Daily Business Report: Thursday, November 13, 2025
Proposition 36 Hits County Budget Hard
By Lisa Halverstadt | Voice of San Diego
San Diego County is spending tens of millions of dollars implementing a statewide voter-approved crackdown on repeat drug and theft offenders as it faces drastic federal cuts expected to rock the county’s budget.
County officials predicted before Proposition 36 passed that they’d see at least a $58 million spike in annual criminal-justice system costs alone. They now say that projection has borne out since the measure took effect in December.
For now, lacking state cash for implementation, county departments have absorbed costs in their existing budgets. It’s unclear how they’ll tackle them going forward – and how steady new costs will be over the long haul.
Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff indicted on public corruption charges
By Maya C. Miller | CalMatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, and four co-conspirators were indicted Wednesday on 23 counts of bank and wire fraud, allegedly committed from 2022 to 2024, during her time working for the governor.
The indictment, first reported by the Sacramento Bee, alleges that Williamson, a longtime Democratic strategist, worked with Greg Campbell, a prominent Sacramento lobbyist, and Sean McCluskie, the former chief of staff to former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, as well as two other unnamed co-conspirators to steal $225,000 from an unnamed former official’s dormant campaign account for McCluskie’s personal use.
“Collectively, they funneled the money through various business entities and disguised it as pay for what was, in reality, a no-show job,” FBI Sacramento Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said in a news release.
Turning Point tour ends with fights and arrests at UC Berkeley. Our student reporters were there
By Ella Carter-Klauschie and Chrissa Olson | CalMatters
A few hundred feet apart, yet worlds away politically, furious students at UC Berkeley protested the final stop of the conservative organization Turning Point USA’s “American Comeback Tour,” hosted Monday night on what is known as the nation’s most liberal campus.
The event drew many older attendees who at various moments danced to “YMCA,” laughed, and held moments of silence for the late TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk.
Outside the event, students, most of them far younger than the attendees inside, faced off with police in riot gear, with physical fights prompting arrests. One man was taken to a hospital after being struck in the head.
