Pelosi
plans to pressure GOP on immigration [San Francisco Chronicle]
…An
aide familiar with the strategy told The Chronicle that Pelosi, D-San
Francisco, plans to introduce a bipartisan bill nearly identical to the one
that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in May, with the support of key
Republicans led by Florida's Marco Rubio. That legislation includes a path to
citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million immigrants who entered the
country without authorization. The bill is intended to "put increased
pressure on Republicans who were vocally supportive of comprehensive
immigration reform in August," the aide said. That list includes a handful
of California Republicans from districts with large Latino populations,
including David Valadao, a freshman Republican from Hanford (Kings County),
Devin Nunes of Tulare and Jeff Denham of Turlock (Stanislaus County).
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Immigration
reform appears stalled [Salinas Californian]
While
strawberry fields in the Salinas Valley are being plowed under because there
are not enough skilled laborers to harvest the crops, a comprehensive
immigration reform bill has been stalled by the GOP-controlled House. “This is
a real and serious problem,” said Jim Bogart, the president and chief counsel
of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. Bogart made his
remarks Tuesday during a Rotary Club meeting in Salinas. Growers up and down
the valley are reporting labor shortages, in some places as much as 50 percent
of the labor needed, Bogart said. Strawberry growers have told The Californian
that fields are having to be “mowed” under because there are not enough farm
workers to harvest the crop.
California
has most undocumented people [Gannett Newspapers]
California’s
1990s-era recession is responsible for a contemporary demographic trend — the
state is no longer the top destination for undocumented immigrants, according
to the co-author of a report released Monday. California still has the nation’s
highest number of unauthorized immigrants who snuck across the border or
remained in the U.S. after their visas expired, according to the Pew Research
Center study. The nonpartisan group’s analysis of Census Bureau data and U.S.
immigration statistics showed that the nation’s undocumented immigrant
population — an estimated 11.7 million last year — may be rising after falling
during the recent recession, which lasted from December 2007-June 2009, and
whose effects are lingering to this day.
Time
short, House says it seeks a new farm bill [New York Times]
House
leaders on Tuesday said they were working with their Senate counterparts toward
a new five-year farm bill, just days after the House pushed through a bill that
would slash billions of dollars from the food stamp program. But with only a
few days left before the current farm bill expires at the end of the fiscal
year, and with a fight over the debt ceiling looming, few lawmakers see any
chance of getting a new farm bill done. “I’m an eternal optimist, but I can’t
see them getting anything done before the fiscal year ends,” said Dale Moore,
the executive director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau
Federation. “Right now we’re just hoping that something will get done before
the end of the year.”
Psyllid
found in Exeter orange grove [Visalia Times-Delta]
The
Asian Citrus Psyllid has made its way to the heart of Tulare County’s citrus
belt….This week a single psyllid was found in a trap in a commercial grove in
Exeter. The bug marks the third find of the pest since July. The discovery will
mean another 5-mile quarantine will be set up in the county. This latest one
will be directly in between the Porterville and Dinuba quarantine sites. This
is also the second psyllid find in a commercial orange grove, as opposed to a
backyard tree. “It only takes one to trigger a quarantine,” said Tulare
County’s ag commissioner Marilyn Kinoshita.
http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/article/20130925/NEWS01/309250016/Psyllid-found-Exeter-orange-grove
Editorial: State minimum wage
hike overdue [San Jose Mercury News]
California's
Legislature did the right thing in passing a bill to raise the state's
$8-per-hour minimum wage to $9 next July and $10 by January 2016. Gov. Jerry
Brown, fortunately, plans to sign it. San Jose voters last fall approved a
labor-backed ballot measure lifting the minimum wage here to $10 effective just
two months later, with automatic increases for inflation. We thought the
instant 25 percent increase in a city already fighting a bad-for-business
reputation was not a good idea. Now Santa Clara County farmers are worried that
a proposed county minimum-wage increase would put them at a severe disadvantage
with competitors in other counties, given the razor-thin profit margins small
growers survive on. Mandates like this applied to relatively small areas can
have unintended consequences. But state and federal action is overdue, given
the minimum wage's plunge in terms of buying power: The federal minimum, now
$7.25, would need to be $10.59 to match its purchasing power in 1968. That's
one factor increasing the ranks of Americans in poverty and shrinking the
middle class that has powered our consumer economy.
Ag
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