by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) that enacts a four-year moratorium on the sale and manufacturing of AI-chatbot powered toys over concerns that the technology can harm children.

On Friday, lawmakers agreed on a compromise on proposed legislation to regulate energy use by California’s growing data center industry, measures prompted by community fears about the massive complexes. Lawmakers say the legislation would help protect consumers from growing electricity costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to track the centers’ immense energy and water consumption.

At a June hearing on Senate Bill 886 to regulate data centers’ energy use, Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) said it’s just “a handful of companies that are gonna make trillions of dollars” from AI. They should pay for related utility infrastructure upgrades, she added.

“People, I would argue, are not even begging to use AI,” she said. “They’re struggling to figure it out to keep up with the times, but don’t even really want it.”

The California legislature is expected to vote on two of the bills to regulate the controversial industry within the next day.

Whether Newsom will embrace the legislature’s efforts to corral big Tech in California — in part of in whole — remains unclear.

Newsom last year vetoed a similar AI bill from McNerney to ban automated decision-making systems to discipline employees over worries that it could restrict companies’ ability to use customer ratings. That element was dropped in this year’s legislation.

Newsom last year signed Assembly Bill 56 that required social media platforms to display mental health warning labels to users under 18 starting in January 2027. But he also vetoed Senate Bill 771 that aimed to hold social media platforms liable if they amplified content that contributed to hate crimes and other violent acts, saying that the legislation was “premature” and current civil rights laws might be adequate.

Lowenthal said he’s heard from California families who are anxious about social media and seeking “relief” from their concerns about how the platforms are affecting their children.

“This is a kitchen-table topic,” he said. “I’ve yet to find a family with school-age children in the state of California, any corner of the state, that is not going through this right now.”

Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — After weeks of intense negotiation, state lawmakers on Friday reached a compromise on legislation to regulate energy use by California’s growing data center industry, action triggered by community anger over the facilities and fears of high utility bills in some communities.

The goal, according to legislators and advocates, is to protect consumers from growing electricity costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to track the centers’ immense energy and water consumption.

Business groups representing tech companies argued that some of the proposed restrictions and requirements, along with California’s high energy costs and lack of available land, would make it difficult for data centers to open in the state.

Municipalities risk missing out on tax revenues and jobs from the centers if the industry goes elsewhere, they said.

Two bills to regulate the controversial industry consumed the state Legislature in the final weeks of the 2026 session, drawing in Gov. Gavin Newsom and industry organizations and lobbyists representing some of the world’s most influential companies, including Google, Meta, Amazon and artificial intelligence firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

Proposed legislation by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) and Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), finalized Friday, would establish special rules for data centers’ electrical use. The legislation requires the California Public Utilities Commission to create special rates and updated rules for data centers’ use of electricity, including the costs for new power for infrastructure upgrades.

The debate in Sacramento around the data centers centered on how much they should pay for power and infrastructure, and whether that should be mandated by the state Legislature or the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates investor-owned utilities and is controlled by a board appointed by the governor.

Unlike some other states, California hasn’t seen an overwhelming wave of new large-scale data centers, nor have state leaders sought moratoriums such as the ones enacted by governors in Texas and New York.

An aerial view of a 49.5-megawatt data center under construction in Vernon last month.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Nevertheless, advocates focused on reforming the state’s utilities sought this year to seize the moment to enact tough regulations, including forcing data centers to pay for transmission upgrades and wildfire mitigation efforts.

Utility reform advocates and environmental leaders offered mixed reaction on Saturday.

Matthew Freedman, a senior staff attorney for The Utility Reform Network (TURN), praised the final language in the two bills, saying the legislation would prevent data center costs from “being foisted on other customers” while helping California meet its clean energy goals.

Monica Embrey, the founder of Affordable Energy Campaign, called the last-minute amendments “concerning.”

In particular, she pointed to a lack of clean energy requirements for data centers who use their own energy, and a provision that allows a utility to enter into its own agreement with a data center for energy in the interim period before the state finalizes its regulations.

A representative for the Data Center Coalition, whose members include Google and Microsoft, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Data centers have existed for decades but are rapidly expanding because of the rise of artificial intelligence, or AI. The centers help power everything from streaming services to videoconferencing calls.

Data centers in California are typically smaller than the mammoth, 500+-megawatt AI facilities making headlines in other parts of the country. Electricity costs and state regulations on gas-powered generators limit the vast majority of them to under 100 megawatts.

But as proposals increase in number, opposition has been fierce and growing.

A Public Policy Institute of California poll from July showed that 73% of residents oppose the construction of data centers in their communities.

Opposition centers on water use, air and noise pollution, and the potential for data centers to raise utility bills as they add strain to the grid requiring costly upgrades and new electricity supply.

The California Energy Commission expects data center electricity use, currently 2% of the state’s demand, to double in the next 10 years.

Monterey Park became the first city in the country in June to permanently ban data centers by a popular vote, and at least four other San Gabriel Valley cities have enacted moratoriums.

Southeast of L.A., Imperial County, Desert Hot Springs, and Palm Springs also voted on moratoriums, while Coachella permanently banned the facilities. In the Central Valley, Tulare County adopted a moratorium this month as residents voiced opposition to proposals to develop tiny data centers on local fairgrounds in the region.

And in San José, the state’s hot spot of data center development, residents flooded a recent public hearing to call for a moratorium while the city updates its data center standards.

Newsom last year vetoed legislation by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) that would have required data centers to disclose and certify their water consumption. The governor said he was reluctant to impose “rigid” reporting requirements on the development of “this critically important digital infrastructure.”

Separate bills that would require the centers to disclose their energy and water use were recently approved by state lawmakers.

Like other state legislators, Papan said she wants to work with the centers, not ban them.

“I constantly say, ‘Help us help you.’ We will all get this right if we can just be transparent and methodical,” said Papan, whose district includes Silicon Valley.

Padilla’s district includes Imperial Valley, where a developer’s plans for a data center on 75 acres is sparking fierce backlash.

Advocates and lawmakers fought over two approaches on the issue of regulating data centers’ energy use.

A wider coalition of environmental groups supported the bill from Padilla, SB 886, sponsored by TURN, that would have required data centers to pay up front for broader power grid updates required to meet their demand. That approach made it into the final package.

TURN pointed to a recent transmission plan from California’s grid operator projecting that increased power demands from data centers in PG&E‘s service territory, where the majority of current and proposed data centers are concentrated, would create up to $1.8 billion in upgrade costs for the power grid, including transmission lines.

PG&E favored a less stringent approach. In an email earlier this week, a PG&E spokesperson argued SB 886 would “risk higher costs for customers and delay critical infrastructure needed to serve the state’s growing energy demand.”

The Data Center Coalition had opposed both bills for “singling out” one type of power user.

The high cost of land and power, as well as lack of available land, are just some of the reasons that California hasn’t seen a flood of data centers, said Khara Boender, a director of government affairs at the Data Center Coalition. She said dozens of states offer some type of exemption for data centers, but California does not.

Additional regulation in the Golden State, she said earlier this week, “would be another signal that the state is a more challenging place for data center development.”

In a late-night deal with lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to drop his push for legislation that would have shifted more of the cost of utility-sparked wildfires to property insurers, sharply raising premiums across the state.

After weeks of closed-door negotiations with lawmakers and protests by wildfire survivors, the governor also backed away from a proposal that reduced amounts fire victims could receive and transferred more of the damage costs to local governments.

Wildfire victims and other critics had called the plan a corporate bailout.

According to a 96-page bill, published at 7:26 a.m. Saturday, Newsom and lawmakers agreed on some measures aimed at reducing the costs of future utility-sparked wildfires.

The bill would limit certain fees of attorneys representing insurance companies, while also stopping hedge funds and private equity firms from profiting on wildfire claims.

