April 24, 2019

A new bill sponsored by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, offers a bold new vision to address these root causes. SB 330 would take away the many tools used by the state’s affluent communities to exclude newcomers. Cities that try to reduce the densities currently allowed by their own zoning would find their actions blocked. SB 330 would prohibit them from making development more expensive, whether through requirements for parking or design, or through new fees. It would also ensure that cities approve development proposals in a timely manner, capping public hearings at three.

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April 24, 2019

“The reason that I, as the committee chair, was willing to have a portion of SB 230 move forward is because if we do revise our use of force standard, then we will require new training,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. “Because right now, the only training that our statewide agency offers is on the existing standard.”

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April 24, 2019

“We clearly have ... many, many, many people up and down the state, and experts, who feel that California’s use-of-force standard should be revised,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat from Berkeley who chairs the Senate public safety committee and engineered the surprise development to combine the measures.

She said she hopes the committee’s move will lead to compromise after listening to dozens of opponents of the original police-backed legislation describe their loved ones’ deaths in confrontations with police.

 

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April 24, 2019

“What we are trying to do is create a new opportunity for the different sides to come together again and have a discussion around the changes to the use of force standard in California,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, the Berkeley Democrat who chairs the Senate public safety committee and helped negotiate the changes.

“Many, many, many people up and down the state and experts… feel that California’s use of force standard should be revised. And so the way this bill is amended at least creates that opportunity for that conversation to continue.”

 

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April 24, 2019

“It creates the opportunity for all of the parties involved to continue to have conversations about this very important subject,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner, chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, adding that she hopes “we might come to a place where we both have a revised use of force standard and good associated training, so that California can move forward.”

For the full report, click here.

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April 23, 2019

The state Senate Public Safety Committee, chaired by Senator Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, today approved substantial amendments to SB 230, by Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, limiting the legislation to address law enforcement training on police use of force and making the bill’s passage dependent on the passage of AB 392, by Assemblymember Shirley Weber, San Diego.  

With the committee’s amendments, SB 230 no longer contains language that could conflict with AB 392, which seeks to revise California’s existing police use-of-force standard. Additionally, SB 230’s training components cannot become law unless AB 392 also becomes law.

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April 22, 2019

As Californians honor Earth Day 2019, the state’s beaches, waterways and parks remain littered with disturbing amounts of trash, especially plastic pollution. And the problem promises to get worse, despite the fact that California has a recycling goal of 75 percent of our solid waste by 2020.

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April 15, 2019

As Californians sit down to complete their tax returns by today’s deadline, hundreds of thousands of middle-class households are realizing that the Trump tax cut was no tax cut at all. In fact, it was a huge tax increase.

According to a 2018 analysis by the California Franchise Tax Board, the 2017 Trump tax overhaul will cause more than 750,000 middle-class households in California to pay more to the Internal Revenue Service, costing California residents about $12 billion a year in higher taxes.

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April 10, 2019

As pressures mount on lawmakers in Sacramento to come up with additional funds to underwrite California education, Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and other lawmakers have introduced legislation that would substantially raise the income tax rates of over 2,000 of California’s largest corporations, based in large part on the size of the gap between what they pay their CEO and their workers.

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April 9, 2019

“Regular Californians face the fourth-largest income inequality gap between the super-rich and the average resident,” Skinner said, referring to a ranking of U.S. inequality. “Meanwhile, we struggle to fund our schools, to fund essential services, and many Californians struggle to make ends meet."

Skinner, D-Berkeley, announced Senate Bill 37, known as the Corporate Fair Share for California and Californians bill, in Oakland alongside Assembly members Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Rob Bonta, D-Alameda.

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