CAL FRESHMEN back impeachment ahead of PELOSI news — another DATA PRIVACY initiative from MACTAGGART — BIDEN in LA, CASTRO in OAKLAND as WARREN eyes CA

THE BUZZ: We’ve crossed a telling threshold: freshman California Democrats are unified behind impeachment.

House Democrats’ push to oust Donald Trump over allegedly pressuring Ukraine to punish a political rival accelerated dramatically this week. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s longstanding resistance to a politically perilous quest collapsed under the weight of the seemingly inevitable, with Pelosi announcing an impeachment inquiry, fellow Californians who are fighting to retain their newly-claimed seats got on board.

Rep. Josh Harder and Rep. Katie Hill were unequivocal yesterday morning: If Congress confirms the Trump-Ukraine allegations, “it’s time for the House to open impeachment proceedings,“ Harder said — on a day that was supposed to be about extirpating enormous rodents. “I will vote to impeach the president,” Hill declared. This came shortly after Rep. Gil Cisneros and six other newbie Dems said the same ina Washington Post op-ed. Rep. TJ Cox said he “didn’t come to Washington to impeach a president,” but that an impeachment inquiry is needed “to break through the President’s stonewalling and obstruction and get the answers the American people deserve.”

Reps. Mike Levin, Katie Porter and Harley Rouda reupped their existing pro-impeachment stances. And it wasn’t just the first-termers, either, with longer-serving moderate incumbents like Reps. Raul Ruiz, Jimmy Panetta and Mike Thompson joining the wave.

From the moment the California Seven took office, national Republicans have been trying at every opportunity to tie an impeachment-sized anchor around their necks, looking to polling that suggests removing Trump would be a political loser in swing districts. The NRCC poured it on yesterday, suggesting Democrats were either betraying constituents by reneging on their former impeachment caution or showing they had been disingenuous all along about their true intentions. CA-50 hopeful Carl DeMaio excoriated the “pointless political stunt,” and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was unmoved.

But we seem to have reached an inflection point where the potential electoral fallout is outweighed by the reality on the ground. We won’t know how voters react to the pro-impeachment consensus for months, but the political landscape — and the impeachment-averse views of the California electorate — may shift significantly by November 2020.

BUENOS DIAS, good Wednesday morning. Former Sen. Barbara Boxer is enlisting some entertainment industry help as she seeks to boost Democrats’ chances of protecting and expanding their federal power.

— QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Today, I’m announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. … The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law.” Pelosi speaks the words many Democrats have so desperately wanted to hear.

— TWEET OF THE DAY: @RepAdamSchiff on next steps: “We have been informed by the whistleblower’s counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI as to how to do so. We‘re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week.”

— BONUS TOTD: @RealDonaldTrump with Californians on his mind: “Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff and, of course, Maxine Waters! Can you believe this?”

— WHERE’S GAVIN? Heading back from his Climate Week sojourn in New York City — where he also dropped in on the Daily Show — so get ready for those bill signings!

TOP TALKERS

— FIRST IN PLAYBOOK ... BOXER’S SHOW: Politics is spectacle, and California Sen. Barbara Boxer is marrying show business with the people’s business as she raises money for her PAC for a Change, which is focused on electing Dems to Congress and the White House. She’s hosting a dramatic reading of the Mueller report, bolstered by narrator’s commentary at the Saban Theater in October. The script was written by Janice Hirsch and will be performed by actors including Larry David, Debra Messing and Billy Porter.

“We just sent them the script and so many of them said ‘yes,’” Boxer told POLITICO, adding that she felt compelled to act despite having exited public life. “I didn’t think I would be so involved, but I feel our democracy is in jeopardy, so every one of us has to get off the sidelines.”

— ALLRED’S ARGUMENT: The NYTimes revealed last week that famous feminist lawyer Gloria Allred helped forestall California legislation barring confidentiality clauses that silence abuse victims (a bill was eventually signed into law). In an LATimes op-ed, Allred explains why she believes it is “wrong to attack confidential settlement agreements that can help vulnerable victims get a measure of justice.”

— DEEP DIVE: “Detained,” a project by Emily Kassie via the Marshall Project and the Guardian, details how “[o]ver the last four decades, a series of emergency stopgaps and bipartisan deals has created a new multi-billion dollar industry built on the incarceration of immigrants” — with prominent roles for California policies (Prop 187) and politicians (Leon Panetta).

GOT NEWS, TIPS? Hit us up on Twitter @cmarinucci, @jeremybwhite or @alexdrnieves, or via email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].

