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IN THIS ISSUE – “The Governor is in a Very Tricky Situation”
- Recall Impacts Governor, Legislature & Regulators All Year; Newsom Struggles to Paddle the “California Canoe”
- When Does California Enter a Drought Emergency? Another Recall-Influenced Question
- Newsom Signs Measure for Half-Billion in Wildfire Prevention
- Pandemic Gas Tax Dip is a Bump in Road Repair Funding
- Drinking Water Systems Need $4.6-Billion Upgrade
- Shoppers Ready for a Spending Spree
- Unemployment Claims Drop
- Chamber of Commerce v. Unions & Environmentalists on “Job-Killer” Bills
Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week, tailored to your business and advocacy interests. Please feel free to forward.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!!
FOR THE WEEK ENDING APRIL 16, 2021
Recall Impacts Governor, Legislature & Regulators All Year;
Newsom Struggles to Paddle the “California Canoe”
Politico
Gov. Gavin Newsom has occasion these days to revisit Jerry Brown’s advice about steering the California canoe.
Brown’s famous formulation for balanced governance — paddle left, paddle right — has taken on a new layer of meaning in the context of the looming recall election.
The threat of a recall is likely to overshadow Sacramento lawmaking and regulatory agencies all year — the fall special election would come shortly after Newsom signs or vetoes a flurry of bills. His choices would reverberate at the ballot box.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION : Does the governor tack to the center, to avoid alienating moderate and independent voters and antagonizing powerful interests? Or does he lean left to ensure the Democratic base is energized and enthusiastic about turning out to keep him in office — and to dissuade any would-be progressives from challenging him from the left?
It’s a California-scale version of a defining debate in the 2020 presidential race, when strategists and pundits discussed whether President Joe Biden needed to focus on activating or expanding the base.
We’ve already seen action on a pair of vital bills to test that balance. The fracking ban that Newsom requested but didn’t advocate for perished in its first committee this week, sparing the governor from having to choose between its environmentalist proponents and its union foes, who’ve aligned with moderate Democrats and business interests. Score one for the center.
And after Newsom infuriated labor and the left last year by vetoing a job retention bill fiercely opposed by business interests, his administration negotiated a narrower hospitality industry job security bill that flew through the Legislature and landed on his desk on Thursday. Score one for the left.
But as a recall election now looms, the left flank may get sidelined as Newsom tries to survive a gauntlet of opposition from Republicans while keeping business interests at bay.
The Democratic governor has an unexpected balancing act in his third year in office. Doubling down on progressive priorities could energize his party’s base, but he has to avoid alienating centrists and giving fodder to opponents eager to portray him as an overreaching liberal.
Newsom has already moved to quell progressive unrest by securing endorsements from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Still, some liberal Democrats see this as a ripe opportunity to push Newsom further, especially with California’s budget coffers reaching record heights.
“I always tell progressives our support isn’t free. We should hold accountable our elected officials who say they support health care for all,” said freshman Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-Milpitas), who’s sponsoring both a universal health care bill and the wealth tax proposal. “I think [Newsom] has a duty to energize his progressive base.”
In addition to renewing their pushes to create a single-payer health care system and extend Medicaid coverage to more undocumented immigrants, progressives want to rein in oil and gas drilling. And they argue the pandemic has strengthened the case for more worker protections and a wealth tax. Some aren’t pulling punches for fear of giving recall proponents more ammunition to use against Newsom.
“We can’t step back from this important agenda item just because it might be politically inconvenient,” said Joe Sanberg, an investor and activist campaigning for the wealth tax. “If the governor delivers for those people living on the knife edge, the chances he’ll be rehired go up.”
Newsom has called the recall a distraction and said he remains single-mindedly focused on defeating the coronavirus and reinvigorating California’s economy. But state Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) said he expects the governor’s advisers to carefully weigh what policy achievements to tout as they make a case to voters.
“A lot of that has to be decided in the context of surviving another day as governor,” he said. “You’re going to look at polling and see if Republican votes really matter.”
