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NOTE: This story contains explicit details of sexual violence.

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A hearing to consider whether to release a sexually violent predator to a house on the outskirts of Manila was continued this morning to give the California Department of State Hospitals (DSH) time to review hundreds of pages of public opposition. The new hearing date was scheduled for July.

And in a surprise twist, there will also be a hearing later this month to review an allegation that the convicted serial rapist, Richard Stobaugh, was found in possession of child pornography while at Coalinga State Hospital in 2018. Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm today said Stobaugh concealed that fact from the DHS treatment team that recommended his release.

In a courtroom packed to the gills, with more people standing outside in hopes that someone might vacate their seat, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Kaleb Cockrum found that the District Attorney’s Office missed the deadline to consolidate and submit its records of public feedback to the DSH.

He ordered the placement hearing to be continued to July 14, while the hearing regarding the alleged possession of child pornography was scheduled for May 21.

Cockrum did not allow public participation via Zoom, explaining that the court can’t control written messages between participants nor prevent offensive gestures and messages. “I’ve even experienced nudity,” he said, adding that he reserved space for news media to ensure public access to court proceedings.

At the outset of the day’s hearing, Cockrum gave a lengthy overview of Stobaugh’s criminal history and outlined the competing rights at play in these proceedings, which pit liberty against tyranny. He also noted there is “a lot of anger and a lot of fear [and] a lot of misinformation” regarding the case. 

“I can’t address or or take away all of the anger and fear, but I can address the misinformation,” he said. 

Noting that Stobaugh is a sexually violent predator, the judge ran through the “horrible, violent, unconscionable things” on his rap sheet: In 1981 he broke into a dorm room and raped a woman in her teens; in 1987 he kidnapped, raped, orally copulated and sodomized a 25-year-old woman; in 1988 he was convicted after he bound and raped a pregnant woman and also raped a 71-year-old woman.

Stobaugh has now served his entire prison time for those crimes, and the court has no authority to remand him back there, Cockrum explained.

In 2012 the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office successfully petitioned to have him committed to the state hospital, where he remained for over a decade. At a hearing in December 2023, expert witnesses for both the defense and the prosecution testified that Stobaugh had made sufficient progress in his treatment and could be safely released into the community under conditions of strict supervision.

A doctor serving as a witness for the DA’s office at that 2023 hearing said that while Stobaugh remained a sexually violent predator, his age reduced the likelihood of offense as there was “a natural decline in aggression and psychopathy.”

A doctor testifying for the defense said that, upon his release, Stobaugh would be monitored through GPS 24/7, with “exclusion zones” that he could not enter; he’d be required to check in regularly with a regional coordinator and a team of caseworkers; he’d need to attend weekly group and individual therapy sessions; he’d have to take at least four polygraph tests per year; all of his electronic devices would be monitored with software that tracks keystrokes and images; and he’d have to register as a sex offender.

Cockrum said that, with no evidence submitted to the contrary, the law required him to find that conditional release was appropriate, and so the petition for his release was granted.

“The law now says that Mr. Stobaugh has a right to liberty,” Cockrum said. “This is a fundamental due process right. If I were to hold him in the hospital without legal backing, if I were to send them to prison with no new law violations, that is a violation of due process. That is tyranny.”

But the judge said he also has to ensure that the public will be adequately protected. “I take your rights just as seriously,” he said, and he promised to take community input before approving, modifying or rejecting the state hospital’s recommendations.

“Mr. Stobaugh cannot remain in jail forever,” he said. “The community also has to be adequately protected. That’s what these hearings are about. This is no small issue. This goes to the core of what it means to be a human being. I take it very seriously.”

The  DSH’s Conditional Release Program, called CONREP, was tasked with finding a place for Stobaugh in his home county of Humboldt, and the landlord of the proposed property — at 2171 Peninsula Drive in Manila — was the first person willing to rent to CONREP for this purpose.

As for the public’s right to be heard, Cockrum said that, contrary to the initial call to action issued by Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal, the court cannot received direct emails or letters from the public — in this or any other case. Instead, per the state’s Welfare and Institutions Code 6609.1, all communication with the court must go through the DA’s Office.

Jane Hu, the attorney representing the DSH, said her department needs more time to review the “voluminous” community and agency comments that have been submitted thus far, as does Liberty Healthcare, the corporation that contracts with the state to provide outpatient treatment and supervision for people like Stobaugh.