Last year, hedge funds were offering to buy claims that insurers had against Southern California Edison for the Eaton fire, leading to calls for reform.

The bill would also create a state program to get payments more quickly to wildfire victims.

“This is all real progress for future fire survivors,” Newsom said in a statement.

“Nonetheless, this system needs full structural reform — not a partial one,” he added. “I urge the Legislature to build on this progress next year and finish the work we started to secure the Wildfire Fund’s long-term durability, stabilize electricity rates, and ensure fire victims are never again turned into unsecured creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding.”

The complex legislation — added by gutting and amending a bill known as Senate Bill 492 — was introduced less than three days before the legislative session was to end Monday.

The session must now be extended until Tuesday because of a 2016 voter-approved proposition that requires bills or amendments to be in print at least 72 hours before the state Senate or Assembly can vote on them.

Eaton wildfire survivors and other groups had been calling on Newsom for weeks to unveil the legislation so that they could see the details.

More than 50 Eaton fire survivors showed up to protest in front of the governor’s mansion on Monday night in Sacramento, where Newsom was holding an event for legislators.

“Who should pay?” they chanted. “Shareholders should pay!”

On Saturday, wildfire victims praised lawmakers who had stood up to the governor’s push for legislation benefiting the utilities.

“Survivors from across California came to Sacramento and asked our elected representatives to stand with the people whose homes, communities and lives have been devastated,” Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, said. “They listened. And in the face of extraordinary pressure from some of the most powerful interests in our state, they centered on survivors and California families.”

Edison and the state’s two other big for-profit utilities had been lobbying Newsom and lawmakers to further shield them and their shareholders from wildfire liabilities ever since last year’s Eaton fire caused some investors to flee and the price of their stock to tumble.

Government fire investigators said the fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes, was caused by electrical arcing on Edison’s out-of-service transmission line in Eaton Canyon. Edison kept the line in place despite not using it since 1971.

More than 11,000 households have filed suit against the utility, claiming it acted negligently, which the company denies.

Utilities asked Newsom to strengthen a framework that he and lawmakers created in 2019 to protect utilities from bankruptcy after their equipment ignites a catastrophic fire. The law created a $21-billion wildfire fund, which is now reimbursing Edison for the settlements it is making to victims who agree not to sue.

Last year, also in legislation revealed in the session’s last days, Newsom created a second fund of $18 billion to pay for future fires.

According to a confidential document Newsom’s staff sent to lawmakers, the governor also wanted to cap the amount the fund would reimburse a utility for wildfire damages at $6 billion and require electric customers to pay for costs above that amount. That would have limited utilities’ liability for the fire but increased electric bills.

That measure was not in the legislation published Saturday morning.

Newsom said in his statement Saturday that the bill would strengthen accountability for utilities that spark fires by stopping executives from receiving bonuses after a fire.

The fine print in the bill states that the company must have a plan that prevents top executives from receiving “short-term” bonuses after a fire that results in 500 or more structures damaged.

The governor had touted in 2019 that his legislation had tied utility executive pay to the company’s safety performance. But the language allowed the companies to decide how to do that.

Despite the deadly Eaton fire, bonuses awarded to Pedro Pizarro, the chief executive of Edison International and other executives soared last year. Pizarro received $16.6 million in cash, stock and other compensation last year, up 20% from 2024.

The new legislation applies only to Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric. Those three for-profit utilities have caused at least seven of California’s 20 most destructive fires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

California lawmakers have passed legislation that will make it easier for government agencies to protect themselves from the rising use of artificial intelligence for public comment, records requests and other forms of civic engagement.

Senate Bill 1159 from Sen. Christopher Cabaldon (D-West Sacramento) prohibits anyone from knowingly using AI to falsely represent that a real person engaged with a government agency. It also specifies that agencies are not required to treat engagement from AI or bots as if they were real humans.

“What we have seen with the result of the advent of artificial intelligence and other similar technologies is the capability for these systems to flood the zone — to drown local governments, and potentially state agencies as well, in inauthentic, non-human engagement” Cabaldon said during a March meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The legislation was introduced shortly after a February report from The Times about a campaign to sway a vote on gas-powered appliances at the South Coast Air Quality Management District. A Southern California based public affairs consultant named Matt Klink took credit for the campaign, stating that he used a platform called CiviClick to flood the district with 20,000 public comments opposing the rule ahead of the air board’s vote.

CiviClick describes itself on its website as “the first and best AI-powered grassroots advocacy platform.” Company officials maintain that AI was not used in the AQMD campaign, but said it is a tool they offer and use in other campaigns. Chief executive Chazz Clevinger said he could not share how the 20,000 comments to the air board were generated or how constituents were identified and contacted.

Agency insiders said the onslaught of emails almost certainly influenced the air board’s decision to reject the proposed rules, which would have imposed fees on new gas-powered furnaces and water heaters for some 10 million appliances across the South Coast region.

Cabaldon cited The Times story when he introduced the legislation, noting that at least three people contacted by the air district said they had not submitted the public comments attached to their names.

He also cited a report from the San Francisco Chronicle about a similar campaign to sway a different rule at the Bay Area Management District, which was run through a platform called Speak4 that advertises its ability to produce custom AI-powered letters.

The business advocacy group that ran the campaign also denied that AI was used. However, 10 people contacted by The Chronicle said they had not written the letters attributed to them. “This was forged,” one person said.

Reached by phone, Cabaldon said the legislation will help public agencies navigate how to respond to the deployment of AI, which is increasingly being used in a way that “swamps our civic engagement process, but also disables our state and local governments altogether.”

For example, the California Public Records Act requires government agencies to respond to requests for public records within 10 days, while the Brown Act and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act guarantee the right to participate in public meetings and provide public comment.

“The point of the bill is to say that these laws are about humans, and just because it comes in the form that a human would write it, does not mean you have to treat each of these communications as if it’s a human being, and therefore, AI is not entitled to 10 days, AI is not entitled to three minutes at the school board meeting,” he said.

Experts said the use of AI for “astroturfing,” or faking, civic engagement is a growing trend. In the United Kingdom, a service called Objector.ai is using AI to identify and generate formal objections to local planning applications, garnering the concern of experts, The Guardian reported.

Public officials in California are worried, too. Vacaville vice mayor Michael Silva said the city has been receiving AI-generated public records requests, which are slowing its ability to respond to other legitimate requests submitted by residents.

Dylan Plummer, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Heat Campaign, said many AI campaigns have benefited the fossil fuel industry and pose an “existential threat to public participation in our democracy.”

“The passage of Senate Bill 1159 is an important step to clarify the law and discourage the use of emerging technologies to falsify public records and mislead regulators in California,” he said. “That said, much work still needs to be done to understand how widespread this practice is, and to hold bad actors accountable for laws that may have already been broken.”

Lawmakers acknowledged that the legislation is just a start, and that it is increasingly difficult for public officials to detect bespoke letters, deepfake videos or other kinds of engagement powered by AI. The bill authorizes government agencies to use disclosure verification tools to determine if AI is present — something the Bay Area Air District already indicated it may do by replacing its email system with a website for public comment submissions instead.

The legislation does not preclude real people from using AI to facilitate genuine public engagement, such as someone using ChatGPT or Perplexity to improve the text of a letter, so long as the volume and frequency of their engagement are consistent with ordinary participation from a real person.

For its part, CiviClick notes on its website that it supports SB 1159, and said its platform already complies with what the bill proposes.

Some lawmakers said the use of AI in a civic capacity represents a new frontier.

“If I’d have read this bill back when I was on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, I would have wondered what you were smoking,” Sen. Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) said during the March meeting of the Judiciary Committee.

