Capitol Briefs: CEQA, VMT mitigation fights roil budget negotiations

The slow budget rollout continues: Lawmakers and the governor kept up their annual fiscal joust this week, slowly inching toward Monday’s budget deadline. The holdup as we speak is over reforms to the iconic California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which governor Newsom has made a condition to getting his sign off. The governor and legislative leaders argue that without the requested reforms, the budget becomes just a heavy stack of useless paper.

Labor leaders, however, call…nonsense.

“They’re trying to do something really unprecedented,” Raquel Mason with the California Environmental Justice Alliance told KCRA. “They’re trying to take CEQA away. It provides critical environmental protections, worker protections. And we’re going to do away with it.”

But wait, there’s more…

Another issue is the possible implementation of tiered wage reforms on CEQA-exempt projects, which would be a major change from the current standard of prevailing wage requirements. Labor groups are, to say the least, unhappy.

“This is the most outrageous abuse of process that I’ve ever witnessed,” labor lobbyist Scott Wetch told CBS News.

But wait, there’s even more than that…

VMT mitigation and affordable housing make budget appearance: Another aspect of the CEQA-reform debate includes a proposal (AB 130 and SB 130)to establish a state fund that would require homebuilders and other developers to pay to mitigate the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) from their projects, with funds raised going toward subsidizing the building of more affordable housing.

Developers and other housing proponents are adamantly opposed to the potential new fee, which would be imposed at the discretion of local agencies, arguing it will add tends of thousands of dollars to the cost of new homes. The California Building Industry Association sent a letter to all lawmakers on Thursday asking them to reject the proposal.

The measure is modeled after legislation originally proposed by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), but unlike that bill the funds collected would be overseen by the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI).

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the trailer bills keep coming: As always, lobbyist and law professor extraordinaire Chris Micheli notes some unusual language in Budget Bill Junior I, notably the expression of a legislative “expectation,” rather than intent. The specific section is (italics for emphasis):

SEC. 3.90.

It is the expectation of the Legislature that all state employee bargaining units meet and confer in good faith with the Governor or the Governor’s representative on or before July 1, 2025, to achieve savings through (a) the collective bargaining process for represented employees and (b) existing authority for the administration to adjust compensation for nonrepresented employees. The Legislature finds that the savings will likely be needed to maintain the sound fiscal condition of the state.

Another interesting bit in the language – it appears to require a signature from the Governor on June 30, rather than “by June 30,” or “on or before June 30.” Which begs the question, will Gov. Newsom make a point of actually signing the bill on 6/30?

Stay tuned. Meanwhile, a few bills released this morning.

SB-119 Public social services trailer bill:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB119

SB-129 Labor:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB129

SB-131 Public Resources:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB131

Trump vs. California: The Assembly Judiciary Committee unanimously endorsed SB 841, a measure authored by Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) that aims to prohibit employees of homeless shelters, rape crisis centers, domestic violence centers, family justice centers, and human trafficking service providers from allowing immigration enforcement officers access to nonpublic areas of those facilities unless they possess valid identification, a written statement of purpose, and a judicial warrant.

The bill comes in response to the recent rise in raids enacted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California, which houses nearly a quarter of the country’s immigrant population. Many of these raids have come without presentation of warrants and in or around schools, hospitals, courthouses and other locations previously deemed off-limits to immigration enforcement by the Biden administration’s “sensitive locations” memo, which was rescinded by the Trump administration on January 21.

Rubio argued at the June 24^th hearing that this sweeping reversal of immigration policy has caused a significant increase of anxiety in the immigrant community, making it even more difficult for immigrant survivors of domestic violence or other trauma to access support due to the fear of detention and deportation.

“These locations are meant to be safe spaces of healing and recovery, and people going to these centers have a lot of trauma,” Rubio said. “But if fear keeps someone from walking through the door of these safe spaces that provide critical services, we as a society have already failed them. This bill is critically important because it sends the message to victims that we stand with them.”

The bill moves now to the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

Remembering the late Bill Bagley: We got this very poignant remembrance of former Assemblymember Bill Bagley from our good friend Alex Vassar at the California State Library.

On June 9^th, California lost the last member of the state legislature’s freshman class of 1961. My friend Bill Bagley, who spent nearly fourteen years in the legislature, died just a few weeks short of his 97^th birthday. I had known Bagley (or “Bags” as those who knew him better than I did called him) for almost twenty years and I loved our conversations. In the past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about something that he said to me while we were working on recording an oral history back in 2021.

 At one point, Bill made a joke about me how my work with history had led to me having too many older friends. Then, quickly transitioning into a moment of serious thought, he said something that has just stuck with me:

 “When you have young friends, you get to see them grow and change as the years go by. But with old friends, we are who we’re going to be. I hope you don’t expect to see any changes from me, my friend, because I don’t have that long.”

 He did have another four years after that, but I think he was right. From about that point, Bill Bagley had indeed become who he was going to be.

 Thanks, Alex.

The Skinny returns: Longtime Capitol Weekly readers probably remember an occasional bit we used to do called The Skinny in which we took note of some of the goings on about the Capitol community – promotions, job shifts, etc. Well everything old eventually becomes new again, so look for the new incarnation of The Skinny – maybe we’ll call it “Son of Skinny” – to make the occasional appearance in these here pages. Until then, here are a few tidbits from around the Capitol.

The Weideman Group announced last week that Ryan McCarthy has made partner. McCarthy has been the firm’s top climate and clean energy guy for the last six years, and over that time principal Mark Weideman says the firm “more than tripled its climate- and clean-energy client base and revenues.” Sounds like a good move…California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, who chairs the Commission on Judicial Appointments, announced earlier this week that the commission has confirmed three appointments to California’s Courts of Appeal in Los Angeles: Justice Helen Zukin, as presiding justice of the Second Appellate District, Division Four (Los Angeles); Judge Armen Tamzarian, as associate justice of the Second Appellate District, Division Four (Los Angeles); and Judge Mark Hanasono, as associate justice of the Second Appellate District, Division Three (Los Angeles). The appointees were confirmed by a unanimous vote of the three-member commission, which in addition to Chief Justice Guerrero includes California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert….Guerrero had more to announce too, as she appointed two new voting members and three new advisory (non-voting) members to the Judicial Council. The two new voting members are Judge Michael Rhoads, Superior Court of San Francisco County, who sits in a criminal trial department and oversees the court’s criminal domestic violence calendar, and Dena Stone, who is an Assistant Public Defender in the Sacramento County Public Defender’s Office. The three new advisory (non-voting) members are: Presiding Judge Patricia L. Kelly, Superior Court of Santa Barbara County, Judge Jeffrey C. Kauffman, Superior Court of Solano County, and David Slayton, the Court Executive Officer for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County.

Capitol Weekly intern Emily Hamill contributed to this story. Emily and fellow intern Acsah Lemma are part of Capitol Weekly’s Public Policy Journalism Internship program.