State code requires such comments to be submitted with at least 10 days notice before a hearing like today’s. However, the Humboldt County DA’s Office turned over some 350 pages of agency comments just yesterday, Hu said. Those comments need to be consolidated and responded to, and they may prompt the state to modify its recommendations for the conditions of Stobaugh’s release. Therefore, her agency requested at least 30 days to provide an updated response to the court.

Public Defender Luke Brownfield said Stobaugh has no objection to that request. But Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm, who was joined at the prosecutor table by DA Stacey Eads, said the prosecution was ready to proceed today. She started arguing that there was an altogether different reason why the DSH wanted to continue the hearing, but Cockrum cut her off, saying, “We’re gonna get to that.”

First, he found that the DA’s Office failed to comply with the legal timeline for turning over public comments, and he chastised the DA’s Office for the way it has filed some of those documents. There were duplicate emails, for example, but far more seriously, he said, the DA’s Office submitted 10 pages of confidential victims’ testimony that now needs to be excised from the public record.

Timm said her office continues to get public feedback, so a certain amount of duplication is to be expected, and then she dropped the bombshell: The real reason the DSH is requesting a continuance, she said, is because Stobaugh failed to disclose to his treatment team that in 2018, while confined under supervision at Coalinga State Hospital, he’d been found in possession of child pornography.

“They had a hard drive that had a number of images of young children in a pornographic manner,” Timm said, adding that when she mentioned this separately to a DSH evaluator and to doctors with Liberty Healthcare, none of them had heard about this.

“Mr. Stobaugh didn’t disclose it to anyone,” Timm said. She alleged that the DSH actually wants the continuance so they can check in with Stobaugh’s treatment team and conduct a new polygraph test. Timm also said that during a 2019 polygraph test, Stobaugh had “significant reactions” to questions about having sexual thought about minors and forcible sex acts.

“At this point, the court should not grant the motion to continue,” Timm said. “Liberty CONREP and the Department of State Hospitals should be withdrawing their agreement that Mr. Stobaugh is appropriate for conditional release. He can’t even be supervised appropriately in state hospital. What makes them think he could be supervised in our community?”

“I think that would take another hearing,” Cockrum replied.

Brownfield said these matters have already been litigated, and no evidence has been presented to prove that Stobaugh possessed child pornography. Hu, meanwhile, said state medical privacy laws prevent the DSH from speaking publicly about patient treatment or supervision.

Cockrum said he has “grave concerns” about the child porn issue, and the court must prioritize public safety while allowing the least restrictive appropriate placement to the defendant. However, he noted that Timm’s questions on the matter don’t amount to evidence, so whether Stobaugh’s “contraband” was, in fact, child pornography remains “an open issue.”

Still, he noted that neither Hu nor anyone else at the DSH has denied that they are investigating whether that contraband was child pornography, whether he’s been treated for it and whether he’s been truthful in his polygraphs. 

“[I]f it is child pornography, the court has to consider a whole new class of victims,” Cockrum said.

A number of community members had signed up to address the court during today’s hearing, but the judge said he wouldn’t allow it today since the hearing was being rescheduled. There will be one public comment period per placement hearing, and there may only be one placement hearing, Cockrum said.

Before adjourning, the judge said that in addition to addressing the child pornography matter, the DSH should plan to address concerns raised by community members, including: one, that a planned rails-to-trails project would create a public pathway near the Manila house; two, that since Manila experiences frequent power outages there needs to be an alternate plan for monitoring Stobaugh; and three, that elementary school children frequently recreate at a nearby park and take field trips to the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center across the street.

The people who’d packed into the courtroom slowly filed out, with some grumbling about not being able to say their piece.

If you’re in the mood for a little scenic drive, you might consider a pilgrimage of sorts down to Southern Humboldt this weekend since it’s the last time you’ll be able to cross under the iconic green steel beams of the Honeydew Bridge.

Earlier today, Humboldt County’s Department of  Public Works posted the nostalgia-inducing clip above and note that bridge replacement begins this coming Monday, May 12.

The following bit of history comes from the project outline on the Humboldt County website: 

The Honeydew Bridge was constructed in 1920 as a single-lane bridge with two steel Camelback truss spans. The bridge is supported by a reinforced concrete pier and wing abutments on spread footings. The bridge has timber decking and rails. The total bridge length is 386 feet and the vertical clearance is 14 feet. The bridge is posted to limit truck and bus speeds to 15 miles per hour.

