Essential California PRESENTED BY GUNDRY MD*   January 14, 2021 Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, Jan. 14, and I’m writing from Los Angeles. On Wednesday, Donald Trump became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. A bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives voted 232 to 197 to charge him with inciting insurrection by his supporters, who stormed the Capitol to block ratification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. [Read the story: “House impeaches Trump for the second time, focus shifts to Senate trial” in the Los Angeles Times] The siege, which left five dead, was the most violent assault on the U.S. Capitol since the British burned it in the War of 1812. The blazingly fast impeachment effort began exactly one week before the vote, as violent Trump supporters besieged the House and Senate floors. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) was still sheltering from the chaos in a Capitol office when he fired off a text message to every Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The committee “should start drafting articles of impeachment now, regardless of what leadership says,” he wrote in the 3:09 p.m. message. As my D.C. colleagues Jennifer Haberkorn and Sarah D. Wire report, Lieu didn’t need to worry about leadership opposing his effort. Along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Lieu is one of several Californians who played a key role in the impeachment. East Bay Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell will join Lieu as one of the nine House impeachment managers. And Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), who was sworn in Tuesday, made headlines as the only California Republican to vote in favor of impeachment. Valadao was one of 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump. “Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump,” Valadao said. The Central Valley representative was ousted from Congress by Democratic challenger T.J. Cox in a close 2018 race, but he won back his seat by a narrow margin last November. The charge against Trump now goes to the Senate, where a trial will not be held until after Trump leaves office on Jan. 20. A post-presidency conviction would be too late to cut short his term in office, but it could be followed by a vote on a measure to bar Trump from running again for president. And now, here’s what’s happening across California: Californians 65 and older are now technically eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine. The Newsom administration announced a major expansion of California’s guidelines Wednesday, broadening the priority list. But the sudden addition of roughly 6 million people to an already strained distribution network could still leave many waiting weeks for inoculations. Distribution will still be handled on the local level, with individual counties deciding whether they are currently able to offer the vaccine to seniors. In Los Angeles, public health officials said people 65 and older won’t have access to the vaccine until the county finishes vaccinating front-line workers. The county plans to vaccinate 500,000 more healthcare workers by the end of January, but currently does not have enough doses to meet that goal. Los Angeles Times [See also: “How do I get my coronavirus vaccine if I’m 65 and older? Here is what we know” in the Los Angeles Times] How California’s budget depends on a staggering wealth gap: If approved by lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $227-billion state spending plan would spend an unprecedented amount to fend off poverty, eviction and K-12 education loss for California’s most vulnerable residents. Those safety net programs would be funded, in part, by unparalleled tax revenues from the soaring income growth and stock market gains that the richest Californians enjoyed this year.