SAVE THE DATE -- Join POLITICO at the Elks Tower in Sacramento on Tuesday, March 19, for a conversation exploring the challenges of prescription drug affordability with CAITLIN BERRY, of pharmacy benefit management company Prime Therapeutics; ROBIN FELDMAN, UC Law San Francisco professor; ANTHONY WRIGHT, executive director of Health Access California; and state Sen. SCOTT WIENER. How might officials find savings in the drug supply chain ecosystem? Doors open at 8:30 a.m. RSVP for Corrective Action: How to Address Prescription Drug Cost here.
OUT ON A LIMB: State. Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil is in her first term and the Democrat from Jackson keeps finding ways to break with her party.
Alvarado-Gil — who voted with Republicans last year against gun legislation and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to cap oil industry profits — is now bucking her colleagues on homelessness. She is one of three Democrats to sign on as a co-author of a bill authored by Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones to restrict homeless encampments across the state. The other two are state Sens. Catherine Blakespear from Encinitas and Bill Dodd from Napa. California Democrats, including Newsom, have been increasingly aggressive in trying to address homelessness, and that has included clearing encampments. Few so far, however, have signed on yet to Jones’ Senate Bill 1011. A similar effort by Jones last year had a Democratic co-author but died in committee with no one in the majority party voting for it. Alvarado-Gil says she’s OK being with the Republicans if necessary. “There’s always going to be pressure to go with the status quo or follow the leader,” she said. “I’ve failed at that test throughout my whole life.” The legislation, modeled after San Diego’s “unsafe camping” ordinance, would ban encampments near schools, open spaces and major transit stops if there is available shelter space. The city’s policy, adopted last June, came in response to deep frustration over the proliferation of tents. Opponents of such measures view it as criminalizing homelessness and treating a symptom of the problem instead of the cause. The results in California’s second-largest city so far are mixed. The number of people camping on downtown streets has dropped to the lowest in two years but there are more encampments along the San Diego River. Still, state lawmakers such as Alvarado-Gil, whose district includes Modesto, believe it’s worth trying statewide. Cities and the state have struggled to clear encampments amid an extreme shortage of affordable housing and legal constraints. The latter issue could get some clarity in June, when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on an anti-camping ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon. Homelessness, one of the top issues for most Californians, may not be as glaring in Modesto — but it is still a problem, with more than 1,600 people unsheltered in the city last year. Alvarado-Gil said she did not get into government because of the homelessness crisis, but as chair of the Senate’s Human Services committee, the issue is within her purview. She recently invited POLITICO along on a day-long tour of shelters and encampments around Modesto. Standing in Enslen Park after eating lunch with about a dozen homeless people, Alvarado-Gil gestured at kids on a nearby playground and said a majority of her constituents would not want to bring their children to the park if it was dotted with tents. “That's not what they want to have to explain to their young kids, or have to experience on the way to take their kids to school,” she said. Alvarado-Gil has practical reasons to cross party lines. Her district is one of the more conservative in the state, and she is the first Democrat to represent it in the state Senate in three decades. She won after six Republicans diluted the vote in the primary and allowed two Democrats to advance to the general election in 2022. Some of the people she met on her tour expressed wariness of encampment bans like the one she supports. Daniel Lempenau, a retired software engineer known affectionately as “Pastor Dan” who has organized lunches at the park for 15 years, called such policies inhumane. “They don't have any real place to be … and so they run from one place to another,” he said. Emily Webster, youth navigation center director for the Modesto-based Center for Human Services, said bans are only a short-term solution at best. “Moving people without the services is just moving a problem around,” she said. Alvarado-Gil said she is studying the issue, considering proposals going off the framework of Jones’ bill to adapt to more rural areas like her district. “Let me just make clear: This bill will not solve homelessness,” Alvarado-Gil said. “But it is a solution and part of the larger scope.” The bill is expected to be heard in the Senate public safety committee on April 16. IT’S THURSDAY AFTERNOON. This is California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check on California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to ehe@politico.com or send a shout on X. DMs are open. | 
