The California Chamber of Commerce has its annual “job killer” list, with a track record of spiking bills that is the envy of other industry groups. By its count, only 58 of the 824 bills labeled “job killers” between 1997 and 2022 made it into law without at least significant changes it wanted.
Similarly, California homebuilders have their own list of housing bills they oppose, though it’s lesser known and shorter-lived.
The California Building Industry Association’s “housing killers” are bills that it says would make the housing crisis worse by “increasing cost, time, and hurdles to build homes.”
For the current session, the list has six bills, including Assembly Bill 68, which was designed to streamline approvals for “climate smart” urban housing. But the association says the measure would “considerably increase” housing costs by “only allowing for much more expensive multi-family high rise homes to be built.”
AB 1000 also landed on the list. It would restrict warehouses from within 1,000 feet of homes, schools and hospitals. The association says that amounts to a “de facto ban” that would “exacerbate supply chain issues,” “push more trade away from California ports and devastate housing production in the process.”
Only one bill on the list is still alive — a record that could rival the Chamber’s success. That’s Senate Bill 253, which would require the California Air Resources Board to adopt regulations, including ones for companies, to report carbon emissions from homebuilding products. In an alert this week, the association says the measure would add costly delays and expenses to housing production.
- Dan Dunmoyer, president and CEO of CBIA: “This Housing Killer bill would make our housing crisis worse as home prices and rents soar in California.”
The association puts a more positive spin by also highlighting “housing creators” — bills that would “reduce barriers to home construction or help address the need for more houses in California.”
But the only measure on that list is dead for the session: SB 405, which would have required planning agencies to provide notice to owners of sites included in local housing inventory reports.
The association — made up of homebuilders, contractors, architects, engineers, designers, suppliers and others in the development industry — says that to avoid housing becoming even more unaffordable, California needs to produce 180,000 new homes a year. But it has averaged fewer than 80,000 annually over the last 10 years.
More Capitol news: Women rule, more than ever.
There are a record 50 women in the Legislature, up from 39 before the 2022 election. And now, for the first time in its 15-year run, women are a majority on Capitol Weekly’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the state Capitol (who aren’t elected officials).
Indeed, five of the top six are women: Dana Williamson, top aide to Gov. Gavin Newsom (official title: executive secretary); Ann Patterson, Newsom’s cabinet secretary; Christy Bouma, Newsom’s legislative secretary; Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the first partner; and Dee Dee Myers, head of Newsom’s Office of Business and Economic Development. (You’ll notice that Newsom’s name comes up a lot, which speaks to the power of the governor’s office and Newsom’s more aggressive role in policymaking.)
Rich Ehisen, Capitol Weekly’s editor in chief, notes that the Legislature is fast approaching gender parity.
- Ehisen: “Speaking of parity, we beat the Legislature to the punch: this year’s list is majority female. It is the first time this has happened, but likely not the last.”
He freely admits that the list is subjective, though it is the product of dozens of conversations of people in and around the Capitol. After taking over the weekly in January, he says he made a “conscious choice” to include more legislative chiefs of staff, policy experts, and consultants “who often toil in obscurity but who make the wheels turn on a daily basis,” as well as candidate recruiters.
With those changes, there are 30-plus who weren’t on the 2022 list. Most of the fresh faces haven’t been on the list ever.
In other legislative news: That very contentious bill to increase penalties for child sex trafficking was sent Wednesday to the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file, where bills with any significant financial impact go, but can get quickly killed in a rather opaque process.
Sen. Shannon Grove, a Bakersfield Republican and the bill’s author, said the committee, while evaluating the cost of incarcerating traffickers, should also consider the price for treating victims and survivors. But she also said money shouldn’t be the deciding factor.
- Grove, in a statement: “There is no price tag that can be placed on a victim of human trafficking, especially a child. Selling a child to be raped over and over again is a crime so grotesque, immoral and barbaric it should be prevented and stopped at any cost.”
Before landing in the suspense file, the bill received a lot of attention after Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee initially voted down the measure in July, though it passed with bipartisan support in the Senate. But after public outcry and protests from Republicans — as well as intervention by Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas — the committee pulled an about-face and passed the bill three days later.
It is one of the bills that put Assembly Public Safety leader Reggie Jones-Sawyer in the hot seat.