But there is some disagreement among progressives who are weighing how to wield the recall. While some on the left dream of an opportunity to replace Newsom with a more liberal alternative, elected Democrats have warned such a gamble could backfire drastically.
“I would say to those that see this as some kind of opportunity to sneak in a progressive in the governor’s mansion, that’s part of the trap Republicans are hoping we’ll fall into, quite frankly,” said Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose), co-author of the health care bill, CA AB1400 (21R)
Environmentalists are already fuming this year after a priority bill that would have banned fracking in California died this week in the Legislature. Moderate Democrats joined with Republicans in blocking the measure in a Senate committee, and some environmentalists have already begun blaming Newsom.
The governor last fall asked state lawmakers to send him a fracking ban, but that was well before the recall became a real possibility. Newsom said this year he still supported the idea; environmentalists, however, say he did nothing to muscle it through the Capitol, and some suspect he preferred to avoid having to deal with a matter opposed by major business interests — and by his allies in labor.
“Governor Newsom got exactly what he wanted with the outcome of this vote,” Food & Water Watch California director Alexandra Nagy said in a statement. “He sent a fracking ban to the legislature knowing that the oil lobby would easily kill it. He was counting on it. If Newsom wants to be a real climate leader, he needs to take the mantle up himself and enact 2,500 foot setbacks and ban fracking immediately.”
Environmentalists and labor unions represent key bastions of support for Newsom, but they have increasingly been at odds over California’s climate agenda, forcing the governor to balance his commitment to phasing out fossil fuels with preserving unionized jobs in the energy industry.
“I expect that my labor clients will be all in to defeat the recall,” said Scott Wetch, a lobbyist representing pipefitters and plumbers that opposed the oil drilling bill. “We’re going to talk to our members, we’re going to knock on hundreds and thousands of doors, we’re going to be there reminding people what’s at stake.”
Green groups are still hoping to resurrect the fracking ban and keeping pressure on the governor to put limits on how close drilling can occur to schools, homes and other sensitive sites.
“This is where his values and ethics are going to be shown,” said Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment community organizer Juan Flores. If Newsom distances himself from policies to limit fossil fuels, “then he is automatically recalling himself, because the remainder of his term, we already know what he’s going to do, which is trying to save his political career.”
During the state’s only gubernatorial recall election year in 2003, liberal Democrats succeeded in winning Gov. Gray Davis’ support for policies the centrist state executive previously rejected. That included driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, financial privacy requirements and additional rights for gay and lesbian partners.
Those moves, however, did not save Davis in the end. He was toppled by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the action movie star who went on to serve two terms as governor — the last Republican to hold that office in California.
Democratic allies are hoping they can defend Newsom while still advancing their priorities. Last year, the governor vetoed a labor priority bill that would have compelled hospitality businesses to prioritize rehiring workers who lost work due to the coronavirus. A Southern California hospitality workers union excoriated Newsom at the time, saying “the most powerful elected Democrat in the state sided with the wealthy hotel owners” over “hardworking hotel workers.”
The Newsom administration has negotiated a narrower version of that measure that’s speeding through the legislative process.
“We’re not for [the] recall because it’s a terrible distraction,” said UNITE HERE Local 11 co-president Susan Minato said that “we’re going to do our part with making sure California stays with a Democratic governor.”
Single-payer health care will pose another test. Newsom entered office in 2019 on a pledge to pursue the health system overhaul, but settled for setting up a task force that year to examine the issue. During the 2020 pandemic, the Capitol went into a holding pattern and the budget looked gloomy, giving further reason to avoid discussing major changes.
This year, the first official committee opposing the recall was formed by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, a group that has focused on achieving single-payer. NUHW president Sal Rosselli said the effort served to both protect Newsom and to prod him on an unfulfilled campaign promise. “That’s the whole point, organizing progressive voters and donors in California in opposition to the recall and in support of our number one focus: Medicare for All,” Rosselli said.