The bridge is classified as functionally obsolete due to geometric constraints, and is incompatible with modern highway use and the need for conveyance of heavy equipment and fire equipment. Projects to widen the existing bridge or increasing its vertical clearance are technically infeasible. The overall sufficiency rating based on a July 15, 2014 inspection by Caltrans Structure Maintenance and Investigations was 13.3. The bridge is considered deficient due to its age, deteriorated condition, elevated maintenance costs, and seismic susceptibility.

The truss structure has repeatedly been struck and damaged by oversized vehicles. Several main truss members and portal cross frames have been replaced, typically with plug welding. The truss portion of the bridge was last painted in the mid-1970s. The County does not have funding for a bridge painting program. The maintenance needs of the bridge are high due to its age, design, and materials of construction.

All things must pass, but at least you have one last chance to roll over the Mattole the way locals have for the past hundred years. Your call. 

Location of Tuesday’s collision in Eureka

Eureka Police Department release:

On May 6, 2025, at about 8:27 AM, Eureka Police Department (EPD) Patrol Officers, Community Safety Engagement Team (CSET) Officers, and Humboldt Bay Fire (HBF) responded to the report of a semi-truck versus bicycle collision at W. Harris at Union Street. Upon arrival, Humboldt Bay Fire personnel determined the bicyclist to be deceased.

As standard protocol, personnel from EPD’s Criminal Investigations Unit and Major/Fatal Injury Team responded to conduct the investigation. A Traffic Officer from California Highway Patrol (CHP) also responded to assist. During the investigation, surveillance footage of the collision was obtained.

These are the current facts known about the collision:

• The semi-truck was traveling north on Union Street and stopped for the red light at W.Harris.

• The 73-year old, male bicyclist was traveling west on the southern sidewalk of W.Harris and approached Union.

• As the semi-truck began making a righthand (east) turn, the bicyclist continued west on W.Harris.

• The semi-truck and bicyclist collided.

• Alcohol or drug impairment does not appear to be a factor in this collision.

If anyone witnessed the collision or has any information that may assist with the investigation, please call EPD’s Criminal Investigations Unit at 707-441-4300.

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UPDATE, MAY 13: As of this morning, the Bellini is back in biz. See the follow-up health inspection report.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• The Public Health Division Has Temporarily Closed Old Town Coffee and Chocolates Due to a Mouse Invasion

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Yesterday afternoon, a health inspector visited the Cafe Bellini and did not like what they found.

According to the inspector’s report, there was evidence of rodent feces in “every part” of the facility, including underneath the microwave, near the coffee maker, by the waffle machine and elsewhere. There was also evidence that the rodents had been trying to break into bags of tortilla chips and croutons.

As with the case earlier this week, the Bellini will be closed until such time as the place is thoroughly disinfected and a pest control service is enlisted to take the fight to the rodents.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On August 3, 1987, Nickolas Medin reported his wife, Kay Josephine Medin, as a missing person to the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office. Nickolas reported he had left on a business trip and when he returned home Kay was gone. The Medin property was searched, and friends and family were contacted. Her doctor was contacted, who reported she had no serious medical issues. Kay was employed as a teacher at the Hyampom School. Her boss was contacted and reported Kay had been in good spirits. Kay’s purse and personal property were found at the residence. The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office listed her disappearance as suspicious.

On November 25, 1987, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) received a package in the US mail. The package contained skeletal remains and an anonymous letter. The letter gave directions leading to more human remains at a location near Ammon Ridge Road in Eastern Humboldt County. Humboldt County Sheriff’s Detectives responded to the location given in the letter and discovered additional human remains. These remains were later identified as Kay using dental records. A death certificate was issued for Kay in 1988, and she remained listed as a missing person as there was not a complete body recovery.

On February 16, 1993, the Fortuna Police Department contacted the HCSO to report that a man had found a partial human skull on the beach near Trinidad Head. The man later turned the remains into the Fortuna Police Department.

A DNA sample was obtained from the skull and entered into both the California Missing Person DNA Database and the National Unidentified Person DNA index. The DNA profile was searched against profiles from both missing persons and other human remains in the Combined DNA Index System. No match was ever made.

In 2024, the HCSO received Community Project Funding from Congressman Jared Huffman’s Office. The funding was to be used to clear up a backlog of unidentified human remains cases. The HCSO partnered with private lab Othram Inc.

