Michael Hiltzik: In landmark session, California Legislature shows what progressive lawmaking looks like

California is often identified as one of the most liberal states in the union - perhaps the most liberal. In the session just ended, its Legislature showed its willingness to live up to that standard.

Among the measures passed in Sacramento were bills to enforce worker employment rights at "gig economy" firms such as Uber and Lyft; to require that student-athletes be paid for the commercial use of their names and likenesses; to enforce childhood vaccination rules; to mandate access to abortion pills at state colleges and universities; and to place caps on rent increases and predatory interest rates on loans.

What makes many of these legislative initiatives important is that they run counter to trends in other states and in Washington, D.C. The assault on abortion rights is in full cry in statehouses across the Midwest and South and in the Trump administration. The depriving of worker rights to good pay, safe workplaces and unionization is undermined by the refusal of Trump's National Labor