In 2019 and 2020, three Black men were accused of, and jailed for, crimes they didn’t commit after police used face recognition to falsely identify them. Their wrongful arrest lawsuits are still pending, but their cases bring to light how AI-enabled tools can lead to civil rights violations and lasting consequences for the families of the accused.

Now all three men are speaking out against pending California legislation that would make it illegal for police to use face recognition technology as the sole reason for a search or arrest. Instead it would require corroborating indicators.

The problem, critics say, is that a possible face recognition “match” is not evidence — and that it can lead investigations astray even if police seek corroborating evidence.

After a contentious hearing today, the Senate Public Safety Committee uanimously voted to advance Assembly Bill 1814. It had cleared the Assembly last month without opposition.

Such a bill “would not have stopped the police from falsely arresting me in front of my wife and daughters,” Robert Williams told CalMatters. In 2020, Detroit police accused Williams of stealing watches worth thousands of dollars — the first known instance of false arrest involving face recognition in the United States — after face recognition matched a surveillance video to a photo of Williams in a state database. Investigators put his photo in a “six-pack lineup” with five others, and he was chosen by a security guard who had seen a surveillance image but not the theft itself.

“In my case, as in others, the police did exactly what AB 1814 would require them to do, but it didn’t help,” said Williams, who is Black. “Once the facial recognition software told them I was the suspect, it poisoned the investigation. This technology is racially biased and unreliable and should be prohibited.

“I implore California lawmakers to not settle for half measures that won’t actually protect people like me.”

But the bill’s author, Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting of San Francisco, maintained that because it bans face recognition technology from being the sole criteria for a warrant, search or arrest, it would prevent wrongful apprehensions such as those in Detroit.

And he stressed that it would improve the status quo for Californians.

“Law enforcement agencies in the state do not need any permission from anyone to do anything on facial recognition right now,” Ting said. “Nothing in any state law provides guidance in that particular area.

“This actually takes a good first step to really provide some security, to provide some civil rights protections, and to ensure that we take the first step to regulate facial recognition technology.”

The first face recognition searches in the United States took place more than two decades ago. It’s a process that begins with a photo of a suspect typically taken from security camera footage. Face recognition on your iPhone is trained to match your photo, but the kind used by law enforcement agencies searches databases of mug shots or drivers license photos can contain millions of photos, and can fail in numerous ways. Tests by researchers have shown that the technology is less accurate when attempting to identify people with dark skin, people who are Asian, Native American, people who identify as transgender, if a probe image of a suspect is low quality, or if the image in a database is outdated.

After a computer assembles a list of possible matches from a database of images, police pick a suspect from an array of candidates, then show that photo to an eyewitness. Although people tend to think they’re good at it, eyewitness testimony is a leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States.

Because prosecutors use face recognition to identify possible suspects but ultimately rely on eyewitness testimony, the technology can play a role in a criminal investigation but remain hidden from the accused and defense attorneys.

Directives not to treat a possible match by a face recognition system as the sole basis for an arrest sometimes don’t make a difference — they failed to do so, for instance, in the case of  Alonzo Sawyer, a man who was falsely arrested near Baltimore and spent nine days in jail.

Njeer Parks, who spent nearly a year fighting allegations that he stole items from a hotel gift shop in New Jersey and then nearly hit a police officer with a stolen vehicle, came out in opposition to the California bill in a video posted on Instagram last week. The police “are not going to do their job if the AI is saying ‘It’s him’ already. That’s what happened to me.”

“I got lucky,” he told CalMatters in a phone interview about a receipt that exonerated him and kept him out of prison. “I don’t want to see anybody sitting in jail for something they didn’t do.”

Testifying at today’s hearing was the attorney for Michael Oliver, a third Black man who was wrongly accused of assaulting a high school teacher in Detroit in 2020. “The warrant request in Michael’s case was based entirely on a supposed (face recognition technology) match and a photo lineup,” said attorney David Robinson. “Other than a photo lineup, the detective did no other investigation. So it’s easy to say that it’s the officer’s fault, that he did a poor job or no investigation. But he relied on (face recognition), believing it must be right. That’s the automation bias this has been referenced in these sessions.

“So despite a warning to the officer — ‘investigative lead only’ — that prescription was trumped by the mesmerizing effect of this machine that the officer saw as faster and smarter than he, and it must be right.”

Supporters of Ting’s bill include the California Faculty Association and the League of California Cities. The California Police Chief Association argues that face recognition can reduce criminal activity and provide police with actionable leads, and that such technology will be important as California looks to host international events such as the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“Across the country, real-world examples of law enforcement using (facial recognition technology) to solve major crimes showcases just how important this new technology can be towards protecting our communities,” the California Police Chiefs Association has argued. It cited cases in which it says face recognition played a role in identifying the guilty, including a newspaper headquarters shooting in Maryland and a rape in New York.

Face recognition alone should never lead to false arrests, Jake Parker with the Security Industry Association told members of the California Assembly a few weeks ago. That’s why AB 1814 is meant to corroborate investigative leads with evidence, not just a possible face recognition match.

“There’s a clear need to bolster public trust that this technology is being leveraged accurately, lawfully, and in an effective way that’s also limited and non-discriminatory in a way that benefits our communities,” he said. “So we believe AB 1814 will help bolster this trust and for that reason we urge you to support this bill in its current form.”

But more than 50 advocacy organizations — including the ACLU, Access Reproductive Justice and the Electronic Frontier Foundation signed a letter opposing the bill last week. They called face recognition unreliable, a proven threat to Black men, and a potential threat to protestors, people seeking abortions, and immigrant and LGBTQ communities.

“By allowing police to scan and identify people without limitation, AB 1814 will also increase unnecessary police interactions that too often have the potential to escalate into fatal encounters. This will remain true regardless of how accurate face recognition technology becomes,” the organizations said in a letter. “There is no way for people to find out if facial recognition is used against them and no mechanism to make sure the police comply with the law.”

Ting also authored a 2019 bill that initially placed a permanent ban on police use of body camera footage with face recognition. That was amended to a temporary ban, which ended in January 2023.

He told CalMatters he’s uncomfortable with the fact that California currently has no limits on how law enforcement agencies use face recognition.

He said in a statement that his bill “simply requires officers to have additional evidence before they can proceed with a search, arrest, or affidavit for a warrant. I believe having a precautionary step can help protect people’s privacy and due process rights, while still allowing local governments to go further and pursue their own facial recognition bans.”

Ting’s city of San Francisco became the first major city in the nation to ban face recognition in 2019, but an analysis by City Attorney David Chiu found that the city’s passage of Proposition E in March allows police to perform face recognition searches on imagery captured by cameras and drones. The Washington Post last month reported that San Francisco police go around restrictions by requesting that law enforcement in neighboring cities conduct the search for them.