While the left has been deliberate about telegraphing unity behind Newsom, lingering frustrations among some legislators have fueled questions about how vigorously allies will campaign for Newsom with efforts like union-driven voter turnout drives. Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), a stalwart union ally, argued labor would rally behind the governor while continuing to push for policies in Sacramento.
“Some people said the enthusiasm wasn’t going to be there for Biden. Some people said the enthusiasm wasn’t there for Jerry Brown,” Durazo said. “I’m not ignoring it, and when we get down into the campaign of course we have to think about enthusiasm, but I don’t think that’s the primary issue. The primary issue is what has the governor done in his two years with the pandemic.”
The recall’s effect might be felt long before bills get to Newsom’s desk, though, as lawmakers could save Newsom from having to make a tough choice.
Moderate Democrats have publicly opposed the wealth tax proposals, just as they did against the fracking ban. Skilled governors are able to stop bills from reaching their desk through legislative negotiations — and with support from Democratic legislative leaders playing the long game.
“I think it would be hard to be a Democratic politician in this state and not feel conscious of the recall in everything you’re doing,” said Kathryn Phillips, former director of Sierra Club California. “Not because you’re worried about yourself, but because you don’t want to put the governor in a position that will make him make somebody mad.”
When Does California Enter a Drought Emergency? Another Recall-Influenced Question
CalMatters
As the very dry 2020-21 winter drove home the reality of another drought, a group of state legislators sent a letter to Gavin Newsom, urging him to also declare a drought emergency.
“This is the slowest, most foreseeable train wreck imaginable,” state Sen. Andreas Borgeas, a Fresno Republican who fostered the letter, said.
Newsom, however, is clearly reluctant to declare an emergency.
“We’re preparing to do many things as it relates to preparing ourselves for the reality formally of second drought conditions,” the governor responded. “As it relates to the specific declaration of emergency which has all kinds of component parts, we are not prepared to do that at this moment.”
His response came as he announced an agreement with legislative leaders on appropriating more than a half-billion extra dollars to prepare for an expected surge in wildfires due to extremely dry conditions.
His mention of “component parts” referred to the steps that might be taken after an emergency declaration, not only mandatory cutbacks in water use but a potential reallocation of scarce water supplies.
Legislators from agricultural areas, such as Borgeas, reflect farmers’ preference for suspending rules governing state and federal diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta so as to provide more water for San Joaquin Valley farms and thus less for habitat protection in the Delta.
The possibility of suspending the Delta operational rules alarms environmentalists who have been sparring for decades with agricultural interests over how the estuary’s water is divvied up.
It is one of the potential political flashpoints of a drought emergency declaration and thus adds another factor in the recall election that Newsom almost certainly faces this year.
“The governor’s in a very tricky situation,” Darry Sragow, a veteran California Democratic strategist, told Politico. “While Newsom may be considering drought controls, I’m sure he’s hearing voices telling him that Californians can only tolerate so much pain and suffering.”
While recent polling indicates that most California voters are not inclined to support Newsom’s recall now, its outcome will depend on their mood a half-year from now. With COVID-19 not yet fully contained, with a sluggish economic recovery, with the looming threats of wildfires and power shortages and now with drought, Newsom will be traversing a field full of political landmines.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/04/drought-hits-california-and-newsom/
Newsom Signs Measure for Half-Billion in Wildfire Prevention
Sacramento Bee
California is adding more than half a billion dollars in wildfire prevention spending this year after Gov. Gavin Newsom formally approved the money Tuesday ahead of the state’s peak fire season.
Under the legislation, the state will spend $536 million on preventing fires through forest and vegetation management, clearing fuel around rural homes and retrofitting buildings in high-risk areas to help them survive fires.
Newsom, a Democrat, has promised that this year his administration will focus on preventing fires with “a greater sense of urgency than ever in contemporary California history.”
He traveled to Lake Oroville in Butte County to sign the bill, where he gestured to a historically low reservoir level as he warned of coming dry fire conditions.
