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Why it matters: The devices can be tented in a backyard, hung off a balcony or placed on a roof. Models range from as low as $300 to $2200, depending on size. The bill would open the solar market to people who were previously left out: renters, people with unsuitable roofs, and those lacking the capital to build out a rooftop system, which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars. If signed into law, the legislation would exempt plug-in solar devices from what critics say is a cumbersome and expensive interconnection application process, and replace registration with a free and straightforward online form.
What’s next: The bill is now headed to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. Fiscal analysis of the bill estimates implementation will cost the state between $200,000 and $500,000 annually to fund program administrator positions. If Newsom signs, staff in bill author and state Sen. Scott Wiener’s office estimated that people would be able to buy compatible plug-in solar kits in the spring of 2027.
In as little as a year, lowering your electricity bill could be as simple as buying a kit with a few solar panels and accessories, completing a quick online registration form, and plugging it into a standard outlet.
California lawmakers passed a bill on Wednesday night to formally legalize plug-in, or balcony, solar: small, portable and relatively inexpensive systems that do not require rewiring or the costly installation fees that often come with rooftop solar.
The legislation, SB 868, sailed through the state assembly and senate with bipartisan support. The bill now moves to the governor’s desk for signature.
The devices can be tented in a backyard, hung off a balcony or placed on a roof. Models range from as low as $300 to $2200, depending on size. The bill would open the solar market to people who were previously left out: renters, people with unsuitable roofs, and those lacking the capital to build out a rooftop system, which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.
“There’s no question SB 868 is the most exciting clean energy and energy affordability bill right now up for consideration in California,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that co-sponsored the bill. “You never get to pass a big controversial bill in one year. We’re poised to do that. It is a huge win.”
A wave of state legislation over the past 18 months is making balcony solar — a nascent technology in the U.S. — within reach of everyday Americans. Utah pioneered a law passed in March 2025, and others quickly followed.
Eight states now have bills on the books that allow a relatively straightforward process for purchasing and setting up balcony solar systems, including Colorado, Virginia and Maine. Bills in New York and New Jersey are awaiting the governors’ signatures, like California.
Advocates believe California’s market has massive potential. They’re motivated by Germany, where millions of solar panels dot balconies across the country.
Some of the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, however, opposed the legislation, citing safety and a concern that the systems would shift energy costs to people without solar power.
PG&E initially said it supported the bill if it were amended, but opposed the final version. Spokesperson Paul Doherty said the utility is concerned that certain safety and certification requirements on some systems would not be enforced until 2030.
But he said that the company “supports plug-in solar and the opportunities it could create for customers, particularly renters and others who have not had easy access to traditional rooftop solar.”
San Diego Gas & Electric also opposed the legislation, citing concerns that even if balcony solar is designed to prevent feeding power back to the grid, systems may malfunction and endanger workers or customers.
Southern California Edison originally opposed the bill but later took a neutral stance after bill authors updated safety standards and how people notify their utility of their systems, spokesperson David Eisenhauer said.
Notably, labor unions representing firefighters and PG&E employees dropped their opposition and took a neutral stance on the bill after lawmakers amended it to explicitly comply with state and national electrical codes.
If signed into law by Newsom, the legislation would exempt plug-in solar devices from what critics say is a cumbersome and expensive interconnection application process, and replace registration with a free and straightforward online form.
Some Californians have already installed plug-in solar panels, but utilities ask them to complete an interconnection agreement, citing state rules. If done through PG&E, for example, representatives from the utility said that process would cost roughly $100 to $800 and take about an hour. Typically, the approval comes through in three days, PG&E staff said.
But plug-in solar advocates argued that the interconnection process defeats the plug-and-play nature of the technology, and could double or triple its cost.
Their goal is to make the panels as ubiquitous and easy to install as any off-the-shelf appliance dotting the racks of a Home Depot or Costco.
The newly passed bill outlines several device requirements. The balcony solar systems must be capped at generating 1,200 watts per home, plug into a standard outlet, offset a customer’s onsite electricity use and meet state and national electrical codes. They also must be certified by an outside safety organization like Underwriters Laboratories and have a feature that would prevent electricity from feeding back into the grid if there’s a power outage.