“But that’s how things have progressed, and the development of technology will always outpace the development of defenses against the undesirable effects of technology,” he said.

SB 1159 passed the legislature this month and will head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for signature in September.

A bipartisan package of bills aimed at punishing unethical attorneys and hedge funds that have flourished within California’s legal industry is headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

The two bills would bar lawyers from prioritizing the desires of private investors who fund lawsuits, and ramp up penalties for lawyers who scout for clients at hospitals, jails and accident sites.

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), one of the bill authors, said the legislation is intended to police the state’s bruised legal profession in response to “a wave of inappropriate attorney conduct” reported by The Times.

Times investigations last year found some clients within L.A. County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement said they were paid to sue and, in some cases, fabricate claims.

“When attorneys are exploiting vulnerable people, including paying folks to file fraudulent claims, they’re not just breaking the law, they really undermine the credibility of the legal system and every attorney,” Zbur said.

Both bills were sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California, a powerful trial lawyer trade group that says it wants to beef up punishment for misconduct.

“If we are going to demand that corporations, government, and powerful institutions be held accountable, we must be — and we are — willing to hold ourselves to that same standard,” Doug Saeltzer, head of the association, said in a statement.

California law already bans a practice known as capping, in which non-attorneys directly solicit or procure clients to sign up for lawsuits with a law firm.

Zbur’s legislation, Assembly Bill 2039, would require that attorneys lose their license if they’re convicted of felony capping or a misdemeanor capping conviction in which they “acted knowingly and for financial gain.” The lawyers could also be fined $25,000 per violation.

The bill also creates whistleblower protections for law firm employees who report misconduct, and would enact new restrictions on loans that attorneys give their clients. California is one of the few states where lawyers can lend money directly to plaintiffs.

Lawyers who use the loans to sway the client’s decision-making around “legal strategy, settlement decisions, or continued representation” can be fined $15,000 per offense.

The second bill aims to bar private investors from influencing a case — for example, telling a lawyer how many clients to take on or when to settle — in lawsuits they fund.

California allows lawyers to take high-interest rate loans from investors, such as private equity firms or hedge funds, who expect to profit from the payout when a case is settled. Critics of this litigation funding claim investors sometimes exert themselves in legal strategy to the detriment of the clients, such as requiring a case to settle prematurely so the law firm can repay the loan faster.

“We don’t want them having any influence in the outcome of a case,” said Assemblyman Ash Kalra (D-San José), who authored AB 2305. “We want the lawyers to be able to represent their clients, and then not have those financial pressures play any role.”

A spokesperson for Newsom’s office said they don’t comment on pending legislation.

Lawyers already are barred under State Bar rules from allowing a third party to dictate case strategy. Kalra has said the goal of the bill is to provide additional “clear statutory safeguards.”

Law firms would also be barred from using money from private investors to market for cases, Kalra said. The State Bar would be tasked with disciplining lawyers that flout the rule.

A Times investigation last year found law firms that have filed thousands of sex abuse claims in California are funded by private investors, meaning an unknown chunk of the $4-billion settlement will go into the pockets of opaque funders.

It’s unclear how violations of the law would come to the attention of the State Bar. Litigation funding agreements are typically private between the funder and the law firm, and clients often don’t know their cases are being funded by private investors.

Jaime Huff, the head of the Civil Justice Assn. of California, which advocates for lawsuit reform on behalf of business interests, said her group — a frequent foe of California trial lawyers — ultimately pulled their support from the bill because they found it toothless.

“I don’t trust the State Bar to tie their own shoes in the morning, much less govern this stuff,” said Huff. “It’s basically gaslighting the public into thinking, ‘Yes, they’ve done something.’”

“It’s like the mall cop of self-policing,” she added.

Kalra said the point was to send a blunt message to the state’s legal bar.

“There may be loopholes that folks find in this one, and they have to follow up and close those loopholes,” he said. “But ultimately, it makes a very clear rule as to how that funding can be used. Once that rule is in place, it’s the law. And lawyers have to follow the law.”

SACRAMENTO — A state lawmaker from San Diego has proposed fast-tracking the construction of an arena and housing project, drawing criticism from opponents who argue the site is not suitable for large-scale development because of flooding.

State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-La Mesa) wrote a letter last week to a powerful Assembly chair that outlines proposed amendments to Senate Bill 344 to help Midway Rising, a project backed by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke, avoid potential lawsuits related to its environmental review.

“As amended, SB 344 would deem the Midway Rising Specific Plan Subsequent Environmental Impact Report to be in full compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA,” Weber Pierson wrote to the Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, chair of Assembly Rules Committee.

“In order to promote the swift and deliberate development of affordable housing in the City of San Diego, an urgency clause is needed for this measure.”

Developers are seeking to replace the decades-old Pechanga Arena, and build a new 16,000-seat facility, 4,254 homes, including up to 2,000 affordable units, and commercial and outdoor space. The site is south of Mission Bay.

Parts of the development could rise to a maximum height of 25 stories, according to project’s environmental impact report.

Sports teams, including minor league hockey team the San Diego Gulls, play at the Pechanga Arena. The arena is surrounded by parking lots, which are used for weekend swap meets.

The Assembly Rules Committee on Monday approved an urgency clause to Senate Bill 344, which mean it needs a 2/3 vote of both houses to pass and would go into effect immediately upon the governor’s signature.

Weber Pierson told the Times Monday that the amendments intended to help Midway Rising “haven’t crossed” the desk, meaning that the language hasn’t been inserted into Senate Bill 344. If the amendments go into the bill, “then at that point, I think we can have a conversation,” she said.

Brad Termini, the chief executive of Zephyr, one of Midway Rising’s development partners, said the proposed legislation “will help prevent frivolous lawsuits from causing unnecessary delays and keep the project on track to break ground next year, accelerating the delivery of much-needed housing in San Diego.”

The Kroenke Group didn’t immediately provide comment. Kroenke, the owner of the Rams, was announced as the major investor in Midway Rising in 2023.

Former San Diego Assemblymember Lori Saldaña, a longtime critic of the proposal, called the proposed amendments “reckless and rushed.”

“It removes the opportunity for the public and organizations to weigh in,” said Saldaña.

State lawmakers routinely carve out environmental exemptions for proposed sports stadiums, sometime in the closing days of the legislative session. The legislature has until the end of August to pass or reject scores of bills.

Former Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) led his colleagues in passing a bill in 2013 that helped the Sacramento Kings arena by limiting environmental lawsuits. The new arena for the Golden State Warriors basketball team in San Francisco also benefited from CEQA reforms passed by state lawmakers in 2011.

The landmark 1970 legislation is credited with helping to protect the state’s environment, but it is also criticized for blocking development.

Since it passed, the CEQA has been a consideration in how most major projects get approved in California. The law requires the disclosure of any effects a development might have on the environment, an evaluation of alternatives and, in many cases, proposed changes that would reduce those environmental effects to a level of insignificance.

Weber Pierson also previously authored Senate Bill 958, another bill that will help the arena, that is awaiting a vote in the Assembly.

That bill states that the environmental impacts of a project that are associated with increased building height, including noise, shadows, or the potential to attract wildlife, shall not be considered significant impacts on the environment.

The bill only applies to specific developments, including those that are proposed on an graded infill site and those that pay construction workers a prevailing wage.

Weber Pierson said that SB 958 “is not special-interest legislation” during a Aug. 9 public forum about the project, describing it a broad-based housing tool, according to the Peninsula Beacon.

The publication reported that the forum “got testy at several points, with some audience members openly booing” the speakers.

Eric Law, chairman of the Penisula Community Planning Board, criticized the state senator’s proposed amendments in an interview Monday.

“The continued efforts to push legislation specific to Midway is misguided and unneeded,” said Law, whose group provides input to the city on planning issues.