A DNA extract from the remains was sent to Othram. Othram scientists used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown remains. Once the profile was built, Othram’s in-house genealogy team used forensic genetic genealogy to produce investigative leads. In September 2024, the HCSO received a report from Othram indicating the skull may be that of Kay Medin. The report included genetic relatives, including a possible daughter. Investigators were able to locate the daughter and obtained a DNA sample from her. The California Department of Justice later compared the two DNA samples and confirmed the skull belonged to Kay Medin. Nickolas Medin died in August 2018.

The HCSO would like to thank Othram, Congressman Jared Huffman, and the California Department of Justice DNA lab for assisting in solving this case. The HCSO is continuing to work with Othram on several other unidentified remains investigations utilizing the latest DNA technology. This case is still open and considered a cold homicide.

If you have any information regarding this case, please contact Investigator Mike Fridley at 707-441-3024.

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In her home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Eboni Moen, 42, struggled to find help. Some days she would rock back and forth in her shower, crying uncontrollably and thinking back to her son’s murder. She needed a therapist, she said, someone who could help her process what happened and find appropriate medication.

But in rural Amador County, where she lives, mental health providers are few and far between, and it took Moen about two and a half years to find help.

“I was actually turned away,” she said. “I was told that my mental health problem wasn’t severe enough. I had to get to a point to where suicide was a thought for them to help me.”

All across the state, but especially in rural areas like Amador County, finding a therapist is challenging. California has a “major, ongoing” shortage of mental health providers, and it’s “especially dire” in rural areas, according to a 2022 survey commissioned by the state. Nearly one-third of California’s residents were living in an area with an insufficient ratio of providers to patients, the report found.

In 2021, state leaders began pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into increasing the pipeline for therapists, but many students say the educational requirements are still too onerous or costly.

Part of the problem is that it takes a long time to become a therapist. Every licensed therapist needs at least a bachelor’s and master’s degree. Psychiatrists have a medical degree, and psychologists often have a doctorate. For the master’s degree route, which is most common, students can take a variety of different paths, including programs in social work, marriage and family therapy, clinical counseling or school counseling. Most master’s programs take about two years and some cost over $60,000. Often, students have to work hundreds of hours in an unpaid internship in order to graduate.

Then, after graduating with a master’s degree in social work or marriage and family therapy, they have to spend at least 3,000 hours under supervision before they can bill most insurance companies for their services. Some graduates take up to six years to meet their required hours before they can make a regular salary as a therapist.

The long road to becoming a therapist

On Jan. 21, 2011, Moen asked a neighbor to babysit her 2-year-old son while she went to work at a local U-Haul store in Cleveland, where she was living at the time. The babysitter attacked the boy, strangling him. Moen said she found her son’s body when she came home from work that evening. She said the babysitter was asleep on the couch.

“For a long time that image was burned into my brain,” she said. “That whole situation is what started my mental health problems: My anxiety, my constant thought of death, and PTSD.”

She moved to the Bay Area, where she became homeless. But in 2017, a friend helped her build a new life in Amador County, where the cost of living is much lower. She found a job at a casino and began reflecting on her own mental health, ultimately deciding that she wanted to become a therapist to help others like her.

She started college in 2021 but it’s unlikely she’ll reach her goal before 2030. With the help of a private scholarship, she started taking online courses at a community college in Orange County but had to stop after being diagnosed with cancer.

She re-enrolled in 2024 and is now taking a full course load while simultaneously homeschooling her daughter. Through the scholarship, she also found a paid internship at a local organization, the Sierra Wind Wellness and Recovery Center, which offers mental health services. She said she’s maxed out her federal and state financial aid, receiving just under $20,000 this academic year, though she said that’s still not enough to cover the cost of housing, food and transportation.

“The money is not the most important part to me,” Moen said. “I’m doing it because I want to be able to add to this lacking workforce. I know that we don’t have enough so I will be one extra person to help.”

Eboni Moen in the outdoor meditation garden of Sierra Wind Wellness and Recovery Center in Jackson on April 11, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

If all goes according to plan, she’s set to graduate with an associate degree in social and human services in January, at which point she hopes to transfer to either Cal State Chico or Humboldt and pursue a bachelor’s degree.

Then, to become a licensed therapist, she’ll need at least a master’s degree. Along with two additional years of school — and more if the student is part-time — the master’s degree programs in social work require at least 900 hours in an internship, which is typically unpaid. Master’s programs for marriage and family therapists require 225 internship hours. While social workers and marriage and family therapists can offer similar mental health services, social workers have a broader training and more potential career paths, said Kimberly Warmsley, the former executive director of California’s association of social workers.

