Scheduling note: The newsletter is off for the Memorial Day weekend and will return to your inboxes on Tuesday.

Just in time to go home for Memorial Day weekend, legislators bulldozed their way through a bunch of bills at the end of this week to beat the even bigger deluge next week, when there’s a Friday deadline to pass remaining bills through the house where they were introduced.

Some of the bills that passed include:

• Concealed carry: When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York state law in 2022, it resulted in the loosening of concealed carry permit requirements. To limit the proliferation of concealed guns, this bill approved by the Senate Thursday would add more gun training requirements and add more public places to the list where Californians cannot carry their concealed weapons.

• Legislative union: The Assembly bill that would give legislative staffers the right to unionize passed off the floor Thursday. It has been amended to ensure that political affiliation will not influence the makeup of bargaining units. Though previous efforts failed, the bill’s author, Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, a Democrat from Inglewood, told CalMatters that this year, “the political will is here.”

• Fossil fuel divestment: Democratic Sen. Lena Gonzalez of Long Beach wants to wind down investments in fossil fuel companies from the pension funds for state employees and teachers. Opponents argue that the bill would reduce investment diversification and returns. And according...

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