Law said his group isn’t opposed to development, but wants the city to stick to the current three-story limit for the area.

“We absolutely endorse the idea of redevelopment — that place is kind of an armpit,” Law said of Pechanga Arena. “They need affordable housing and better housing — you just don’t need to do it over 30 feet.”

The San Diego City Council still needs to approve the project.

Saldaña said the developers are ignoring the growing sea-level rise that is causing nearby street flooding.

Saldaña said she was out Tuesday night in the area with volunteers from community planning groups, including Law, and witnessed groundwater “literally coming up and flooding the streets.”

“Not a drop of rain had fallen,” she said. “It’s just the higher sea level pushing the groundwater to the surface.”

Weber Pierson told the Times that Saldaña should bring her concerns about flooding to the developer and city officials.

SACRAMENTO — Proposed legislation to protect animals from “Frankenstein”-like medical experimentation died in the state Senate on Thursday, and supporters blame election year politics for its demise.

Assembly Bill 1382 by Assemblymember Leticia Castillo (R-Home Gardens) would have banned the sale of genetically modified animals in California, such as glow-in-the-dark rabbits and horned “unicorn” horses.

While the business of cosmetically modified, futuristic-looking pets remains in its infancy, animal rights groups worry that eventually the creatures will be created, sold and later discarded in crowded municipal shelters.

Castillo’s bill passed unanimously in the Assembly earlier this year and sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee in June with bipartisan support.

On Thursday, the legislation died in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The chair of that powerful committee is Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) whose sister, Clarissa Cervantes, is challenging Castillo in the Nov. 3 election.

Cervantes never brought up the bill during Thursday’s hearing, which effectively kills it. Cervantes’ office didn’t respond to requests about why the legislation died.

Judie Mancuso, the founder of Social Compassion in Legislation, the bill’s sponsor, called the outcome “ludicrous.”

“When you’ve worked in the Capitol as long as I have, you understand that good bills can become political assets or political liabilities during an election cycle,” said Mancuso.

Castillo pledged Thursday to continue her focus on animals and cosmetic genetic engineering.

“This bill was never about politics — it was about protecting animals from being turned into novelty products,” Castillo said in a statement. “I’m disappointed AB 1382 did not move forward, but I am not done fighting for these animals. The technology that makes ‘designer pets’ possible isn’t going away, and neither am I.”

A 2025 Wired article entitled “Your Next Pet Could Be a Glowing Rabbit” profiled a Texas company seeking to create gene-edited pets. Josie Zayner, the founder of the company, told the Times in July that she opposed Castillo’s bill.

Castillo, at a hearing earlier this year, said she understands the concept of gene-editing animals for health reasons, but doesn’t want to see the alterations for cosmetic reasons.

Glow-in-the dark fish were exempt from her bill, which proposed civil penalties of at least $5,000.

Though the Judicial Council of California, the policy-making body for the courts, reviewed the legislation and didn’t have any fiscal concerns about it, the Senate Appropriations Committee analysis warned of “potentially significant workload cost pressures to the state funded trial court system” to resolve any civil cases related to the bill.

“The fiscal impact of this bill to the courts will depend on many unknowns, including the number of cases filed and the factors unique to each case,” the analysis stated.

The Democratic-controlled legislature uses appropriations committees to cull through hundreds of bills placed on what is referred to as the “suspense file.”

Officially, the suspense file is a tool for legislative leaders to evaluate costly bills by weighing them against one another and deciding what to advance to a vote by the Senate and Assembly. Unofficially, it’s used as a way for Democrats who control the Legislature to kill controversial bills out of the public eye.

California Democrats are making an aggressive push to unseat Castillo from the Assembly in the November election, Politico reported.

Castillo defeated Clarissa Cervantes in 2024 by nearly 600 votes to represent parts of Riverside County and San Bernardino County. Castillo lost to then-Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes in 2022.

After the bill was moved to the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this year, animal advocates reached out to state Senate Pro Tempore Monique Limón’s office to question the move.

“It’s my belief that there is some kind of political game going on,” Michelle Kelly, chief executive of the nonprofit welfare organization Los Angeles Rabbit Foundation, told the Times last month.

“Why would anyone not want to move forward with this bill?” Kelly said.

A representative for Limón declined to comment.

The chair of the California Senate’s utilities committee said Tuesday that he was “deeply troubled” by electric company executives’ recent threats to take action to protect their shareholders if they don’t get legislation in Sacramento to limit their wildfire liabilities.

In a letter to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) wrote that he was considering calling the utility executives to an oversight hearing to have them explain their plans.

Allen sent the letter after the Times reported that the two companies’ top executives promised their investors in recent conference calls that they planned to respond if they don’t get legislation for which they have been lobbying. Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers are working behind closed doors on a package of wildfire bills.

“While I understand that utility investors seek predictability for their invested dollars, and stable utilities are important to the state of California, we as legislators must balance the additional interests of wildfire victims and survivors, our residents’ ability to access affordable insurance, and the need to ensure affordable utility service,” Allen wrote.

“We are certainly not interested in being threatened as we seek a balanced path that is right for California,” he added.

In response to the letter, PG&E and Edison said Tuesday night that The Times had “mischaracterized” their executives’ comments to investors.

“PG&E’s objectives remain unchanged: safely and reliably serve our customers, ensure wildfire victims are compensated quickly and fairly, and protect customer affordability,” PG&E said in a statement.

Edison declined to comment further.

Besides chairing the Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, Allen also is running in November’s election to be the state’s next insurance commissioner.

Newsom and lawmakers already passed legislation that cut the state’s three biggest electric companies’ liabilities for wildfires. Edison’s shareholders, for example, may pay little of the billions of dollars of damage from last year’s devastating Eaton fire — which killed 19 people and left thousands of families in Altadena homeless — under current laws championed by Newsom to protect the utilities from bankruptcy.

The utilities say more needs to be done. Among the recommendations in a report ordered by Newsom is limiting the amounts that victims can receive for pain and suffering and capping the fees of attorneys who represent them.

The commissioned report also suggested that utilities should no longer reimburse property insurers for damage from fires sparked by electrical equipment. Although this would reduce utilities’ liability for fires, insurers say it would increase premiums for homeowners.

“If the Legislature does not act, or if they act and don’t actually solve the problem, then we’re going to have to take action,” Patti Poppe, PG&E’s chief executive, said on a July 23 call with Wall Street analysts.

Poppe did not specify what her company would do, but made it clear that any action would protect shareholders’ money.

In earlier conversations with analysts, PG&E executives had “alluded to the possibility of opportunistic share repurchases should the legislative process fail to deliver a more durable wildfire liability framework,” according to a report by the bank Jeffries.

Such buybacks could raise the company’s stock price and benefit shareholders while reducing money available for the utility’s California programs.

Last month, Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Wall Street analysts on a conference call that he too was prepared to make financial changes if the Legislature does not pass a comprehensive bill to cut the utilities’ financial wildfire risk before the legislative session ends Aug. 31.

Any legislation that passes without a protective framework for utilities, Pizarro said, would “influence how we prioritize and deploy future capital.”

Pizarro declined analysts’ requests to say where the company would cut back, but said the utility would continue spending aimed at keeping its grid safe and reliable.

“We’re going to evaluate the totality of the package that comes to us and figure out our response that goes along with it,” Pizarro said.

This month, state and county officials released their investigation into the Eaton fire, blaming the deadly inferno on Edison’s century-old transmission line that the company kept in place even though it hadn’t carried electricity since 1971.

Utilities have long known that idle lines could spark fires. In 2019, the Kincade fire in Sonoma County, which destroyed hundreds of homes, was ignited by an old, unused transmission line owned by PG&E.

