Becerra emerges after laying low, touts voting bills

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Hello and welcome back to Capitol Confidential!

Lots to cover on another busy August weekday, so let’s jump straight in. 

It’s been two months since Xavier Becerra won the Democratic nomination for governor, and his public appearances since have been few and far between. But California’s former attorney general did make a brief and buzzy cameo at a news conference in front of the state Capitol this week, lending his endorsement to two bills that would strengthen the California Voting Rights Act.

State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, wrote both bills, SB1164 and SB1360. Supporters have presented the two-bill package as California’s response to efforts by President Donald Trump and national Republicans — as well as some inside ones — to restrict voting access.

SB1164 would broadly prohibit state and local agencies from doing anything that makes it harder for eligible Californians to vote or that would dilute the vote of protected minority groups. It would also clarify the authority of the attorney general and secretary of state to weigh in before local governments change their election processes, a seeming response to legal sagas in Huntington Beach, Riverside County and Shasta County over restrictive voter ID policies challenged by the state.

SB1360 would expand requirements for counties to provide ballots and voting information in foreign languages.

“Simply put, this bill ensures that regardless of what happens at the federal level, California voters will continue to have strong protections against vote dilution, voter suppression and other forms of voter discrimination,” Cervantes said of SB1164 at the Wednesday news conference.

SB1164, in particular, represents a substantial overhaul of the state’s landmark voting rights protections. The California Voting Rights Act was passed by the Legislature in 2001, and when signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis, became the nation’s first state-specific voting rights act, focused on protecting minority groups from vote dilution.

A previous effort to expand the California Voting Rights Act failed in 2015, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation authored in part by now-U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, back when he was a state legislator.

But this effort could go a different direction this time around, in a vastly different political climate where voting access has become a marquee issue across the country. Cervantes’ package also now has the endorsement of Becerra, a shoe-in to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in deep-blue California in November.

“Today we’re gonna fight to make sure that democracy survives — not just survives, but thrives,” Becerra said in brief remarks. “That’s why we're here today. That is why this is such an important cause. And that’s why we must win.”

Those active on the California politics side of X (it’s a thing) may have seen multiple videos of Becerra slipping away immediately after he spoke, much to the chagrin of reporters eager to lob a few questions. 

The bills now await the suspense file vote, on Aug. 13.

Newsom has not taken a public position on either piece of legislation. However, the governor did sign an elections bill penned by Cervantes earlier this year, seen as a direct response to Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s seizure of 650,000 local voters’ ballots. SB73, which took effect days before the June primary, made it a felony to seize ballots from county elections offices and made it illegal for law enforcement to search or take custody of voter rolls or voting machines without a signed warrant or agreement with election officials.

“Just take the Emperor Norton Tunnel.”

That could be a sentence you utter in the near future, if an effort by two Bay Area lawmakers succeeds. 

SCR193, introduced by state Sen Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, proposes to rename the Bay Bridge’s Yerba Buena Tunnel after an eccentric San Franciscan. 

As the Chronicle’s Chrissa Olson reported this week, the resolution would christen the bridge “Emperor Norton Tunnel,” making it just one more link in a long chain of efforts to commemorate Joshua Abraham Norton, a man who declared himself the “Emperor of the United States” and the “Protector of Mexico.” 

Assembly Member Catherine Stefani, D-San Francisco, co-authored the Senate concurrent resolution announced Tuesday.

The new name would spotlight one of the region’s quirkiest folk heroes, as Olson wrote, known for losing his business fortune, calling for the creation of the Bay Bridge, that Congress be dissolved and advocated for the inclusion of Chinese people during a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment in the 1860s.

The resolution would also direct the Department of Transportation to estimate the costs for new signage, to be paid for by donations via nonstate sources. 

AB1923, which would place a local transportation measure on the ballot in Fresno County, spurred some of the most (unexpectedly) lively debate in the Assembly this week. 

The bill, introduced as an urgency measure via a gut-and-amend by Assembly Member Esmerelda Soria, D-Fresno, would require a local initiative be placed on the November ballot in Fresno, wading into an elections crisis that has been unfolding in the Central Valley city over the past few weeks. 

Members of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors last month effectively delayed placing the qualified measure on the ballot, voting to require a 30-day study be completed beforehand — which would have blown past the Aug. 7 deadline for initiatives to go onto the local ballot.

The citizen-led initiative replaces Measure C, an existing Fresno County transportation tax that is due to expire in 2027. The tax raises about $150 million annually, the Fresno Bee reported, and helps fund mass transit projects and road maintenance in the county.

Soria, alongside State Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, took the fight up the chain with AB1923. Despite Republican pushback on the Assembly floor, including from a fired-up Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, the legislation passed through both chambers, sending the matter to the governor for his final decision. 

Newsom signed the urgency legislation just a few hours later, ensuring the measure will appear before Fresno voters. 

Questions? Thoughts? Interesting tidbits to share? Reach out at [email protected], and follow me on X, @KathrynPlmr.