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IN THIS ISSUE – “A newly introduced bill is a bright, shiny object that gets lots of attention and gets people excited”
Dan Schnur, USC politics professor, on Legislators introducing too many bills
- Legislators Introduce 2,000 Bills Every Year (But) “We Need Quality, Not Quantity,” Says Assemblymember
- Governor’s $6-Billion Mental Health Initiative Amasses Big Campaign War Chest
- Overwhelming Support for Newsom’s Prop. 1
- Newsom Fast-Tracks Dam Removals to Help Salmon
- Public Policy Institute of California on Building a New California Economy
- Farming Giant Fights for River Water
- CA Environmental Voters Downgrade State Officials
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) curates California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique client service.
FOR THE WEEK ENDING FEB. 2, 2024
Legislators Introduce 2,000 Bills Every Year (But)
“We Need Quality, Not Quantity,” Says Assemblymember
CalMatters
As a Republican in the Democratic-controlled state Assembly, Bill Essayli doesn’t expect his bills to pass.
That isn’t going to stop him from introducing some, though. Most recently, the Corona lawmaker proposed repealing new state funding to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
Whether the bill is going to pass is the wrong question, he said. His goal is to start a discussion, and to provide a clear contrast on policy to voters.
“Ultimately, we use a lot of bills to communicate issues and to get the Democrat Party on record on where they stand on common sense policy positions,” he said.
Essayli isn’t alone. It’s common practice for California legislators on both sides of the aisle to author bills to make a political statement.
In 1971, then-Sen. Leroy Greene was motivated by a “bemusing” headline to introduce a bill legalizing prostitution — a tall order, despite support from his district. In 1994, then-Assemblymember Mickey Conroy’s bill to allow “public paddling of graffiti vandals” made it to the Assembly floor before it was defeated.
Besides bills that are just political statements, dozens of others don’t make it into law because they duplicate existing laws, or are deemed “solutions in search of a problem.”
In the 2024 session, the deadline to introduce new bills is Feb. 16 and the final day to pass them is Aug. 31. Because of this year’s multi-billion dollar budget deficit, lawmakers have been warned by legislative leaders and the governor to be judicious in introducing bills.
That may have its upsides. About 2,000 bills are introduced each year, which some legislators say makes it difficult to study each one — or each version — in depth before voting on them.
The lawmaking process is also not free: As of 2002, the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated that each bill cost at least $18,000 to go from introduction to passage: Each bill is given a title and number, goes through analysis by committee staff and is printed out.
An updated dollar figure from the legislative analyst was not available, but adjusting for inflation, each bill today costs in the neighborhood of $30,000.
That means the cost of the 1,046 bills sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom last year totaled about $31 million.
Still, party leaders and committee chairpersons might be hard-pressed to block bill introductions. That’s because they understand members must answer to outside forces, which include constituents they’re supposed to represent, voters who decide whether to re-elect them and interest groups that help fund their campaigns.
Even Jerry Brown, who famously vetoed a bill with the message, “Not every human problem deserves a law,” signed a majority of those sent to his desk while he was governor.
“A newly introduced bill is a bright, shiny object that gets lots of attention and gets people excited,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine University.
But he added: “Making sure that bill does what it was supposed to do isn’t nearly as glamorous, but it’s just as important.”
Ideas for bills come from several different sources — from past lawmakers, advocacy or other interest groups, in response to current events and, occasionally, from constituents.
But why might lawmakers introduce bills they know won’t pass?
“I used to always introduce what I call ‘diarrhea bills,’ to give people a heart attack or to just try to get attention on an issue,” said former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg.
One benefit lies in the “political industrial complex”: Introducing a bill on a hot topic can propel a lawmaker into discussions that might benefit them politically.
“There’s a whole architecture of analysts and lawyers that look at every single piece of legislation — so it’s a unique opportunity to participate in the discussion,” said Hertzberg, who served as Assembly speaker from 2000 to 2002 and Senate majority leader from 2019 to 2022.
But once a less-than-stellar bill is introduced, what keeps it moving?
In Hertzberg’s view, one major reason is because lawmakers are faced with too many bills to review, and are spread too thin on committee assignments — both of which he limited while speaker. That’s why he thinks the key is legislative leadership.
“It really boils down to early management, early understanding, early communication with your members — showing them respect, because you can’t tell a member you can’t do something. They have every constitutional right to do it,” he said. “But at the same time, you have to balance that respect with an institution.”
That also includes clearly defining each Legislature’s objectives: What are the big issues facing Californians? What does success look like?