Recalled San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin says there have almost certainly been false arrests associated with use of face recognition in California but they would remain unknown to the public unless prosecutors filed charges and the accused later went to trial with a civil lawsuit seeking damages. Often such cases would be settled out of court.

“We absolutely need a legislative, regulatory framework for these technologies, but I don’t think AB 1814 is adequate in terms of protecting civil liberties or providing meaningful guardrails or safeguards for the use of these new and powerful technologies,” said Boudin, who now directs UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center.

Lawmakers have until the end of the legislative session in August to decide whether to pass  AB 1814.

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Uber lost its long-running attempt to overturn a California law that would require it to provide employment rights to its drivers and delivery workers.

The ruling on Monday, June 10 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could have major implications — depending what the state Supreme Court decides in a separate but related case.

Uber and Postmates, a food-delivery platform Uber now owns, alleged that Assembly Bill 5 violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the state and U.S. constitutions.

AB 5 requires ride-hailing and delivery companies to treat their workers as employees instead of independent contractors and codifies the so-called ABC test to determine which workers should receive benefits. Under the law, other gig companies are subject to a different test, which Uber and Postmates claimed was unfair.

The companies sued and sought an injunction against the law that took effect at the beginning of 2020. Last year, a three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit sided with Uber and revived the case, which had been previously dismissed by a federal judge.

But writing for the full 11-judge appeals court today, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen said there are “plausible reasons” for treating Uber differently from other types of companies that use gig workers, such as Wag, a platform that connects dog owners and dog walkers, because the Legislature “perceived transportation and delivery companies as the most significant perpetrators of the problem it sought to address — worker misclassification.”

More than 1.4 million workers in California do app-based driving and delivery work for big gig companies such as Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart, according to the industry’s latest estimates.

Lorena Gonzalez, chief officer of the California Labor Federation and the former state lawmaker who authored AB 5, said in a statement today: “This is a victory for all workers in the state, but especially the chronically misclassified workers in rideshare and delivery jobs. Now, we must continue to seek ways to enforce this law.”

The ruling means “the Legislature can continue to make laws that impact companies differently if the decision to do so is rational, without being concerned that such laws would violate the constitutional rights of the corporation,” said Veena Dubal, a UC Irvine law professor whose research centers on labor and inequality. “This is particularly important because so many sectors are now concentrated by two or three large companies.”

The decision also is significant because the California Supreme Court in May heard oral arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 22, the initiative the gig industry put on the ballot in 2020, and which a majority of California voters approved.

Prop. 22 exempted Uber and other companies such as Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart from AB 5, allowing them to continue to treat their workers as independent contractors while giving them some new benefits they did not have before, such as guaranteed minimum earnings.

Uber is counting on the state’s highest court to uphold Prop. 22, on which it spent more than $57 million out of the about $200 million the gig industry put into the campaign. It contends AB 5 threatens the “flexible work opportunities” that many Californians want.

But William Gould, professor emeritus at Stanford Law School and a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, called the opinion “eminently sensible.” Gould said the court “correctly holds that Uber and others may be covered where the Legislature deems them to be disproportionately responsible for inequality in the gig economy.”

If Prop. 22 is upheld, it would be a huge victory for Uber and the other big gig companies, but today’s ruling means they would still be on the hook in any cases where they are found to have violated laws related to worker classification before Prop. 22 took effect. In the appeals court decision, Nguyen referred to “ongoing state enforcement actions seeking retrospective relief, including civil penalties,” against Uber and Postmates.

If Prop. 22 is thrown out, the appeals court ruling means “these companies do not have this case to fall back on to exempt themselves from having to provide basic employment protections,” Dubal said.

The state Supreme Court files its written opinion within 90 days of oral argument, so its decision could come by the end of August.

As many as 300,000 Californians have until June 30 to take advantage of a one-time offer to qualify for faster student loan forgiveness, lower monthly payments or outright forgiveness for federal loans borrowed before 2010.

The U.S. Department of Education’s June 30 deadline is a big deal because borrowers who submit their applications would become eligible to receive credit for past years of repayment that previously didn’t qualify for student loan forgiveness.

The department’s one-time “adjustment” will largely help borrowers who took out federal student loans before 2010 called Federal Family Education Loans — as well as borrowers with two other types of loans.

Why is the department doing this? To “remedy years of administrative failures that effectively denied the promise of loan forgiveness to certain borrowers,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a 2022 press release. The deadline for this remedy has been extended several times, but student loan advocates believe June 30 will be the final opportunity for this one-time benefit.

Nationally, about half of borrowers 60 and older have been repaying their student loans for more than 15 years, a key reason why debt among this population has skyrocketed.

By May, more than 1 million Americans have already gotten $51 billion in debt relief through this adjustment program, according to the department.

The student loan landscape is notoriously complicated. A National Public Radio reporter whose investigation exposed how borrowers placed in the wrong repayment category lost the ability to gain credit toward loan forgiveness, quipped that if none of this makes sense, “You’re not alone.”

To meet the June 30 deadline, borrowers must submit applications to consolidate their loans into so-called direct consolidation loans. Only loans in the direct program are eligible for loan forgiveness after 10 or 20 years of payments, depending on a borrower’s  employment situation. Direct loans also qualify for lower monthly payments.

Some borrowers may see no reason to consolidate, but for many others, meeting the June 30 deadline will be a life-changer.

To apply, a borrower needs to create an account with the Federal Student Aid office and then complete the consolidation application, which itself takes about 30 minutes.

California state agency tries to help

Most Californians with loans that aren’t in the direct program should apply to consolidate, said Celina Damian, the state’s first Student Loan Servicing Ombudsperson.

This week California is also debuting a network of 14 nonprofit organizations that collectively received $7 million in state grants to help California borrowers navigate the maze of student loan policies, hurdles and deadlines.

The Student Loan Empowerment Network will offer California borrowers in-person or phone consultations to handle their student loan quandaries, including issues surrounding private student loans that are governed by a different set of rules.

“It was created really to just have somewhere for borrowers to go and provide more help than I can provide,” Damian said. Until last week, she was the only person in state government doing this work.

Between March 20 and May 1, Damian communicated by phone or email with 1,400 borrowers after her office sent an email to Californians who’d likely benefit from loan consolidation.

Some borrowers didn’t realize they possessed federal loans that were eligible for any loan forgiveness, Damian said. The borrowers instead thought they were repaying private loans. Others thought her agency’s outreach was initially a scam. “So they would reach out and say, ‘Is this real? I thought there was no option for me,” she recounted.

Damian stressed that a growing number of California borrowers are senior citizens who may struggle to complete the federal online application. “The oldest one I spoke to was about 83, 84”, she said. “These are loans they took out in the ‘90s.”

Several times borrowers nearly gave up trying to apply, so she told them to complete the paper version of the application and email her photos of their paperwork. She then collated their photos into a PDF document and submitted the paperwork to the U.S. Department of Education on their behalf.