THE TRUMP ERA

— SCHIFF’S MOMENT: “Trump nemesis Adam Schiff holds the keys to his impeachment,” by POLITICO’s Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney: “Schiff has assumed control of what appears to be the single-most consequential scandal facing Donald Trump’s presidency — and, for the moment, is driving a narrative that could lead to Trump’s impeachment.”

— AIRING ANIMOSITY: “EPA puts California in the cross hairs,” by POLITICO’s Alex Guillén: “The Trump administration’s threat to pull billions of dollars in transportation funding from California over disputed pollution plans is simply a thinly veiled political attack, environmental advocates and state officials said on Tuesday.

“EPA denied that it is punitively targeting California and said the state had submitted inadequate State Implementation Plans required under the Clean Air Act on how it plans to reduce a suite of pollutants. ... California officials, meanwhile, blamed EPA for worsening the backlog of pollution plans by letting some of its submissions languish for as long as a decade without making a decision.” (Pro link)

— IMMIGRATION SHIFT: “Trump Administration to End ‘Catch and Release’ Immigration Policy, Says DHS Chief,” by NPR’s Richard Gonzales: “‘If migrant family units do not claim fear of return, they will be quickly returned to their country of origin, in close collaboration with Central American countries,’ [a statement from the Department of Homeland Security] read. ‘If they do claim fear, they will generally be returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).’”

PRESIDENTIAL PURSUIT

— TEAM PLAYER: In an email laying out Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s $10 million early-state blitz, California gets some love as part of the Massachusetts Democrat’s strategy of building ties with party officials around the country. Warren’s team is focused on “targeting our resources to invest in places that will be critical to keeping the House,” the strategy memo said, including California, “where Democrats won a whole bunch of House seats in 2018 in close elections that we’ll need to defend.” (BTW: Warren will be in San Diego next week).

After the memo went out, Sen. Kamala Harris adviser Laphonza Butler boosted a story about Harris helping down-ballot candidates in 2016, writing, “she ain’t new to this!”

— BIDEN TIME: Former veep Joe Biden will be holding receptions in SoCal the next couple of days, per invites: today he’ll be at the Manhattan Beach home of Mona and Sanjay Khurana; tomorrow he heads to an event at the LA home of Sean Burton.

— CASTRO IN CA: Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro will be in Oakland today, where he plans to talk to folks at Fruitvale BART station — the site of an infamous police-involved shooting — before visiting a nearby homeless encampment. His campaign stressed Castro’s focus on police reform and curbing homelessness.

CAMPAIGN MODE

— “California privacy law architect to pursue another initiative,” by POLITICO’s Katy Murphy: “Alastair Mactaggart, who used his first ballot initiative as leverage to broker a legislative deal that created the Privacy Act last year, will unveil a new initiative on Wednesday that would overhaul enforcement of the new law, add new consumer protections and make it harder for industry to weaken the law in the Legislature.” (Pro link)

— More evidence 2020 could be a Big Tech ballot year: We could see vast sums spent by gig companies like Uber and Lyft seeking to pass their labor law ballot initiative, combined with hefty spending on the opposition side from data-reliant companies, like Google and Facebook, that were ready to spend big on beating Mactaggart’s ultimately-shelved 2018 proposal.

GAVINLAND

— Spare a thought today for Armenian-Americans — many of whom live in the Los Angeles area — who saw news of Gov. Gavin Newsom signing a California-Armenia trade pact get just a little overshadowed by other news yesterday. Here’s a copy of the agreement, which Newsom signed in New York alongside Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

CALIFORNIA AND THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR

— JUST SAY NO: “California health officials: Stop vaping in all forms for now,” by POLITICO Pro’s Alexander Nieves.

— “These fish-killing gas plants were set to close. California may throw them a lifeline,” by the LA Times’ Sammy Roth: “Staff at the California Public Utilities Commission recommended this month that four natural gas plants in Southern California, which are now required to shut down in 2020, be allowed to keep operating up to three additional years.”

— A NATIONAL FIGHT: “How anti-vaxxers target grieving moms and turn them into crusaders,” by NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny and Aliza Nadi: “Since her death in March, Evee (Clobles) has served as a literal poster child for the anti-vaccination movement...The latest venue for Evee’s story has been California, where anti-vaccination activists have been protesting legislation that closed medical exemption loopholes in the state’s vaccine law.”