“It’s not just getting rid of bad bills,” he said. “It’s making sure good bills go through, and making sure that good bills get the proper attention necessary.”
There isn’t an in-depth filtering process before bills are introduced.
The Office of Legislative Counsel, which drafts and reviews bill language, has attorney-client privilege with each lawmaker. So, according to the Senate’s rules, the office only notifies other members if a bill is “substantially identical” to another one in the works.
That leads to bills mostly being weeded out after introduction. One of the main filters: The appropriations committees and their suspense file hearings, where dozens of bills are quickly killed without explanation.
That means how far each bill gets often depends on legislative leadership. Anthony Rendon, the Assembly speaker from 2016 until last year, delegated a lot of decision-making power to committee chairpersons.
At his swearing-in, and at a January discussion hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California, current Speaker Robert Rivas emphasized that lawmakers’ job isn’t just to introduce new bills.
“We’re very good … of introducing bills to solve all of the state’s problems,” said the Salinas Democrat. “But we have a responsibility to look in the rearview mirror to ensure that bills we have passed in the past, policies that have been implemented, that they still work.”
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat who next week hands over the post she has held since 2018 and is running for governor in 2026, said in a statement to CalMatters that “Legislators are acutely aware of the budget constraints that we face and know to be mindful of that when introducing legislation.”
“We will continue to fight to protect our progress and fight for working Californians as we move through this year’s legislative session,” said Atkins, who also served as Assembly speaker from 2014 to 2016.
And, of course, the governor might intervene. In January, Newsom shut down a bill proposing a wealth tax by Bay Area Democratic Assemblymember Alex Lee, and one banning tackle football for kids under age 12 by Sacramento Democratic Assemblymember Kevin McCarty. Newsom also isn’t convinced about a bill by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener to require cars sold in California on or after 2027 to be equipped with speed limiters, telling Politico he’s wary of measures that could be weaponized by Republicans in an election year and to those with virtue signaling as the main motive.
But other bills go all the way through the Legislature before they’re vetoed by the governor.
Of the 156 bills Newsom vetoed last year:
- 18% were deemed unnecessary;
- 10% were difficult or complicated to implement;
- 6% were duplicative of executive branch actions;
- 64% were due to cost and the remainder for other reasons.
Whether a bill is necessary, or practical, depends on who you ask. Some see attempts at a single-payer healthcare system as a longshot, while others see any efforts to divest state pension funds for different causes as posturing.
Former and current lawmakers note that sometimes a bill can seem like grandstanding — until social or political winds shift, or the Legislature becomes more diverse.
Of course, no one says legislators can never make political statements through bills.
That’s where resolutions also come in: Measures that can express the opinions of either one or both chambers — though they don’t create or change state policy. They also don’t always have to go through policy committees, and don’t require the governor’s signature.
They can be an avenue for California lawmakers to weigh in on issues beyond the state’s direct scope: After Hamas’ attack in Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli government’s response, several legislative caucuses sent a letter to President Biden, calling on the administration to try and reduce civilian deaths in the Gaza conflict. Last month, the Senate Republican caucus introduced a resolution condemning Hamas.
But some have criticized resolutions as a way to please donors, to give the “false impression” that legislators are taking action on an issue — or just busywork that allows them to earn their per diems.
Neither the Assembly nor Senate restrict the number of resolutions members can introduce. But they’re limited to 40 bills per two-year session in the Senate, and 50 in the Assembly.
To some — including legislators — that’s still too many to be properly vetted, especially as they change through the process.
The bill limit in the Senate has dropped from 65 in 1995-96 to 50 in 2003-04 and to 40 in 2011-12. In the Assembly, the cap was 50 in 1993-94, dropped to 30 in 1997-98, increased to 40 in 2003-04 and back to the current 50 in 2017-18, according to the California State Library.
Prior to 1993, limits were focused not on the number of bills per lawmaker, but on when they could be introduced.
This session, Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, a Republican from Rancho Santa Margarita, introduced a resolution to decrease the Assembly’s limit to 25 bills per two-year session given the projected budget deficit.
“We need quality, not quantity,” she said.
Governor’s $6-Billion Mental Health Bond Amasses Big Campaign War Chest
CalMatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom has amassed more than $14.2 million in a campaign war chest for his hallmark mental health initiative, which will appear on the March 5 primary ballot, a sum that eclipses the resources of the measure’s opponents.