Lawmakers in both the state Senate and Assembly unanimously passed the legislation, Senate Bill 85, the day before.
California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said Thursday that this year’s dry winter means California can expect a fire season similar to last year, when a record number of acres burned.
“I’m very concerned. We are seeing drought conditions,” Cal Fire director Thom Porter said.
“We need to prepare for fire season like we are preparing for an impending hurricane,” said Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa. “Once the fire starts, it’s too late. That preparation work needs to start happening right now.”
Lawmakers and Newsom advanced the bill ahead of the traditional budget process to get the money out the door quickly. In January, Newsom had proposed appropriating $323 million early in the year for wildfire prevention, but increased the funding to $536 million after negotiations with lawmakers.
With Newsom’s signature, the state can start spending the money quickly, instead of waiting until the July 1 start of the fiscal year, when the next state budget will take effect.
Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in supporting the bill, although some voiced concern that it does not go far enough to manage forests and clear dry and dead vegetation that fuels fires.
“I believe that we as a Legislature could focus more on prevention, on fuel reduction, forest management projects,” said Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron of Escondido. “That being said, this bill is definitely a step in the right direction.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article250622984.html#storylink=cpy
Pandemic Gas Tax Dip is a Bump in Road Repair Funding
Sacramento Bee
California’s ambitious road repair program faces financial trouble—a projected $6.1 billion annual shortfall— four years after the state adopted the highest fuel tax in the nation in a plan to fix its battered highways
The new estimates reflect an unexpected decline in fuel tax revenue related to the coronavirus pandemic and a mix of new assumptions about how California roadways might deteriorate as climate change accelerates.
The shortfall figure was included in a 287-page draft report, “The State Highway System Management Plan,” prepared by the state transportation department for the California Transportation Commission, which got a briefing on it last month.
The report details strategies for planning and implementing improvements to the state’s roads over the next 10 years. The plan is required by law, and the final version is submitted to the governor and Legislature every two years.
The higher taxes were part of a 2017 transportation plan, referred to as Senate Bill 1, aimed at improving the state’s roads and bridges for years to come. increases that were aimed at raising about $5.4 billion annually for highways, bridges, transit and local roads. While the program was designed to expedite repairs, it was never meant as a quick fix for all the state’s road problems.
Available funding, the new report says, “will address about 45% of the total identified needs.” The projected shortfall, it said, “imposes a constraint requiring transportation objectives to be prioritized.”
The state Finance Department staff noted that the $6.1 billion figure included potential projects and covers some elements that have not been historically considered such as changes in sea level, which could lead to crumbling coastal roads and a need for alternatives.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration could be looking for help from the White House, where President Joe Biden is pushing for a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.
“President Biden’s landmark infrastructure proposal is in lockstep with California’s investment in transportation four years ago this month with the passage of SB 1,” said Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin.
“The state will benefit from this forward-thinking federal plan to fix our aging infrastructure, mitigate climate change by championing electric vehicles and making substantial investments in transit, address racism and issues of equity, and create millions of jobs in California and the nation.”
Biden’s plan includes $115 billion nationally for highway and bridge repair. No state estimates are available, but the California Asphalt Pavement Association notes that the state typically gets about 9% of such funding, which would amount to $10.3 billion.
But that would cover roughly two years of a shortfall, and Biden’s plan faces strong opposition from Republicans — and chances are that even if it passes, it’s unlikely to become law before late summer.
California’s transportation revenues, like most other states, has been hurt by a reduction in traffic volume during the COVID pandemic.
The Federal Highway Administration reported that vehicle miles traveled on California roads in January was down 15.2% from a year earlier. The December volume dropped 12.9%.
The state tax, which is tied to the rate of inflation, went up 3.2 cents in July, 2020, to 50.5 cents per gallon.
When added to the federal tax of 18.3 cents per gallon and other fees, California’s 81.45 cents a gallon is well ahead of runnerup Pennsylvania at 77.1 cents per gallon as of January 1, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
California’s bumpy roads cost state motorists $61 billion a year “due to congestion-related delays, traffic collisions, and increased vehicle operating costs caused by poor road conditions,” according to an analysis by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It estimated an additional $130 billion is needed “to bring the system back to a state of good repair.”
