SF Bay View – January 17, 2020. About 500 people gathered in the Pauley Ballroom on the University of California-Berkeley’s campus for the second annual meeting of the California Progressive Alliance (CPA) on Jan. 12. Trinity Tran of the California Public Banking Alliance spoke to Diana Cabcabin:

“Public banking is an idea that we introduced into the California State Legislature in 2019. It took a considerable amount of work to build political capital behind this bill and move the public banking conversation into the political mainstream. We are not the first organization to pass a state public banking bill [AB 857], but what we accomplished was extraordinary.

“This was a high profile and controversial bill facing heavy opposition from nine big financial firms but, without any corporate funding, we coordinated strategy with activists and supporters from across the state and got it passed. We built an endorsement list of 200 statewide regional and community organizations, including national organizations like Our Revolution and national figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who backs this bill.”

Continue reading on SF Bay View.

The editorial staff gathered 19 of the year’s best ideas into their Solutions of the Year print magazine. Rounding out the top 19 solutions is the California Public Banking Alliance’s AB 857 Public Banking Act!

Oscar Perry Abello reports on California’s adoption of Assembly Bill 857, which creates a legal pathway for public banks owned by city and county governments. Proponents envision a network of public banks that will leverage local public deposits in support of policy priorities such as affordable housing, clean energy, small business lending and alternatives to payday loans. “Part of why our message resonated with so many … was because everyone understands intuitively that Wall Street is extractive, is predatory,” says Trinity Tran, the California Public Banking Alliance’s lead organizer on the bill. “Why are we using our tax dollars to harm communities when we could use it to help our communities?” 

This 80-page special issue highlights the programs, people, and projects that are making cities more equitable and sustainable. Continue reading at Next City.

NextCity, December 3, 2019: Watch guest presenters, Trinity Tran and Sushil Jacob of the California Public Banking Alliance, discuss how they organized citizens to help pass public banking legislation in California. This webinar is the second installment of our 2019 Solutions of the Year webinar series.

Continue on NextCity.

November 5, 2019. Glenn Daigon with Who.What.Why talks with Assemblymember David Chiu and the Alliance’s Trinity Tran. From successful legislating to overcoming the clout of big finance, California’s new public banking law is reverberating across the country.

For only the second time in 100 years, a people-powered coalition overcame the stiff opposition of the banking lobby to successfully pass a law that legalizes public banking. Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed a bill into law last month allowing California cities and towns to establish public banks.

Continue reading on Who.What.Why.

FAIR’s Janine Jackson interviews Trinity Tran on AB 857.

The October 2 Fresno Bee reported that California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law allowing cities in California to start their own public banks, to make it easier to fund projects in the public interest. Atypically for such a story, the Bee led with opponents’ argument that “such ventures are risky and impractical,” before offering supporters’ successful view, and a statement from the bill’s author, which the story then undercut with the reporter’s claim that “analyses” determined public banks “could reduce state tax revenue.” Followed by a statement from the California Bankers Association that public banks could “harm local banks,” put taxpayer dollars at risk, and “aren’t always in the best interest of the public.” Before closing with the words of the head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that the commercial banking industry already provides any services public banks could, and “government tends to mess up most of the things it touches.”

While that story was almost humorously negative, don’t expect a lot of corporate media love for public banks, precisely to the extent that they represent, as David Dayen wrote recently, “a radical shift in understanding money, what it represents, and how it can work collectively.” Of course, that’s exactly why the idea, and this historic step, is so exciting. Joining us now to talk about what just happened in California is Trinity Tran. She’s the co-founder and lead organizer for Public Bank LA, and a founding member of the California Public Banking Alliance. She joins us by phone from Los Angeles. Welcome to CounterSpin, Trinity Tran.

Continue reading on FAIR.

