Capitol Update: Wave of Legislative Bills!

from Damon R. Conklin, Director of Government Affairs, Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange

WAVE OF LEGISLATIVE BILLS!

Today, Friday, February 19^th marks the “Bill Introduction Deadline,” and so far, we have already seen more than 2,100 new legislative bills introduced, on a wide variety of topics. But wait, there’s more. A lot more. By close of business, we expect an additional 1000 bills to be introduced hitting a mark well over 3,000 total bills.  

Here at SRBX, we read every single one of these bills and have been working with our own Government Affairs Committee, Legal Committee and subject matter experts to identify those that have an impact on your business, employees and those you do business with, and will work to support the things that make sense, while opposing the bills that will make it harder for you to operate as an employer in CA.

STATE LEADERS ANNOUNCE NEW RELIEF PACKAGE

State leaders announced that they have reached an agreement on an immediate $9.6 billion relief package for Californians experiencing pandemic hardship. The package includes direct, one-time $600 payments to those with incomes below $30,000, allocates more than $2 billion in grants up to $25,000 for small businesses, tax cuts allowing businesses to deduct up to $150,000 in expenses covered by PPP and EIDL funds, and more. Read more.  Here’s a look at other components of the relief package: 

• $400 million in federal funding for $525-per-child stipends at state-backed daycares and preschools.

• $100 million in emergency financial aid for community college students.

• $50 million in grants for cultural institutions like museums and arts spaces.

• Additional state fee waivers for hard-hit restaurants, salons and other businesses.

NEW REPORT RECOMMENDS CA TO INVEST MORE IN CTE 

CA’s Little Hoover Commission just released a new report, First Steps toward Recovery: Job Training and Reskilling, which examined how state government can respond at speed and at scale to the current jobs crisis. As of late 2020, California had lost over 1.5 million jobs due to the COVID pandemic—more than it did during the entire Great Recession. In the face of high unemployment, it recommends that CA must move quickly to build on the state’s investments in career training and workforce development in fields like construction, “which have tended to be less impacted by the pandemic and which are likely to lead the recovery. These are also fields that tend to offer higher wages than the service sector or provide increasingly well-defined career pathways that can support skill acquisition and promotion.” We could not agree more. 

Blue Shield, the health insurance giant now running the state’s vaccine distribution system, isn’t the only Newsom donor that received a high-dollar no-bid contract amid the pandemic. At least a half-dozen companies that made substantial contributions to Newsom received no-bid contracts ranging from $2 million to over $1 billion or other significant opportunities — raising questions about potential conflicts of interest, though state law permits the normal bidding process to be bypassed in a state of emergency. The donors include:

• Blue Shield, which contributed $342,000 to Newsom and his ballot measure campaign, received a $15 million contract to lead vaccine distribution.

• UnitedHealth, which contributed $220,400 to Newsom and his ballot measure campaign, saw its subsidiaries receive at least $492 million worth of pandemic contracts.

• Bloom Energy, which contributed $85,200 to Newsom, received a $2 million contract to refurbish ventilators.

• BYD, whose president contributed $40,000 to Newsom, received a $1.3 billion contract for masks.

These aren’t the only emergency contracts to have raised eyebrows. In March, California wired nearly half a billion dollars to a mask vendor that had been in business for three days, only to claw back the money hours later. And under then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, California awarded an emergency $35 million voter education contract to a firm tied to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign — a bill State Controller Betty Yee still refuses to pay.

NEW UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS SPIKE
 

Employment Development Department announced that California’s backlog of unemployment claims rose for the sixth straight week to reach 1.19 million. And more claims are on the way: Nearly 159,000 Californians filed initial unemployment claims for the week ending Feb. 13, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures. That’s California’s highest total in more than a month and a staggering 18.4% of all claims filed nationally. In recent weeks, the CA has accounted for an increasingly large share of the nation’s jobless claims, skyrocketing from 6.3% on Jan. 23 to 15.3% on Feb. 5. That share is now approaching 20%, though California only accounts for 11.8% of the nation’s labor force.

According to a new report by the Milken Institute, tech hubs of San Francisco and San Jose fell precipitously in this year’s ranking of U.S. cities’ economic performance. SF and San Jose, which ranked Nos. 1 and 5 last year, respectively, fell to Nos. 24 and 22. Meanwhile, the Provo-Orem region in Utah captured the No. 1 spot, and Salt Lake City rose to No. 4. Of the 10 cities that saw the biggest drop in rankings, three were in California: Salinas, Santa Cruz and Oakland. 

The report which ranked cities based on jobs, wages, high-tech growth, housing affordability and household broadband access — found that the pandemic’s shift to remote work has likely affected California more than any other state. With companies like Salesforce, Twitter, Square, Dropbox, Yelp and Pinterest permitting most employees to permanently work from home, downtown San Francisco is reeling. And Silicon Valley companies Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle recently decamped to Texas. The report attributed this partly to “extremely high housing costs” due to their proximity to the Bay Area. 

The map was released by state officials on Friday. An interactive version lets viewers see which grade levels are in-person vs. hybrid vs. remote. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journalchronicles nationwide feuds between parents and teachers over school re-openings. And, in Northern California, parents chipped in for an Amber Alert-style billboard that says, “Missing: All CA Students, last seen 3/13/20.” 

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)—an incentive for employers to broaden their job applicant pools and hire from certain groups of people who may need assistance finding jobs—has been reauthorized and extended through the end of 2025. Learn more. 

2021 LIKELY ANOTHER VOTE-BY-MAIL YEAR
 

Every active, registered California voter will get a mail-in ballot before any election that takes place this year once Newsom signs into law, SB 29, a bill passed by the state Legislature on Tuesday. That means two special elections to fill legislative seats vacated by now-Secretary of State Shirley Weber and now-Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell — as well as a potential election to recall Newsom — will be mostly vote-by-mail affairs. The bill was passed on a party-line basis, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting against. It comes on the heels of a viral tweet falsely claiming that California requires signature verification on petitions to recall Newsom, but not on mail-in ballots. Weber’s office confirmed that county elections officials verify signatures on every mail-in ballot, initiative, referendum, recall petition and candidate nomination document.

Best, 

Damon R. Conklin
Director of Government Affairs
Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange
5370 Elvas Avenue ǀ Sacramento, CA 95819
Telephone: 916.442.8991 ǀ Cell: 916.290.3400
Email: dconklin@srbx.org ǀ www.srbx.org