Legislative Interview: Jesse Arreguín

Senator Jesse Arreguín  discussed key issues for 2025,  starting with the cost of living, affordability, and wildfire recovery in Los Angeles. Other topics include the Trump administration's impact on immigrant and refugee communities, Medicare, and food security programs. The closure of Alta Bates Hospital and youth voting initiatives in Berkeley and Albany were also discussed. Measures to improve public safety, address insurance costs and availability, and support wildfire prevention were emphasized, including home hardening and regional collaboration.

The interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Major Issues in 2025

Anna Crane: What are the legislature priorities for the upcoming year?

Jesse Arreguin: The legislative priorities have changed in these last two months. You know, coming in cost of living and affordability were front and center issues for the legislation, and still are. And I've been appointed by the President pro tempore to serve on a legislative working group to draft a package of bills to address affordability, not just in energy, housing and health care. But the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles and the impacts of the new Trump administration have also taken precedence.  

The devastation in LA is heartbreaking. We have been supporting our colleagues in LA in their efforts to secure state resources, federal resources, and also to address the rebuilding of these communities that have been so hard hit by these catastrophic wildfires.  The Senate several weeks ago passed and the governor signed legislation to allocate $2.5 billion in emergency assistance to assist in the cleanup of these communities. Because before we can rebuild, we have to clean up and remove the debris. And so that work is underway, and that's money that will be reimbursed by the federal government at some point. And so we needed to frontload the expenditure to allow for the cleanup effort to begin. And the Senate Democrats released a package about a week ago to support the rebuilding of these Los Angeles County communities and to take steps to make our state more resilient and prepared for the increased risk of wildfires, rural and urban wildfires.  

One of the bills that I am co-authoring with Senator Archuleta would increase penalties for people that impersonate firefighters and other law enforcement officials for the purpose of looting homes - that actually happened in these fire zones.  It's unbelievable. And also to increase penalties for very serious incidents of arson. I mean, we've heard rumors that some of what sparked some of these fires were arsonists. So that bill will be  going through my Committee, the Senate Public Safety Committee, as well as other bills that have been introduced related to public safety around how we're responding to these wildfires. So rebuilding LA and making your state more resilient and prepared for the risk of wildfire, which absolutely impacts our communities along the East Bay hills, is a top priority.  

And how we are preparing our state for the impacts of the new administration.  Every day there's some new executive order or pronouncement or attempt to erode our institutions of democracy. We are very concerned about not just the impacts on our immigrant and refugee communities, our LGBTQ plus community, and other impacted communities, but also what may happen if there are cuts to critical programs like Medicare and other federal programs that provide critical funding for health and other human services in California.  I'm honored to chair the Senate Standing Committee on Human Services, and we're actually going to be having an information hearing in March that's focusing on food security, but looking specifically at the potential impacts of the new Trump administration on CalFresh, and our food security programs in California, which are really a lifeline for so many families.  So that will definitely be a focus - how we can support and augment those programs. 

I've introduced a bill, Senate Bill 81, which would expand the state's sanctuary policy to apply to hospitals and health facilities in California. So one, it would restrict the sharing of information, such as medical records to immigration officials. Two, it will restrict access to immigration officials if a patient is getting care, and it would limit ICE access and collaboration in hospitals and health facilities.   Day two of the Trump administration, the Homeland Security Department announced that they were rescinding  the long standing policy that ICE agents cannot arrest people at hospitals, schools and churches. So Senator Gonzales, my colleague in Long Beach, has a bill, Senate Bill 48, which I co-authored, that would also establish similar policies for our schools, and I am leading the charge to expand our sanctuary protections for healthcare, and would welcome your support of that effort.  It has an urgency clause.

I'm working with leadership to try to expedite a package of bills -  immigration related bills and bills to protect our LGBTQ plus community - to try to get those things through the legislature faster. Because normally the timeline is these things don't get out until July at the earliest, if not the end of session, and there's urgency for us to take action to strengthen these protections and close any loopholes in existing state law. 

There are various other issues we must address in terms of data security and privacy. I’m very mindful of the need for us to strengthen protections, increase resources, proud that the Senate was the first house to take action on the $50 million that the state appropriated for DOJ to sue the Trump administration when they take illegal actions, and to also provide $25 million in direct legal assistance to fund lawyers and nonprofit organizations that are doing counseling and legal representation of people that are facing deportation or whose rights are being threatened by the actions of the federal government.  We know that that's just the beginning of the investment that we have to make to increase that investment, because it's going to be critical in the coming months. 

