One of the hardest-fought political battles in 2024 occurred inside California’s Capitol between a bunch of grieving dad and mom who misplaced their youngsters to fentanyl and a handful of highly effective politicians who have been against rising felony penalties.
This year-long investigation, led by CBS News California investigative correspondent Julie Watts, combines gripping statehouse investigative reporting with groundbreaking AI-assisted data journalism from our partners at CalMatters, to offer an unprecedented take a look at how California’s one-party supermajority legislature systematically avoids transparency and accountability by killing controversial laws with out voting on the report.
They fought for fentanyl laws, however it was killed earlier than lawmakers even received to vote. Four grieving mothers needed to know why.
We start with their uncovering of the reality using a new AI tool designed to assist on a regular basis Californians maintain lawmakers accountable.
In 2024, CalMatters’ new Digital Democracy Database gave us the instruments to investigate lots of of 1000’s of votes and dozens of hours of legislative hearings in ways in which merely weren’t doable earlier than. However, it was Alexandra’s Law that gave us a case examine exposing California’s supermajority politics at its greatest, or worst, relying on who you ask.
If you ask Alexandra’s dad and mom, they will inform you lawmakers used their daughter as a political pawn.
While California lawmakers wouldn’t improve felony penalties for fentanyl, they did decriminalize fentanyl check strips, which have been thought-about drug paraphilia till 2022. Along with Narcan, state legislation now requires check strips on school campuses.
However, as fentanyl check strips are normalized, our testing discovered that check strips alone can present a false sense of safety. That is without doubt one of the many classes realized from the rising variety of fentanyl dying investigations… Lessons grieving dad and mom and legislation enforcement hope you will share.
contributed to this report.