The state continues to have huge challenges in repairing and maintaining roads and bridges. The Federal Highway Administration found that last year, of 25,763 bridges in the state,
https://www.sacbee.com/article250612569.html#storylink=cpy
Drinking Water Systems Need $4.6-Billion Upgrade
Fresno Bee
A new state analysis estimates a $4.6 billion funding gap for water system infrastructure needed to ensure Californians have access to safe and affordable drinking water.
The State Water Resources Control Board this month released the first-ever drinking water needs assessment, showing that approximately 620 public water systems and 80,000 domestic wells are at-risk of failing to provide a sufficient amount of drinking water that meets basic health standards.
The highest concentrations of at-risk systems are in schools and communities in the San Joaquin Valley, Los Angeles Basin and the Central Coast, according to the principal investigator on the project, Greg Pierce of UCLA.
Water Board Chair E. Joaquin Esquivel said some community water systems are just one drought or pump failure or contaminant from serving unsafe water to customers.
“Aging infrastructure, climate change, droughts, floods, economic downturns, and emerging contaminants of concern will continue to stress our water systems,” Esquivel said in a prepared statement.
As of April 13, as many as 331 other water systems are already failing because the water source contains high levels of toxic contaminants, such as arsenic, nitrate, or a remnant of pesticides like 123-TCP.
Most of those troubled systems serve fewer than 500 connections, meaning they are often located in rural, unincorporated areas of the state. (See the current list of failing water systems at waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/hr2w/).
Work is under way to bring those systems into compliance, in part, as a result of funding from the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience Program, which earmarks $130 million annually through 2030.
“We want these systems to return to compliance, and to plug the pipeline of failing systems, but to do so will require sustained investment in water systems suffering from decades of accumulated need,” Esquivel said.
Authors of the needs assessment said additional state and federal funding is needed for long-term capital improvements to prevent more system failure; Currently, about 45 systems are added to the list of failing water systems every year, according to the State Water Board.
President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced a $2 trillion infrastructure initiative that could help.
Researchers used a combination of 19 metrics measuring water quality, affordability and accessibility to identify which systems are in trouble, due to increasing levels of contaminants or limited and dwindling water supplies.
While investigators did consider whether the water system was in a critically overdrafted groundwater basin or faces water shortage due to drought, the potential of a well to fail because of the falling water table was not specifically considered due to a lack of data, Pierce said.
Tribal water systems are also proportionally more at risk. Of 90 systems analyzed, the State Water Board determined 13 are currently failing, and 22 are at-risk, the report says.
The April 2021 needs assessment report included the state’s first analysis of threats to domestic wells, a common source of drinking water in rural areas, with risks that have historically been difficult to quantify due to a lack of data.
Emily Houlihan with the State Water Board said risks to the quality of water from domestic wells was analyzed by modeling, using water quality data from wells tested within a mile radius. That data set was used to create an interactive Aquifer Risk Map.
Affordability is a factor for accessibility to drinking water in parts of the state, primarily in small rural areas where the costs of water treatment are covered by the bills paid by fewer customers. The needs assessment considers household affordability, community affordability and the financial capacity of the water system.
The costs associated with maintaining or improving the state’s drinking water infrastructure were estimated by analyzing potential solutions. Consolidating water systems is considered the most practical solution for most troubled systems.
That can include extending a water line from a safe and affordable water system to residents on a domestic wells, or, expanding water service from a community system to a nearby neighborhood with failing infrastructure. The needs assessment included an analysis of where consolidation would be feasible.
Michael Claiborne, a policy analyst with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said the report provides critical information in the work to develop policies to bring clean, safe and affordable drinking water to communities, and to maintain the systems.
He said Senate Bill 222 and Senate Bill 223 are critical in their aim to make water more affordable by limiting water shutoffs and helping people pay high water bills.
