Second Annual Digital Influencer Report Demonstrates Digital Engagement is No Longer Optional

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Sacramento’s top-ranked public relations and public affairs firm, and digital advocacy pioneers, Randle Communications (Randle), today released the second annual Digital Influencer Report, which details how social media is used to influence California’s legislative process. The report examines three of the Legislature’s most significant 2018 End-of-Session battles and highlights the most effective digital strategies and tactics.

“The key takeaway from this report is that digital engagement is no longer an optional tool to educate and engage lawmakers on key issues,” Jeff Randle, President and CEO of Randle Communications said. “What is most telling from this year’s report is that the game is being played at a much higher level, and what was once considered a supporting tactic must now be at the center of a sophisticated, comprehensive advocacy strategy.”

While the Inaugural Digital Influencer Report 11 Strategies for Digital Advocacy Success are still relevant, these ‘best practices’ are now essential parts of a winning digital advocacy campaign. Major takeaways from this year’s End-of-Session analysis include:
Digital advocacy is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s a “have to have.”

“Social channels are a vital part of the advocacy process, in tandem with traditional lobbying, media coverage and public affairs efforts. Choosing not to engage is to silence your voice and put yourself on the losing end of debates at the Capitol,” Lindsey Goodwin, Vice President of Public Affairs at Randle Communications said. “As the digital landscape evolves, the Randle public affairs practice will continue to aggressively pioneer in the digital advocacy space.”

In the coming weeks, Randle will release lists of top digital influencers including members of the Capitol press corps and legislature.
Get the full Digital Influencer Report here.

Lindsey Goodwin Earns Promotion to Vice President of Public Affairs

SACRAMENTO – Randle Communications (Randle), Sacramento’s top-ranked public relations and public affairs firm, announced today that Director, Lindsey Goodwin, has been promoted to Vice President of Public Affairs. Since 2013, she has played a central role in Randle’s public affairs practice, in the process becoming an expert in health care, transportation and housing. As Vice President, Goodwin will lead the practice, working directly with the owners of the business to drive the firm’s public affairs leadership, which includes an innovative proprietary digital advocacy practice.

“Lindsey Goodwin is a tremendous professional who has the rare combination of a strong strategic mindset and the ability to tactically execute and deliver extraordinary results for clients,” Jeff Randle, President and CEO of Randle Communications said. “Her professional skills are matched by an unwavering commitment to her colleagues. She personifies Randle’s culture and lives the firm’s values as an exceptional mentor and team player. Her hard work and commitment to our clients and team has resulted in this well-deserved promotion.”

During the last five years, Goodwin has led several high-profile public affairs accounts including the California Hospital Association, Californians Allied for Patient Protection and John Muir Health. She leads the firm’s work on behalf of the California Association of REALTORS®. Goodwin is also a Sacramento regional public affairs expert, supporting communications for landmark regional projects including the Capital SouthEast Connector, the Sacramento region’s largest approved transportation project. When constructed, the 34-mile expressway will link Interstate 5 to Highway 50, serving as a beltway through the southern area of Sacramento County into El Dorado County, connecting the cities of Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and Folsom.

“It’s an incredible opportunity to work with such a talented team of professionals who take on the most consequential policy issues in support of our clients,” Goodwin said. “Randle Communications recognizes that its team is the firm’s most important asset. I am incredibly grateful to work for an organization with a steadfast commitment to professional development, which empowered me to build a rewarding career. I am honored to receive this promotion and excited to play an even greater role in the firm’s future.”

Prior to joining Randle Communications, Goodwin gained experience working with state and local elected officials. She developed proficiencies in stakeholder engagement and media relations on high-profile public infrastructure projects throughout the greater capital region. Goodwin began her career in Sacramento on the staff of former Mayor Kevin Johnson building and leading community outreach efforts and constituent affairs during the mayor’s first year in office.

Goodwin is an active alumnus of her alma mater, Sonoma State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, awarded cum laude with distinction. Goodwin also earned a Master of Arts in Government from California State University, Sacramento, with emphases in California state and local government and American government. Active in the community, Goodwin is a graduate of the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce Leadership Sacramento Class of 2018.

