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SACRAMENTO – As California’s elections become more dependent on mail-ballot voting, State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher introduced Assembly Bill 216 today to make it easier for voters to cast their ballot through the mail by paying the postage for returned mail ballots in statewide elections.

Since 2012, more than 50 percent of all ballots in the state have been cast through the U.S. mail, with more than 57 percent of the voters who participated in the recent November 2016 election having used a mail ballot to vote. Currently, one or more postage stamps are required by the U.S. Postal Service to have a voter’s ballot delivered to a county elections office to be counted.

As the N.B.A. starts a new season this week, the salary cap for players will climb to a record $70 million per team at the same time that a federal court considers charges that cheerleaders have been cheated out of fair pay.
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This fall, legal claims of wage theft in professional cheerleading have spread from the N.F.L. to the N.B.A., and basketball teams' treatment of female performers is under intense scrutiny.

The California Interscholastic Federation will add competitive cheer to its stable of sports beginning in the 2017-18 school year.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed into law Assembly Bill 949, which had been sponsored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego.

Gonzalez, a former Stanford cheerleader, said the law will mean better safety and coach training standards and potentially more resources for competitive cheer athletes. The law would not affect cheerleaders who root on football or basketball teams, better known as sideline cheer.