As the virus surges, California lawmakers gather to start work
SACRAMENTO >> California lawmakers convened a legislative session like never before on Monday, swearing in some newly-elected lawmakers remotely while substituting the regal state Capitol with a cavernous NBA arena on a day the government ordered more than 33 million people to stay home because of a pandemic threatening to overwhelm hospitals.
State health officials on Monday ordered all of Southern California, a large swath of the Central Valley agricultural region and five counties around the San Francisco Bay Area to stay home because of dwindling capacities in hospital intensive care units.
But the state Constitution requires lawmakers to meet on the first Monday of December in evennumbered years to organize themselves for the upcoming session. Lawmakers gathered in person and indoors — something state officials have been begging people not to do. But their gatherings had the blessing of public health officials in Sacramento County, where the latest stay- at- home rules do not apply.
Lawmakers reelected Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon to new terms in their respective leadership positions, with both Democrats pledging to pass legislation addressing the state’s housing crisis while expanding high-speed internet access to more disadvantaged communities during the pandemic.
“If we’re gonna tell kids they can’t come to school, but we want them to learn at home, we have to make it possible for them to do so,” Rendon said, telling his colleagues in a speech that “it has to happen this session.”
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a law banning evictions for people who have been unable to pay their rent since the pandemic began in March — but only if they can pay 25% of the rent they owe since September. Those protections expire Jan. 31.
Nearly 240,000 Californians are behind on their rent and will owe their landlords a combined $1.7 billion by the end of the year, according to a recent analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. If California lets its protections expire in January, those bills will come due.