How did we get here?

The old loans qualify for federal loan forgiveness programs with less generous repayment plans and require more years of repayment.

These loans are also ineligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a loan program for government and nonprofit workers that forgives federal undergraduate and graduate student loan debt after 10 years of payments. The only way to qualify for that loan forgiveness is by repaying direct loans — which borrowers with Federal Family Education Loans can do if they consolidate by June 30. Once their consolidation goes through, borrowers will need to apply for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, but they will have inherited past credit already through the steps they took to consolidate.

Borrowers need to only apply for consolidation by the June 30 deadline. The department’s actual review process will take at least 60 days.

Borrowers who are found to have made at least 20 years of payments for undergraduate loans or 25 years for graduate loans will see their loans fully forgiven — a tax-free perk through 2025.

Things to consider for student loan forgiveness

A key benefit of consolidation: Borrowers can choose to be placed on the SAVE repayment plan, which bases monthly payments on current income and offers loan forgiveness for any income level after 20 or 25 years.

The SAVE plan also doesn’t charge interest as long borrowers make regular payments.

Not all periods of repayment will count toward one’s loan credit under the federal government’s one-time program. Any time spent in default won’t count.

Loans in periods of deferment will count, but only before 2013. If loans were deferred because a borrower re-entered college, such as to complete a bachelor’s or earn a master’s degree, that time won’t count toward the borrower’s credit.

If borrowers have older loans and Parent PLUS loans that they took out on behalf of their children, they should weigh their options, Damian said. Parent PLUS loans are eligible for only one type of loan forgiveness plan that’s less generous, and consolidating those loans with other loans will block the borrower from the newer repayment plans.

Consolidation may not be for everyone. Borrowers with high incomes, a low loan balance and a discounted interest rate from their lender may not necessarily benefit from this, said Betsy Mayotte, president and founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit group. “But for just about everybody else, there isn’t going to be a downside.”

Before becoming a member of the California Assembly, Freddie Rodriguez spent 30 years as an emergency medical technician in the San Gabriel Valley. He’s wheeled untold numbers of patients on gurneys into hospital emergency departments.

And he’s seen all too often what happens when one of them tries to hurt caregivers. In fact, it recently happened to his daughter, Desirae, a respiratory technician. He told the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday that she was recently assaulted on the job.

“This violence is unacceptable,” Rodriguez testified. “But for many of the health care heroes, they view workplace violence as just part of the job.”

The issue prompted Rodriguez to introduce Assembly Bill 977, which would increase penalties to a year in jail for those convicted of assaulting California’s hospital emergency room doctors, nurses and other workers. But the bill has an uncertain future due to resistance from progressive Democrats who, for the past decade, have sought to shrink the numbers of inmates in its crowded jails and prisons. Indeed, former Gov. Jerry Brown, who faced a U.S. Supreme Court order to shrink the state’s prison population, vetoed an identical bill from Rodriguez in 2015.

Those tensions were on display when the bill narrowly passed the Senate Public Safety Committee earlier this week.

The safety committee’s liberal Democratic senators from the San Francisco Bay Area, Scott Wiener and Nancy Skinner, opposed the legislation. They sided with the California Public Defenders Association and prison-reform advocates who argue that increasing criminal penalties doesn’t deter crime and who say laws on the books already prohibit assault

“If there were evidence that an additional six months in county jail … would enhance the safety of these workers or serve as a deterrent, I would sign this bill,” Brown wrote. “I doubt that it would do either.”

At this week’s hearing, the bill’s opponents also argued that many of the attacks in emergency departments are from patients having mental-health crises.

“We realize now that because of the lack of mental-health resources …ERs are where people who are having a crisis of mental health are brought,” Skinner said. “And punishments like this are not deterrents for people who can use no judgment.”

Skinner, however, didn’t vote on the bill, which counts the same as voting “no.” When Rodriguez’s bill passed the Assembly earlier this year, 12 members – most of them progressive Democrats who’ve been leery of increasing criminal penalties – didn’t vote. As CalMatters has reported, lawmakers regularly avoid voting on controversial bills to avoid angering colleagues or to eliminate a record of their opposition on sensitive matters. There is no distinction for legislators who abstain or are absent.

Wiener cast the lone “no” vote in the five-member committee. The influential California Medical Association, representing the state’s physicians, supported the bill. The opposition from Skinner and Wiener represented a significant break from the association’s positions on legislation. Skinner has historically sided with the doctors’ group 80% of the time; Wiener 86%, according to an analysis from CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Murrieta Republican Sen. Kelly Seyarto, who has historically aligned with the California Medical Association only 45% of the time, was firmly on the doctors’ side this time around.He’s a former battalion chief with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, who has seen his share of violent medical calls.

He told his committee colleagues that the legislation is “long overdue.”

“I know personally a nurse that was disabled, (after) she was attacked and thrown to the ground,” Seyarto said. “She had a head injury and she could never go back to work. She could never go back to work. And the person that did that, there was nothing mentally wrong with them. He was just mad.”

Many adults in California are missing out on financial aid for college — and for years, the state declined to help.

The most popular form of federal financial aid, the Pell grant, provides low-income students with around $7,000 a year— money that can go towards all kinds of expenses, such as tuition, rent or transportation. Typically, college students need a high school diploma or equivalent to qualify, but a workaround, known as the Ability to Benefit provision, allows adults without a high school diploma to get federal financial aid in college.

California’s community colleges rarely use it. The regulations surrounding the provision are “cumbersome” and few students know about it, said Kevin Harral, the director of financial aid at Las Positas College in Livermore.

Seven other states found ways to simplify those regulations, but the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office didn’t make such a push, even after education advocates put forward a proposal five years ago.

In a statement this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Chancellor Sonya Christian said reforms may come soon. They said the state has submitted a proposal to simplify the ways that students qualify for this financial aid provision. The federal government has to approve the proposal.

“This initiative has the ability to change lives,” Christian said in the statement. “It will open college and career opportunities for adult learners seeking to pursue their academic aspirations, regardless of their background or circumstances.” An estimated 4 million adults in California lack a high school diploma — all of whom could benefit, according to the statement.

Hurdles to accessing financial aid

Last fall, roughly 36,500 adults without high school diplomas attended one of California’s community colleges, according to data from the Chancellor’s Office. Rebecca Ruan-O’Shaughnessy, vice chancellor for educational services and support, said the office does not track how many of those students are receiving federal financial aid. She said she could provide an estimate but not before the time of publication. In response to inquiries last summer, CalMatters found that only a few colleges had implemented the program.

Las Positas College doesn’t have any students who currently receive financial aid through the Ability to Benefit provision, said Harral, pointing to the various hurdles students must overcome.