So our priorities are addressing the rebuilding of LA and making our state more wildfire safe, how we respond and protect our state and our values in light of the actions of the Trump administration, and addressing affordability and cost of living. I think those are the three areas that we're focusing on and I'm focusing on.

Personal Legislative Priorities

Jesse Arreguin: My personal priorities are the priorities the voters of District seven told me,- which are to continue our efforts to build more housing, including affordable housing. We need to address the humanitarian crisis of homelessness. 

We need to make our community safer. And so I'm proud to serve on not just the Senate housing committee, but to chair the Senate Standing Committee on Public Safety, where I'm hoping to lead efforts to not just increase our investment in programs to hire our community police officers and invest in violence prevention programs. We have great models in the East Bay - Richmond’s Gun Violence Intervention Program, Oakland’s Ceasefire program.  We should provide state funding to support those types of initiatives statewide, because they have an impact in reducing gun violence and getting guns off the street, and improving safety outcomes.  

Another issue which hasn't gotten a lot of discussion in recent years is the impending closure of Alta Bates hospital, and the impact that's going to have on emergency and health care access in the East Bay.  When I came into the mayor's office in 2016, I launched a  regional task force trying to work with Sutter Health to get them to commit to keep Alta Bates open and make the investment to make the hospital seismically safe. They have not changed their position that they intend to close Alta Bates in Berkeley. We know, based on studies, the ripple effect that will have on safety and health care access in the broader East Bay. My entire senate district, going from as far as Hercules, all the way down to Oakland and West County in particular, which has been impacted by the closure of Doctors Hospital. There's only one hospital, which is Kaiser. They're not prepared to absorb a significant increase in patients that may happen if Alta Bates closes.

So we will be reconvening that regional initiative to bring leaders. Supervisor Gioia has been a great partner in this effort, but also mayors and public health officials and the EMS departments of both Alameda and Contra Costa County to look at various options for what we can do to fill the gap if Sutter moves ahead with their plan to close the hospital. Ultimately we need another operator, we need another hospital. We need more than one hospital. So I think that's a conversation we want to have, and how the state through funding, through legislation, can help support that effort. That's a critical priority of mine, because it's going to leave so many of us in the East Bay stranded. And it's unacceptable. 

COVID and the fires in LA show very clearly why we need a full service hospital. And so, you know, I was very clear when I ran for the Senate that this is a top priority. We will be introducing legislation around this area, and look forward to working with you and working with leaders in the East Bay on this critical issue. 

Similarly, we are relaunching something called the East Bay Public Safety Partnership, which actually started in the mid 90s, led by my former predecessor as Mayor of Berkeley, Tom Bates, when he was a State Assemblyman, to bring cities along the I-80 corridor and law enforcement together with city and community based partners who do work in the public safety realm to talk about our public safety challenges and look at how we can coordinate policies, state investments, looking not just around crime prevention, but also looking at some of the deeper investments in jobs and violence prevention strategies and things that we know will actually help address the root cause of crime. So my office will be relaunching that effort. We're going to bring all the mayors of the cities along the I-80 corridor, federal and state officials together to look at how we can work together as a region to address the public safety challenges. This crime also doesn't doesn't know any borders, just like fire doesn't honor any borders, and we have to work together as a region to address these issues.

Wildfire Prevention

Anna Mathai: So what actions or positions can the state senate support to encourage wildfire prevention efforts especially in Alameda and Contra Costa counties?

Jesse Arreguin: Significant efforts. I'm proud as the mayor of Berkeley, working with our fire department,  we took a number of critical steps, and Cynthia certainly knows about this because of her work with the Fire Safe council - the organization she's involved in, which is phenomenal work, you know, volunteer led efforts to clear eucalyptus and other hazardous vegetation and doing a lot of education organizing in her neighborhood. Our fire department has been at the forefront in the region on looking at strategies to mitigate wildfire risk. I worked with our firefighters to pass Measure FF in 2020, which is a parcel tax that provides $8-10 million/year for emergency efforts and for fire prevention. We launched a wildland urban interface unit. We work to strengthen codes to require home hardening. We've launched programs for increased inspections to assist people with vegetation management. Berkeley is doing even more steps through other legislative actions.

