San Mateo Daily Joiurnal: State Sen. Josh Becker on Monday urged California health officials to expand vaccine eligibility in San Mateo County’s vulnerable communities ahead of April 15.
In the News
Mercury News: Hundreds of thousands of California workers face a fresh round of delays of more than a month for their unemployment payments while a state labor agency attempts to launch a new federal program, officials said Wednesday. “Unemployed Californians and the public need to get the full story from EDD,” state Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) said. “It seems this must be said again, and again, and again. EDD must be transparent and fully honest about its deliverables and its performance as a whole.”
Patch.com: State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Peninsula) praised Newsom for his nomination on Wednesday. "In addition to his impressive cred as an attorney, a lawmaker and a civil rights activist, Assemblymember Bonta will become California's first Filipino American AG," he wrote in a statement. "Thank you, Governor Newsom for meeting this crucial moment in our state and in our nation with your nomination of Rob Bonta today."
Mercury News: “My staff reached out to the EDD, which informed us they are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it,” state Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) said in comments emailed to this news organization. “They did not provide an ETA...EDD needs to improve its public reporting of key performance metrics, I strongly urge EDD to include uptime and downtime in those metrics. I’m in conversations with the director on this topic."
Mercury News: In 2016, 42-year-old Vuong Dihn Phan had the odd misfortune of not being convicted of murder. If he had been, there’s a good chance he’d be out of prison right now. [An] appeals courts ruled that Phan was ineligible for benefit from SB 1437, a 2019 law that says prosecutors can no longer file murder charges against lesser-involved accomplices to a felony that results in a killing and voids existing convictions of such accomplices. California lawmakers are now proposing a change to state law, SB 775 [by Senator Josh Becker] which would benefit people in Phan’s situation. The bill proposes to expand SB 1437’s application to manslaughter charges, and includes attempted murders as well.
San Mateo Daily Journal: New guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowing desks to be just 3 feet apart so long as students are masked was happily received by local officials looking to reopen classrooms. “This is the single biggest issue after teacher vaccination I’ve seen in terms of getting students fully back,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo.
San Francisco Chronicle: About 2.4 million Californians will have to wait weeks to receive new extended jobless benefits, according to the state Employment Development Department, which has struggled throughout the pandemic to handle a deluge of unemployment claims. The new delays apply to self-employed people and those on a federal extension plan. “We shouldn’t ask people who are out of work, who don’t have any money coming in, to wait,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park. “That’s the reason we have unemployment insurance. It just shouldn’t take this long.”
San Mateo Daily Journal: The shift from at-large to district elections will happen to all government agencies eventually. And every government agency should begin the process of doing it right now. There are arguments for and against. The arguments don’t matter because the California Voting Rights Act essentially requires the move to district elections to comply. So why not compel it legislatively? I asked newly minted state Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo, if he might pursue such legislation and he said he would be interested in learning more. It may not be popular legislation with cities and districts… but it will save them money in the long run. And isn’t that the role of state government to take that higher view?