• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) issued a statement on Aug. 1 in response to reports of former President Donald Trump’s indictment on four counts related to his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. “Over the past two and a half years, more than a thousand people have been charged for their role in attacking our democracy and attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Today, that list now includes the ringleader,” Carbajal said in the statement. “Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the result of his last election led to multiple schemes to deny the will of American voters and obstruct its legal and democratic result, including the Jan. 6 insurrection. These charges—while hardly a reason to celebrate—prove once again that in our nation, no one involved in such conspiracies is above the law.” The indictments affirm the case laid out by the U.S. House of Representatives during its bipartisan impeachment proceeding as well as the work of its Jan. 6 Committee, Carbajal added in his statement. “I am grateful to those Capitol Police officers who held the line against Donald Trump’s violent instigations and those who worked around the clock to ensure the American people saw and understood the full extent of these criminal acts,” he said.
• Following a week of extreme heat advisories and temperatures greater than 105 degrees in the Central Valley, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) joined union members and workers from United Farm Workers (UFW) in Kern, Inyo, and Mono Counties Central Labor Council, to announce his legislation to implement an enforceable federal workplace heat standard, according to an Aug. 18 statement from Padilla’s office. July was the hottest month on record, putting 170 million Americans under extreme heat alerts and creating increasingly dangerous and life-threatening conditions for workers. During his visit to Forty Acres in Kern County, Padilla heard directly from workers about their experiences with heat stress in the workplace—including the story about Elidio Hernandez, a farmworker working outside of Fresno who reportedly died that week due to heat stress, according to Padilla’s office. Padilla discussed his recently introduced bill, the Asunción Valdivia Heat, Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act, which aims to protect the safety and health of workers who are exposed to dangerous heat conditions in the workplace. The legislation is named in honor of Asunción Valdivia, a California farmworker who died in 2004 after picking grapes for 10 hours straight in 105-degree temperatures. “It’s long past time we step up to protect both indoor and outdoor workers who are facing increasingly severe temperatures and stifling heat waves,” Padilla said in the statement. “Every day that we fail to act is another day someone risks their life to provide for their family.”
• The California Department of Conservation, through the Regional Forest and Fire Capacity (RFFC) program, awarded more than $72 million to communities across the state to build fire-resilient communities, according to an Aug. 17 statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. This brings total investments to $140 million for regions working to improve ecosystem health, community wildfire preparedness, and fire resilience—part of $2.7 billion the Newsom administration has committed to achieve the goals of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan. Listos California was created by Newsom after the 2019 Camp Fire made clear that a more expanded and culturally competent disaster warning system was needed. The $25 million in grants distributed to more than 70 community partners will expand these services in areas of the state most susceptible to emergencies, with a focus on vulnerable communities—older adults, people with disabilities, the homeless, immigrants, and refugees, as well as rural Californians and those living in areas with limited broadband access. Already this year, Listos California has provided more than 1 million Californians with personalized interactions, meeting Californians where they are and helping them prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, according to Newsom’s office.
This article appears in Aug 24 – Sep 3, 2023.