— “California’s new 35-story limit for freelancers,” by Tony Biasotti for Columbia Journalism Review: “The passage of Assembly Bill 5 offers some relief: freelance writers, editors, photographers and editorial cartoonists were given a partial carve-out, allowing publishers to hire them for up to 35 separate ‘content submissions’ in a given year. … It’s not hard to find freelancers who say they will run into that limit.”

— “Judge Aaron Persky vs. mob rule,” by public defender Rachel Marshall in the SF Chronicle: “Those who advocated for firing Persky from his coaching position characterized him in ways suggesting he was guilty of [Brock] Turner’s crimes. They argued that girls could not feel safe with him and that he was not a good role model for abuse survivors. This equating of the judge to the person he sentenced is the kind of rhetoric that will only deepen our nation’s mass incarceration epidemic.”

SILICON VALLEYLAND

— “WeWork C.E.O., Adam Neumann, Stepping Down Under Pressure,” by NYT’s Michael J. de la Merced, David Gelles, Peter Eavis and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

— GETTING ORGANIZED: “A Group of Google Contractors Has Voted to Unionize,” by WIRED’s Paris Martineau: “The tech workers, who are employed by Google contractor HCL Technologies, are only a few of the many contractors that comprise the bulk of Google’s labor force. But Tuesday’s vote makes them one of the first groups of tech workers to unionize in the country, according to United Steelworkers.”

— “Elon Musk knew SolarCity was going broke before merger with Tesla, lawsuit alleges,” by the LA Times’ Russ Mitchell: “When Tesla bought SolarCity in November 2016, Elon Musk billed the deal as a match made in green energy heaven: Combine a hot electric car company with the nation’s then-largest provider of solar rooftop panels to create a one-stop shop for clean energy customers. What Musk did not discuss at the time was that SolarCity was in deep financial trouble.”

— “Europe’s top court sides with Google in landmark privacy case,” by POLITICO Europe’s Mark Scott: “Judges at the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled Tuesday that the search giant does not have to apply some of the region’s privacy standards globally, a blow to Europe’s efforts to export its digital rulemaking beyond the borders of the 28-country bloc.”

HOLLYWOODLAND

— “Film company founded by Trump nominee Michael Pack profited off fund-raising deal with think tank he ran,” by CNBC’s Brian Schwartz: “A film company founded by President Donald Trump’s nominee to run a federal media agency signed a commercial fundraising contract with the Claremont Institute, a nonprofit conservative think tank. The catch is that Trump’s choice to be CEO of the agency was Claremont’s president when the five figure deal was signed.”

CANNABIS COUNTRY

— “Marijuana Mitch? How McConnell’s hemp push has made pot busts harder,” by POLITICO’s Mona Zhang: “His goal was to spur hemp farming across the country and boost farmers in his home state of Kentucky who have been battered by a loss in federal tobacco subsidies. But here’s the catch: Hemp and marijuana products both come from the same plant, cannabis, which makes it nearly impossible for the average cop to tell the difference.”

— “Eaze joins wave of private cannabis firms launching social equity programs,” by POLITICO’s Alexander Nieves: “As local social equity programs in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco continue face criticism for their slow pace of development and lack of resources, the private sector has steadily moved into this role. Eaze joins marijuana advertising site Weedmaps, hiring platform Vangst and logistics company Blackbird, all of which unveiled equity programs over the last month.” (Pro link)

MIXTAPE

— “In admissions scandal, L.A. parent who faked son’s water polo talents gets four months in prison,” by the LA Times’ Matthew Ormseth and Joel Rubin.

— “Fatalities rise in California from people stepping in front of moving trains,” by the SF Chronicle’s Rachel Swan.

— “UC Davis police investigating ‘neo-Nazi and white supremacy’ flyers found on campus,” by the Sac Bee’s Michael McGough.

— “Bay Area pet-vet startup Fuzzy held events featuring ‘inebriation and sexually explicit behavior’: lawsuit,” by the Merc’s Ethan Baron.

— “UC Santa Cruz Has Fired A Professor After He Violated The University’s Harassment Policy,” by BuzzFeed’s Nidhi Subbaraman.

— “For California wineries during harvest, PG&E power outages could be disastrous,” by the SF Chronicle’s Shwanika Narayan and Esther Mobley.

BIRTHDAYS

Rep. Doris Matsui is 75 … former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is 76 (hat tip: Geoff Morrell) … Danny Yadron … April Greener, research director for Pelosi … Amber Pfau … Nathaniel Ennis … Nicco Mele of the Harvard Kennedy School (h/t Jon Haber)

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