A number of California Chamber of Commerce-opposed job killer bills have been referred to the appropriations committees of the Assembly or Senate for a review of the proposals’ fiscal impacts. The committees will be taking up bills on their Suspense Files this week.

Urge your legislators and appropriations committee members to prevent these bills from advancing.

Affordable Housing Barriers

SB 224 (Jackson; D-Santa Barbara) Barrier to Housing and Economic Development — Creates significant uncertainty for developers by requiring the Department of Planning and Research (OPR) to amend the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines to redefine the baseline that may be used in the CEQA analysis and directing OPR, in drafting the Guidelines, to limit consideration of modifications to the environment at the project site caused by illegal, unpermitted, or emergency activities within the baseline conditions. If prior illegal, unpermitted, or emergency activities are excluded in a project’s baseline, it may require projects to mitigate not only the impacts of the project itself, but also the impacts of other historical activities for which the applicant has no legal liability and over which it had no control. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

Arbitration Discrimination

SB 538 (Monning; D-Carmel) Arbitration Discrimination — Unfairly and unlawfully discriminates against arbitration agreements by restricting the formation of antitrust arbitration agreements in hospital contracts, leading to costly litigation over preemption by the Federal Arbitration Act. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

Burdensome Environmental Regulations

SB 705 (Allen; D-Santa Monica) Expanded Polystyrene Ban — Increases cost of prepared food, overly burdens the restaurant industry, and threatens loss of jobs by banning food service containers made from expanded polystyrene foam as of January 1, 2020. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

Increased Labor Costs

AB 1209 (Gonzalez Fletcher; D-San Diego) Public Shaming of California Employers — Imposes a mandate on California employers to collect data on the mean and median salaries paid to men and women under the same job title or description without also considering any bona fide reason for differences in compensation, to publicly shame California employers and expose them to costly litigation for alleged wage disparity where no violation of the equal pay law exists. Assembly Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

SB 63 (Jackson; D-Santa Barbara) Imposes New Maternity and Paternity Leave Mandate — Unduly burdens and increases costs of small employers with as few as 20 employees by requiring 12 weeks of protected employee leave for child bonding and exposes them to the threat of costly litigation. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

SB 562 (Lara; D-Bell Gardens) Government-Run Health Care — Creates a new single-payer government-run, multibillion-dollar health care system financed by an unspecified and undeveloped “revenue plan” which will penalize responsible employers and individuals and result in significant new taxes on all Californians and California businesses. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

Increased Unnecessary Litigation Costs

SB 49 (de León; D-Los Angeles) Creates Uncertainty and Increases Potential Litigation Regarding Environmental Standards — Creates uncertainty for businesses with respect to the federal environmental standards proposed to be incorporated into California law if backsliding occurs at the federal level and the standards/requirements to be adopted by state agencies, and increases the potential for costly litigation by creating private rights of action under California law when certain events occur. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

Tax Increases

AB 43 (Thurmond; D-Richmond) Targeted Tax on Contractors — Unfairly targets one category of taxpayers to fund a benefit for all of the state by imposing a tax on contractors for the privilege of doing business with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and requires the contractor to absorb the cost while maintaining a price of lowest responsible bidder. Assembly Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

SCA 6 (Wiener; D-San Francisco) Lowers Vote Requirement for Tax Increases — Adds complexity and uncertainty to the current tax structure and pressure to increase taxes on commercial, industrial and residential property owners by giving local governments new authority to enact special taxes, including parcel taxes, by lowering the vote threshold from two-thirds to 55%. Senate Appropriations Committee; Suspense File.

Action Needed

Contact your legislators and appropriations committee members to prevent these bills from advancing.

For easy-to-edit- sample letters, see the action alerts at www.calchambervotes.com.