Claiborne said it is encouraging to see the State Water Board think more creatively about fixing systems before they fail, so the state doesn’t have to fund expensive emergency solutions like delivering bottled water to an impacted community for several months, or in some cases, years.
The needs assessment was the result of 2018 legislation that granted $3.1 million to study risks to drinking water, a law which Claiborne said was a “consolation prize” to San Joaquin Valley residents who had supported the SAFER program, which passed in 2019.
The needs assessment will be regularly updated with new and updated data.
https://www.fresnobee.com/fresnoland/article250641719.html#storylink=cpy
Shoppers Ready for a Spending Spree
Orange County Register
California shoppers are feeling the best they have since the coronavirus slammed the economy, two surveys show.
The Chapman University-Claremont McKenna College California Consumer Sentiment Index jumped a record 37% in the first quarter from the end of recession-scarred 2021.
The Conference Board’s California Consumer Confidence Index hot 110.8 for March — up from a revised 96.1 a month earlier and up from 107.5 a year ago. That’s a 15%, one-month gain (fourth increase in a row) and a 3% gain over 12 months. The last time optimism was higher was in February 2020, just before the pandemic throttled the economy.
Golden State consumers are clearly cheered by falling coronavirus cases and deaths — plus a wider availability of COVID-19 vaccines. Such moves have allowed the state’s economy to more broadly reopen — getting more folks back to work and offering those with spare cash more opportunities to spend.
Chapman-CMC says its index rose to 90.6 from 65.9 in the fourth quarter — wiping out all the 2020’s losses.
The seven questions that create the index all surged higher: business conditions vs. a year ago (up 195%); improved current business impact (up 59%); better business conditions next year (up 48%); chances of finding a job (up 30%); willingness to buy a car (up 26%); improved business impact next year (up 21%); and better finances (up 13%).
“The large jump in California consumer sentiment over the last quarter sends a strong signal that the state economy is in recovery mode,” wrote Chapman professor Marc Weidenmier. “It looks like the medical community and public health officials finally have the upper hand in their battle with the coronavirus. Businesses are opening up and people are going back to work. This trend should continue for the foreseeable future unless we see another wave of the virus.”
The Conference Board’s two measures inside the state index revealed some mixed feelings.
Start with California consumers’ view of current business conditions. The present-day view scored 74.8 — up from 58.1 a month earlier but below 152.3 a year earlier. Folks seem to know things are still dicey right now. For example, California has suffered the nation’s fourth-highest job losses.
But shoppers’ outlook for the future is soaring. March set a new record high for this subindex at 134.9 — topping the previous record of 121.5 set in February. This forward-looking index was 77.7 a year earlier.
The Conference Board also tracks seven other big states and they’re mostly bullish.
For the month, overall confidence rose in Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. Over 12 months, optimism is up in Texas and Florida.
Among the states tracked, current conditions were better in all but Pennsylvania for the month. Over 12 months, this measure of present-day conditions rose nowhere. But expectations were up in all but Pennsylvania, for the month and year.
Nationally, the U.S. consumer confidence index was 109.7 in the month vs. 90.4 a month earlier and down from 118.8 a year ago. The one-month gain was the biggest since the economy was emerging from the Great Recession in 2011.
U.S. shoppers’ view of current conditions increased in the month and was lower over 12 months. Meanwhile, consumers’ economic hopes nationwide were better compared to the previous month and more optimistic vs. a year earlier.
A key factor in growing optimism is the outlook for jobs. nationally, 36.1% of consumers see more jobs six months from now vs. 27.4% a month earlier and 16.9% a year ago. Five-year average? 21.1%.
And folks are in a shopping mood.
The sizzling housing market has gotten a record number of Americans thinking about buying a home. Nationally, 8.4% said in March they were considering a purchase in the next six months vs. 6% in February and 5.6% a year ago. The five-year average is 6.3%.