Current plug-in solar models do not yet meet the outlined requirements, and customers therefore must still register their systems as though they are rooftop solar. Del Chiaro said there are already a few companies developing devices that will meet the standards in the new California legislation.
The bill is meant to help reduce the cost of power for Californians and “eliminates red tape, so that people in California can actually use plug-in solar right now,” bill author and state Sen. Scott Wiener said during an Assembly hearing in June.
Del Chiaro estimated that just one 400-watt solar panel would cover about 14% of a typical renter’s apartment’s annual electricity bill and translate to energy-bill savings of roughly $250 a year. That system would provide enough juice to run a refrigerator, modem and Wi-Fi. A larger, 1,200-watt system would generate enough energy to power a window air conditioning unit, “enabling families, especially in our hotter regions, to afford to cool their home on increasingly hot days,” Del Chiaro said.
Dozens of environmental and community groups and a few cities supported the bill.
Plug-in solar advocacy group and nonprofit Bright Saver tentatively celebrated the action.
“It’s a clear statement that the biggest state in the union wants this,” said Cora Stryker, the group’s co-founder, although she said she was not happy with an amendment sunsetting the legislation in 2030 and other provisions that could slow down the market for balcony solar.
“The devil in the details makes it not a home run. It makes it a fight that continues,” she said.
Fiscal analysis of the bill estimates implementation will cost the state between $200,000 and $500,000 annually to fund program administrator positions.
If Newsom signs, staff in Wiener’s office estimated that people would be able to buy compatible plug-in solar kits in the spring of 2027.
From KQED’s Climate desk, “Flipping the Switch” documents California’s transition to clean energy and what it means for you. What works? What doesn’t? How much does it cost? Help us find these answers and more by donating today.
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Why it matters: Fire survivors are facing huge gaps to rebuild and are running out of temporary housing insurance. Experts say such federal funds are key to addressing those issues.
Keep reading… for more on what’s become a record long wait for support.
It’s been nearly 600 days since the L.A. fires became one of the most destructive in U.S. history, yet the federal government has still not appropriated more than $15 billion in long-term recovery funds to help survivors get back home. That’s longer than the previous record of 500 days survivors of the Maui fires had to wait, according to After the Fire USA.
“ It’s really like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Jennifer Gray Thompson, the nonprofit’s founder and CEO.
Deep partisan divides and repeated government shutdowns under the Trump administration have been major causes for the delays, officials say.
“Disaster relief should not be a political bargaining chip — but that’s exactly how the Trump administration has made it out to be,” Sen. Alex Padilla said in a statement.
The state has also lagged, with $2.5 billion in recovery funds only just starting to be released, according to reporting by NBC4.
Meanwhile, L.A fire survivors are facing massive financial gaps to rebuild, on average between $200,000 and $500,000, even with insurance. And as temporary housing insurance dissipates, many are now being forced to decide whether they can afford to rebuild at all.
“ The community is struggling and is fighting to come back — and determined to come back — but we are really lacking the state and federal support that is necessary to help get us there,” said Sam James, a sixth-generation Altadenan whose family lost multiple generational homes in the Eaton Fire.
James founded the Altadena Recovery Team to support fellow survivors in lieu of reliable government and insurance-funded safety nets. Multiple local creative financing efforts are also cropping up more quickly feed that gap.
“The delay is just really hard to rationalize given how much need there truly is on the ground,” she said.
In recent months, delegations of local officials as well as Eaton and Palisades fire survivors have traveled to D.C. to speak with lawmakers about the much-needed federal funds, which experts say can often be used to fill such gaps in finances.
In June, the White House requested more than $85 billion in supplemental funds, primarily to support the war on Iran. The next month, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger sent letters to the Senate Committee on Appropriations urging disaster needs be included in such requests.
“It’s on D.C. to begin to move the narrative from an ask to a make it happen,” Barger told LAist.
Four U.S. senators from states affected by recent disasters — including two Republicans from Utah and North Carolina, as well as California senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla — also sent a letter in July expressing their concern that no disaster funds were included in the White House’s supplemental appropriations request.
The senators called the omission an effort by the Trump administration to punish Los Angeles and the state of California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested more than $10 billion for what’s called “Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery,” which can help survivors finance their rebuilds, as well as help local governments rebuild infrastructure, such as water systems, community centers, roads and more.