Before they can qualify for federal financial aid, a student without a high school diploma must pass at least two college courses and simultaneously enroll in high school-level or GED classes. Alternatively, if they want to receive financial aid before passing a class, students can take a test to prove their academic merit. Once they qualify, students are limited to certain college classes, as determined by the school they attend.

Most of these regulations are set by the federal government, which has toughened rules to clamp down on financial aid fraud, especially at for-profit colleges. With permission, though, states can give schools the option to modify some of the rules.

In California’s proposal, community college students could, for instance, attend an orientation or schedule meetings with an academic counselor instead of taking two college-level classes or passing an exam. Even if California’s proposal is approved by the federal government, colleges determine which requirements they want to impose.

‘Time is of the essence’

By 2019, Iowa and Wisconsin had already created a simplified pathway that allowed students without high school diplomas to qualify for federal financial aid. That year, Linda Collins, the executive director of the Career Ladders Project, worked with other community colleges and another nonprofit, World Education/JSI, to send a draft proposal to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, asking it to do something similar.

Nothing happened, even as Washington, Illinois, Alabama, Minnesota, and Mississippi designed their own policies to expand access to the Ability to Benefit provision.

After a CalMatters report last year about the provision, Collins received calls from state officials, inquiring about the Ability to Benefit provision.

Around the same time, Gov. Newsom named Christian the new chancellor for the community college system. Both Newsom and Christian have since announced plans to expand access to college, especially for working adults and those seeking job training. This proposed financial aid reform is part of a “bigger picture,” they wrote in their statement,  citing the governor’s Master Plan for Career Education, which will be released this fall.

The new proposal is “pretty similar” to the 2019 version, Collins said. “We’re really pleased with this breakthrough,” she said. “When the (new) chancellor heard about it, my sense is that she really embraced it.”

It may be too late. The federal government recently enacted new — and in some ways more cumbersome — regulations for the Ability to Benefit provision, which go into effect on July 1. “Time is of the essence,” Collins said.

If the federal government approves California’s proposal before July 1, she said the reforms could happen as early as this year. After July 1, the future of the proposal is less clear.

Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt and Irvine Foundations.

California’s utilities regulator adopted new rules for community solar projects, despite warnings from clean energy advocates that the move will actually undercut efforts to expand solar power options for low-income customers.

The state’s biggest utility companies advocated for the new rules.

Community solar projects are generally small-scale, local solar arrays that can serve renters and homeowners who can’t afford to install their own rooftop solar panels. They are one part of the state’s overall strategy to eventually run the power grid entirely by renewable energy.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s 3-1 ruling preserves and expands programs that will allow any ratepayer to subscribe to a pool of projects and receive a 20% rate reduction, said Commission President Alice Reynolds. But it also reduces future compensation for solar providers and residents.

The commission calculates the benefits derived from distributed, small-scale solar power projects, which provide a “service” by sending clean energy to the power grid and reducing transmission costs by serving nearby communities. Solar developers are compensated for the value of the benefit their project provides.

The formula adopted today essentially reduces the value of distributed small scale renewable energy in the future, providing less of an incentive for new community solar projects to be built.

In the near term, the subsidies and incentives that help promote community solar installation will remain in place, paid for by a recent $250 million grant California received under the federal Solar For All program.

One of the concerns for solar advocates is what happens after that pot of funding runs out and the financial incentive to develop solar evaporates.

“The foundations of a sustainable program should not be built on one-time money,” said Derek Chernow, Western Regional Director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access.

While California has been a leader in promoting solar energy and advocating for an electric grid running carbon-free, the state’s efforts to encourage smaller solar projects has been lackluster. One example of a missed opportunity that critics point to is not requiring community solar projects to have battery storage systems that would allow power to flow after the sun sets.

“We are not done here today, ” Reynolds said, adding the programs can be modified and improved in the future.

With electric bills soaring for many Californians, she also was critical of the impact of “cost shift,” the idea that the subsidies provided to community solar projects are costs borne by all ratepayers. It’s a fundamental fairness argument that the commission has applied in other proceedings, to justify reducing subsidies.

But changing or reducing the subsidies and other incentives to a still-maturing industry, advocates argue, will result in fewer solar installations, ultimately cutting out low-income ratepayers from the benefit of renewable energy. Community access solar programs are supposed to ensure that at least 51% of the energy derived from the projects serve disadvantaged customers.

Late last year the commission overhauled incentives for owners of apartment buildings, schools and businesses that install solar panels. Those regulations were another in a string of recent decisions the commission has taken to reduce financial incentives for rooftop solar. In late 2022, the commission reduced payments to homeowners who sell excess power from newly installed solar panels on single-family homes.

Advocates have been bemoaning what they say is California’s lagging clean energy leadership and criticizing Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last week delivered a keynote speech at the Vatican Climate Summit, for not holding the state’s powerful utilities and oil companies to account.

The commission’s community solar decision was quickly added to the list of what critics say is a concerning pattern of backtracking on critical renewable energy policies.

“The CPUC’s recent series of decisions threatens to unravel California’s clean energy progress,” said the Solar Energy Industries Association in a statement. “It’s past time for Governor Newsom and state leaders to reign in the commission before it inflicts more damage on customers and the state’s clean energy economy.”

There was scant public comment during the morning hearing but at least two state legislators voiced their opposition to the proposal.  Assemblymember Christopher Ward noted that the updated proposal had only been released this week and decried it as “fatally flawed.”

An aide to Sen. Josh Becker, a Menlo Park Democrat, read a letter from the lawmaker saying that experts doubt the policies will expand access to clean energy.

In extensive remarks, Commissioner Darcie Houck outlined several concerns about the decision, including her view that it didn’t go far enough to benefit ratepayers in low-income communities. Much of the commissioner’s dissent centered on provisions that she said will disincentive adoption of solar and won’t allow for a “ just and equitable energy transition.”

Every tax season hundreds of thousands of Californians are hit with an unexpected bill: They owe hundreds of dollars or more to the IRS because they accepted more money in subsidies for health insurance than they were allowed.

The chargeback can sting. Collectively, 415,000 California households owed the IRS close to $690 million in 2021 in charges related to the health care subsidies, according to agency data from the most recent year available. That is roughly $1,662 per person or family. Many people who end up owing money live in lower-income households.

This repayment rule is connected to the federal Affordable Care Act and the state-based health insurance plans it encouraged. Covered California, the state’s insurance marketplace, offers generous premium subsidies to those who qualify based on their income, but people can unknowingly receive too much aid if they underestimate how much they’ll earn the following year or if they lose a dependent and do not report that change.

The federal government collects any “excess” aid when people file their taxes. The government calls this process “reconciliation.”

Ten years after the rollout of the insurance marketplace, many Californians continue to be caught off guard come tax filing time. Often the charges come as a shock.