He’s drawing from longtime allies in health care, unions and tribes to fund the campaign for Proposition 1, which would issue $6.4 billion in bonds to pay for housing and treatment facilities while also redistributing money raised for mental health services through a tax on high earners.
In contrast, the Californians Against Proposition 1 campaign raised a mere $1,000, according to campaign finance records. Newsom’s opponents mostly are small mental health providers and current users of the mental health system that fear losing resources if voters pass the measure.
To the opponents, this David vs. Goliath matchup represents a fight to save community services, like crisis response teams and peer counseling.
Paul Simmons, director of Californians Against Prop. 1, said opponents include groups “that are actually going to be affected” should the measure pass.
“We are generally the consumer,” Simmons said. “A lot of us are white collar professionals, a lot of us are on the verge of homelessness. We’re a broad range, but we’re not the people that are going to give $20,000 or a million dollars.”
But the powerful Yes On 1 campaign, including Newsom, counters that opponents are propping up a broken system that doesn’t reach those with the most critical needs.
“Prop. 1 has a broad and diverse coalition…because it will finally fix our broken mental health care system and move people permanently off the streets, out of tents and into treatment,” the Yes On 1 campaign told CalMatters in a statement. “That’s why first responders, mental health professionals, doctors, nurses, veteran groups and more support the measure, unlike the opposition which is funded by extremists who want to maintain the status quo.”
Newsom and supporters tout the proposition as a potential solution to the state’s dual opioid and homelessness crises. According to their estimates the bond would build 4,350 housing units, with roughly half set aside for veterans, as well as 6,800 mental health and addiction disorder treatment slots.
Researchers estimate California has a shortage of roughly 8,000 in-patient adult treatment beds. More than 171,000 Californians live on the streets, 6% of whom are veterans.
Newsom, who has championed mental health reform more than any other governor in recent history, says the state has invested a total of $28 billion in the system during his tenure.
Sen. Susan Eggman, a Democrat from Stockton and former social worker, authored part of the legislation that created Prop. 1. She said the measure will provide the final funding and infrastructure to complete California’s mental health transformation.
“We have tried to patch all of those holes, recreated the system, and this is the final piece,” Eggman said during a January campaign event. “Californians really want to do something about the crisis they see every day on their streets and be able to feel proud about where they live and how we treat the least of us.”
Some of California’s largest health care companies put money on the line in support of Newsom’s ballot measure. Sutter Health cut a check for $1.15 million, Kaiser Permanente donated $1 million and the California Hospital Association, representing hospitals across the state, contributed another $1 million.
Prop. 1 comes on the heels of several other seismic changes to the state’s mental health system. These changes include the launch of Newsom’s CARE Court system for people with serious mental illness and dramatic eligibility changes for conservatorship that are expected to result in more people being placed in involuntary treatment. CARE Court established a process for family members, clinicians and law enforcement to petition a court to compel people with untreated serious mental illness into a treatment program.
Many of the big ticket donors are long-time Newsom supporters. The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria contributed the single largest donation at $1.5 million, making the tribe, which operates the Graton Casino in southern Sonoma County, one of the largest campaign contributors across all of the state races this election cycle. It has cut big checks for Newsom before, including contributing $750,000 to help him defeat the 2021 campaign to recall him.
The State Building and Constructions Trade Council is another million-dollar contributor. Chris Hannan, president of the group, said the investment is worth it. “Trades members are well-skilled and positioned to help the state build out the mental health facilities as well as the housing,” he said.
In other words, this proposition means jobs for union members.
The final contributor donating at least seven figures is another regular Newsom supporter. The state prison guard union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, donated $1 million for Prop. 1. Glen Stailey, president of the association, said his members have a lot at stake.
https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/01/mental-health-proposition-1/
Overwhelming Support for Newsom’s Prop. 1
Sacramento Bee
A strong majority—81%—of Californians say that it is very important for state policymakers to focus on increasing mental health access this year, according to a survey published Wednesday by the California Health Care Foundation and NORC at the University of Chicago.
Pollsters surveyed 3,431 California adults between Sept. 18 and Oct. 25 of 2023, and found that a quarter of them said that either they or someone close to them has needed treatment for serious mental illness, with 21% saying they’ve needed treatment for substance use or addiction.
Two-thirds of Calfiornians believe that the state needs to strengthen treatment for people with serious mental illness, and 64% said the same for substance abuse and addiction.
More than a third (36%) of Californians with low incomes said that they have experienced homelessness in the past five years. Black (32%) and Latinx (24%) Californians were more likely than other demographic groups to report being homeless.