“It’s the largest bucket of money any community receives in order to recover after a disaster,” Thompson said. “It can really help fill the gaps that people need to get home.”
Thompson said, on average, from appropriation to allocation, the wait for such funds is two years. Yet it’s been nearly two years since the L.A. fires and the funds have yet to be appropriated at all.
“It’s clearly political, and politics have no place in disaster,” she said.
Topline:
Why it matters: The bill would direct the state to seek to partner with a drug manufacturer to increase competition and lower prices for GLP-1s under its CalRx program, a state program created to distribute popular, expensive drugs at a fraction of the cost.
The backstory: It is unclear how long that could take, but it’d likely be a yearslong endeavor. It took the state three years to bring its $55 insulin into the market under CalRx. Today the state program also distributes albuterol inhalers and naloxone.
Read on… for more on the proposal.
Laura Richardson pays $450 a month out of pocket for a drug that could keep her off insulin for the rest of her life. She’s a California state senator — and even she can’t get her own insurance to cover it.
Richardson started using a GLP-1 a year ago after learning she was pre-diabetic. Her state health plan does not cover it.
“If something is available to help you to be more healthy, to avoid comorbidities … why would we want to wait till a person became diabetic to help them?” she told lawmakers in a June hearing.
Her experience is not unusual. For many Californians, popular weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy continue to be elusive despite their clinical promise. While prices are dropping, these drugs continue to be unaffordable for many; most insurers don’t cover them; and state programs, wary of costs, have rolled back access.
Senate Bill 1089, which would expand access to the class of drugs known as GLP-1s, is clearing its final hurdles this legislative session. The bill would direct the state to seek to partner with a drug manufacturer to increase competition and lower prices for GLP-1s under its CalRx program, a state program created to distribute popular, expensive drugs at a fraction of the cost.
It is unclear how long that could take, but it’d likely be a yearslong endeavor. It took the state three years to bring its $55 insulin into the market under CalRx. Today the state program also distributes albuterol inhalers and naloxone.
Richardson, an Inglewood Democrat, authored the bill, which is a watered-down version of its original, more ambitious form. Previously, the bill also sought to require that CalPERS, the health plan that insures 1.3 million public employees and retirees, cover GLP-1 drugs.
CalPERS opposed the bill and argued that the drug’s high cost would increase premiums by $28 per member per month.
Richardson added that she had discussed including GLP-1s in the CalRx program with the governor, and “he was very positively open to that.” State health officials have said that GLP-1s are among the drugs they are considering for the program.
The bill follows California’s recent elimination of GLP-1 coverage for the treatment of obesity in its Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. The state cited growing pharmacy costs and budget pressures for cutting the benefit. The state still pays for certain GLP-1s when prescribed specifically for diabetes treatment.
GLP-1s have helped many people to better manage their obesity and chronic healthcare conditions. Obesity is a well-known contributor to conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
State data show that the number of GLP-1 prescriptions solely for weight loss jumped from 20,000 to 700,000 between 2018 and 2023 across both Medi-Cal and commercial plans. In 2023, California spent $416.8 million on GLP-1 prescriptions for weight loss in the Medi-Cal program and commercial payers spent $405.2 million, according to state data.
An analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office found that during this time, California’s pharmacy spending nearly doubled, and tied that growth to drugs that treat diabetes, obesity, and inflammatory diseases.
California is not the only state feeling the burden of these drugs’ popularity and cost: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and South Carolina also recently eliminated Medicaid coverage for GLP-1s when used solely for weight loss.
Today 12 states cover GLP-1s for obesity treatment under their Medicaid programs, although Rhode Island will cease coverage in October.
Similarly, coverage of GLP-1s under private insurance varies widely; there’s no clear standard. Health plans have also pointed to costs , noting they are currently a key contributor to premium increases.
Alison Sexton Ward, an economist and research scientist at the University of Southern California, said that data show huge benefits for peoples’ health. Modeling projects long-term savings in healthcare spending as well as a narrowing of health disparities, but she noted it’s a tricky investment for insurers to make. There are significant upfront costs before plans may start to see savings because of the reduction of obesity-related health problems, and insurers may not capture those savings when people tend to switch health plans every few years, she explained.
