Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

What’s Behind California’s Frozen Housing Market?

14 hours ago

Oil Prices Rise on Trade War Relief, US Pressure on Russia

15 hours ago

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is First Republican Lawmaker to Call Gaza Crisis a ‘Genocide’

17 hours ago

UK Will Recognize Palestinian Statehood in September, Barring Israel-Hamas Ceasefire

17 hours ago

Trump’s EPA to Repeal Core of Greenhouse Gas Rules in Major Deregulatory Move

18 hours ago

US Approval of Israel’s Gaza Offensive Drops to 32%, Poll Shows

18 hours ago

Shooter in New York Skyscraper Left Note Blaming NFL for Brain Injury, Mayor Says

19 hours ago

Trump Eyes Aug 1 Trade Deals as EU, China Talks Continue, US Commerce Chief Says

19 hours ago

Trump Says Many Are Starving in Gaza, Vows to Set up Food Centers

2 days ago
Walters: Legislature Fails on Police Reform Promises
dan_walters
By Dan Walters, CalMatters Commentary
Published 5 years ago on
September 10, 2020

Share

When the California Legislature folded up its tent 10 days ago, it left an extraordinary number of high-profile bills still awaiting final votes, and the finger-pointing has been underway ever since.

It’s not unusual for the last day of any legislative session to be a madhouse but the 2020 version was especially so for a variety of reasons, including the public eruption of long-simmering animosity between the Legislature’s two top figures, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins.

Dan Walters

Opinion

Atkins’ own agenda-topping measure to spark much-needed housing construction, Senate Bill 1120, was a conspicuous casualty. After it languished on the Assembly floor for two months, Rendon’s house returned it to the Senate at 11:57 p.m., too late for a final vote by midnight.

In the aftermath, the two leaders exchanged accusatory statements to journalists, each blaming the other for the bill’s demise.

However, SB 1120 wasn’t the only bill to die that night and the failures included several aimed at fulfilling the police reform promises Democratic legislators had made in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

Many state legislators had joined police brutality protests outside the Capitol — on the day of Floyd’s funeral — and pledged to make California police more accountable. While a couple of police reform bills passed, including one requiring the attorney general to investigate police killings of unarmed suspects, the most important ones died in a continuing testament to police unions’ political muscle.

The 2020 Session Began in January With Many Other Police Reform Bills

Last year, police unions had seemingly lost much of their long-standing authority to block reform. After a young unarmed Black man, Stephon Clark, died in a hail of Sacramento police bullets, the Legislature changed the law on deadly force, allowing it only when “necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person.”

The 2020 session began in January with many other police reform bills on the agenda but as it ended, three major measures, Assembly Bill 66 and Senate Bills 731 and 776, were still stalled.

AB 66 would have banned use of many “less lethal” police weapons, such as rubber bullets and “chemical agents” against protesters.

SB 731, if enacted, would have lifted the state-issued licenses — called “certification” — of cops convicted of crimes. The “George Floyd Law,” as it was dubbed, is hardly a new idea since California is just one of five states that don’t bar criminal cops from working as cops.

After it died, SB 731’s author, Sen. Steven Bradford, a Gardena Democrat, blamed Speaker Rendon, telling Capitol Public Radio, “We had our votes, but the speaker wouldn’t know that unless he allowed us to have our day in the sun.”

Measures Would Have Begun To Treat Cops Like Other State-Licensed Professions

SB 776 would have opened police conduct records to public scrutiny, breaching the wall of secrecy now enveloping such matters.

The latter two measures would have begun to treat cops like other members of state-licensed professions, such a doctors and lawyers. But politics, as we learn again, have nothing to do with logic or equity.

Ironically and tragically, as the bills died on the last night of the session, so did a Black bicyclist in Los Angeles. Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed the man during a scuffle after they had stopped him for a bicycle “code violation.” He had dropped a handgun during the struggle.