“They feel like they’re following the rules, they’re getting their coverage. And, they just kind of feel like they’re getting in trouble for doing everything right,” said Audrey Casillas, assistant director of community economic development services at Koreatown Youth and Community Center. Her nonprofit helps local low-income residents prepare their taxes at no cost as part of a Los Angeles County tax assistance program.

The people who receive excess aid are not wealthy. About half of the households who owed the IRS for excess premium subsidies in tax year 2021 earned less than $50,000, according to data from the agency.

Alex Hernandez, an insurance broker in Merced, said most people can avoid this clawback by reporting any changes in income and dependents to Covered California as soon as possible. This way the agency will adjust the amount of premium subsidies a person or family is receiving, and they’ll avoid an unpleasant surprise come tax filing time.

Hernandez tells clients to report all taxable income to the agency— that includes any extras, such as a bonus or significant winnings from a lucky night at the casino.

“Some members who are doing the enrollment themselves think that they need to go by last year’s income, and that’s not always the case,” Hernandez said. People should instead estimate income based on their current situation, he explained.

Don’t wait for open enrollment

Covered California in an emailed response to questions from CalMatters said it sends a notice reminding enrollees to report any changes, such as income and household size, before they sign up for or renew coverage.

“Consumers are reminded throughout the notice to ensure their information is accurate, and states what the tax implications are if information is incorrect,” Jagdip Dhillon, a Covered California spokesperson, said in an email.

Of course, people shouldn’t wait until open enrollment to declare changes. Enrollees can report changes at any point, either with the help of an enrollment counselor or by calling Covered California directly.

“People may need mid-year reminders, if you’re only getting this (notice) once a year it can be kind of late,” said Cynthia Cox, director of the program on the Affordable Care Act at KFF, a health policy organization that conducts polling and research. “Open enrollment is in November and tax season is April. It might be a good idea to think about it in July.”

The reconciliation rule also works the other way around. People who overestimate their income and receive less subsidies than they’re eligible for could get money back. And for those who make less than 400% of the federal poverty level, there are limits to how much they’d have to repay the IRS if they were to owe.

At the time of learning they’ll owe the IRS, some people question whether they should keep their health insurance, Casillas said. But people may also owe if they go without insurance. That’s because California is one of five states that requires residents to have health insurance. Those who go without it may face penalties.

Many save money with Covered California

Some people who have encountered this issue in the past see it as a tradeoff, Casillas said. They pay very little for their health insurance every month, but pay hundreds or a couple thousand dollars when they file their taxes. For many people, what they end up owing the IRS is still less than what they’d pay for a health plan at full price or what they’d pay for a hospital visit, Casillas said.

“We just tell them, ‘Hey, you know what, these things can be unpredictable. You want to have some savings,’” she said.

Correctly estimating next year’s earnings can be especially difficult for people who freelance or job hop, causing their estimates to be less precise, experts say.

“A lot of people on the ACA marketplace do have incomes that can be very volatile. They might be piecing together part-time jobs or are self-employed or small business owners,” Cox said.

Hernandez said he advises people enrolled in a Covered California plan to find an agent of their own and check in with them every so often. Because agents get commissions from insurance companies, this service is often free to the public. This is the best way to be informed and avoid unexpected charges, he said.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

The man who would finally break up California is a real estate developer from Rancho Cucamonga.

Jeff Burum knows this may sound crazy. He heard that response two years ago, before he persuaded politicians and voters in San Bernardino County to study the possibility of seceding.

But leaders, Burum points out, are often considered crazy when they try to do something that no one has ever done. And he is trying to do something that others have failed at many, many, many times before.

Burum has a plan to win independence for San Bernardino County — yes, a new state of “Empire” in the diverse, working-class community of 2.2 million. Driven by civic pride in a growing region that has been looked down upon by many Californians and by frustration that the state has held it back from reaching its full potential, he envisions secession as a declaration of the county’s dignity and an opportunity to reimagine a broken political system.

The county government is planning to publish a key report evaluating the feasibility and financial implications of the proposal by June 11.

“I’m never going to be deterred based on other people’s beliefs,” Burum told CalMatters in a series of recent interviews. “If you can see a path to get there, then for the betterment of mankind, you need to pursue it.”

Though he can be coy sometimes about how much he really wants San Bernardino County to strike out on its own, Burum’s longshot campaign taps into the same vein of resistance against California’s liberal governance increasingly cropping up in more conservative pockets of the state. That includes San Bernardino County, which sued to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lockdown policies during the coronavirus pandemic and which is home to one of the school boards leading challenges to policies inclusive of LGBTQ+ students and curriculum.

Burum, who is a Republican, is less focused on settling ideological scores than demanding respect. He contends that California has long deprived San Bernardino County, which at more than 20,000 square miles is the largest county in the contiguous United States, of its “fair share” of resources.

But his belief that the solution is secession — that it would be easier to carve out another state than fix these inequities through the existing political process, because those in charge will never relinquish any power — reflects just how disillusioned so many Californians have become about the extent of the problems here and our ability to ever fix them.

California, Burum argues, is too big to succeed.

“People are revolting because they can’t relate to the purpose of government when we were created,” he said, comparing his efforts to the colonists rising up against the British. “When the government doesn’t realize it’s become one of the bad actors, it’s time to speak up.”

A long and fruitless history of splitting California

By the time California became a state on Sept. 9, 1850, it had already survived the first attempt to split it — an unsuccessful last-minute amendment in the U.S. Senate that would have divided California in two, just north of Morro Bay.

In the nearly 174 years since, according to the California State Library, more than 220 additional attempts to break up California have followed, fueled by the persistent anxieties of rural residents feeling overpowered by the cities, of conservative voters feeling ignored by liberal Sacramento and of everyone feeling eclipsed by Los Angeles.

A bill to split Northern and Southern California passed the state Senate in 1965. A similar 1992 plebiscite won approval in 27 of the 31 counties where it appeared on the ballot. Less than a decade ago, a Silicon Valley billionaire tried to put a proposal for six Californians before voters. Perhaps most famously, residents of the rural north have been pushing for decades to create the State of Jefferson with fellow breakaway counties from southern Oregon.

None, of course, succeeded.

But that hasn’t diminished the allure of secession as a cry of rebellion — especially as the scale of American society has expanded, isolating voters from their representatives, said Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee.

“The states used to be there to provide a degree of localism and small-scale governance that they’re no longer able to provide,” said Reynolds, who wrote a paper in 2019 exploring how to address the dissatisfaction that fuels state secession movements. “California is probably the worst case of that, because it is so big and the government is pretty centralized.”

So why are some San Bernardino County residents so dissatisfied that they would leave California altogether?

“Oh man. It’s a long list,” said Jose Rodriguez, a 42-year-old union electrician from Rialto, as he loaded his purchases into his car at the Lowe’s in Fontana.

Poor education. Rising crime. Bad roads. Rodriguez, who supports former President Donald Trump, said he liked the idea of living in a community where he could trust people who are like-minded.