“The thing about treating obesity is just because you lose weight today doesn’t mean that your healthcare costs go down tomorrow,” Ward said. “There’s been this unique pressure on these drugs that they pay for themselves.”
One pilot that researchers and providers are looking at is the new federal Medicare GLP-1 Bridge Program, a temporary project that seeks to bring down the cost of Zepbound, Wegovy and Foundayo to about $50 a month.
Dr. Wayne Ho, an obesity specialist and researcher in Los Angeles, sees the consequences of patchwork access to the drugs in his patients. Patients who can pay cash or whose insurance covers the drugs tend to be able to better manage their health conditions. Those without access try other, less effective therapies.
“It’s really disheartening to see because we have these wonderful innovative treatments that really are life altering,” he said.
The cost is also driving some of his patients to seek cheaper, compounded versions of the drug, which some doctors warn against because they lack FDA approval.
Compounding typically involves custom-making a drug for a specific need — removing an allergen, for example. Increasingly, compound pharmacies and telehealth platforms are offering versions of GLP-1s that swap out an ingredient or two. Ho says these compounded drugs carry higher risk because they bypass the FDA’s rigorous vetting and approval process.
Nationally, calls to poison centers related to weight loss drugs increased by 1,500% between 2019 and 2025, according to data from America’s Poison Centers. Studies and reports have shown that compounded GLP-1s are more likely to cause adverse effects and have a higher risk of preparation errors. A Binghamton University study found that the odds of hospitalization were higher for compounded products. The FDA also warns of the prevalence of counterfeit products.
Ho calls GLP-1s one of the best tools he has as a provider. He remains hopeful that affordable access to the FDA-approved weight loss drugs is on the horizon. Continued efforts by state lawmakers to expand access are a critical step, he said.
“I think there’s more and more pressure to cover these medications as more and more scientific data come out to show how it affects the body in a very positive manner,” 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 http://www.chcf.org to learn more.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
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About the new major: It fuses technological tools for statistical analysis, coding, 3D mapping and data visualization with traditional humanities subjects like history, literature and global cultures. It’s a multidisciplinary approach to education that capitalizes on employers’ growing desire for recent graduates to think critically while also being able to harness new technology. Students will learn how new technologies shape culture and the human biases that enter into the use of these new tools. Top of mind is the rise of generative artificial intelligence and training students to use it ethically while also understanding how easily it can produce misleading content.
Why now: Campus professors have taught courses in digital humanities for more than two decades. It’s the second most popular minor at UCLA, which was one reason the school decided to transform it into a major, said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA College Division of Humanities where digital humanities is based. Last academic year 750 UCLA undergraduate students took a course in digital humanities. Stern expects 50 to 100 students to eventually declare the major, and would be thrilled if 40 signed up this year.
UCLA is launching the nation’s first digital humanities department and bachelor’s degree this fall. The new discipline combines classical humanities with technical know-how to examine a digitized and increasingly AI-enhanced world.
The major fuses technological tools for statistical analysis, coding, 3D mapping and data visualization with traditional humanities subjects like history, literature and global cultures. It’s a multidisciplinary approach to education that capitalizes on employers’ growing desire for recent graduates to think critically while also being able to harness new technology. And the major requires a great deal of teamwork among students, another skill hiring managers seek.
Students will learn how new technologies shape culture and the human biases that enter into the use of these new tools. Top of mind is the rise of generative artificial intelligence and training students to use it ethically while also understanding how easily it can produce misleading content.
Todd Presner is a UCLA professor of European languages and transcultural studies, and co-led the effort to create the digital humanities department. He said contemporary culture has witnessed a rift between computational subjects and the traditional humanities, and both are enhanced by merging the two.
“It’s actually at our own peril when scientists are not speaking to folks in the humanities with historical knowledge, ethical knowledge, cultural knowledge, right?” he said. “And at the same time, I’d say when the humanities are not understanding the technologies in the world today, they also could be seen as irrelevant.”
Presner has taught a course showing students how to get under the hood of large language models, which store the reading material generative AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT use to spit out answers. “Students can essentially upload their own training data to some of these smaller models and see how easily they can be manipulated,” he said.