More than half (53%) of Californians postponed getting medical care because of prohibitive costs in the last year. That number rises to 74% when low-income Californians were surveyed, with 54% of them reporting worsening medical conditions due to skipping care.
This survey comes as Californians will soon begin voting on whether to approve Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would channel $6.4 billion in bonds into spending on homelessness and behavioral and mental health in the state.
Newsom Fast-Tracks Dam Removals to Help Salmon
Associated Press
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pledging to fast-track more than half a dozen projects by the end of his term to remove or bypass dams that have blocked salmon from returning to the state’s chilly mountain streams and acting as the keystone of a complex ecosystem that sustains both economies and spiritual beliefs for tribes.
Newsom — now in his second term and seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate beyond 2024 — has worked hard to stake a claim as the nation’s most environmentally-conscious governor. But his record has been dogged by criticism from environmental groups who say his water policies benefit big agriculture at the expense of salmon and other fish species in danger of becoming extinct.
Millions of salmon once filled California’s rivers and streams each year, bringing with them key nutrients from the ocean that gave the state an abundance of natural resources that were so important to indigenous peoples that they formed the foundation of creation stories central to tribes’ way of life.
But last year, there were so few salmon in the state’s rivers that the officials closed the commercial fishing season.
Frustrated by the criticism leveled against his administration, Newsom on Tuesday released his strategy to protect salmon — a plan that includes a heavy helping of projects that would remove or bypass aging dams that prevent salmon from returning to the streams of their birth to lay eggs.
“These are tangible. And so much of the work we do is, you know, you can’t see it, you can’t feel it,” Newsom told The Associated Press in an interview near the banks of the Elk River in Eureka near a recently completed project that returned agricultural land to a flood plain habitat for salmon. “But when you see a dam being removed and you come back a few months later — a year or two, five years later — and you see real progress.”
Newsom’s strategy includes a promise to complete an agreement by the end of the year to remove the Scott Dam and replace the Cape Horn Dam along the Eel River that have blocked salmon access to 288 miles (463 kilometers) of habitat. Once completed, the Eel would be the longest free-flowing river in the state, flowing north through the Coast Ranges before emptying into the Pacific Ocean near the town of Fortuna. The two dams are owned by Pacific Gas & Electric and no longer produce hydropower.
By next summer, Newsom said he would complete plans for the removal of the nearly 100-year-old Rindge Dam along Malibu Creek in western Los Angeles County that would give steelhead another 15 miles (24 kilometers) of spawning and rearing habitat. And by 2026 — the last year of Newsom’s term — he promised to complete the infrastructure necessary to remove the Matilija Dam in Ventura County along a tributary of the Ventura River. The dams are no longer functional.
The removal projects have already been announced and are in the early stages of development. Newsom’s plan puts on record his goal to either complete them or have them approved by state regulatory bodies before he leaves office.
“I got three more years. And I want to put it all out there,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s embrace of some dam demolitions comes as the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history got underway in earnest last week when crews blew a hole in the bottom of the Copco No. 1 dam along the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border. It is one of four dams set to be removed along the Klamath. In the Pacific Northwest, tribes and environmental groups want to see four dams along the Snake River removed. The Biden administration has stopped short of promising to do so, but it has pledged $1 billion for salmon restoration.
Newsom is also trying to bring attention to some of the $800 million he has approved in recent years for projects that return some creeks and streams to their natural state so that salmon can live there.
On Monday, Newsom trudged through thick mud to visit a project along Prairie Creek in Redwoods National Park. The creek had been converted to a ditch, with steep rock walls preventing the water from spilling into a flood plain where baby salmon can eat and grow before heading to the ocean. The goal is to get the baby fish to stay longer in the creek so they can grow larger before leaving — making it more likely they will return.
Newsom watched as Kate Stonecypher, a graduate student at Cal Poly Humboldt, pulled juvenile coho salmon and steelhead trout tagged with tracking devices from the river. Researchers are still studying the results. But early indications have been positive. Fish from the creek were later found to travel 50 miles (80 kilometers) to Humboldt Bay.
The biggest criticism of Newsom’s environmental policies have not been a lack of restoration projects, but a lack of water in the rivers. Newsom’s salmon strategy includes a controversial proposal to seek voluntary agreements with major farmers over how much water they can take out of the rivers and streams. Some environmental groups have called the plan “astonishingly weak.”
San Francisco Baykeeper Science Director Jon Rosenfield said California has already done lots of habitat restoration projects, but they have failed to result in significant boosts in salmon populations.