Secession “would have happened a long time ago if it was a possibility,” he said.

Mostly, though, there’s a sense that California and what it means are slipping away. Rodriguez lamented that “the American Dream is no longer available.” While families could once survive a single income, he said, his union keeps raising the retirement age.

“I can’t be 70 years old working construction,” he said. “California, what it used to be, it isn’t there anymore.”

What happened to the ‘platinum service’?

California was good to Jeff Burum.

Originally from Maryland and later raised in Phoenix — where he said his political awakening came while fighting to keep his inner-city high school open — Burum moved to California to attend what is now Claremont McKenna College in suburban Los Angeles County. In the early 1990s, he founded a multi-state development empire of both commercial real estate and affordable housing.

Burum even came out ahead the last time he battled the government: In 2011, he was indicted for allegedly bribing county officials to approve a $102 million settlement that ended years of legal battles over flood control improvements to a property Burum wanted to develop. He was eventually acquitted in 2017, and contributed more than $100,000 to a committee to defeat the local prosecutor who led the case. Three years later, Burum received a $65 million payout from the county to settle a malicious prosecution lawsuit.

“People that come from nothing and achieve that level of success, you know, I think needs to be respected,” said state Treasurer Fiona Ma, a Democrat who became friends with Burum when they attended a legislative trip to China more than two decades ago but who decidedly does not support his secession proposal. “That’s why I think people do respect him, because he didn’t grow up with a silver spoon and he’s been a fighter all his life. And he’s not doing it to line in his pockets, you know? He’s doing it because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.”

On a sunny afternoon last month, Burum waxed philosophical about secession at the headquarters of his affordable housing company in a Rancho Cucamonga office park. The chic meeting space on the first floor looks like a hotel lobby, with a bar and an artificial fireplace. Burum hopes it could one day host conferences.

Ever expanding his ventures, even at the age of 61, there’s a studio for a soon-to-launch online media network down the hall, while the office of a professional arena soccer team he owns, the Empire Strykers, sits across the parking lot. Burum is also working on a reality show about the ghost town of Calico, which he wants to turn into a virtual reality amusement park.

Burum said he loves being part of California. He praised its expansive economy and its diverse population, which he said inspires collaboration and change for the better.

But like many conservatives, Burum views governance through the lens of business. And he has been frustrated, he said, to watch California’s government become “inefficient through its growth” over the past several decades — lacking the economies of scale that are achieved by successful companies in the private sector and failing to provide the “platinum service” that he says should come from having among the highest taxes in the country.

“Government shouldn’t be an organic growing creature. It wasn’t ever really designed to be that. Government was created to protect us,” he said. “That’s become the largest weed in the garden. Now it’s bigger than the trees. That’s what government’s become in our country. That’s what it is in our state. Listen, that’s not what we were intended to be.”

What pushed Burum over the edge was how the state handled its massive budget surplus two years ago, which he complains was “porked out, instead of being invested in our future.” He said officials should have spent more money on infrastructure, such as water reservoirs and affordable housing, and helping people meet unfunded mandates, including the requirement that all cars sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035.

“None of it is common sense,” Burum said. “There’s a lot of distrust of government in our state, so let’s show them how to do it right.”

The ‘red-headed stepchild’ strikes back

Naturally, the response of an entrepreneur was to take on a project. Burum wanted to dig deeper into the numbers, to find out if San Bernardino County was getting what it was owed, and if not, to fight for more — or leave California.

Putting a number on how much San Bernardino County is being undervalued, Burum figures, will allow the county to demand payment from California. If the debt is so big that the state can’t cover it, then that’s leverage to reach a different type of settlement, such as a tax-free zone or even secession.

“What do you have to do in order to solve problems? You have to create natural tensions so that everyone wants to take the pressure off,” he said.

Though an initial assessment in August 2022 indicated that San Bernardino County falls in the middle of the pack among California’s counties for state and federal funding per person, Burum persuaded the board of supervisors to put a measure on the local ballot asking voters whether the county should “study all options to obtain its fair share of state and federal resources, up to and including secession.”

Elected officials and business leaders complain that state support for San Bernardino County is inadequate for its size and importance to the California economy. They point to courthouses without enough space for every judge and insufficient funding for new housing and roads in one region where California’s population is still growing. It’s common to hear “red-headed stepchild” invoked when describing the county’s treatment by the ruling Democrats at the state Capitol.

“It’s super frustrating to now have a supermajority in the state Legislature that doesn’t create the space for a healthy dialogue,” Supervisor Dawn Rowe said. “This is an opportunity for us to figure out whether there are the inequities that we think we have.”

Ahead of the November 2022 election, Burum mounted a minimal campaign — no mailers, no ads, just 7,000 yard signs. He said he didn’t want to manipulate voters with a flood of money, which would have given critics fuel to brush off the significance of a victory.

With no organized opposition, his gambit paid off. The measure passed with 50.6% of the vote.

Randy Thornton, a 44-year-old truck driver from Victorville, said he voted for it because he was tired of the Bay Area and Los Angeles having all the say about the direction of California.

“The state of California is run by limousine liberals who don’t care about the working class,” Thornton, a former Democrat turned independent voter, said as he headed to a Turner’s Outdoorsman in Victorville. “We get overlooked. We don’t get the representation.”

After the election, the board of supervisors hired a consulting firm to study what San Bernardino County’s “fair share” of state and federal funding should look like, develop strategies for securing more resources and research the viability of the county changing states or forming its own state.

A draft report was due on March 3 and a county spokesperson said it is “working on the logistics of releasing” the findings this month. A representative for Supervisor Curt Hagman — who once wrote a column in defense of the initiative that declared “loving California may end in leaving it” and now serves as chairperson of the “fair share” committee — refused multiple interview requests.

And now the waiting game

In the meantime, Burum has largely gone quiet since his electoral triumph. Unlike the State of Jefferson, whose supporters fly the green double X flag of their movement all over far Northern California, you don’t see visible signs of support for a state of Empire as you drive around San Bernardino County. Most people seem entirely unaware of it.

Even Connie Leyva, a former state senator who wrote a joint letter to the board of supervisors in August 2022 opposing the ballot measure, didn’t realize it had passed when reached by CalMatters recently. She called secession a “ridiculous” idea for San Bernardino County, which she said does not have a big enough tax base to be self-reliant, and compared those pushing for it to a “petulant child.”

“These people are very foolish if they think that, by seceding from California and becoming the state of Empire, we’re going to get more money,” she said. “If you want more money, you need to work for it.”

Burum said his understated strategy is intentional. He wants to build his movement into something deeper — a cause for the residents of San Bernardino County — and he knows he needs to make people feel this is an issue about them, otherwise they won’t care. Though he’s growing impatient with the slow pace, Burum is waiting for the answers that the county’s study will provide to start evangelizing again.