I worked with a regional partnership to create the East Bay wildfire, JPA, that's bringing cities and counties together to talk about how we can coordinate codes, how we can do joint vegetation management projects. So I've been talking to my colleagues from Los Angeles about how we can increase funding for vegetation management and make sure that that doesn't just go to the rural areas, but that we have a specific commitment of money for for the urban wildfire and wildfire wildland urban interface projects, because as the fires in LA have shown, these things just don't happen in Northern California, in Napa. They can happen in an urban context, and are even more catastrophic in an urban context. And with just the climate emergency and all the insane weather conditions that we're dealing with, we're all at risk, especially those of us along the East Bay hills. 

In 1923 there was a fire that started at Grizzly Peak at Tilden and went all the way down to Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. It destroyed nearly half of North Berkeley. And we saw the embers and how they sparked and how they spread in LA. There's incredible risk for that to happen in a very highly dense environment. So we need more grants to help do vegetation management. We need to incentivize hardening requirements. 

The governor introduced an executive order, I think it was a week or two ago that's a great starting point. We need to establish permanent standards for hardening and ensure that people can get insured if they take preventive steps to mitigate the risk to their homes and to other homes. And it's something I've talked to the insurance companies about. In addition, there's a bill, I think it's 81 by Assembly Member Connolly, that specifically is focused on that - if we establish certain hardening requirements, can we require insurance companies to underwrite policies? There's other things that we can do: not just hardening, not just vegetation management, making sure we have insurance. 

The Senate democrats announced a bipartisan bill that's focused on increasing the number of Cal fire personnel - these seasonal personnel, to make them year round, so that we have more resources to be able to respond to wildfire risk. But in the East Bay context, the urban context, it's really about how we're working together to manage vegetation, to clear hazardous fuels, to harden homes, and I do think we have to have a conversation as a state about where we build.  

In some places, it doesn't make sense to put homes and significantly increased density in places that we know might burn to the ground. And I'm a very strong housing advocate, I believe very strongly we need to build more housing, but I do not want to put people in harm's way. And so we will be having that conversation as a legislature around where is it appropriate to build homes? And  I know Berkeley is having that conversation right now with regard to our evacuation study and looking at zoning. I think what we saw in LA really changes the conversation. So there's a lot of stuff we can do, and my role as a state legislator is to get the money and to work with our local leaders to help move laws forward that can help support these efforts on the ground.  I am  in touch with fire chiefs, with city and county officials about this, and definitely this is going to be one of the priorities that the legislatures focus on this year.

Public Financing for Elections

Madeline Kronenberg: My question is to ask you to share your position on public financing for elections.

Jesse Arreguin: I strongly support public financing at all levels. I helped advocate for the passage of Berkeley's public financing system, and I'm just looking this up now.  My colleague, Senator Umberg has a bill, Senate Bill 42, the California Fair Elections Act of 2026, which would be a constitutional amendment to allow for public financing of state elections, which I strongly support.

Youth Voting and Civic Engagement

Cynthia Chen: Berkeley passed the vote for 16 and 17 year olds to vote  in school board elections, followed by Oakland and now Albany has passed a vote 16 for city council as well. So can you share your views on youth voting? I just got an email from Maine yesterday. They're looking for a contact with the Albany folks who ran the campaign, because they're trying to do that over in Maine as well.

Jesse Arreguin: I was a co-sponsor of the original item to put the measure on the ballot in 2016 working with the youth and government coalition at Berkeley High School. It  was a youth led movement in Berkeley, which was really inspiring and awesome. And then we passed that in 2016 and it took forever to get it implemented. God bless all of you working to get Alameda County to finally implement it. It was obviously the first time we did it, because it takes some time to educate young people about this right that they have. I strongly support expanding voting rights to all elections, personally. And there was a bill that assembly member Thurmond had, now superintendent Public Instruction Thurmond had, when he was in the assembly, that would have allowed Statewide Youth voting for school board elections, which I strongly support. It's great that cities in the East Bay are taking the initiative to do it, and I think it's great that we're doing this because we can show that this actually can work. 

We can actually build momentum for a state constitutional amendment or state law to allow local governments to take this step. The impact this will have on educating and engaging young people in our democracy is profound. I wasn't aware that Albany is doing it for the City Council election. That's interesting. I would argue Berkeley should look at that as well, just like we should expand voting for people without legal status, which is what San Francisco and other cities have done as well.

Fire Insurance Issues

Anna Mathai: Since a number of homeowner insurance policies are not being renewed, I think you referenced a bill, maybe around home hardening, that would help. Could you speak to possible state measures to help with renewal of homeowner policies? 