“Without the essential ingredient of a river, which is the flow of water, fish … are not going to survive,” he said. “The governor is out there promising actions that are not adequate to restore the population.”
Newsom also pledged to continue to work with native tribes, who often refer to the rivers where salmon live as their church. Newsom formally apologized to Native American tribes four years ago for how the state had treated them historically. And he has committed to partnering with them to conduct much of the work around salmon habitat.
Public Policy Institute of California on Building a New California Economy
A new report from PPIC examines the transformations facing workers and employers and identifies policy priorities for the state. Priorities for California’s Economy: Building Prosperity highlights key facts about the state’s labor market and broader economic environment and identifies pathways for leveraging California’s many strengths to address the economic challenges facing the state.
https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/priorities-for-californias-economy-january-2024.pdf
Farming Giant Fights for River Water
GV Wire
The J.G. Boswell Company fears its agricultural interests – and possibly even the city of Corcoran – could be in jeopardy if water is allowed to remain in the Kern River for fish, according to its request to be admitted as a party to a lawsuit brought by local and statewide public interest groups.
That’s just one of several new actions in the ongoing fight over river water.
Here’s the rundown:
- Both North Kern Water Storage District and the Kern Delta Water District have filed notices of appeal with the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno. The districts hope to overturn Kern County Superior Court Judge Gregory Pulskamp’s Oct. 30, 2023, preliminary injunctionrequiring some water be kept in the normally dry riverbed through Bakersfield to keep fish populations “in good condition.”
- All of the so-called “real parties in interest,” ag irrigation districts with rights to Kern River water, have filed motions with Pulskamp seeking to dismiss at least some portions of the case. Pulskamp will hear arguments on those motions at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 31.
Meanwhile, the City of Bakersfield, ag districts, and public interest groups are discussing how much water should be kept in the river on an interim basis before extensive environmental studies are begun to determine ecological flows needed long term and how to achieve those flows during both wet and dry years.
The groups are supposed to bring a suggested flow regime to Pulskamp at some point in the future, or any party can request him to rule on an interim flow level if they can’t reach a consensus.
Boswell owns the Buena Vista Lakebed south of Tupman in Kern and almost the entire vast Tulare Lakebed in Kings County. Tulare Lake was the Kern River’s natural terminus before the region was settled, the lakebeds were drained, and the river was harnessed for farming.
Boswell also owns a small fraction of a Kern River right.
If flows are required to be kept in the river, the system could become overloaded during floods, sending Kern River water barreling up to the Tulare Lakebed “..and damage lands in the Lakebed that Boswell farms while – far more critically – putting the City of Corcoran and nearby communities at risk of flooding,” according to Boswell’s motion to intervene.
The Kern River never made it to the Tulare Lake during last year’s floods but Corcoran was indeed threatened largely because its levee had sunk – again – due to massive groundwater overpumping. And, other Kings County farmers accused Boswell of creating even more danger for them and the town by holding flood water off of large portions of the lake to plant tomatoes in the lake bottom.
Boswell’s Kern River motion also notes that excess water could be sent to its lands in the old Buena Vista Lakebed, which are subject to a “flood servitude” held by the Buena Vista Water Storage District.
In fact, only 5,170 acres of the 22,000-acre lake bed owned by Boswell can be used for flood water per a 1964 agreement, as SJV Water reported last April.
Related Story: Boswell Stands Ground: ‘Wherever It Isn’t Going to Flood, We’re …
Boswell’s intervenor motion also states that an early implementation ruling by Pulskamp (now rescinded) ordered 40% of the river’s flow to be kept in the river. At that percentage, the motion states, 9,300 cubic feet per second would have had to be released from Isabella Dam, flooding Bakersfield and destroying Highway 178.
The Boswell motion worries that using arbitrary percentages to keep flows in the river for fish, “… could have effectively undermined the flood protection that the Isabella Dam offers.”
CA Environmental Voters Downgrade State Officials
CalMatters
California Environmental Voters downgraded state elected officials from an A- (91%) to a B (86%) in its annual scorecard, released Thursday. While two climate change disclosure laws (now being challenged in court) were approved last year, the advocacy group argued that the state cut climate funding, extended fossil fuel plants and weakened some environmental protection laws.
Mary Creasman, the group’s CEO, in a statement: “California’s climate action in 2023 was two steps forward and one step back….We’re counting on our leaders to go big in 2024.”
For 2023 actions, the group gave 100% scores to 20 legislators, 96% to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate leader Toni Atkins and 80% to Gov. Newsom.