Newsom vacations and people have thoughts + Levine concedes + Suspend AB 5 for trucking?

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

PEANUT GALLERY RESPONDS TO NEWSOM’S MONTANA VACATION

So it turns out that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is vacationing in Big Sky Country this week.

ICYMI: Newsom’s office announced Friday that the governor had left the state, leaving Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis in charge. Unlike previous vacation announcements, such as Newsom’s family trip to Central and South America earlier this year, aides weren’t immediately forthcoming about where he was heading.

Cue CalMatters reporter Emily Hoeven, who learned that Newsom was in Montana where his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, has family and a ranch.

Montana notably sits on a list of 22 states for which state-funded travel is prohibited.

“We don’t legislate where people vacation. Never have. The travel ban applies to expending state funds. The Governor’s travel is not being paid for by the state,” Newsom’s office told CalMatters.

Naturally, Newsom’s Republican critics had thoughts.

“Yet another hypocritical act (that he clearly tried to hide), but I have to empathize a little here… it must be hard for his family to meet all the woke rules that the ‘Regressives’ have created for themselves,” Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, wrote in a tweet.

Gallagher’s counterpart in the Senate, Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita:

“Over the last 2 years more than 13,000 Californians moved to Montana, & not all Montanans are thrilled about that. Hopefully @GavinNewsom’s trip can help him understand - Californians care about a better quality of life. #CADeservesBetter,” Wilk wrote in a tweet.

Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, in a tweet:

“The hypocrisy of our absurd governor is just the latest illustration,” Kiley wrote.

California GOP consultant Mike Madrid on Twitter:

“Newsom shoulda held a press conference when he landed in Montana announcing another $100k buy beating them up on reproductive rights and he woulda gone up another 5 points in the 538 polling average. The mistake was trying to hide/quash the story,” Madrid wrote.

LEVINE CONCEDES INSURANCE COMMISSIONER RACE

Assemblyman Marc Levine has officially conceded the race for second place in the California insurance commissioner’s race.

Republican Robert Howell, who leads Levine by just over 6,300 votes in the latest count, will move on to the November general election, where he faces an uphill battle against incumbent Democrat Ricardo Lara.

As Rob Pyers of California Target Book noted on Twitter, this means that for the first time since 2014, a Republican will be on the November ballot in each of the statewide races.

To recap:

• For the governor’s race, it’s Democratic incumbent Gavin Newsom and Republican Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber.

• For the lieutenant governor’s race, it’s Democratic incumbent Eleni Kounalakis and Republican Angela E. Underwood Jacobs.

• For the secretary of state’s race, it’s Democratic incumbent Shirley Weber and Republican Rob Bernosky.

• For the controller’s race, it’s Democrat Malia Cohen and Republican Lanhee Chen.
  
  

• For the treasurer’s race, it’s Democratic incumbent Fiona Ma and Republican Jack Guerrero.

• For the attorney general’s race, it’s Democratic incumbent Rob Bonta and Republican Nathan Hochman.

• For the U.S. Senate race, it’s Democratic incumbent Alex Padilla and Republican Mark Meuser.

In a post to Twitter, Levine acknowledged that there aren’t enough uncounted votes left to close the gap with Howell.

He also used the occasion to thank his family and all 58 county registrars “for conducting a free and fair election, one of the hallmarks of our democracy.”

Levine said in a statement that he intends to serve out the rest of his fifth term in the Assembly, and that he will be in touch soon “about ways we can keep working together to make our communities and our state all that we know it can be.”

REPUBLICANS WRITE NEWSOM ABOUT TRUCKING

When Gov. Newsom gets back to his desk he will find a letter from Assembly Republicans urging him to take action, saying “the fate of California’s trucking industry is in question.”

Specifically, the letter warns that the supply of truck drivers “will be drastically reduced” if AB 5 is allowed to go into effect.

AB 5 reclassifies independent contractors in many industries as regular employees, subject to state wage laws such as minimum wage and overtime. The bill was passed into law in 2019, in response to the California Supreme Court’s “Dynamex Decision,” which held that workers are presumptively employees unless employers can demonstrate otherwise using a so-called “ABC test.”

“Given the critical role of our truck drivers in maintaining our supply chain, we implore you to take any means within your authority to either delay the implementation of AB 5 or exempt the trucking industry altogether from the ABC test. Without immediate action, we can expect a devastating reduction in our driver workforce, especially among minority-operated businesses,” the Assembly Republicans wrote in their letter.

Lorena Gonzalez, who authored AB 5 and who now heads the California Labor Federation, responded to the letter with a series of tweets Wednesday.

“For 3 years trucking companies have known that Dynamex & AB5 was CA Law. In that time, they’ve lost multi-million dollar (misclassification) lawsuits & cases by hundreds of drivers. It’s time they act in accordance to basic labor laws: treat operators as actual businesses or employ them,” Gonzalez wrote.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“#CALeg: 153 years ago today, former Assemblyman Agoston Haraszthy was eaten by alligators after slipping off a log that he was using to cross a river in Nicaragua.”

- Alex Vassar, communications manager at the California State Library, via Twitter.

Best of the Bee:

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing back against reports that he kept his family trip to Montana a secret because of a ban on state-funded travel to places with anti-LGBTQ laws, via Lindsey Holden and Andrew Sheeler.

• Gavin Newsom vacations in Montana despite travel ban. Hypocrisy isn’t a good look, Governor (OPINION), via Melinda Henneberger.

• A California state worker tripled his income with OT during COVID-19. Dozens cleared $100K, via Wes Venteicher and Phillip Reese.

• There are no simple solutions to California’s complicated water problem. This is why, via Dale Kasler.