UCLA students will be able to declare digital humanities as a major this year, but campus professors have taught courses in the discipline for more than two decades. It’s the second most popular minor at UCLA, which was one reason the school decided to transform it into a major, said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA College Division of Humanities where digital humanities is based. Last academic year 750 UCLA undergraduate students took a course in digital humanities. Stern expects 50 to 100 students to eventually declare the major, and would be thrilled if 40 signed up this year.
The department will launch with 23 faculty, including lecturers, plus four staff members. Stern eventually wants a few more faculty, but UCLA’s currently under a hiring freeze. No academic unit at the university was cut to make way for the new digital humanities. Faculty hail from multiple humanities fields as well as information studies and data science, so classes will occur across several campus buildings.
She said at least one museum will provide internship opportunities. Based in the Los Angeles area, the Wende Museum specializes in collecting artifacts and oral histories of refugees as well as other dissident groups and digitizing them — a key aspect of digital humanities training. She aims to secure similar arrangements with other museums so students can further apply what they learn in professional settings.
The major’s introductory courses are clustered around data networks, such as statistical reasoning, and courses on culture, such as the symbolic history of Jerusalem or film depictions of antiquity. Upper division courses can center on how contemporary technology is shaped by political, cultural, and social forces or a class on social media data analysis.
Kedaar Sridhar, 26, graduated from UCLA in 2022 with a computer science major and a minor in digital humanities.
The social media data analysis course was his favorite in the minor. For a class project, he and a team of students analyzed the hashtag “facemask” on social media while much of the world was still in the throes of COVID-19. He relied on the coding language Python as well as sentiment analysis tools to classify how different countries felt about face masks in public based on the social media posts featuring that hashtag.
If he could do college all over, he’d major in the new digital humanities program because it combines the application of contemporary data software with the probing analytical questions that the humanities embody.
“I think computer science is the what, digital humanities is the how and the why, and how do you actually apply it, and why is it important to be applied,” he said.
Sridhar credits the minor with landing him an internship at Microsoft. All the applicants knew computer science, but digital humanities distinguished him, he said. An interviewer asked what the minor entailed, and he said “it’s human-centered data storytelling, working with groups, working in projects, getting a tangible outcome.”
The interviewer said that’s what they’re looking for.
In the past year he co-founded his own company, Grantlytics, an AI-based platform focused on helping nonprofits fundraise by writing proposals, finding funding opportunities and identifying promising donors.
As an employer, he’s looking for much of what the digital humanities major offers. Without it, Sridhar would prefer a candidate with a humanities and coding or math background. But digital humanities “automatically is that interdisciplinary nature because it combines those two worlds together.”
Sridhar’s preference for someone who is well-rounded appears to be backed by recent survey data.
Hiring managers who recruit recent college graduates indicated this year that these workers are mostly employable, but with caveats. The annual survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that the skills recent graduates are most proficient in aren’t what employers prioritize most.
For example, 99% of hiring managers say oral and written communication and persuasion skills are important. But the same hiring managers indicated that just 55% of recent college graduates score well in communication skills. The same goes for critical thinking: Around 94% of hiring managers rate this competency highly but they report that just half of recent graduates are able to gather data from diverse sources and draw conclusions or work well in a fast-paced setting.
Where recent graduates do better is in technology, but hiring managers care slightly less about those. About 75% of employers place high importance on adapting to new technology or using tech to achieve company goals; they say that about 65% of recent grads are competent in that skillset.
Stern, the dean, is careful not to overstate the promise of digital humanities to halt the freefall of the broader humanities as a major students want. The share of U.S. college students majoring in fields such as literature, history, philosophy and foreign languages is at a historic nadir — just 8% of degrees conferred were in the humanities, down from nearly 15% nearly two decades ago. The trend at UCLA is similar.
She knows things are tough for humanities departments, but “an art history grad is more likely to get a job these days than a computer science grad,” she said, citing data tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “There are ebbs and flows across time” with which degrees lead to jobs and that students gravitate toward.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Why now: The Supreme Court weighed in and fresh court documents were filed as preparations for the November general election are well underway.
