Bee Opinionated: Measure O(h), no + Farmworkers unite + Biden loses on water + One year post-Roe

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Robin Epley here again from The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board. Do you remember Measure O?

Last year, voters in the city of Sacramento approved the ballot initiative sold to voters by proponents as a vehicle to improve the crisis of homelessness on city streets.

In our opposition editorial to Measure O at that time, this Editorial Board wrote that “enacting this proposal would do little to change the lives or number of unhoused people on the streets of Sacramento or to placate voters desperate for improvement.”

Opinion

Almost exactly nine months later, the predictable flaws of Measure O are already materializing. Sacramento has decided not to establish a citizen’s complaint process that voters approved in Measure O, saying it has already spent more than what the measure requires.

Measure O mandated a new expensive appeals process among other directives; it also capped, at $5 million, the unexpended general funds the city annually needs to spend to achieve the directives, so that voters weren’t mandating some blank check. The city is now dealing with that contradiction.

“As this Editorial Board predicted in our opposition, Measure O was never more than an empty sales pitch to address homelessness by moving some homeless people around, at best: ‘The illusion of progress being sold to the public by Sacramentans for Safe and Clean Streets and Parks, the coalition of special interest groups and influential business leaders behind Measure O, is as bad as doing nothing, which could very well be the result.”’We may actually be wrong; Measure O may be worse than nothing.”

Betting The Farm

“Having enough workers to plant, water, treat and harvest crops has been one of farming’s biggest challenges for years. With the reintroduction of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, lawmakers hope to finally secure a legal workforce safe from deportation.”

Chief sponsors include Jim Costa, a Democrat from Fresno, and Republicans David Valadao of Hanford and John Duarte of Turlock. Salud Carbajal, a Democrat who represents San Luis Obispo, is sponsoring, as are Zoe Lofgren of San Jose and Jimmy Panetta of Monterey. Lawmakers in Washington, New York and Idaho are also backing it.

The Fresno Bee wrote last week about the Act, and called for local representative and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to support it. Fresno County growers earned a total production value of just over $8 billion in 2021 (the most recent year reported), making it one of the top farming counties in the nation. The Act would set wage standards and grant incentives to improve existing worker housing and grants to build new housing would be offered. Up to 20,000 visas would be available for dairy and other year-round employers, and a single online platform for filing records would be created for all federal agencies to use, simplifying the processing.

“Providing a path to legal residency for the men and women who work to put food on our dinner tables is long overdue,” Rep. Costa said. “California’s farming communities have dealt with worker shortages for years, a problem that got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. These workers feed Americans and deserve a path to legal residency.”

Uncharted Waters

“If any American water rights system truly respected seniority, the Navajo Nation would get its full share. The tribe was here first. Instead, our system leaves roughly a third of those on a reservation the size of West Virginia without running water.”

Columnist Tom Philp wrote last week on the Supreme Court’s recent, 5-4 decision against a claim by the Navajo seeking a federal plan to someday receive more water.

“There is one and only one issue that could uniquely sway the swing states of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado against the president in 2024 as he bids for a second term,” Philp wrote. “It is water.”

In the court case, the Navajo Nation claimed that its 1868 treaty confining the tribe to a reservation included an obligation to provide water for crops and homes, Philp wrote. The Interior Department countered that it has no such duty as trustee of the tribe’s water. Arizona and other states contended that a previous court decision had already divided the lower Colorado River.

The Supreme Court ruled that neither the treaty nor subsequent court decisions compelled the Biden administration to take “affirmative steps’‘ to help the Navajo with water. Justice Clarence Thomas went a step further and questioned the nation’s role as trustee over the Navajo’s water altogether. The four dissenting justices argued that the Navajo simply wanted a water plan and that “no one has ever assessed what water rights the Navajo possess.”

“If there is a political calculus behind Biden’s inaction, it is to avoid water becoming an issue that could anger enough voters to sway the election outcome in close states, particularly Arizona and Nevada,” Philp wrote. “They could have taken those brave first steps to develop a Navajo water plan, calm fears, do what is right and live with consequences that may prove to be downright positive. It appears we will never know.”

A typical Navajo uses only seven gallons of water per day on the reservation. The average American uses 14 times that amount of water daily.

One Year Later

“Late June marked the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, ending our constitutional right to an abortion, a law of the land for nearly 50 years — and for my entire life. Californians are fortunate to have political leaders so vocally committed to ensuring reproductive health care access for girls, women and pregnant people across the country, but we can and must do better for Black and Latina mothers within our state borders.”

I wrote last week about the one year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, which ended Americans’ constitutional right to reproductive healthcare and abortions.

Now, a new report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, a non-profit based in Los Angeles, has shown that in the last year, California not only has the nation’s lowest maternal mortality rate, but California teens are also half as likely to become mothers compared to their peers in states that have banned abortion.

“California has been a leader in advancing women’s sexual and reproductive health for decades, and the data shows that pregnant people and babies in California and other states supportive of reproductive freedom have healthier outcomes than they do in states banning abortion,” said Nancy Cohen, president of the Gender Equity Policy Institute.

While women in California are less likely to lack health insurance compared to women living in banned states by about half, serious equity concerns remain a problem for the state.

“The neonatal mortality rate for Black babies in California is twice as high as the mortality rate for all babies statewide, and Latinas in California, who are more likely to give birth during their teen years, are also less likely to have health insurance, according to the Gender Equity Policy Institute.

“California can stop the country’s war on women by continuing to provide reproductive care, but also by subsidizing child care costs and ensuring that women and mothers can remain a part of the state’s workforce. As individual Californians, we can continue to support pro-choice candidates in other states, and by volunteering or donating to help pregnant people travel from other states for reproductive care here.”

Opinion of the Week

“Our work has helped make Mark Zuckerberg wealthier than God.” — Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, speaking to The Bee’s Tom Philp. The guild was supporting California Assembly Bill 886 that would have forced large social media companies like Facebook to share a portion of their advertising revenues with California news outlets. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who introduced the bill, announced Friday morning it would be delayed until 2024.

Got thoughts? What would you like to see in this newsletter every week? Got a story tip or an opinion to tell the world? Let us know what you think about this email and our work in general by emailing us at any time via opinion@sacbee.com.

Stay opinionated,

Robin