CalMatters30%
Will CA empower ‘the little guy’ to sue the world’s biggest companies? 14%
By Lynn La24%
7/15/2026, 1:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Pessimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 26.4% saturation with 231 hits. Analysis detected 1,374 faulty-reasoning hits from 876 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 30.5% and a BS Rank of 14% (18,256 of 21,164 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 86.30% of the article peer group.
The California Legislature is considering a bill that would make it easier for people to sue companies over alleged anti-competitive practices.
But support for it is split among Democratic lawmakers who fear that the proposal would go too far in hurting businesses.
As CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow explains, the bill would allow people and businesses to sue another company in state court if they believe they’re being harmed by a company’s attempts to stifle competition.
Smaller companies that have 100 employees or fewer and average $10 million or more in gross annual receipts over the previous three years are exempt.
The proposal would expand and strengthen California’s antitrust law, which proponents say is needed because the federal government is taking a backseat to antitrust enforcement.
More than three-quarters of U.S. industries have experienced consolidation since the late 1990s, according to Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, the bill’s author.
Aguiar-Curry , a Davis Democrat, at a June hearing: “When companies gain that much power and abuse it, that means higher prices, less choice, fewer opportunities for job creators to start small businesses and suppressed wages for working families.”
But business groups say the measure would increase companies’ legal risks and open up a new way for predatory law firms to shake down companies.
Several moderate Democrats have raised concerns that it could make it harder to do business in California.
State Sen.
Tom Umberg , a Santa Ana Democrat: “We want to make sure that we are not stifling competition by virtue of the threat of lawsuits.”
Umberg, along with another Democrat, abstained from voting on the proposal in June when it was considered in the Senate’s judiciary committee.
They joined 16 other Democratic assemblymembers who did not vote to pass it during an earlier floor vote in May.
The bill is now before the Senate’s appropriations committee.
What’s next for the SAT at UC?
With a growing number of professors calling for the University of California to reinstate the SAT for undergraduate admissions, the UC system is reaffirming its intention to evaluate the role of the standardized test , writes CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn.
Two key UC officials said a new evaluation is still on the table, and that the original timeline was merely revised.
They contradicted news reports from earlier in the week that suggested it would be scrapped.
Only the board of regents can unilaterally reinstate the SAT to undergraduate admissions.
Critics of the test argue that it is unfair to low-income students, and in 2020, regents removed the SAT from the admissions process.
But some faculty members want it back, saying that it provides “ a critical baseline ” and “a common external check” for incoming students, particularly those who plan to major in science, technology, engineering and math.
High court reviews undercover stings
The California Supreme Court is prepared to hear multiple cases challenging convictions involving undercover agents in jails.
Critics of these stings, known as Perkins operations, say this law enforcement tactic is coercive and disproportionately targets Black and Latino people.
To learn more about Perkins operations, read the full investigation by CalMatters’ Cayla Mihalovich.
But if you’re in a hurry, we have a runthrough of the story’s biggest takeaways , which include:
How Perkins operations work: These stings typically involve agents who are older and physically larger than their targets.
In some cases, as many as five were placed in a jail cell with one person.
Agents frequently present themselves as experienced gang members, and ploys centered around false evidence are used to “stimulate” conversation between agents and their targets.
The racial disparities that arise: Among the cases the state’s high court is reviewing, four defendants are Hispanic, four are Black and two are white.
In an analysis of hundreds of murder cases between 2015 and 2023, including 145 Perkins targets, Black defendants were more than four times as likely to be targeted in a Perkins operation than white defendants.
Without dedicated funding , the state’s unprecedented effort to reduce severe wildfire hazard will not occur at the scale California needs to protect its residents, forests and water supply, write Bradley Franklin and Kyle Greenspan , a research fellow and associate with the PPIC Water Policy Center, respectively.
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Speakers
15speakers37%attributed speech556writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageCecilia Aguiar-Curry
60 attributed words19% of attributed speech79% writer coverage
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Analysis
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