“I’m not out here to push people. I’m here to put out a carrot and encourage people to follow,” he said. “I’m not going to polarize anything until it’s time to polarize something.”

He has his work cut out for him — and not just because both the California Legislature and the U.S. Congress would need to agree to form a new state.

Some San Bernardino County elected officials have enthusiastically embraced Burum’s plan, including Acquanetta Warren, a self-described “Republican with common sense” who serves as mayor of Fontana, the second-largest city in the county.

“It made a stand for ourselves. Isn’t that something, that we’re willing to stand up for ourselves finally and say, ‘we want our fair share’?” she said.

Yet there remains a prevailing caution about being fully associated with secession. Warren said her own political consultant was worried that it might cause problems for her when she first began campaigning for the measure.

Rowe, the county supervisor, said including the language about secession — which she believes is “fairly insurmountable and not practical” — was more about catching attention and conveying the seriousness of their other demands. She sees the study as a way to provide a sense of validation for residents and a road map for the legislators who represent the county to advocate more effectively at the Capitol.

“It’s great, theoretically, to hope for a moment when we could express a desire for more autonomy,” Rowe said. “But I think we are hoping for a moment when we could express a desire for more respect.”

Despite all the failed attempts to split the state, Burum has no doubt it can be achieved. He’s certain that he’s developed a stronger legal foundation than his predecessors to win San Bernardino County’s independence, if that’s what all this comes to. And if not, the county only stands to gain financially.

That faith — or perhaps it’s ego — has propelled Burum through a lifetime of proving people wrong about his crazy ideas.

“So my point is, I am trying. I’m trying with every ounce, every day,” he said. “I get up every day, and when I’m going to bed at night, I kid you not, I am so worn out. I pray God lets me go to sleep and he wakes me up again in the morning, because the pressure’s on.”

Nearly 3.7 million students and 667,000 newborns in California have money invested in a savings account to help pay for college. But most families don’t know the money is there.

Citlali Lopez, a second-year psychology student at Sacramento State, found out a few months ago she had $500 sitting in a California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program (CalKIDS) account. Although she’s been eligible to use the funds since she graduated high school in 2022, she had no idea until her sister, who works at a nonprofit that supports low-income students with scholarships and financial aid, told her to check her eligibility. Lopez was skeptical at first, but found she was eligible and registered her account.

“I was just really surprised that I was able to get some extra help,” she said.

Financial aid had been top of mind for her and guided her decision to go to Sacramento State. She plans on using the money to finish general education classes over the summer if financial aid will not cover it.

So who gets money? Under CalKIDS, all babies born in California receive a sum. Babies born between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023 received $25 deposits, and all babies born after July 1, 2023 receive $100 deposits.

As part of the program, all low-income first grade students receive a one-time deposit of $500. First-graders who are in foster care receive an extra $500  and homeless first-graders receive $500 more, totalling $1500 for some students. All the accounts are tax-free, and the money is invested whether or not families claim their accounts.

Additionally, the state spent $1.8 billion in the 2021-22 budget to provide a one-time deposit to all low-income students in grades 1 through 12 in 2022.

Yet, of the 4.3 million student accounts created, only 313,445 accounts have been claimed by families, meaning they have registered online and seen the amount in their accounts. Only 6.3 percent of newborn accounts have been claimed and 7.4 percent of student accounts have been claimed as of March 2024.

The state is slowly building awareness about college savings

CalKIDS is run by a three-person team led by Julio Martinez, the executive director of the Scholarshare Investment Board, an agency within the State Treasurer’s Office. It administers the state’s 529 college savings accounts, which allow families to invest money tax free to cover education related expenses in the future. The team is responsible for creating the accounts, notifying families about the accounts and explaining what CalKIDS can provide to families.

“With these programs, it takes time to kind of build brand awareness, and also to break down the skepticism that often exists when you get a letter in the mail that says you have free money,” Martinez said. CalKIDS staffers go to college fairs and financial aid nights and host online informational sessions to reach families and students.

The state allocated $22 million in the 2022 and 2023 budgets to market the program. In Los Angeles, Riverside, Fresno, and Sonoma counties, CalKIDS program info is sent to all families that request a birth certificate, according to Joe DeAnda, the director of communication at the State Treasurer’s Office. During the first three months of this year, registration in the newborn program has more than doubled, from 20,608 to 42,312 newborns.

In April, CalKIDS began targeting high school seniors, through social media, email and direct mail, according to DeAnda. By May, the number of claims among high school seniors increased by 74%. They have partnered with school districts, such as Hawthorne School District in Los Angeles County, where 87% of seniors have claimed their accounts.

Still, most of the funds for marketing CalKIDS remain unused. The 2023-24 California state budget reappropriated $8 million to CalKIDS for a statewide media campaign, and the Scholarshare Investment Board is currently soliciting proposals for marketing services, which were anticipated to start on April 1, but have not begun.

“If families are not aware of this program, then it’s not going to have the impact that we think it’s going to have,” Martinez said.

The fact that many families don’t start thinking about college until high school is one cultural obstacle that college savings programs like CalKIDS run up against, says Willie Elliott, a professor of social work and founder of the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion at the University of Michigan.

“So, we can’t expect that we put one of these programs in place, and, instantly, people get it and start functioning in that way,” Elliott said.

Elliott has helped develop state and local college savings programs in Pennsylvania, New York City and Washington, D.C. He says that enrollment is not the best measure of success of programs like CalKIDS, especially this early on in the program.

“What you have in place in California is the infrastructure and now you have to do the work of making communities aware,” Elliott said.

He suggests that creating a culture around college savings through programs like CalKIDs will lead to positive outcomes. Those include increased account enrollment, more family conversations about going to college, and generally less stress for families who will be hopeful for their children’s future.

The conversations about college are as important as the amount of money actually in the account, Elliott said. Elliott’s research has shown that low-income students with a college savings account are three times more likely to attend college and four times more likely to graduate than students without an account.

Amanda Cook, a mother of six who has four children eligible for CalKIDS, is the homeless student advocate at Marysville Joint Unified School District in Yuba County, where she works to support homeless students and help them graduate. She said a lot of the families she works with don’t have college at the top of their mind because they’re thinking about urgent concerns like where they will sleep.

She said if schools were able to register students, it would be helpful for the families she supports. She also said training for school staff and counselors on the program as well as outreach from California Health and Human Services would help build awareness for schools and families.

CalKIDS joins local programs investing in students’ education

Over the last 14 years, the program has been able to refine its outreach efforts to meet the needs of San Franciscans, said Amanda Fried, the chief of policy and communications at the San Francisco Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector. Students are eligible no matter their documentation status and can easily make cash deposits into their accounts.