• “How a Public Bank Could Help Free S.F’s Money From Wall Street,” by Ida Mojadad in SF Weekly, October 16, 2019
• “California Just Legalized Public Banks But Can They Work?,” by Mario Koran, October 15, 2019
• “Trinity Tran on Public Banking,” on FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), October 11, 2019
• “California Governor Signs Bill Allowing the Establishment of Public Banks,” by Marivic Cabural Summers in USA Herald, October 4, 2019
• “A Century in the Making,” by David Dayen in The American Prospect, October 4, 2019
• “Governor Signs Bill to Bring Public Banking to CA,” by Suzanne Potter, Public News Service (also available in audio), October 4, 2019
• “California Just Legalized Public Banking, Setting the Stage for More Affordable Housing,” by Mario Koran in The Guardian, October 4, 2019
• “California Becomes Second State to Allow Public Banks,” Sushil Jacob, Joel Fox, and Dean Baker on KQED News Forum, hosted by Mina Kim, October 4, 2019
• “‘Stunning rebuke to predatory Wall Street megabanks’ as California Gov. Newsom signs law allowing creation of public banks,” by Jake Johnson (Common Dreams) at Raw Story, October 3, 2019
• “California Just Legalized Public Banks: Will the Rest of the Nation Follow Suit?” by Ananya Garg in yes! Magazine, October 3, 2019
• “Despite complications and costs, SF to push ahead on public bank in wake of new state bill,” Dominic Fracassa in the San Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 2019
• “California Local Governments Gain a Pathway to Establish Public Banks,” by Bill Lucia at Route Fifty, October 3, 2019
• “Public banks can be formed in California: Newsom signs new law,” by James F. Peltz in the Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2019
• “Public banking in California would help create an economy that works for everyone,” by Julian LaRosa in SF Chronicle, September 30, 2019

CPBA organizer David Jette writes about our journey, the future of the movement and the transition to a equitable and sustainable economy on the path paved by public banks.

The California Senate has voted to enact AB 857, the Public Banking Act, which sets the standards and opens the door for municipal public banks throughout the state.

A second vote on the amended bill in the Assembly, which advanced it by a narrow margin last month, should follow tomorrow. If Governor Gavin Newsom signs the bill into law, California will be the first state since North Dakota in 1919 to enact a statewide public banking statute, and the first in history to define and regulate the formation of public banks under an ongoing licensing regime. And while these banks are likely to start small in cost, number, and competitive scale, these first steps toward a new horizon will hasten the dawn of a new American economy, one that is accountable to the wellbeing of the people and the planet.

Lobbyists from the California Bankers Association and their affiliated industry groups tried their best to kill this bill, and they succeeded in pressuring moderates in the legislature to water it down, by limiting the ways public banks can compete with private banks. But in the end, they failed to overcome the urgent desire of Californians to divest from banks which finance extractive and exploitative businesses, defraud their customers, and take risks that lead to trillion dollar, taxpayer funded bailouts and global economic collapse. Lawmakers recognized the need to declare independence from Wall Street and establish publicly-owned, public-purpose banks with more transparency, more accountability, and with an unshakeable commitment to local, equitable, sustainable and restorative investment.

As a hired security force hired by Dakota Access LLC descended on the protest at Standing Rock, they coordinated with state and federal authorities to provide “counterterrorism measures” to protect the pipeline project from the threat of peacefully gathered Lakota water protectors and their allies, who were camping in freezing temperatures and whose rights to tribal autonomy and free speech were being presently litigated at the UN. Folks traveled from all over the country to stand with Standing Rock, and when the state and fossil fuel industry united to snuff out that resistance, those folks went back to cities all over America with a bone to pick with the financiers and enablers of that attack.

Wells Fargo was a co-financier on the project, although as the bank itself points out, it contributed just 4.8% of the project’s credit facility, while 17 other banks provided forms of financing. That Wells Fargo was also the subject of investigation for illegally cross-selling products to customers without their consent (for which it has paid hundreds of millions in settlements to customers and shareholders) widened the target. And the bank’s involvement in the illegal foreclosure of homes following the financial crisis made them a target for housing justice activists all over the country.

Continue reading on Sydiot.

Sonali Kolhatkar​ on Rising Up With Sonali talks with Trinity Tran with the California Public Banking Alliance on the Los Angeles Measure B initiative and the #AB857 campaign barreling its way through the California State Legislature.

A local measure in Los Angeles, California, last year to establish a public banking system failed. But organizers did not give up and instead set their sights even higher. A bill, AB 857, introduced by Assemblyman David Chiu to allow municipalities in California to establish their own public banking system has now gained steam and is working its way through various committees. Based on the idea that public money should be held in public institutions rather than private Wall Street banks, organizers are more hopeful than ever for a public banking system to become a reality.

Watch on Rising Up With Sonali.