Why it matters: One Southern California county tells LAist nothing has happened that changes how it runs elections since last time around in the June primary. And an election law expert says as of now, people should plan to vote as you normally would.
Go deeper: … for more on what Southern California voters need to know.
It’s been a busy week with the Trump administration’s legal battle over mail in ballots.
The Supreme Court weighed in and fresh court documents were filed as preparations for the November general election are well underway.
Confused about where things stand? You’re not alone.
One Southern California county tells LAist nothing has happened that changes how it runs elections since last time around in the June primary. And an election law expert says that as of now, people should plan to vote as you normally would.
“If there is some interference with mail in ballots, there are lots of voting centers and other ways that people can cast ballots,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA professor of law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project. “But I don’t think it’s going to come to that.”
As the Nov. 3 general election approaches, local officials are encouraging voters to turn in their ballots early.
Here’s what we know.
As the legal battle plays out, local election officials are already gearing up for the November general election.
Bob Page, Orange County Registrar of Voters, told LAist his office starts working on an election up to nine months ahead of time, with the first November ballots being printed for overseas and military voters at the end of next week.
County election officials in California will start mailing ballots to all voters by Oct. 5. Page said O.C. will start printing ballots for the 1.9 million local voters the week of Labor Day.
“Those deadlines are set. You can’t mess with them,” Page said in a briefing from the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions Wednesday.
Hasen told LAist elections take a really long time to put in place, and something as mundane as envelopes are bought by the millions in counties such as L.A. and Orange. The design of mail in ballot envelopes are part of the new government requirements being challenged in court.
“In California, we now mail ballots to every single voter, so it would be incredibly expensive and difficult to try to change what that mailing would look like,” Hasen said.
In Orange County, for example, ballot envelopes are already in the works. Page noted the U.S. Postal Service approved of the design last month.
O.C. will be handling the November election like it did with the June primary, following existing state and federal law, Page said.
“We have to keep track of what’s going on in the different courts … But for right now, there’s nothing that’s happened that changes how we would conduct this election,” he said in an interview.
He also noted that he will make sure O.C. voters get a ballot, “however that gets to them.”
Hasen shared a similar message for voters.
“As of now, nothing has changed,” he said. “And let’s wait and see where things are in a week.”
Local election officials, including Page, are encouraging voters to turn in their ballots before Election Day. Ballots can start being processed as soon as they’re returned, so the more people vote early, the more ballots can be included in the first round of results released on election night.
“If there’s concerns about the speed at which ballots get counted or processed, the best way to address that for voters … is to vote early,” Page said.
Hasen agreed, adding that it’s much better for election administration and voter confidence if more ballots are returned and processed earlier.
O.C. voters will be able return their ballots by mail, to 128 drop boxes and to more than 190 vote centers, according to Page. L.A. County has started to send outreach postcards with early election reminders to most of its more than 5.8 million registered voters as of last week.
In March, President Donald Trump issued another executive order on voting that he said was to reduce “the risk of fraud.” Trump has claimed for years that there’s widespread voter fraud, despite the lack of evidence.
The order, among other things, instructs federal officials to create lists of eligible U.S. citizen voters in each state, directs USPS to only send mail in ballots to people on those lists and have USPS review the design of ballot envelopes.
Parts of the order were blocked in June by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston. The Supreme Court paused that ruling earlier this week, giving what’s been described as an interim win to Trump. The administration saw another win on Wednesday when Talwani lifted her nationwide ruling that blocked USPS from moving forward with the executive order.
“The court cases are coming fast and furious right now after the Supreme Court’s ruling,” said Aaron Blacksberg, lead legal analyst on federal policy for the Institute for Responsive Government, during a virtual briefing earlier this week.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and nearly two dozen other attorneys general filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a USPS final rule stemming from the executive order that was released last week.
Bonta argued its “President Trump’s latest unlawful attempt to take control of mail voting.” Bonta vowed in a news conference to “fight this every step of the way,” adding that he expected to see other lawsuits from Democratic party leadership and the League of Women Voters.
USPS did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.
LAist is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that is also home to L.A.’s largest NPR station broadcasting at 89.3 FM. We center our coverage around people and communities, not institutions or policies. We hold power to account. We are unapologetically L.A.
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