“People have so many things on their plate, and so many competing priorities, and I think a huge mistrust of the financial system, which is totally warranted,” Fried said. “So this program just kind of eliminates so many barriers for families.”

The program’s five-person team hosts weekly online office hours in English and Spanish, texts resources and reminders to parents and trains teachers and counselors as school ambassadors to explain the program and answer questions. Students take field trips to Citibank to make deposits into their accounts, so they can physically contribute to their futures.

“We really have an intentional focus on schools where typically students are much less likely to go to college. That’s where we focus our in-person resources,” Fried said. ”We’re on the ground at those schools, talking to families constantly.”

Oakland Promise has a child’s savings program that starts in kindergarten, also called Kindergarten to College, alongside a program for newborns for Medi-Cal eligible families called Brilliant Baby. Veena Pawloski, the chief program officer at Oakland Promise, said they use community-based organizations to act as enrolling partners.

Can college savings accounts help combat poverty?

The aim of college savings programs like CalKIDS is not for money deposited by the state to grow enough to pay for college entirely. Rather, the program intends to ease some of the burden of college costs and help students create a college-bound identity.

Last year, UCLA opened the CalKIDS Institute in partnership with the state to boost outreach as well as research the program’s reach and which demographics they should be targeting based on enrollment. The institute’s director, Nayiri Nahabedian, said that, ultimately, the point of all these programs is to make college seem like an attainable goal for students and show them that the state, their community and their family believe that they can pursue higher education.

“CalKIDS made me realize more how much people are willing to help students,” said Lopez, the Sacramento State student.

“For a lot of students [the money] can make the difference between deciding to go and not deciding to go. It can be the difference between having a laptop and not having a laptop, having WiFi at home and not having WiFi at home,” Martinez said.

In addition to registering, students can connect their CalKIDS account to a ScholarShare 529 account where families can contribute their own money, which is invested. Six percent of claimed student accounts and 35% of claimed newborn accounts have been connected  to a ScholarShare 529 account. According to Martinez, families have, on average, $2,890 in their Scholarshare 529 account connected via their CalKIDS account.

Evelyn Garcia Romero, a senior at Calistoga Junior-Senior High School, did not know before talking to CalMatters that she could add her own money into a Scholarshare 529 that has accrued $32 in addition to the original $500 deposit.

“I feel like every cent counts and makes a difference,” said Garcia Romero, who plans on using her CalKIDS money and future savings to go to law school. “So, having an extra $500 would be so helpful and will definitely encourage me to attend college even more.”

Munis is a fellow with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

Based on their line of questioning, California Supreme Court justices seemed to be reaching for a compromise as they heard oral arguments today in the long-running legal saga over whether gig workers should be considered independent contractors or employees.

Proposition 22, the gig industry-backed initiative that 58% of state voters passed in 2020, has been mired in a legal back-and-forth since it became law — including being ruled unconstitutional by a Superior Court judge before being upheld by a state appeals court. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and other companies have used the law to treat their drivers and delivery workers in California as independent contractors, not as employees.

The specific question before the state’s highest court is whether Prop. 22 conflicts with the state Legislature’s constitutional power to enforce a complete workers’ compensation system. Because of a clause in the initiative declaring gig workers independent contractors not eligible for workers’ comp, the whole law could be thrown out. But the justices did not seem to want to do that.

John Mejia, an Alameda gig worker in his late 60s who has driven for Uber and Lyft for nine years, said contractor status means doing without safeguards given to virtually every other worker in California. “There’s no unemployment insurance. There is no workers comp. There’s no health insurance,” said Mejia, a member of the Gig Workers Union, an association representing Californians who work for corporations including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart.

“If you’re sick you don’t make any money and you suffer. Being a contractor under Prop 22 basically takes away California civil rights that everyone in California has.”

Gig drivers must cover their own health care costs, and pay for fuel or charging, tires, and vehicle maintenance, Mejia noted. Because their pay is so low — a UC Berkeley Labor Center report issued Monday found median wages with tips amounted to $7.63 to $11.43 — many gig drivers work 12-hour days, and sleep in their cars, Mejia said.

“It’s unfair that you could take the ballot measure in California and build your own law and take advantage of the people who work with you and your customer,” Mejia said.

When Scott Kronland, the lawyer who argued on behalf of SEIU California and four gig workers, said that Prop. 22 conflicts with the Legislature’s exclusive and unlimited authority over workers’ comp, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero asked whether legislators could restore workers’ comp for gig workers.

Associate Justice Goodwin Liu said there is “still ambiguity there” over voter initiative power, which is supposed to be equal to legislative power: “Does that mean voters cannot act in this field, (workers’ comp), whatsoever?”

Kronland responded that the Legislature’s power over workers’ comp is unlimited.

Attorney Jeffrey Fisher, arguing on behalf of the gig companies, said “the constitution lets voters act on any subject.” That sparked a question from Associate Justice Leondra Kruger: “Could voters by initiative eliminate workers’ comp altogether?”

Fisher said yes, but that “we’re miles away from that.”

At the end of the hour-long oral arguments, Kronland reminded the justices that “If court is going to decide this case on the premise that the Legislature could restore workers’ comp to gig workers… Prop. 22 says this section can’t be amended. The drafters of Prop. 22 put it on the ballot as all or nothing.”

If Prop. 22 is thrown out in its entirety, it would affect some gig workers who have come to depend on some of its provisions — such as guaranteed earnings of 120% of minimum wage for the time they spend driving or delivering, which they didn’t have before the initiative became law.

Cora Mandapat, a Bay Area driver who came to the San Francisco courthouse with the industry-backed group Protect App-Based Drivers + Services, said she gets extra money every week under those guaranteed earnings. She added that she takes an uncle to dialysis and driving for Lyft gives her the freedom to do that. She said she wished there was a way for some drivers to be employees, “but let me do what I want to do.”

Ed Carrasco, a ride-hailing driver and a member of Rideshare Drivers United who came up to San Francisco today but drives in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, said afterward that the justices appeared to be “asking how to modify” Prop. 22 so drivers could qualify for workers’ comp if, for example, the Legislature passed a law that made them eligible. Carrasco and about 100 or so other gig workers and members of workers groups, including Gig Workers Rising, gathered for a rally outside the courthouse ahead of the oral arguments. The gig workers who did not go into the courtroom watched the oral arguments on a big screen they set up outside United Nations Plaza, across from San Francisco City Hall.

At the rally, Hector Castellanos, the lead plaintiff in the case, spoke about getting hurt as a gig driver years ago and being unable to get workers’ comp. He said his daughter had to drop out of school to help support his family.

“We are asking the justices to stand behind drivers,” Castellanos told the crowd. After the hearing, he told CalMatters that he knows plenty of drivers who regret voting for Prop. 22, which he said was bought by ride-share companies.

The court’s seven justices have 90 days to hand down a decision.

Staff writer Ethan Baron contributed to this report.