California has a handful of new pay disclosure laws going into effect in 2023. To get  a sense of the impact those measures could have, we spoke with former California State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, author of the Golden State's 2015 Fair Pay Act, which forces employers to prove that pay disparities between workers are not due to gender. 

A new executive order from President Joe Biden aims to bolster U.S. privacy protections in a way that ensures such data transfers comply with EU laws, thus theoretically streamlining the flow of that data across the Atlantic to the U.S.  Such transfers have been a troubled and complex issue for years . On today's show we are joined by Crowell & Moring Senior Counsel Christiana State, who focuses on privacy and cybersecurity from the firm’s San Francisco office. She specializes in and...

In 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law that essentially allowed only Nevada to have legal sports wagering. Dozens of states have since legalized either in-person or online sports betting, or both. But California, the nation's biggest potential market, has not been one of the.  Which brings us to two very hotly contested opposing ballot measures that would legalize online sports wagering here in California, Propositions 26 and 27. To date, the two campaigns have spent a...

California Gov.  Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill ( AB 2273) that requires any business serving up web pages likely to be accessed by California youths to consider the children’s best interests when designing their sites. Since California children can easily access websites from anywhere, the law could apply to websites published anywhere – or at least anywhere in the United States, which, in turn, could make any American business with a website subject to California law. In this episode...

The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) is pending federal legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would for the first time impose comprehensive national standards for how companies manage consumers’ personal identifying information, or PII.  The ADPPA is not the first data privacy bill ever introduced in Congress, but it is the first one to gain committee approval and be eligible to be heard in the full House of Representatives.   The bill in its current state...

We're joined on this episode by our old friend Jennifer Rubin, head of the ESG Practice Group for Mintz, based in the San Diego office, who will give us her insights into fast-moving legislation in the CA Capitol to require companies to list pay ranges with job postings and to report a wide range of salary data to the state.  August is traditionally one of the busiest and most volatile months of the California legislative season, as lawmakers, lobbyists and activists all push to get their...

In this episode of the SNCJ Legislative Deep Dive, host Rich Ehisen welcomes Alexandra Barrage, a partner with Davis Wright Tremaine LLC in Washington D.C. to discuss the state of cryptocurrencies in the midst of the so-called "crypto winter," and more specifically to talk about state and federal efforts to create some form of regulatory framework for a marketplace that has often been described as the digital wild west.  Barrage co-leads DWT's Crypto Working Group and counsels clients on...

In today’s show, we discuss the draft rules California regulators released in May in advance of the state’s latest privacy law – the California Privacy Rights Act – going into effect next January. To get a handle on what those highly anticipated draft rules did and did not contain and what happens now, we are joined by reporter Joseph Duball, who covers all things data privacy for the International Association of Privacy Professionals.  The Basics: A growing number of states have adopted...

When the pandemic hit, millions of U.S. workers were forced to make a sudden, immediate shift to remote work. We all quickly became familiar with the pros and cons of daily – sometimes hourly – zoom calls and having our kitchen tables do double duty as our workspace. And just as quickly, the prevailing theory that workers must be in an office to maximize their output was blown to smithereens.  Which is why it was big news recently when the world’s richest man, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon...

If you listened to our podcast from April 26th, you know that a California court struck down a state law that required corporate boards to have a certain number of people from marginalized communities.  At the time, we were also awaiting a ruling on a similar California law that required corporate boards to have a minimum number of women. The law in question – SB 826, authored by then-Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson – requires publicly traded corporations based in California to have a certain...

Like it or not, artificial intelligence and computer algorithms are determining the outcome of more and more of your life’s most significant events. Like whether you get a job. Or a home loan. Or get into college. Or get a vaccine, or perhaps have your health care completely taken away. Or if you go to jail, and for how long. As data scientist and author Cathy O’Neil of the Public Interest Tech Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School says, “If you had a human bureaucratic process 15 years ago, it...

The term metaverse was originally coined by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. But defining exactly what constitutes the metaverse we are seeing develop now can be challenging. Stephenson defined it as “an all-encompassing digital world that exists parallel to the real world.” The generally accepted definition these days is a three-dimensional version of the Internet, i.e. a virtual platform for social interactions between users and their virtual...