For many master’s students, meeting the internship requirement often means quitting a part-time job. While pursuing a master’s in social work at California Baptist University, Assemblymember Corey Jackson, a Moreno Valley Democrat, continued to serve as the CEO of a nonprofit organization, but he left that position in order to take an unpaid internship that would meet his graduation requirements.

In an interview with CalMatters, he said he still has “a little over $40,000” in student debt for that program, plus another $40,000 because he pursued a doctorate.

Are interns employees?

In the Legislature, Jackson helps oversee the state’s licensing board for mental health providers, and he is pushing for a law that would make it easier for some out-of-state therapists to get licensed in California. But the workforce shortage requires major investments and has no easy solution, he said.

“It reminds me of the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis. We have dug such a big hole, especially with so many retirements and people who have left the field.”

Assemblymember Corey Jackson looks into the crowd during a heated Q&A at the “State of Black California” event at the California Museum in Sacramento on Sept. 14, 2024. Photo by Jungho Kim for CalMatters

A group of social work students across the country is advocating for more graduate students to be compensated during their required internship hours, and the movement, called “Payment for Placements,” has chapters at seven California universities, including San Diego State, UCLA and UC Berkeley.

While social work master’s students are required to work at least 900 internship hours, San Diego State’s program asks its students to work 1,050 hours. For Jacqueline Guan, a student in the program, these required internships “should be compensated labor.” Like Jackson, she said she quit a full-time job in order to take on an unpaid internship.

Organizations and government agencies that offer unpaid internships take on additional liability by hiring graduate student interns and the students get a “unique training opportunity,” said Amanda Lee, the director of field education at San Diego State’s School of Social Work. While these employers aren’t required to pay interns, she said “quite a few students” receive some money, either through their employer or through a fellowship.

Assemblymember Jackson said he “absolutely” supports paying more social work students for their internships but hasn’t pushed for it in the Legislature. “It’s hard to advocate for additional funds for just about anything right now,” he said, referring to the state’s fiscal uncertainties.

Instead, he said he’s interested in expanding loan forgiveness and limited forms of tuition assistance, as well as finding ways to improve social work licensing exams, which have disproportionate pass rates for certain groups of students: those who identify as Black, Hispanic or Native American score lower than their peers.

The ‘toughest’ clients with the fewest mental health workers

In 2022, San Diego County found that it needed roughly 8,100 more mental health providers to meet the region’s demand — but that 7,800 were likely to leave the profession in the following five years, either because of retirement, burnout, or other reasons, such as a career change.

All across the state, mental health providers are nearing retirement, according to the 2022 state survey, which found that roughly 40% of psychologists and certain kinds of therapists were over 50 years old. Demand for mental health services is going up too, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a new initiative, pumping $4.4 billion into youth behavioral health, including $700 million to train the next generation of providers, said Andrew DiLuccia, a public information officer with the state’s department of health care access. He said the money has mostly been spent and has created thousands of new scholarships, grants and training programs.

More therapists may soon join the workforce. A 2025 state report found that the number of licensed social workers, marriage and family therapists, clinical counselors and school counselors has increased by about 3% over the last five years.

But those new therapists may not work in the areas with the highest need. In Solano County, where the Bay Area’s suburban sprawl mixes with rural farming towns, recruitment is a persistent challenge, said Jennifer Mullane, director of the county’s behavioral health department. Private hospitals, such as Kaiser, pay better, she said, while many other therapists want to do telehealth or private practice. “We have to compete with all of the Bay Area counties for the same workforce and you can guess how we fare,” she said.

The Solano County behavioral health system served more than 5,300 patients last year, said Mullane, including some of “the toughest clients” — those with mild to severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or substance use disorders. And yet, she added, “We have the smallest workforce pool to draw from.”

Her department is supposed to have just under 290 positions but she said that about 20% are currently vacant.

Vacancies also persist in Amador County, where Moen lives and which is designated by the federal government as an area with a shortage of mental health providers. Roughly half of California’s counties meet that designation, which reflects the ratio of providers to the number of residents.

“I like it here because it’s beautiful,” said Moen, who lives just below the snow line of the mountains. “There’s just not enough resources.”

She said she was recently inducted into an honor society at her community college, and it’s made her more aware of her own potential, including ways to advance policy that might improve her county’s provider shortage.

