New boss at Equality California + Adult film star runs for governor + Fracking fail

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

A NEW CHAPTER

Via Hannah Wiley...

California’s most powerful LGBTQ advocacy group has selected its new leader.

Equality California and Equality California Institute’s current managing director Tony Hoang was “unanimously selected” by their boards of directors to serve as the linked nonprofits’ next executive director.

Equality California is the largest statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, and is known for sponsoring some of California’s most high-profile civil rights and racial justice laws. The organization regularly lobbies the Capitol on issues related to racial, sexual orientation and gender discrimination, health care access and criminal justice reform.

Current executive director and Assembly District 50 candidate Rick Chavez Zbur is stepping down at the end of the year after leading the organization since 2014. Until then, Hoang, 31, will manage the organization’s daily operations as he transitions to executive director-designate for the rest of 2021.

“I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to lead such a diverse, dynamic organization that has been at the vanguard of the LGBTQ+ movement for the last two decades,” Hoang said in a statement. “Our community is at an inflection point — recovering from a global pandemic and economic crisis, facing a reckoning with centuries of structural racism and fighting back against a coordinated assault on transgender children. Equality California has both an opportunity and a responsibility to create a world that is healthy, just and fully equal for all LGBTQ+ people, and I’m ready to get to work.”

A Houston-area native, first-generation college graduate and son of Vietnam War refugees, Hoang began his career at Equality California in 2009 as a field intern as a USC student. He worked his way through the organization to add roles like database and volunteer manager, director of operations, chief of staff and managing director to his resume.

Hoang’s ambitions for the organization include establishing a “physical presence” for the L.A.-based organization in the Central Valley, Orange County and the Inland Empire. His plans will also focus on expanding Equality California’s “political power across the state” by electing LGBTQ candidates.

In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom congratulated Hoang and thanked Chavez Zbur for his tenure as executive director.

“Tony’s life reflects the California spirit: a son of refugees, the first in his family to graduate from college and a tireless advocate for equality and justice,” Newsom said. “I am confident that the LGBTQ community will be well-served by his leadership, and I look forward to working with him to advance our collective vision of a California for all.”

Editing note: a previous version of this section misstated Equality California as the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization. It is the largest statewide group.

MARY CAREY RETURNS

Via Lara Korte...

She won more than 11,000 votes during the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis, and on Tuesday, adult film star Mary Carey announced she would again run for California governor in a recall election.

Carey, who’s campaign theme is “Totally Recalled 2: Golden Our State Again,” said she feels the recall is a waste of resources, but if Californians want someone to replace Newsom, she’s the woman for the job.

“I have big plans for California, and it is time for someone with a new attitude from outside of mainstream politics to lead. I can promise you – it won’t take long before all Californians will be satisfied with my job performance,” Carey said in a press release.

For what it’s worth, Carey, 40, says she is retired from making adult films and will be solely focused on improving California. (Though she still runs an OnlyFans account with 20,000 followers, where she describes herself as “a politician you want to be screwed by!”)

Carey isn’t likely to gain much serious traction, experts say, but her entry into the race suggests that Newsom could be facing a menagerie of interesting opponents this fall — similar to the Davis recall.

“In the 2003 recall, the replacement candidates field was a veritable clown car of eccentrics, egomaniacs and exotics,” said Davis advisor and now-Democratic consultant Garry South. “It just makes a laughing stock out of the process.”

FRACKING BILL GOES DOWN

Via Hannah Wiley...

Nearly seven months after Gov. Newsom called on the Legislature to send him a bill to ban fracking in California, Democratic lawmakers said, “nope.”

After two hours of debate, Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 467 died in the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee Tuesday in a 4-3 vote. The legislation would have banned fracking and established so-called “setbacks,” which dictate how far oil and gas wells must be from schools, homes and certain facilities. The bill set the measurement at 2,500 feet.

Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, called SB 467 a necessary first step to “help jumpstart the conversation of how and when California will phase out oil extraction in this state.” He argued California needed to live up to its reputation as a world leader in environmental policies by removing this “stain” on the state’s climate record.

SB 467 was sponsored and supported by a list of environmental advocacy and racial justice advocacy organizations that argued fracking fracking has disproportionately harmed children and Californians of color living in lower-income neighborhoods.

But Sen. Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, joined her Republican colleagues in voting against the measure after raising questions that too many jobs would be lost and that the state lacked the infrastructure necessary for a smooth transition away from oil and into greener transportation.

Echoing her concerns were energy groups and a list of trade organizations and councils that demanded senators vote in favor of protecting their jobs.

SF Building and Construction Trade Council’s Rudy Gonzalez called SB 467 a “cynical attempt at grabbing headlines,” and argued it wouldn’t “do for workers and the environment what it claims.”

The final nail in the coffin? Democrats Ben Hueso of San Diego and Bob Hertzberg of Van Nuys abstained, leaving SB 467 short of the necessary five votes to pass committee.

ANOTHER BONTA IN THE ASSEMBLY?

Oakland Promise CEO and Alameda Unified School District President Mia Bonta announced that she is running to replace her husband, Assemblyman Rob Bonta, in the Assembly.

Rob Bonta will likely be confirmed by the Legislature to be California’s next attorney general, leaving the Assembly District 18 seat — which includes Alameda, San Leandro and parts of Oakland — vacant.

Mia Bonta’s campaign announced that it has racked up endorsements from the California Legislative Black Caucus, State Treasurer Fiona Ma, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, and the group Black Women Organized for Political Action.

Mia Bonta was first elected to the Alameda Unified School District School Board in 2018, and previously has served as a PTA member, school site council member and member of the Alameda Free Library Foundation.

“I’m running on behalf of East Bay children and working families to push open California’s door of opportunity for communities that have for too long been locked out.” Mia Bonta said in a statement. “The pandemic has further exacerbated systemic inequalities, while exposing once again the precariousness of so many people’s livelihoods. I am ready to go to Sacramento to fight for our East Bay communities and ensure Californians of all backgrounds get a fair shot.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I’ve been in office it seems like decades, it’s only 25 months or so.”

- Gov. Gavin Newsom, during a press conference on Tuesday.

Best of the Bee:

• California is adding more than half a billion dollars in wildfire prevention spending this year after Gov. Gavin Newsom formally approved the money Tuesday ahead of the state’s peak fire season, via Sophia Bollag.

• California’s ambitious road repair program faces financial trouble—a projected $6.1 billion annual shortfall— four years after the state adopted the highest fuel tax in the nation in a plan to fix its battered highway, via David Lightman.

• The COVID-19 pandemic was even deadlier for working-age Latino immigrants than previously known, according to a recent University of Southern California study, via Kim Bojórquez.