From CalMatters’ Capitol reporter Jeanne Kuang: 

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed a new law attempting to have California take over the role of the National Labor Relations Board if it is hobbled under President Donald Trump.

Under Assembly Bill 288, workers with pending cases before the board, including pending union elections, could ask the state to hear the case instead if:

• The National Labor Relations Act is overturned;
• The national board is blocked from acting by Trump or the courts; 
• The board’s regional offices take longer than six months to issue a decision; 
• Or cases appealed up to the national board take longer than a year to be resolved. 

The federal government’s National Labor Relations Board oversees private-sector workers’ rights to unionize and collectively bargain; California only has jurisdiction over labor disputes among public sector workers and farmworkers. 

The California Labor Federation sponsored the new law as an answer to Trump’s disputed firing of a board member early this year. Without that member, the board lacked a quorum and could not fully resolve disputes between unions and employers. Labor groups see the move as an attack on union rights. Several major corporations facing a unionizing workforce — including Amazon, Starbucks and SpaceX — have also argued in legal filings that the national board should be declared unconstitutional. 

• Newsom, in a statement: “With the federal government not only asleep at the wheel, but driving into incoming traffic, it is more important than ever that states stand up to protect workers and ensure they have a path to defend their right to organize and collectively bargain.”

The new law is likely to draw legal challenges from the Trump administration. In August the national board’s acting general counsel William Cowen released a statement saying such state laws would likely be considered unconstitutional because states cannot take on powers reserved for the federal government. Last month he sued New York state over a similar law.

In a striking victory for UCLA, the Trump administration has restored nearly all of the 500 National Institutes of Health grants it initially suspended from UCLA health science researchers in July, writes CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn.

A federal judge ordered the grants to be restored last week, and the U.S. Department of Justice submitted an update on the status of the grant restorations Monday. The judge’s order follows a similar order in August, which directed the federal National Science Foundation to restore 300 UCLA grants it had also suspended in July.

The Trump administration had frozen 800 science grants that totaled more than $500 million after accusing UCLA of not doing enough to combat antisemitism during last year’s pro-Palestine protests. The grants funded research related to life-saving drugs, dementia and various other projects across the country. 

Despite the victory, UCLA is still grappling with the administration’s bid to force the public university into a $1.2-billion settlement, which a group of UC faculty and staff are suing to stop.

Read more here.

The media frenzy surrounding the Menendez brothers’ recent parole hearings underscores how fame can be a double-edged sword when it comes to California’s justice system, writes CalMatters’ Joe Garcia.

Nearly 30 years ago, a jury convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez for the 1989 killing of their parents in Beverly Hills. The high-profile murders have brought intense media scrutiny to the court case, which came to a head in August, when the brothers were up for parole.

The brothers were ultimately denied parole, and have a possibility for a new hearing in 18 months. But in one way, they may have benefited from the attention: They were initially eligible for parole only because they were recently resentenced from life without parole through an arbitrary and subjective review process.

But if the brothers had been found suitable for parole, Newsom would also have had to decide whether to veto their release. Newsom has revoked grants of parole to other notorious offenders before, citing public safety risks, though one legal expert says the cases’ notoriety could also be a factor.

Read more here.

Last month, dozens of California fires followed a burst of dry lightning on Labor Day. CalMatters’ Rachel Becker and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on why researchers say this will likely happen more often in the state as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

And check out another video from CalMatters’ Ben Christopher and Robert about the various factors behind California’s sluggish housing market. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.

California Voices

CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: With former state Sen. Toni Atkins dropping out of California’s gubernatorial race, time is running out for other potential candidates to declare their intentions to run.

Newsom should sign a Senate bill that would take recalcitrant cities to task and prohibit them from chasing away critical, supportive services for unhoused people, writes Jed Leano, member of the Claremont City Council.