Hi Paul,
I would agree with you, that does look like a quote, since The Sacramento Bee is a newspaper.
In semicolon’s other thread, the rest of the content in the page appears to be about ride-sharing for drunks to get home safely. It looks like “New California Law” is about making sure that ride-sharing services are available.
You are right though, it is debatable and the h1 could probably go either way.
Perhaps semicolon could best answer that after he understands how the hierarchy of headings are intended to work. 