At least seven of the 20 most destructive fires in California history have been sparked by the three biggest for-profit utilities.

Reporting from Sacramento — A Bay Area lawmaker wants to knock down what he believes is a key barrier to California meeting its ambitious climate change goals: one of the state’s most prominent environmental laws.

Assemblyman Tim Grayson (D-Concord) has introduced legislation that aims to make it harder for lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, to stop construction of roads and public transit.

CEQA requires developers and public agencies to disclose a project’s environmental effects and take steps to reduce or eliminate them. But Grayson says the law can grind to a halt transportation projects that are needed to reduce the amount of cars on the road.

His legislation, Assembly Bill 1905, would make it easier for road or transit projects included in a state-approved regional growth plan to begin construction before any CEQA litigation is resolved.

Since state climate regulators will have already signed off on those road and transit projects when approving a region’s growth plan, the projects shouldn’t face multiple threats of environmental litigation, Grayson argues.

“What I’m looking at is how do we cut down on traffic congestion where we’re just spilling greenhouse gases, creating clouds of greenhouse gases and impacting the environment negatively,” Grayson said.

But Grayson’s approach is already attracting concerns from high-profile environmental organizations. Environmental groups often credit CEQA, which took effect in 1970, with preserving California’s natural beauty, and argue it is complementary — not contrary — to the more recent climate change laws.

A court should rule in a CEQA lawsuit before construction starts, said Kyle Jones, a policy advocate for Sierra Club California.

“It just seems prudent that you’ve gotten all your legal barriers out of the way,” Jones said.

California has many laws that force private developers and public agencies to examine the environmental impacts of their housing, commercial, industrial and transportation plans and projects.

In 2008, the state Legislature began requiring regional governments, including the Southern California Assn. of Governments, to draw up plans to accommodate population growth and reduce greenhouse gases with proposals for new housing and transportation primarily in already developed areas. The goal is to reduce sprawl and emissions from long commutes. Regional governments are now revising their plans to comply with the state’s new aggressive targets to cut carbon emissions by 40% of 1990 levels by 2030.

But actual growth doesn’t have to follow the plans, and individual projects can stall for many reasons, including environmental litigation. Under Grayson’s bill, however, any road, transit or other transportation project included in an approved regional climate plan would receive relief in potential CEQA lawsuits.

Currently, a court can stop construction on a project if the judge finds its required CEQA analysis failed to account for all effects on the environment. Under Grayson’s bill, a court could do so only if the project was found to have serious life or safety risks.

State lawmakers have approved this legal standard before to speed the development of a new Sacramento Kings basketball arena. Those rules weren’t tested in a lawsuit against the arena. But state and local officials have said the legal standard allowed construction to go forward without fear of litigation tying up the project and potentially costing the city the team.

In Los Angeles, Grayson’s bill could affect large road and transit projects including a Metro Gold Line extension into eastern Los Angeles County and tunnels through the Sepulveda Pass.

But Sierra Club California and the Natural Resources Defense Council are among the environmental organizations that believe the bill goes too far. State climate regulators don’t heavily scrutinize individual projects when approving regional growth plans, representatives of both groups said.

For instance, a judge might find that a transportation project’s environmental review didn’t account for all the effects the development could have on air quality, but under AB 1905 that judge couldn’t stop the project because of it, said David Pettit, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Without the threat of halting construction, agencies won’t need to take seriously any subsequent demands to improve the air surrounding the project, he said.

AB 1905 “may look good on its face, but it’s fantastically unrealistic when you look at the effects of when concrete is already in the ground,” Pettit said.

Grayson said the inspiration for his bill came from the California Transportation Commission, a state agency that advises Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature on transportation policy and spending. In its most recent annual report, the commission recommended an idea similar to Grayson’s bill as a way to speed up project construction.

The recently passed gas tax and other fee increases are expected to bring in more than $5 billion annually for road repairs and mass transit upgrades. Grayson said it’s important to spend that money quickly, and making it easier to defend against CEQA lawsuits is one way to do it.

“If we’re ever going to make a huge impact it is going to be now with the amount of revenue at our disposal,” he said.

liam.dillon@latimes.com

@dillonliam

ALSO

Which California megaprojects get breaks from complying with environmental law? Sometimes, it depends on the project

Lawmakers have put a lot of energy into getting new stadiums built — without much success

California lawmakers pitch a break from a key environmental law to help L.A. Olympic bid, Clippers arena

Updates on California politics

Top executives of California’s two biggest utilities warned they would take action to protect their shareholders if Sacramento lawmakers fail to pass legislation limiting their companies’ liabilities for wildfires sparked by their equipment.

“If the legislature does not act, or if they act and don’t actually solve the problem, then we’re going to have to take action,” said Patti Poppe, chief executive of Pacific Gas & Electric, on a July 23 call with Wall Street analysts.

Poppe did not specify what her company would do, but made it clear any action would protect shareholders’ money. Previously, she told Wall Street analysts that if lawmakers failed to pass legislation to protect the utilities, PG&E would use its cash to buy back the company’s shares, according to a report by the bank Jeffries.

That could raise the company’s stock price and benefit shareholders, while reducing money available for the utility’s California programs.

The comments from Poppe and Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, came just before the state Legislature returned from summer break Monday to begin the last four weeks of its session.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators have been working behind closed doors to address the state’s escalating cost of wildfires, including those caused by the utilities, The Times reported last month. The big electric companies have told their investors they are talking to Newsom and lawmakers about a bill package that would protect shareholders from paying for utility-sparked fires.

On Tuesday, government fire officials released their investigation into last year’s devastating Eaton fire, blaming Edison’s century-old transmission line, which the utility kept in place even though it had not carried power since 1971.

Last week, Edison’s Pizarro echoed some of Poppe’s statements. He told Wall Street analysts on a conference call that he too was prepared to make financial changes if the legislature does not pass a comprehensive bill that cuts the utilities’ financial wildfire risk before the legislative session ends Aug. 31.

Any legislation that passes without a protective framework for utilities, Pizarro said, would “influence how we prioritize and deploy future capital.”

Pizarro declined analysts’ requests to say where the company would cut back, other than saying it would continue spending aimed at keeping its grid safe and reliable.

“We’re going to evaluate the totality of the package that comes to us and figure out our response that goes along with it,” Pizarro said.

Pizarro also told analysts that without legislation supporting the utilities, Edison’s credit rating could be downgraded. If that happens, he said, it could raise bills for electric customers since the utility may have to pay a higher interest rate for new borrowings.

“That could be a significant cost impact through the cost of debt that gets passed through to SCE customers if we don’t have a framework in the next four weeks that is credit supportive for our utility,” Pizarro told the analysts.

Newsom and lawmakers are drawing up legislation based on recommendations in an April study that the governor ordered last year.

The final report didn’t focus on utilities’ responsibility for sparking at least seven of the 20 most destructive wildfires in state history. It suggested ways to reduce the cost of wildfire liabilities, including by capping fees of attorneys representing victims and reducing payments to survivors for non-economic damages like pain and suffering.

The report also suggested that utilities should no longer reimburse property insurers for damages of fires sparked by electrical equipment. Insurers say this would increase premiums for homeowners.

Edison is now facing thousands of lawsuits from the victims of the Eaton fire, which roared through Altadena, destroying more than 9,000 homes and other structures and killing 19 people. The lawsuits claim it was negligent for the fire, which Edison denies.

The utility created a program to pay for victims’ damages if they agree to give up their right to sue.

Edison has so far paid more than $1 billion to victims. Experts say the fire’s costs could exceed the $21-billion state wildfire fund that Newsom and lawmakers created in 2019 to protect Edison, PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric.

If that happens, Edison customers must pay for the rest under legislation that Newsom and lawmakers introduced in the final days of last year’s legislative session.