Stay Tuned for Randle’s Second Annual Digital Influencer Report

Randle Communications will release its second annual Digital Influencer Report next week showing how California continues to lead in digital advocacy innovation. Watch a sneak peek here:

The Riggs Report: PG&E’s Bankruptcy Move

Now that PG&E has filed notice that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of the month, will the utility pull the trigger? Or can it be avoided?

Gov. Gavin Newsom wasn’t able to offer much clarity on that question earlier this week during a Capitol news conference, and he’s not alone. To say the least, it’s complicated, and the impacts of bankruptcy would have a substantial ripple effect.

I’m told that there are urgent discussions underway between the administration, regulators, insurers, attorneys and other stakeholders to explore whether it’s possible to reach some sort of settlement on who gets paid for what could be as much as $30 billion in potential liability costs arising from wildfires over the last two years. If those talks fail, then bankruptcy would follow.

A 2019 bankruptcy for PG&E would look far different from the company’s 2001 bankruptcy. Back then, the state was facing an energy crisis, with rolling blackouts and electrical shortages caused by market manipulation later pinned on wholesalers like Texas-based Enron. In the current case, the shortage is not power, but resources available to cover potential liabilities stemming from the wildfires.

The lights would stay on, in other words. Company workers would stay on the job. One of the most apparent impacts of a bankruptcy filing would be on wildfire victims who are pursuing lawsuits against PG&E. Those legal claims would be placed on hold, pending a reorganization plan for the company. The bankruptcy court would have to approve that plan, and ultimately sort out who gets paid and how much.

Another key question is how ratepayers would be affected. Following the 2001 crisis, utility customers were on the hook to pay more in order to pay off company debt. It seems likely that would be the case this time as well.

Bankruptcy would also impact California’s efforts to move toward greater reliance on renewable energy sources like solar and wind, as PG&E is a big player in those efforts. There are also questions about how or if bankruptcy would affect current plans to shut down the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo. The plant is due to be decommissioned by 2025, and there are substantial costs associated with that.

Last year, lawmakers at the Capitol approved a measure that allowed utilities to bill customers for future legal settlements tied to the 2017 wildfires. It also set up a process for the Public Utilities Commission to determine, in future fires, what legal costs for damage could be passed on to customers based on a utility’s behavior.

The Riggs Report: Covering Jerry Brown Difficult, but Always Memorable

It was Labor Day 2010.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, riding high poll numbers in his quest to return to the governor’s corner office after a 28-year absence, was making a campaign appearance at a friendly venue — the annual California Labor Federation picnic at William Land Park in Sacramento.

I was jammed with a small cluster of reporters in a corner, interviewing Brown for KCRA-TV. Unfortunately, I was on the blind side of a photographer for another local station. She couldn’t see me, and when she pivoted the camera left, it smacked me hard in the cheekbone.

Brown paused, squinted and said, “That’s gotta hurt!” which of course, got a big laugh from all of us.

That encounter encapsulates what it was like to cover Brown: unpredictable, memorable and occasionally painful.

Brown was always interesting, but never easy to cover. He drastically scaled back access to Capitol media, especially in his final term. That was an especially big contrast to his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose show-business mentality translated into frequent media events.

Brown explained his thinking earlier this week during a farewell appearance at the Sacramento Press Club, saying he wanted to guard against being “overexposed.” Most politicians would never say that, and would push their staff to secure more coverage, not less.

But Brown’s reticence wasn’t rooted in humility, but a calculus that he wouldn’t be seeking higher office again. In other words, he didn’t really need media coverage any more. He didn’t need the media to negotiate with or put pressure on a far less experienced legislature. And it was easier to scale back, given the significant shrinkage of the Capitol press corps following the 2008 recession.

That’s too bad, not only from an accountability standpoint, but also because, frankly, Brown could be fun to cover. That coverage gave voters a more complete picture of who Brown was and how he had evolved since his first two terms as governor from 1974 to 1982.

When I covered the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, there were some interesting moments. How had he changed? During a debate at UC Davis, Brown noted that, unlike his earlier terms, he was married and didn’t “close down the bars of Sacramento anymore.”

During an interview earlier that year, I asked Brown whether voters would be willing to return to office a politician who had a quirky reputation; someone with a wandering attention span who had run for president three times and who dated rock stars.

He pushed back.

“Do you think dating Linda Ronstadt was quirky?” he asked.

