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Rebates ranging from $200 to $1,050 are one step closer to landing in millions of Californians’ pockets after state lawmakers in marathon Wednesday night floor sessions passed a record-breaking $300 billion budget plan for the fiscal year beginning Friday.

Though heated and hours-long, the sessions were in many ways perfunctory: The supermajority-Democratic Legislature was all but guaranteed to sign off on the budget deal Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Speaker Anthony Rendon announced Sunday night.

Republicans reprised complaints, voiced in hasty Monday hearings, about an opaque budget process and controversial policies buried within lengthy “trailer bills” drafted in private, but their remarks largely went unheeded: Democrats control enough seats in the Legislature to approve budgets without a single GOP vote.

Just as unsurprisingly, Senate Democrats rejected for the umpteenth time a Republican proposal to amend the budget to suspend California’s gas excise tax, which is scheduled to increase Friday by nearly 3 cents per gallon.

Republicans are expected to introduce the same amendment today in the Assembly — and will likely get support from Assemblymember Adam Gray, a Merced Democrat who said Wednesday “the budget simply should have suspended the gas tax.”

One of the most controversial measures approved Wednesday night was a sweeping energy trailer bill that — as part of a contingency plan to avoid power shortages and rolling blackouts as California transitions to clean energy — could give PG&E millions of dollars to extend the life of the controversial Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant while also significantly expanding the authority of the state Department of Water Resources and prolonging the use of gas-powered plants.

For more on the contents of California’s massive budget, check out this comprehensive breakdown from the CalMatters team.

Amid the budget debate, lawmakers also sent a pile of gun control bills to Newsom’s desk, including one to ban the sale of firearms on state property, one to crack down on ghost guns, one to block companies from advertising certain firearms to minors, and another — inspired by Texas’ abortion ban — to give private Californians the right to sue manufacturers, sellers and distributors of certain illegal firearms and to collect at least $10,000 in civil damages per weapon.

In other Capitol updates: A number of high-profile bills failed to advance past key committees ahead of Friday’s deadline, rendering them dead for the year. They include:

The coronavirus bottom line: As of Monday, California had 9,378,193 confirmed cases (+0.7% from previous day) and 91,516 deaths (+0.1% from previous day), according to state data now updated just twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. CalMatters is also tracking coronavirus hospitalizations by county.

California has administered 77,484,870 vaccine doses, and 75.6% of eligible Californians are fully vaccinated.

If you liked the overview in yesterday’s newsletter of the measures that have qualified so far for California’s November ballot, you’ll find this explainer from CalMatters’ Ben Christopher and Sameea Kamal even more helpful: Not only does it offer a comprehensive breakdown of all of the initiatives on which you’ll likely be asked to vote — including those that haven’t yet formally qualified — it explains how they landed on the ballot on the first place, the role of special interest money, why measures can be so confusing and how California first ignited its passion for propositions. Check it out.

In other ballot measure news:

Envision a world in which you go to an appointment with a new doctor or case worker and they immediately pull up your full medical and social services history, helping to inform and coordinate your care — and, after the appointment, you’re able to easily access and view your own records. That’s the world California is trying to create with its new statewide data-sharing requirement for all health and human services providers — but, as CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang reports, not everyone is on board. Some providers are complaining about excessive requirements, while others — such as Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California — have raised concerns about data privacy and security, arguing patients should be allowed to choose whether their information is shared.

But the perils of data collection were also made clear Tuesday, when the California Department of Justice removed a new database that had published the names, home addresses and other personal information of more than 240,000 applicants seeking a permit to carry a concealed gun. On Wednesday, Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said the leak was larger than previously reported, encompassing anyone who was granted or denied a concealed-carry permit between 2011 and 2021. And Bonta’s office disclosed that data from the state’s gun violence restraining order dashboard and assault weapons registry, among others, had also been “impacted,” CalMatters’ Ben Christopher reports. The office said it would provide credit monitoring services to anyone whose personal information was exposed, while Senate Republicans called for an investigation into the data breach.

Unemployed Californians temporarily won’t have to register on and upload their resume to a website called CalJOBS in order to be eligible for jobless benefits, as the vendor that operates the site has been experiencing a nationwide service outage since the beginning of the week, the state Employment Development Department announced Wednesday. CalJOBS — which helps Californians find jobs, write resumes and access training programs — is expected to remain down until after the Fourth of July holiday, according to the Sacramento Bee. The vendor, Geographic Solutions, Inc., is “working 24 hours a day to bring its systems back online as soon as possible,” EDD said. Noting that Californians are still required to look for work in order to be eligible for unemployment benefits, the agency directed residents to a list of other job search resources.

Meanwhile, I obtained more details about the Newsom administration’s proclamation last week that EDD had recovered $1.1 billion in unemployment insurance funds from approximately 780,000 “inactivated benefit cards.” EDD spokesperson Gareth Lacy told me that “all the cards were likely fraudulent,” and the $1.1 billion was part of the $20 billion in suspected fraudulent claims EDD paid out amid the pandemic. Most of the money was returned to the federal government; Lacy said EDD doesn’t have “exact accounting” but likely more than 90% of the recovered funds were related to the federal government’s last round of pandemic unemployment benefits.

CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: Two California budget-related bills, one to tax lithium extraction and another to reduce taxes on marijuana, demonstrate the arbitrary nature of tax policy.

El Monte cop killer had not been seen by L.A. probation officials for months before attack. // Los Angeles Times

Korean father’s shocking killing on the streets of L.A. sends his daughter searching for answers. // Los Angeles Times

San Francisco’s Chinese political leaders struggle to unify. // San Francisco Standard

Willie Brown thinks Chesa Boudin should run again — and says he’d win. // San Francisco Standard

Why some vendors who sell stolen goods on the streets don’t care about the city’s attempts to stop them. // San Francisco Chronicle

S.F. ranks worst in California for police-caused hospitalization rates for Black residents, study says. // San Francisco Chronicle

Anti-police art installation stirs controversy in Escondido. // San Diego Union-Tribune

Orange County clears 30-year backlog of testing sexual assault kits. // Orange County Register

‘One pill can kill’: Board of Supervisors declares illegal fentanyl a public health emergency. // San Diego Union-Tribune

California Rep. Alan Lowenthal is one of Congress’ most active stock traders, and he just violated a federal conflicts-of-interest law. Again. // Business Insider

Charter schools, abundant in California, could be a Supreme Court target. // EdSource

California late start law aims to make school less of a yawn. // Associated Press

‘A justice of great intellect’: San Francisco-born Justice Breyer steps down from U.S. Supreme Court. // San Francisco Chronicle

Evictions soar in Sacramento as remaining COVID tenant protections set to end. // Sacramento Bee

Tesla lays off some staff in closing San Mateo office. // Wall Street Journal

How much money makes you ‘wealthy’ in S.F.? It keeps rising — by over $1 million in a year. // San Francisco Chronicle

State auditor to review SDG&E rates amid complaints of high monthly bills. // San Diego Union-Tribune

Environmental groups seek to shut down diesel generators at Oakland cannabis facility. // KQED

Sierra Nevada wildfire threatens small rural communities. // Associated Press

Tips, insight or feedback? Email emily@calmatters.org.

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