Legislation column: Stalled in Sacramento
| Tuesday, Jun 30 2009 07:43 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Jun 30 2009 07:43 PM
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Nick Ortiz
While the governor and legislative leaders muddled though the state’s finances — in hopes of putting together a budget deal by the time you read this — a significant deadline slipped by.
We’ve reached the “House of Origin” deadline, typically the “midterm” of a legislative year. This rule requires that any bill to be considered by both houses and the governor pass out of the legislative house (Senate or Assembly) it was introduced in by the beginning of June.
This year, the wrangling over the budget and the timeout called in Sacramento until the May special election results have reduced the amount of time committees had to review legislation.
Accordingly, less legislation will be passed and any bills that have an expensive price tag will be shelved. This is in some ways good for the business community as these circumstances have conspired to stall chamber-opposed legislation that would have onerous impacts on California businesses.
AB 212 by Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña, D-San Diego, would have substantially increased the cost of new construction by requiring that new commercial and residential structures have on-site generation systems. The most common such systems are solar panel or photovoltaic energy systems. This would increase the cost of a single family residence by approximately $30,000 and could have significant economic impacts for commercial and industrial properties.
While the bill’s intention to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is laudable, according to the Legislative Analyst new construction makes up only 2 percent of the total supply of buildings in California. Therefore, this new mandate would have little impact. Luckily the business community convinced the Legislature that now is not the time to put even more barriers in the way of our struggling housing industry or new-home buyers.
AB 1000 by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, sought to mandate that an employee who works in California for seven days or more would be entitled to paid sick leave from their employer. The cost to employers would be astronomical, not to mention the fact that this legislation could potentially void or invalidate current benefit programs including those in collective bargaining agreements and especially paid-time-off benefits.
This bill stalled in the Assembly Appropriations committee as legislative leaders realized California businesses simply could not afford it. This is an incredible turn of events as just last fall, both houses of the Legislature approved this same legislation and the governor was forced to veto it.
SB 810 by Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, is a measure to create a government-run healthcare system. The bill would require all Californians to enroll in the system and it would ban the sale of private insurance policies. While no funding mechanism is included in the bill, the intent of the author would be to place a tax on employers.
This bill stalled because it would require the state to contribute billions of dollars to fund health care for all Californians in the midst of a budget crisis. This bill was also passed by both houses last year and was stopped only by the governor’s veto.
As I write this, another legislative deadline has quietly lapsed: the June 15th constitutional deadline for passing a budget. Legislative leaders are working through the deadline by negotiating — by all accounts — what will be a grim state budget.
Recognizing that the fiscal crisis has sucked the oxygen out of the room for other policy issues, we at the chamber continue to urge our legislators to pass a budget that honestly grapples with our state’s fiscal situation, protects local government revenues, avoids targeted taxes on California businesses, provides local schools with fiscal flexibility and, most importantly, upholds the sanctity of the two-thirds vote rule.
More information on these bills is available at www.leginfo.ca.gov and more advocacy resources are available at www.bakersfieldchamber.org.
Nick Ortiz is the government affairs manager for the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce. The chamber, founded in 1920, is a member-driven business association representing nearly 1,500 California businesses.