Immediately after returning to office in 2011, Brown was still accessible. As reporters, we knew that if we staked out his downtown condo, it was possible to catch him as he walked his dog, Sutter. He had a busy speaking schedule at downtown venues and could be counted on to stop and offer remarks.

It was also a time of crisis, with California facing an enormous budget deficit inherited from the Schwarzenegger administration. Brown engaged in a sales job with lawmakers, traveling the Capitol hallways on his way to closed-door huddles to pitch the idea of raising taxes as a budget fix.

Brown paid a memorable visit to a legislative budget committee, where he made reference to his Jesuit seminary days and his vows of poverty and abstinence. Just as the pope had given him special dispensation to give up those vows, he told Republicans he would give them dispensation to consider a tax solution.

Brown would later give up on a legislative solution, and convinced voters to pass a 2012 ballot measure that raised sales and income taxes.

Brown could be temperamental and cranky if he didn’t like the questions reporters asked. He liked to sprinkle Latin into his speeches. He used his dog, Sutter, as a master marketing tool, passing out Sutter playing cards with a call for budget discipline.

He was unlike any other governor I covered over a 30-year span. And he had a remarkable knack for remembering you.

When I left my reporting job, he showed up at a farewell reception organized by the Sacramento Press Club.

“Why are you leaving?” he asked.

“Governor, you were governor when I got out of college,” I replied. “And now that it’s come full circle and you’re governor again, what’s left?”

There was a lot left, of course. But whether you agreed with his policy and politics or not, Brown’s political longevity will never be equaled in California. And reporting on that over the span of three decades was a professional privilege.

The Riggs Report: Four Decades of Election Night Reporting

California’s politics have been dramatically transformed

It was November 1978, fresh with a journalism degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, when I first went on the air to broadcast election returns in California. Last week’s election night at KCRA-TV marked the 40 year point for me of covering elections in this state. What’s changed during that period? Except for slow results, and the presence of Jerry Brown, pretty much everything.

Technology, of course. In 1978, we got bulletins at my radio station, KATY in San Luis Obispo, from paper we cleared and ripped from the Associated Press wire machine. Breaking news was signified by a series of bells that rang, amid the clatter of the mechanical keys.

At the county clerk’s office on election night, we waited for printed handouts from the elections staff. Depending on where ballots had to be trucked in from, the tabulation of the results could be agonizingly slow. Later, when I worked in Santa Barbara, the only certainty of the night was that the returns from the north county, Santa Maria, would be late. Often because a truck had broken down somewhere on the journey south on the 101.

I don’t remember a lot of detail from that election night in 1978, except that Jerry Brown was cruising to a comfortable reelection to his second term as governor. After opposing the passage of Proposition 13, the landmark property tax-cutting measure in the June primary, Brown abruptly pivoted to become an advocate of tax cuts. It was a winning tactic.

Talk about a political anomaly. Four decades later, Brown is wrapping up his tenure as the longest-serving governor in California history. Four terms, separated by a 28 year gap. Students who graduated from college in 1976, and those who graduated in 2018, have Jerry Brown’s signature on their diplomas.

Today, we have instant technology to collect and tally the vote. But in close races, such as a handful of contested House seats, we still have to wait for the results. That’s not due to broken-down trucks or staff ineptitude. It has to do with California’s aggressive efforts to expand voter participation, which allows Election Day registration and allows ballots to count if they arrive three days later, as long as they have a Tuesday postmark.

Those provisions, plus the sheer size of California’s electorate, mean the instant results we would like often have to wait.

The most significant change has to do with the political landscape and how blue the state has become. In 1978, California’s two U.S. Senators were split between the major parties, Republican S.I. Hayakawa and Democrat Alan Cranston. California had 43 members of the House back then, with 17 Republicans and 26 Democrats.

Now, it’s lopsided. Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats and all of the state’s constitutional offices. Democrats hold a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature. The House delegation now stands at 10 Republicans and 43 Democrats. The Republicans are at risk of losing three more of those seats, depending on the outcome of vote totals that are still being tallied.

California’s transformation into a virtually one-party-ruled state is due to many things, including President Trump’s high disapproval rating here. From a checks-and-balances perspective, that carries a lot of problems.

What’s next? The 2020 election, of course, and the certainty that Jerry Brown is finished with elective office. Maybe.