DRIVING THE DAY — Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested fellow Democrats were in the wrong allowing transgender women and girls to participate on sports teams matching their gender identity. “I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said in his debut podcast episode of “This is Gavin Newsom.” “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.” Newsom’s comments came in a conversation with influential MAGA-world figure Charlie Kirk, the campus culture warrior who leads the organization Turning Point USA and is a close ally of President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr. The governor also agreed that the most politically destructive attack ads from Trump’s campaign ad featured Kamala Harris' support for providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners. Our colleague Chris Cadelago has more. THE BUZZ: LOCK ‘EM UP — A mayor in the heart of Silicon Valley challenged his party’s progressive orthodoxy on crime and punishment, becoming the face of a runaway fall campaign to boost statewide penalties on shoplifters and drug dealers. Now, San Jose’s headline-grabbing executive is out with a new plan: arresting homeless residents who refuse shelter. Mayor Matt Mahan told Playbook his proposal would penalize anyone who declines three offers of shelter within a 12- to 18-month period. His goal is to send them to behavioral health courts. “We should not allow homelessness to be a choice,” he told Playbook. The plan is part of a rightward shift on crime and homelessness since the pandemic, and comes after the Supreme Court gave cities wider latitude to clear encampments. Californians have grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress on their streets, opening even wider avenues for elected officials to take stronger action. Mahan, part of a new generation of California Democratic leaders, acknowledged violators could serve brief stints in jail, but he argued consequences are needed to force into treatment or shelter people suffering from mental health afflictions and addicted to drugs. The bold and inevitably controversial approach from the second-term mayor who campaigned on ending what he described as a “crisis of homelessness, crime and dirty streets,” will need to be approved by San Jose’s city council. Progressive advocates have already railed against Mahan’s moves to bus homeless residents out of the city, accusing him of trying to pass the buck. City officials report that nearly a third of homeless people offered space at some of their 1,000 shelter beds declined admission. Shelters are upwards of 90 percent full now, but that could change as San Jose is expected to double its capacity in the next year. “We would arrest someone and take them to the county to get them into a behavioral health court with the recognition that we don't have additional tools at our disposal to help that person,” Mahan said. Mahan — who bucked Gov. Gavin Newsom to become a prominent backer of last fall’s tough-on-crime Proposition 36 — said camping bans that have been instituted in nearby Fremont and San Mateo County fail to account for scenarios where there isn’t enough shelter space to house people living on the streets. Such rules are also under legal threat. The progressive California Homeless Union sued Fremont over its policy on Wednesday — adding pressure from the left against heavier-handed homelessness actions. But Mahan argues there’s no excuse for rejecting shelter in San Jose, where there are new city facilities designed to accommodate multi-generation families that also allow pets and don’t impose sobriety requirements. And he has little patience for the status quo. In Santa Clara County, more than 200 people a year die on the street, often from drug overdoses and exposure to the elements. “To those who … think that what I'm proposing is cruel,” he said, “I want to just remind everyone we're leaving thousands of people in our state to live and die on our streets every year.” GOOD MORNING. Happy Thursday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. You can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts. Or drop us a line at dgardiner@politico.com and bjones@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @jonesblakej. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
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