“I would like there to be a lot more trained providers,” Moen said. “And I would like there to be more affordable, attainable ways to get to these providers.”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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California’s first-in-the-nation privacy agency is retreating from an attempt to regulate artificial intelligence and other forms of computer automation.

The California Privacy Protection Agency was under pressure to back away from draft rules. Business groups, lawmakers, and Gov. Gavin Newsom said they would be costly to businesses, potentially stifle innovation, and usurp the authority of the legislature, where proposed AI regulations have proliferated. In a unanimous vote last week, the agency’s board watered down the rules, which impose safeguards on AI-like systems.

Agency staff estimate that the changes reduce the cost for businesses to comply in the first year of enforcement from $834 million to $143 million and predict that 90% percent of businesses initially required to comply will no longer have to do so.

The retreat marks an important turn in an ongoing and heated debate over the board’s role. Created following the passage of state privacy legislation by lawmakers in 2018 and voters in 2020, the agency is the only body of its kind in the United States.

The draft rules have been in the works for more than three years, but were revisited after a series of changes at the agency in recent months, including the departure of two leaders seen as pro-consumer, including Vinhcent Le, a board member who led the AI rules drafting process, and Ashkan Soltani, the agency’s executive director.

Consumer advocacy groups worry that the recent shifts mean the agency is deferring excessively to businesses, particularly tech giants.

The changes approved last week mean the agency’s draft rules no longer regulate behavioral advertising, which targets people based on profiles built up from their online activity and personal information. In a prior draft of the rules, businesses would have had to conduct risk assessments before using or implementing such advertising.

Behavioral advertising is used by companies like Google, Meta, and TikTok and their business clients. It can perpetuate inequality, pose a threat to national security, and put children at risk.

The revised draft rules also eliminate use of the phrase “artificial intelligence” and narrow the range of business activity regulated as “automated decisionmaking,” which also requires assessments of the risks in processing personal information and the safeguards put in place to mitigate them.

Supporters of stronger rules say the narrower definition of “automated decisionmaking” allows employers and corporations to opt out of the rules by claiming that an algorithmic tool is only advisory to human decision making.

“My one concern is that if we’re just calling on industry to identify what a risk assessment looks like in practice, we could reach a position by which they’re writing the exam by which they’re graded,” said board member Brandie Nonnecke during the meeting.

“The CPPA is charged with protecting the data privacy of Californians, and watering down its proposed rules to benefit Big Tech does nothing to achieve that goal,“ said Sacha Haworth, executive director of Tech Oversight Project, an advocacy group focused on challenging policy that reinforces Big Tech power, said in a statement to CalMatters. “By the time these rules are published, what will have been the point?”

The draft rules retain some protections for workers and students in instances when a fully automated system determines outcomes in finance and lending services, housing, and health care without a human in the decisionmaking loop.

Businesses and the organizations that represent them made up 90% of comments about the draft rules before the agency held listening sessions across the state last year, Soltani said in a meeting last year.

In April, following pressure from business groups and legislators to weaken the rules, a coalition of nearly 30 unions, digital rights, and privacy groups wrote a letter together urging the agency to continue work to regulate AI and protect consumers, students, and workers.

“With each iteration they’ve gotten weaker and weaker.”
— Kara Williams, law fellow, Electronic Privacy Information Center, on draft AI rules from California’s privacy regulator

Roughly a week later, Gov. Newsom intervened, sending the agency a letter stating that he agreed with critics that the rules overstepped the agency’s authority and supported a proposal to roll them back.

Newsom cited Proposition 24, the 2020 ballot measure that paved the way for the agency. “The agency can fulfill its obligations to issue the regulations called for by Proposition 24 without venturing into areas beyond its mandate,” the governor wrote.

The original draft rules were great, said Kara Williams, a law fellow at the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center. On a phone call ahead of the vote, she added that ”with each iteration they’ve gotten weaker and weaker, and that seems to correlate pretty directly with pressure from the tech industry and trade association groups so that these regulations are less and less protective for consumers.”

The public has until June 2 to comment on the alteration to draft rules. Companies must comply with automated decisionmaking rules by 2027.

Prior to voting to water down its own regulation last week, at the same meeting the agency board voted to throw its support behind four draft bills in the California Legislature, including one that protects the privacy of people who connect computing devices to their brain and another that prohibits the collection of location data without permission.