Because of utility protections in legislation that Newsom and lawmakers passed in 2019 and last year, Edison has said it expects its shareholders to pay little for the Eaton fire. The utility says it believes it will be reimbursed for its damage payments to victims by the state wildfire fund and through customer bills, according to the company’s financial disclosures.

A coalition of wildfire survivors, consumer advocates and other groups wrote a letter to Newsom last month, asking him for legislation that keeps utilities accountable for the fires they cause.

The coalition pointed out that despite billions of dollars in damages from the Eaton fire, Edison’s profits soared last year by more than 200% — from $1.3 billion in 2024 to $4.5 billion.

The company’s board also rewarded Edison executives with higher salaries and bonuses. Pizarro received $16.6 million in cash, stock and other compensation, up 20% from 2024.

“For-profit companies that repeatedly cause catastrophic harm must be held accountable, not protected and enriched,” wrote Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivors Network, who is leading the coalition, in the letter to Newsom.

The letter warned that without reform of current state laws protecting utilities, disasters like the Eaton fire could happen again.

“Altadena is not the first community to endure this cycle, and it will not be the last,” the letter said.

WASHINGTON — President Trump will let the bipartisan housing bill approved by Congress become law without his signature, saying Friday that he was refusing to put his name on it because of the little progress made in passing a strict voter ID bill that he has been pushing.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump posted on social media.

Trump had 10 days until the Friday deadline to sign the bill, issue a veto, or allow the measure to take effect without his signature. He has chosen to let the measure become law without his express approval, undercutting his administration’s claims that he considers it a priority to combat inflation.

Trump’s rejection of the bipartisan housing legislation exacerbates tensions with his own party in a midterm election year and cuts short their efforts to address a key voter concern about rising costs. His post comes more than a week after he canceled plans to sign the bipartisan legislation, announcing he was using it as leverage in his push for a strict voter ID bill.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to lower the cost of housing and spur more home construction. It’s the broadest federal effort in decades to address America’s housing affordability problems, as state and local regulations have made it difficult to build in many of the communities that are also sources of job growth and economic opportunity. White House economists estimated earlier this year a national shortage of 10 million homes and the bill could help to close a portion of that gap.

But Trump called the bill “a yawn” and “so unimportant” compared to legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters.

He surprised Republican lawmakers on June 24, when, shortly before a planned signing ceremony at the Capitol, he announced he would not approve the bill until lawmakers first passed the voting legislation.

That bill, the SAVE America Act, doesn’t have enough Republican support to pass.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after submitting the housing bill to the White House that he told Trump he should get the “fattest black marker you have, and sign your name really big on that.”

“I hope he does sign it,” Johnson told reporters at the time. “If he doesn’t, it’s still law. We’ll still celebrate it.”

He said he also understood Trump was trying to make a point that the elections bill is the top priority. “And I think he’s making it very effectively,” Johnson said.

Still, Trump’s decision not to sign the bill gave Democrats an opening to criticize him on the issue of affordability.

“His priorities couldn’t be clearer: higher cost for families and more power for himself,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on X.

The housing bill passed the Senate on an 85-5 vote and the House approved it with an 358-32 vote.

That legislation seeks to cut federal housing rules, slim-down environmental reviews, make it faster to build homes and limit the ability of corporations to buy single-family homes.

The bill does not address all of the causes of the country’s housing woes, including a shortage of construction workers, climbing insurance costs and wages that have not risen fast enough for renters and buyers.

But the bill has drawn support from the real estate industry and housing advocates.

The U.S. housing market has been a driver of recent affordability challenges as skyrocketing prices have kept aspiring buyers out of the market. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that the median sales price increased 1.8% in June from a year earlier to $440,600, an all-time high on data going back to 1999.

Price and Boak write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

BOSTON — A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston in effect converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.

Casper rejected the administration’s argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be implemented. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.

The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” she wrote.

Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after election day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal money.

In a statement, New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James said she was grateful the court had blocked Trump’s “unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections” and would continue to defend voting rights in this year’s midterm elections.

“Generations of Americans fought tirelessly for the right to vote, and we honor their legacy by protecting that right against anyone who tries to undermine it,” she said.

Requests for comment sent to the White House and Department of Justice were not immediately returned.

It was the latest in a string of rulings against the elections executive order Trump signed just months after taking office for his second term. He has since signed another executive order on elections, seeking to create a national voter list and limit mail balloting. That directive also faces multiple legal challenges.

In the fall, a federal judge in Washington overseeing a separate challenge to the first election executive order by civil rights and Democratic Party-aligned groups blocked the government from taking steps to include the proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form. That judge later barred the secretary of Defense from requiring documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots.

In an apparent nod to the difficulty of implementing a proof-of-citizen requirement by executive order, Trump is pushing legislation in the Republican-controlled Congress to create such a mandate. The SAVE America Act has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, leading Trump to advocate for eliminating the filibuster that is blocking the legislation.

On Wednesday, he abruptly canceled the expected signing of a bipartisan housing bill, saying he won’t do so until Congress passes his proof of citizenship requirement for voting.

The president and many of his Republican allies have been promoting the narrative that voting by noncitizens is a major problem, when in fact it’s quite rare. The federal voter registration form already requires people to attest that they are U.S. citizens, and violating that is punishable as a felony that can lead to prison or deportation.

In another major voting case, the U.S. Supreme Court is due to issue an opinion soon on whether mail ballots must arrive by election day. That could immediately change the rules in 14 states that allow grace periods ranging from days to weeks if the ballots are postmarked by election day.

Smyth and Casey write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The House passed Congress’ most significant housing legislation in decades on Tuesday, sending the bill to President Trump’s desk — a bid by both parties to show midterm voters that they’re paying attention to affordability concerns ahead of November’s election.

The legislation, which the Senate passed Monday, aims to boost the housing supply through dozens of targeted provisions whose effects are expected to be seen over the next several years. In California, measures to unlock some federal block grant dollars for new housing in big cities could be particularly significant.

The bipartisan agreement over the legislation, after weeks of negotiation, marks a highly unusual collaboration in the divided Congress. It reflects growing public pressure on Washington to address economic issues at a time when Americans’ economic woes are deepening amid inflation, elevated gas prices and the ongoing effects of Trump’s tariffs.

The bill passed in the House with a 358-32 vote after it was approved by the Senate on Monday in an 85-5 vote. Those opposed in both chambers were Republicans. The Trump administration has signaled support for the bill, meaning it will probably become law.

“This legislation must serve as a foundation for continued action, not the final step in addressing our nation’s housing crisis,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of the lawmakers who put together the deal, said on the House floor before the vote.

The bill aims to help housing supply by removing regulatory barriers to building affordable housing units, preventing large investors from buying up single-family homes and incentivizing new housing in cities with federal funding, among other measures.

The package focuses on addressing housing supply constraints and making federal programs easier to use, said David Gonzalez Rice, senior vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Though the legislation does not create major new funding streams, advocates see the bipartisan acknowledgment of the need for housing reforms as significant.

“It’s a big step in the right direction,” Gonzalez Rice said, “and there’s still a lot of work to do.”

Addressing cost-of-living issues has become high stakes for lawmakers engaged in midterm reelection campaigns, as Americans increasingly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy. Democrats are hoping to leverage affordability issues to gain control of at least one chamber of Congress, while Republicans are fighting to maintain their majorities.

It was politically crucial for members of both parties to be able to tell voters they had worked in good faith to address housing affordability, said David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

“It would’ve been hard to justify to voters during their campaigns that their party did not do everything they could to advance the first meaningful legislation on housing policy in decades,” Garcia said.

The legislation was a product of intense bipartisan negotiations led by Waters and Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), after months of discussions in both parties about how to address housing.