Jesse Arreguin: Some of this is regulatory. I frankly think that the legislature should have taken action sooner. But the insurance commissioner introduced the sustainable insurance plan last year, which takes a number of steps to help institute reforms to the market. These are things that the insurance companies have been asking for for quite some time, allowing for new risk modeling models, to be able to factor in climate risk as they're looking at  how to underwrite policies. Trying to streamline the rate approval process is one aspect of it as well. And we have heard since then that some of these pre-LA companies are now coming back to California to underwrite policies. It's going to take some time for these measures to have full effect. Part of what will change the insurance market is, one, having a sufficient risk pool, and two, taking preventative steps to ensure that people's homes are fire safe.  Certain codes didn't change - and so we have homes that are not conforming to the new fire safe codes. So that's a critical part of it. Part of it's going to be, if people take these steps, then have the insurance come and commit that they're going to underwrite policies. There's a variety of things that are underway. 

The FAIR Plan, as we know, is not a state plan. It's a vehicle that the insurance companies underwrite. We need to be able to back up the FAIR Plan. Because there's a very serious concern that once all these claims are paid out, it's going to be hard for people to get insured under the Fair plan. So speaker Revis has a bill that  he announced that would provide funding through one of the state banks, basically to help backfill the FAIR Plan. We're still exploring, we're still talking to industry, we're talking to other stakeholders. We're getting ideas. But we have to do more. Certainly, I'm working with Buffy Wicks on this as well. The good thing is both the Senate and the Assembly are really stepping forward in the wake of LA to present a package of legislation that's not just focused on how we deal with the immediate aftermath, but how we're taking steps to address some of the systemic issues, like safety, insurance, making sure that we provide consumer protections. There's been all sorts of things that have happened, including price gouging, rent gouging, all that stuff, so that's definitely all part of what we're working on.

Access to Information on Pending Legislation

Madeline Kronenberg: I think you have so many important bills that we need to be able to follow. Is there a place that we should go, Senator, on your website, or anywhere in particular that you could just send us to that will let us know what you're working on.

Jesse Arreguin:  SB81 has already been introduced. I'm confident that we'll get that bill passed, because we have the support of leadership, healthcare, industry and labor. In the last month I've had a lot of conversations with stakeholders to try to build consensus around this. To their credit, the hospitals and the HMOs are just as concerned as we are about people not getting care because of the threats of Trump's mass deportation agenda. I'm very grateful that they've stepped up and that they're willing to work in partnership with us on this. So we are certainly happy to, one, provide information on this Senate wildfire package, and two, provide a list of our bills. If you have any questions, we're also happy to connect you to information.

Madeline Kronenberg: I am very, very concerned about the Alta Bates situation.  And I think that it's an easy one to put on the back burner when there are so many other things happening, but it's an absolute disaster that's coming. So the more we can see where the work is, people could come in and support that. 

Jesse Arreguin:   I would love to.  As we're sort of bringing this regional kind of task force together, reaching out to you, to engage you in that effort, because it's important. But I'll just say, I was sworn into office on December 2. It's now February 14. It has been drinking from a fire hose, but we are fully staffed, and we have been hitting the ground running. I serve on seven standing committees. I chair two standing committees. It's the first time any new members ever chaired two standing committees. I chair public safety and Human Services, and I see those two related.  Because, yes, we have to deal with the issues of crime and public safety in our neighborhoods. But at the core of it, it's a fact that we have such gross income inequality in our state. We don't have a strong safety net. We don't have active, universal access to jobs. Our schools are underfunded. There are so many systemic inequities that drive some of the public safety outcomes that we're seeing in our cities. And I see these things as a continuum. 

I serve on Senate housing,  transportation, business, professions, economic development and local governments. So most of what impacts our district is going to come through those various committees, and we are already working hard, not just on legislation, but to advocate for budget investments, to support some of the things that are important to our district. Please reach out anytime I'm here to be an advocate and a resource, and I really am grateful for what you do. I hope that we can have these check-in conversations as I go through the next four years. I'm happy to be there. We haven't gone through the grueling committee schedule yet.  Maybe check in with me in a few months and see how I feel then. But we're super excited. We're working hard. We really appreciate any support and partnership you can provide to support the initiatives that we're engaged in.

Anna Crane: Thank you very much for your time. We really look forward to continuing to work with you throughout your term in combating the problems that California faces. Thank you for making time for us.