Gavin Newsom, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jane Fonda rally to defend California law

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

NEWSOM, SCHWARZENEGGER AND FONDA KICK OFF CAMPAIGN TO DEFEND OIL WELL SETBACK LAW

The campaign to defend SB 1137 — the 2022 law requiring oil wells to be set back 3,200 feet from homes, schools, hospitals and community resource centers — kicked off at a Los Angeles County park on Friday, with actress Jane Fonda and Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, on hand to lend some star power to the effort.

The oil industry, through the California Independent Petroleum Association, pushed back against the law, successfully waging a petition campaign to subject the law to a voter referendum this November.

“We have to protect this. We have to keep the law,” Fonda said, as an oil well pumped away behind her.

Schwarzenegger spoke of how the referendum was reminiscent of his own battle with the oil industry as he sought tougher environmental regulations during his time in Sacramento.

“I never knew that besides Hollywood there were so many people who loved sequels,” the former governor joked.

Schwarzenegger vowed that once again, the oil industry would be “terminated.”

Newsom credited Schwarzenegger and former Californian Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon for their groundbreaking environmental reforms.

“There’s no Democratic, no Republican thermometer — there’s just reality,” Newsom said.

The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis, the governor said, and Big Oil “has played us for fools for decades and decades.”

Newsom pointed to California’s recent history of extreme weather, including massive wildfires that have devastated communities and left many homeless or dead.

“Ask the folks in Paradise, California,” he said.

Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Association, said in a statement, “Senate Bill 1137 doesn’t just prevent new wells, it does not allow maintenance on existing wells. That means California will import more oil from Saudi Arabia instead of using local energy produced by California workers.”

CALIFORNIA BILL ADDS LEGAL PENALTIES FOR ‘HATE LITTERING’

Sick of Nazis papering your car while you’re inside a venue attending an event? Soon, you could have legal remedies.

A California lawmaker has introduced a bill to amend state law to create legal penalties for “hate littering,” the hate group tactic of leaving pamphlets at people’s residences or on their vehicles that are intended to sow division and fear.

“These are not just pieces of paper with words,” Assemblyman Chris Ward, D-San Diego, said in a prepared statement. “These are deliberate, targeted attacks that are intended to harass and intimidate victims, dehumanizing them based on their religion, gender or sexual orientation, or other characteristic. They are being left on our windshields, in our driveways, and on our front doors. They have no place in our communities.”

AB 3024 updates the Ralph Act of 1976 — which states that all people have a right to be free from violence and intimidation — to include hate pamphlets, making it easier for law enforcement to prosecute and people to seek civil remedies from perpetrators.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there has been a rise in antisemitic hate in the United States. In 2023, there were more than 3,600 acts of antisemitic assault, vandalism and harassment across the country, the highest year on record since the ADL first started tracking them in 1979.

Ward’s office cited hateful pamphlets being distributed in San Diego, Los Angeles and Fresno last year.

AB 3024 will go before the Assembly Judiciary Committee later this spring.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Once again, Steve Garvey is taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook. While millions of Californians play by the rules and pay their taxes, Steve Garvey refuses to pay his. It’s par for the course for someone who supports Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the richest Americans. Hard-working Californians need a leader who will fight to lower their taxes — not show the wealthy how to evade theirs.”

— Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, in a prepared statement responding to The Bee’s report that his opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Steve Garvey, owes at least $350,000 in back taxes

Best of The Bee:

• Former Sacramento City Councilman Sean Loloee and three workers from his supermarket chain were named in a new federal indictment unsealed Friday, with Loloee now accused of filing false tax returns and cheating workers out of pay they were owed, via Sam Stanton.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, he said Thursday in an open letter to California’s Muslim, Palestinian American and Arab American communities, decrying violence that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, via Andrew Sheeler.

• A state worker’s doctor prescribed telework. But California forced him to return to office, via Maya Miller.

• State Farm plans to not renew roughly 72,000 property and commercial apartment policies in California starting this summer, the company announced Wednesday, via Stephen Hobbs.

• Students who have struggled to complete their financial aid applications following months of issues at the federal level will likely have one more month to file their paperwork in California, via Mathew Miranda.

• U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey owes state and federal taxes incurred 13 years ago totaling at least $350,000 and as much as $750,000, according to his February financial disclosure statement, via David Lightman.