“The work has been extraordinary between the majority and minority in this House, answering the call [for] solutions from the American people,” Hill said on the House floor.

Trump — who has largely dismissed the affordability issue, last week calling it “a fake word” — had indicated support for housing reforms.

In a March statement of policy, the administration indicated it “strongly supports” passage of the bill, saying it represented “significant advances in federal housing policy.” Trump also signed an executive order suggesting that regulatory barriers to home building should be removed, a concept reflected in the bill.

The nationwide affordability crisis has been driven for years by rising costs, a shortage of affordable housing, higher mortgage rates and other factors. Recent rising construction costs and labor shortages have exacerbated the issue, according to the National Assn. of Home Builders.

The number of new housing starts in May dropped by more than 15%, according to a report last week from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

California has added housing supply in recent years, but its shortage remains significant and prices high. The state has among the highest rates of households spending disproportionate amounts of their income on housing, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

The momentum in Washington to respond to those pressures — which came as something of a surprise to advocates — can be viewed as a reflection of current public sentiment, Gonzalez Rice said.

“It speaks to the broader understanding of the public that housing is a policy problem, that government can do something about it and the expectation that government will do something about it,” he said. “It’s clear elected officials are hearing from their constituents.”

The bill includes nearly 50 provisions, including the prohibition on investor purchase of single-family homes, which is intended to help increase the housing supply for individual buyers. It also seeks to help cities convert abandoned buildings into new housing and help landlords and homeowners make home repairs.

Two measures are expected to be particularly significant for cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, Garcia said: One ties some federal funding under the Community Development Block Grant program to housing production to motivate cities with low housing supply and high costs to build more housing. The other allows block grant money to be used for affordable housing construction, opening a new revenue source for cities.

California’s big cities may be spurred to increase new housing in future years, Garcia said, and they also could benefit from the ability to direct the block grant funding to housing.

“Costs to build are so high,” he said, “that any new funding could be critical.”

Among other steps that could have swift results is a plan to preserve a rental assistance program for nearly 400,000 rural homeowners and a measure to streamline the leasing process for families using vouchers, Gonzalez Rice said.

The bill also exempts certain projects from a set of environmental regulations, a step aimed at speeding up the review and construction process. And it seeks to make it easier to build manufactured homes by removing a requirement that they be built on a chassis, which the Senate committee estimated would reduce the cost of each new unit by up to $10,000.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Six months after President Trump warned states not to regulate artificial intelligence, they are increasingly doing just that.

Congress has stalled on producing federal regulations of artificial intelligence as states forge ahead and scrutinize how chatbots interact with children, how AI systems are used by employers and what developers must do to try to prevent an AI-caused catastrophe.

State lawmakers have stepped back from earlier, wider-ranging attempts to regulate AI that were vetoed or otherwise derailed by governors who viewed the measures as too onerous toward the industry’s development, including efforts to hold developers accountable for bias in AI systems.

But they are returning with legislation that is more targeted and, often, probes the corners of life where Americans interact with AI but may not know it.

Presidential power versus state power

Trump’s move to restrain states’ actions on AI drew criticism from members of both political parties and civil liberties and consumer rights groups who worried that banning state regulation would amount to a gift to AI giants, who enjoy little to no oversight.

Trump has made AI a top national and economic security priority, and he said that letting states clutter the regulatory playing field for an industry that’s spending trillions of dollars and driving the economy is too risky in the race with China for AI superiority.

Trump issued an executive order that directed the attorney general to create a task force to challenge state laws that are more than “minimally burdensome,” and directed the Commerce Department to draw up a list of problematic regulations. It also threatened to restrict funding from a broadband deployment program and other grant programs to states with AI laws.

The White House said it wouldn’t target state laws that seek to prevent fraud and protect consumers and children.

In the meantime, the Trump administration released a “national policy framework” in which it urged Congress to preempt state AI laws that are out of step with its regulatory worldview and to pass legislation to protect children, intellectual property rights and free speech. A recent bipartisan draft proposal in the House was met with withering criticism from key Democrats and Republicans.

The White House has given no indication that it has made good on its threat to enforce the president’s executive order by going to court against a state’s AI law or withholding money. In a statement, it said the Trump administration is “eager to work with partners” to enact its policy framework.

States seem largely unrestrained by Trump

Trump’s executive order didn’t seem to discourage states from trying to regulate how AI is used. More bills have been introduced this year than last, including by Republicans, said Justine Gluck, policy director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit that advocates for data privacy in technology and whose members are from industry, academia and civic groups.

In Illinois, legislation on the desk of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker piggybacked on elements of laws passed last year in California and New York that require developers of large advanced AI models to create protocols to prevent their systems from causing catastrophes such as a biological weapons attack, power outage or large-scale hack.

Illinois added a requirement that AI developers must get an independent auditor to review whether they are complying with their own policies. Analysts see it as a step toward requiring AI developers to take greater accountability for their products.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic state Sen. Mary Edly-Allen, brushed aside Trump’s threat.

“I don’t know if you’ve met Illinois, but we’re pretty independent,” Edly-Allen told the Associated Press.

The bill drew nearly unanimous support, signaling a willingness by members of Trump’s party to cooperate with Democrats in filling the AI regulatory vacuum left by the federal government.

This kind of legislation is expected to expand to other states.

Regulating chatbots, especially for children

A growing number of states are imposing restrictions on how AI chatbots can interact with people, especially children. A mix of Republican- and Democratic-led states have passed such laws this year, including Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon.

In many cases, states want companies to tell people when they are interacting with AI instead of a human. Many want chatbots to be restricted in how they interact with minors, parents to have control over their child’s access, and data given to chatbots to be kept private.

In recent weeks, Connecticut enacted provisions for companion chatbots that sustain an ongoing relationship with a human. Under them, a chatbot must not be able to interact with someone under 18 unless it is programmed against encouraging self-destructive behavior and provides parents with tools to manage the child’s use.

Transparency in AI and decision-making

In California, lawmakers are advancing the “No Robo Bosses Act of 2026” to prohibit employers from relying solely on AI to fire or discipline workers, and an expansion of how the state regulates AI chatbots, including banning chatbot outputs to children from being used for advertising.

Colorado in May required companies that deploy AI systems in important areas such as employment, education, housing or banking to tell people when AI is being used to influence a decision made about them.

It was a stab at regulating what researchers say is the bias inherent in AI systems that sort through a consumer’s data and render consequential decisions — including who gets hired, a home loan or medical care. But it watered down a 2024 law aimed at preventing AI’s penchant to discriminate, amid pressure from Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.

In Connecticut, lawmakers required employers who are using employment-related AI systems to tell employees or job applicants that they are interacting with AI.

Meanwhile, Connecticut, Washington and Utah required AI developers to embed data into digital content that will allow users to determine whether the content — such as photos or video — has been created or altered by AI.

More laws are possible this year.

Some Republican-led states hold back

In Florida, the state House refused to advance what Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called his AI “Bill of Rights” legislation. It included provisions to give parents control over their children’s access to companion chatbots and to require companies that use chatbots to tell consumers when they are interacting with AI instead of a human.

Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican, said Trump had made it clear that the federal government should be in charge of AI regulation. DeSantis panned that idea, noting that the federal government isn’t acting.

In Utah, progress stalled on legislation modeled on laws in New York and California after the White House sent a one-sentence memo to lawmakers there to warn that it was “categorically opposed” to the bill.

Levy writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed a bill into law on Wednesday that gives his immigration and deportation agenda a nearly $70 billion boost for the rest of his time in the White House.

The bill provides $38 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $26 billion for the Border Patrol. An additional $5 billion would cover unforeseen costs, according to the White House.