Housing costs have gone through the roof all over the country, with most experts in agreement that a big driver of this situation is simple supply and demand – less housing stock means higher prices. In that regard, we have also seen in recent years a handful of states adopt laws that allow for greater housing density projects in areas that have previously been zoned only for single family homes,  essentially taking power over those decisions away from local governments. As you might imagine,...

Responding to numerous incidents of discrimination against Black children in schools and adults in the workplace – predominantly women – a coalition of advocacy groups, Dove USA and California State Sen. Holly Mitchell came together in 2019 to craft the CROWN Act, which stands for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.” This legislation prohibits discrimination based on hair style and texture, including braids, locs, twists and bantu knots.  The bill was signed into law that...

When Gov. Jerry Brown signed California's first-in-the-nation board diversity law (AB 979)  in 2018, he did so with the acknowledgement that it would likely be challenged in court and that it had "flaws" that "may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation." He proved prophetic, as in early April Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green sided with Judicial Watch, the activist group that had filed suit seeking to invalidate the law. But that hardly ends the story. While we watch to see...

After at least a decade of debate and dashed hopes, advocates for paid family leave in Maryland have finally seen their efforts rewarded as majority Democrats easily overrode Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) veto of a measure that makes the Old Line State the 10th to formally ensure workers can take paid time off to care for ill family members.   But while Maryland is the first this year to adopt a paid family leave law, it is not likely to be the last . At least 12 more states have pending paid...

The Federal Trade Commission says that over the past five years, Americans have reported losing $1.3 billion to online dating scams. According to the most recent FTC data, these scams are up nearly 80 percent since 2020, with approximately $547 million lost to swindlers in 2021 alone. Romance scams are now in fact the largest category of fraud now the FTC tracks. To talk about this and what lawmakers might be doing about it, SNCJ Managing Editor Rich Ehisen talks with correspondent Brian...

A growing number of U.S. states have imposed their own sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.  But are those sanctions legal? And what other tools might states have at their disposal to show support for the U.S. government's sanctions against Russia's universally-condemned actions against Ukraine?  In this episode, Deep Dive host Rich Ehisen talks with U.C. Berkeley assistant professor of finance Anastassia Fedyk about state-level sanctions, the impact of free market actions...

The broad sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are complex on a level we have not seen before, making compliance a real challenge for the people and financial institutions tasked with implementing them. To better understand this situation and the challenges they present, host Rich Ehisen is joined for this episode of the Deep Dive by Dr. Christopher Swift, a partner and litigator with Foley & Lardner LLP and a member of Foley’s Government Enforcement...

Sanctions against foreign governments are usually the purview of the federal government, but states have a long history of imposing their own sanctions as well. Such is the case right now as numerous states have moved to impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. In this week's show, Deep Dive host Rich Ehisen talks with Stateline reporter Sophie Quinton about her story from last week about how states are taking their own actions against Russian aggression, and how those...

Driven by the meteoric rise of precious metals prices, automotive catalytic converter theft has turned into a big business. Savvy thieves can make as much as $300 selling catalytic converters to scrap yards, which, in turn, sell them to recyclers who want the platinum, palladium and rhodium inside. Indeed, according to Kitco.com, a website that tracks the price of precious metals, Rhodium that was selling for $2,300 an ounce in January 2019 is now fetching as much as $17,650.00 an ounce. In...

For a long time, redistricting has admittedly been an issue that appeals to only the wonkiest among us. But given the hyperpartisan times we live in, how state legislative maps are being drawn has become one of the most hotly debated and closely watched issues of the year. For this show, we are joined by one of the nation’s foremost experts on redistricting, Ben Williams, Program Principal for Elections & Redistricting for the National Conference of State Legislatures, to get to nitty...

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last two years, you know that the debate over how to best ensure that states have fair elections with adequate access for all eligible voters has been one of the most intense of our time. As one might imagine with such a hyperpartisan issue in the age of misinformation, it can be hard to know exactly what is actually going on in regard to voting access, early voting, voting by mail, voter ID, etc.  To help us better understand where states are with...

This week SNCJ Managing Editor Rich Ehisen is joined by NetChoice Policy Counsel, Jennifer Huddleston and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP Partner, Reese Hirsch to analyze how the CCPA has impacted Data Privacy measures in the states, the possible use of antitrust laws to regulate Big Tech companies and more!