Sara Rubin here, thinking about geography and how we define a region. Layers of lines reflect places, but those lines don’t always capture real life. There are cities and counties, but so much of lived experience is more porous; for example, the Pajaro Valley spans both Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, with community life taking place in both. Monterey County was once represented wholly in one congressional district, then a 2020 redistricting update sliced it roughly down the middle.
The point is that so many jurisdictional lines don’t actually signify a community. After Dawn Addis, a Democrat from the small Central Coast city of Morro Bay, was first elected to the State Assembly in 2022, she led the creation of the Central Coast Legislative Caucus, a group of 11 elected officials from five counties (Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura) striving to reflect an actual region.
“The biggest reason to get us all together in a more formalized relationship was so we can advocate—particularly in the budget, but also with policy—to uplift the Central Coast and all it gives to California,” Addis says.
The smaller-population cities and large rural swaths historically lacked a meaningful presence on the stage of Sacramento, where Northern California and Southern California tend to dominate the sense of regional presence. Along with Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, becoming Speaker of the Assembly in 2023, and State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, being appointed as Senate Budget Committee chair this year, the region’s political impact is finally catching up to its size.
I spoke to Addis about this year’s priorities for the Central Coast Caucus, and they are as varied as the people who live here. The policy package includes 10 bills now in various stages of the legislative process, all reasonably likely to become law.
Addis has authored two of those. AB 1744 would make it illegal to label sunscreen as “reef safe” or any equivalent phrasing unless it is free of chemical ultraviolet filters; the idea came to her from a group of Sacramento high school students who like to visit Central Coast beaches. Addis’ AB 2254 would require certain cities, Pacific Grove among them, to adopt monarch butterfly overwintering site protection policies, important for this struggling species.
Other environmentally focused legislation includes SB 575 to reestablish a voluntary sea otter fund to allow taxpayers to select to contribute on their tax returns, and AB 2461, which would require bonding and financial assurance when a company acquires an oil well. AB 1668 from Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, extends a tax exemption for certain open spaces and habitat preservation areas through 2032.
Some bills focus more on the intersection of environment and our human communities. State Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, has authored a bill that would require the Department of Water Resources to research, develop and implement tools for atmospheric river forecasting.
Laird’s SB 963 updates and clarifies the California Coastal Commission's appeals process with a goal of speeding up decisions about controversial proposals in the state’s Coastal Zone. Assemblymember Steve Bennett, D-Oxnard, introduced a bill that would create a home hardening certification process toward the goal of wildfire preparedness.
It’s a varied list, but the guiding principle is to protect the region’s unique resources, elevating the Central Coast’s profile in the Capitol.