Trump signed the legislation in the Oval Office a day after House Republicans pushed the measure through by a 214-212 vote over the objections of Democrats. His signature ended a nearly six-month fight over Department of Homeland Security funding that began with shooting deaths of deaths of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, in January during federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.

Democrats began demanding changes to immigration enforcement after the shootings, creating an impasse — and resulting in the longest agency in history — that ultimately led Republicans to go it alone on the funding.

The agencies will be funded through the next three years. The new law front-loads routine annual funding, ensuring a virtually uninterrupted flow of money as the Trump administration seeks to deport some 1 million people per year.

The legislation had become sidetracked over $1 billion for White House security, including for Trump’s new ballroom, and a $1.8 billion fund to compensate his allies who claim to be victims of political prosecution. Both proposals became politically toxic and were scrapped.

The bill as passed focused exclusively on immigration enforcement, a topic that Republicans have treated as a defining issue between the two major political parties and one the GOP hopes will carry it to victory in November’s midterm elections.

Superville and Binkley write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — With virtually no strings attached, Congress is on the verge of providing a sizable infusion of cash to the Department of Homeland Security, powering President Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the remainder of his term in the White House.

The nearly $70-billion package, which cleared the Republican-held Senate in a middle of the night vote and now heads to the House, was declared a “rotten bill” by the Democratic leader and an “ATM for ICE” by pro-immigrant advocates.

But for those aligned with Trump’s campaign promise for the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, it all but guarantees an uninterrupted flow of money to carry out the administration’s immigration enforcement operations — and comes on top of some $170 billion Congress already approved for the department last summer, as part of Trump’s big tax breaks bill.

“We’re going to continue to arrest people, we’re going to continue to detain people and we’re going to keep deporting people,” Trump border advisor Tom Homan told CBS News on Friday.

He hinted at summer sweeps of enforcement actions coming next to New York City.

The work of Congress comes at a pivotal time for the Republican president and his party as they face restless voters before the midterm elections. About 1 in 3 U.S. adults know someone who has been affected by Trump’s immigration operations, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. And as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, most say it’s no longer a great place for immigrants.

The funding package from Congress is just a slim dozen-page bill that carries none of the usual guardrails or directives typically demanded in legislation. It turns loose $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and billions for the Border Patrol, and others, prepaying the department’s operations into 2029.

“Their options are limitless in terms of what they can do with this money,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director at America’s Voice, a longtime advocacy organization for immigrants.

“That is such a hard thing to accept as a taxpaying citizen that our dollars are going to this massive, mass deportation machine, while Americans are struggling to meet healthcare costs, and have access to food and they’re paying so much in gas.”

The administration has sought to shift the debate over its immigration operations, installing new leadership at Homeland Security in the aftermath of violent scenes of immigration enforcement earlier this year and the shooting deaths of Americans Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Rather than the dramatic street sweeps, the administration is working behind the scenes on actions that are stripping immigrant groups of their ability to remain in the U.S., by doing away with Temporary Protected Status or making it more difficult to secure green cards.

The so-called Dreamers, young immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children, have reported delays in renewing their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, exposing them to potential deportation.

But protests on American streets continue, including over detention conditions at the Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey.

At the same time, Homeland Security continues to hire more ICE agents — it’s hosting an employment fair next month in Florida — build more detention facilities and partner with countries around the world to take people who are being deported from the U.S.

In a statement, the department said Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin are “laser focused on ensuring the hardworking men and women” of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are fully funded. It said the package from Congress “will ensure our critical national security operations continue despite any Democrat attempts to hold our great patriotic employees hostage in the future.”

Typically a funding package from Congress would run hundreds pages or more, with a range of specific instructions about how the money can be spent and on what timelines.

Congress, after all, holds the power of the purse, and often uses that constitutional role to put checks on the administration.

But after Democrats refused to fund Homeland Security earlier this year following the violence in Minnesota, Republicans retaliated by using the congressional budget resolution process to muscle the package through on their own, outside the traditional appropriations channels.

It’s the same process both parties have used in the past, most recently on Trump’s 2025 tax cuts bill.

“All this important oversight doesn’t happen,” said Bobby Kogan, a former staff member of the Senate Budget Committee and now at the Center for American Progress, a think tank.

Overnight, Democrats in the Senate worked to exert that authority, offering amendments to ensure Congress had some say in the process. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, for example, sought to protect “Dreamers” from deportation as their DACA renewals are being delayed. But those efforts all failed.

Meanwhile the administration is under enormous pressure to deliver on its promise to boost deportations to some 1 million a year, after the Republican president’s first year numbers fell short.

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, is a leader of the Mass Deportation Coalition that is pushing the Trump administration to stick to its promises.

“Everyone’s talking about it like ICE is about to get another massive cash injection, and that’s not how I see it at all,” he said. “They’re getting like life-support money.”

“We’re not asking them to keep going,” Howell said. “We’re asking them to start.”

Howell said there’s little chance the Trump administration will be able to reach the president’s deportation goals unless it drops its priority to go after what they call the “worst of the worst.”

His group put out a framework earlier this year that proposes more comprehensive sweeps to arrest immigrants, particularly in the workplace. He also wants to see the Trump administration make it more difficult for immigrants who are in the U.S. to use the banking system, get social services and obtain driver’s licenses. Republicans in Congress have offered bills tackling some of those issues.

The administration has been amping up its own rhetoric and recently posted a new website that characterizes immigrants as “aliens” — with outer-space themes — and suggests ways the White House is working to prevent people from staying in the U.S.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Senate is beginning a long series of votes Thursday on legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, moving toward passage of a three-year fix as Democrats have blocked the money for months in protest.

The roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

First, though, Republicans must beat back a potential gauntlet of amendments that Democrats plan to offer, including to try and permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who he believes have been politically persecuted. Democrats have said their first amendment Thursday morning will be to eliminate the fund and send the immigration spending bill back to committee.

Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security that they eventually scrapped and fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

“The thing we’re trying to do here is to keep the focus on funding for ICE and CBP,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday evening, after the Senate voted to start debating the legislation. “This was narrow and targeted from the very beginning and clean, and we’re trying to maintain it that way.”

But it’s unclear if Republicans will have enough votes to fend off the Democratic amendments. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward, and many GOP senators said Wednesday that they were satisfied with his remarks.

Yet Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future on Wednesday afternoon when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.

Democrats, Republicans plan to force votes on settlement

To pass legislation through the budget process called reconciliation, the Senate must first hold a long series of votes. Democrats are using that process to try and ban the settlement by law — and also kill the immigration spending bill.

After Trump’s comments about the fund, Schumer posted on X that “this is EXACTLY why” Democrats would be forcing votes to ban it.

Some Republicans also planned to try and put Blanche’s promise in writing. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said he will offer an amendment to block any attempt at resurrecting the fund.

“We’ve got a sufficient number of Republicans who have been very clear they’ve got concerns there,” said Tillis.

ICE and Border Patrol money has been long fight

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the DHS funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support. But ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding, and Republicans launched a new effort to pass three years of funding for those agencies with no Democratic votes.

Security money for Trump’s ballroom dropped

Work on the legislation was also delayed by Republican opposition to $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, that was added to the original bill.

Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project, and Republicans did not include it in the final bill when it was released on Wednesday.

Thune said he was working with his GOP conference to try and fight off any amendments and ensure he has enough votes for a simple majority to pass the bill in the 53-47 Senate.

“Keep in mind, we’ve got to keep them all together, make sure we’ve got 50 votes for it,” he said.

Republican House leaders said Wednesday they would like to clear the legislation before the end of the week, if the Senate can finish it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that House leaders were having internal conversations about the schedule.

“We just need to make sure everybody’s there,” Scalise said.

Jalonick and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.