What a government shutdown will mean for Californians, from Social Security to national parks

By Rachel Becker, Kristen Hwang, Alejandro Lazo, Cayla Mihalovich and Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters

John Lauretig remembers the filthy bathrooms, the overflowing trash cans and the community of people who rallied to clean up Joshua Tree National Park the last time the U.S. Government shutdown.

For more than a month from December 2018 through January 2019, thousands of National Park Service employees were furloughed nationwide — but the Trump administration kept many national parks open.

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Unsupervised, visitors drove through wilderness and historic sites, camped where they weren’t supposed to, and vandalized plants and buildings at parks across California. The trash — and the feces — piled up. In the days after the shutdown ended, park staff found at least 1,665 clumps of toi