And cars are more likely on the shopping list, too, with 11.9% of those polled in March saying they’ll buy within a half-year. Compare that with 10.2% in February and 11.4% a year ago. It’s still below the five-year average of 12.4%.
Unemployment Claims Drop
CalMatters
The number of Californians filing initial unemployment claims dropped to its lowest level in nearly three months, with around 69,000 claims filed for the week ending April 10, according to U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday. That’s a decrease of nearly 76,000 from the week before, signaling that the Golden State’s economy is on the mend as businesses reopen. But problems persist at the state’s unemployment department, which announced earlier this week that “an issue” was preventing about 178,000 Californians from reapplying for benefits. “We apologize for the inconvenience and will have this fixed by Friday,” the Employment Development Department said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the number of unresolved unemployment claims remained above 1 million for the 10th straight week. Around 122,000 have been pending EDD action for more than 21 days, while another 912,000 are reportedly awaiting claimant certification. But many claimants say they’ve provided information to the department to no avail, a statistic apparently backed up by EDD’s own data: As of April 2, more than 226,000 claims for which EDD had received certification were still pending department resolution.
Chamber of Commerce v. Unions & Environmentalists on “Job-Killer” Bills
CalMatters commentary
Annually, the California Chamber of Commerce chooses a relative handful of the hundreds of bills pending in the Legislature and labels them “job killers” that would impose new regulatory or taxation burdens.
The publication of the chamber’s list of measures it considers most onerous has become an important ritual because it defines the current parameters of a perpetual Capitol conflict, pitting business and employer interests against a quartet of rival groups — unions, environmentalists, consumer advocates and personal injury lawyers.
The targeted bills tend to be the highest priorities of the four and the annual jousting is a rough test of the Capitol’s ideological orientation.
The “job killer” exercise has been underway for more than two decades and the chamber and its allies have racked up a rather amazing record of success, given the Legislature’s continued drift to the left and its domination by Democrats who generally support what the four groups want to accomplish.
Roughly 90% of the designated bills have fallen by the wayside during that period, either failing to make it through the legislative grinder, being amended sufficiently to satisfy business lobbyists or, in some cases, being vetoed by the governor of the moment.
The 2020 legislative session typified the two-decade-long record. Nineteen bills were tabbed as “job killers” and just one made it into law, Senate Bill 1383. It expanded the obligation of employers to provide workers with family leave.
Most of the measures on this year’s 22-bill list generally fall into two categories — higher personal or corporate taxes and new mandates on employers.
The tax measures are probably dead on arrival because Gov. Gavin Newsom has publicly declared that he would reject any that reach his desk. While the governor endorses expensive expansions of services, including universal pre-kindergarten and single-payer health care, he is opposed — at least at the moment — to new taxes to pay for them.
That opposition may reflect some concern about facing voters later this year in a recall election, or a fear that new taxes might accelerate an exodus of corporations and wealthy individuals upon whom the state depends for much of its revenue.
The obligatory single-payer health care bill on the list, Assembly Bill 1400, is also very unlikely to move because of the taxes that would be required to pay for it — at least $100 billion a year.
The employer mandates — similar in thrust to the one bill that made it through last year — have the best chances of success. Most are being sponsored by unions as a backdoor way of securing benefits that ordinarily would be obtained through collective bargaining — if only the unions were more successful in obtaining private sector members.
Speaking of which, one of the bills on the chamber’s list is the latest effort, stretching back a half-century, to help the United Farm Workers Union expand its small membership. Assembly Bill 616 would modify the requirement of an election for the UFW to represent workers, and allow signatures on cards by more than 50% of a farm’s employees to qualify.
Some of the disputes over representation election outcomes have been raging for years without resolution. The union and its supporters say that employers have undermined representation elections while employers say a “card check” would allow workers to be coerced into signing and undermine secret ballots.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is now weighing the constitutionality of a state law granting the UFW access to farmers’ property to talk to workers — one of the Legislature’s many previous pro-union acts.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/04/california-chamber-commerce-job-killer-bills-legislation/