Dijon Kizzee’s death touched off another flurry of protests and will be added to the list of grievances when the Legislature reconvenes in December and again confronts the political difficulty of policing the police.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

[activecampaign form=19]

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

California Under Tsunami Advisory After Magnitude 8.7 Earthquake

DON'T MISS

Fresno Man Dies in DUI Crash, Driver Arrested

DON'T MISS

Madera County Wildfire Burns Near Fairmead, Containment at 0%

DON'T MISS

Watch Twin Meteor Showers Reach Their Simultaneous Peak in Summer Skies

DON'T MISS

New York Gunman Was Flagged by Security Camera System Before Attack, Sources Say

DON'T MISS

As Trump Cuts Education, Candidates Line Up for California’s Top Schools Job

DON'T MISS

US House Panel Rejects Immunity Request by Epstein Associate Maxwell

DON'T MISS

Fresno’s Vacant Property Ordinance Punishes the Wrong People: Rassamni

DON'T MISS

Trump Approval Rating Sinks to 40%, the Lowest of His Term, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds

DON'T MISS

What’s Behind California’s Frozen Housing Market?

UP NEXT

PBS Has a Future by Leaving the Past Behind: Opinion

UP NEXT

Israeli Columnist Alleges Ethnic Cleansing Plan in Gaza

UP NEXT

No One Controls MAGA, not Even Trump. The Epstein Files Prove It

UP NEXT

A Pro-Trump Community Reckons With Losing a Beloved Immigrant Neighbor

UP NEXT

Why American Jews No Longer Understand One Another

UP NEXT

Masked Raids and Impersonators Driving Force Behind Terror Campaign Across Nation

UP NEXT

I’m Not Leaving Measure C and COG Can’t Make Me: Brooke Ashjian

UP NEXT

I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.

UP NEXT

California Is Finally Adopting Phonics, Fulfilling a Grandmother’s Dream

UP NEXT

New CA Budget Papers Over $20 Billion Deficit, Ignores Day of Reckoning

Watch Twin Meteor Showers Reach Their Simultaneous Peak in Summer Skies

10 hours ago

New York Gunman Was Flagged by Security Camera System Before Attack, Sources Say

11 hours ago

As Trump Cuts Education, Candidates Line Up for California’s Top Schools Job

12 hours ago

US House Panel Rejects Immunity Request by Epstein Associate Maxwell

12 hours ago

Fresno’s Vacant Property Ordinance Punishes the Wrong People: Rassamni

13 hours ago

Trump Approval Rating Sinks to 40%, the Lowest of His Term, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds

13 hours ago

What’s Behind California’s Frozen Housing Market?

14 hours ago

Tulare County Authorities Find Body in Sequoia National Park

14 hours ago

Oil Prices Rise on Trade War Relief, US Pressure on Russia

15 hours ago

Scottie Scheffler vs. Everybody: Open Champion Makes His Case Among the Greats

15 hours ago

California Under Tsunami Advisory After Magnitude 8.7 Earthquake

Update at 7:35 p.m. on July 29 The U.S. National Weather Service has issued a tsunami advisory for the California coast, with projected arri...

9 hours ago

9 hours ago

California Under Tsunami Advisory After Magnitude 8.7 Earthquake

Juan Carlos Mendoza Jr., 23, was arrested on suspicion of DUI and vehicular manslaughter after a crash in Fresno County killed a 24-year-old passenger. (Fresno County SO)
10 hours ago

Fresno Man Dies in DUI Crash, Driver Arrested

A wildfire in Madera County, dubbed the 19 Fire, has burned 16 acres with 0% containment as of Tuesday, July 29, 2025, afternoon, according to CalFire. (CalFire)
10 hours ago

Madera County Wildfire Burns Near Fairmead, Containment at 0%

10 hours ago

Watch Twin Meteor Showers Reach Their Simultaneous Peak in Summer Skies

A man holding a rifle walks into an office building at 345 Park Avenue shortly before a shooting that killed several people, in the Midtown Manhattan district of New York City, U.S. July 28, 2025, in a still image taken from surveillance video. Surveillance Camera/Handout via REUTERS
11 hours ago

New York Gunman Was Flagged by Security Camera System Before Attack, Sources Say

Teacher Uses Globe While Instructing Her Students
12 hours ago

As Trump Cuts Education, Candidates Line Up for California’s Top Schools Job

Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell stands at the podium to address Judge Alison Nathan during her sentencing in a courtroom sketch in New York City, U.S. June 28, 2022. (Reuters File)
12 hours ago

US House Panel Rejects Immunity Request by Epstein Associate Maxwell

13 hours ago

Fresno’s Vacant Property Ordinance Punishes the Wrong People: Rassamni

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend