The Brief

Among the most controversial bills that died this spring was a measure prompted by allegations that Gov. Gavin Newsom secured a lucrative benefit for a billionaire supporter by exempting his restaurants from a minimum wage increase.

Newsom dismissed the allegations as “absurd,” but KCRA 3 reported that the public might never get a full accounting of what happened because participants to the bill negotiations signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that threatened them with legal action if they spoke about the issue.

The controversy prompted a bill banning NDAs for legislative negotiations, but the bill died last month even though only one Democratic member of the Assembly Committee on Elections voted against it. It failed because five other Democrats on the committee didn’t vote.

As CalMatters revealed in April, not voting is a common practice for California legislators. Last year, at least 15 bills died due to lack of votes instead of lawmakers actually voting “no” to kill them. So far this year, a database at CalMatters’ Digital Democracy indicates that at least 12 bills have died because lawmakers declined to vote.

Insiders say it’s a way for legislators to be polite to colleagues and perhaps avoid a “no” vote on their own legislation. But critics say it’s also a way for legislators to dodge responsibility for their decisions.

“Some will say that those bills were tough votes for lawmakers,” said Mike Gatto, a former Democratic legislator from Los Angeles. “But one must remember that the whole reason why the public elects these lawmakers is for them to take tough votes.”

The Legislature’s bill-tracking website doesn’t distinguish whether a legislator declined to vote, was absent or if the lawmaker announced they were formally abstaining from voting.

Now, with the launch of Digital Democracy, the public has easy access to video and transcripts that show just how often legislators are present in hearings and even engage in discussion, sometimes highly critical of the legislation, before staying silent during the call for a vote. Some legislators say the practice should be changed.

“I think it is appropriate for legislators to basically vote ‘yes’ or vote ‘no,’ ” Santa Ana Democratic Sen. Tom Umberg, a former federal prosecutor, recently told CBS News for a story done in collaboration with CalMatters. “But, you know, that is the system that we have. Should we change it? Probably.”

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire didn’t respond to CalMatters’ requests to discuss whether the Legislature’s rules on voting should change.

Public safety, ratepayer protection bills die

Among the bills that died recently from California Democrats not voting were several involving public safety issues. They include a bill that would have prohibited sexually violent predators from being released into communities unless they had a place to live. Another would have increased penalties for property crimes. A third would have made it harder for police to charge people with a crime for filing false complaints against officers.

Another bill that died for lack of votes would restrict the controversial practice of gas and electric utilities from using ratepayer money for political lobbying. Senate Bill 938 was in response to a Sacramento Bee investigation last summer that revealed SoCalGas charged at least $36 million to ratepayers for political lobbying to oppose California policies aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

Environmentalists and utility watchdog groups were outraged, arguing that ratepayers’ bills should only reflect the cost to deliver electricity or gas to their homes. They said shareholders should foot the bill for political lobbying.

But Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat from Irvine, saw his bill to ban the practice fail in April before the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. The committee has 18 members, so the bill needed at least 10 “yes” votes to advance. In two separate votes, six members of the committee declined to vote. When combined with Republicans’ “no” votes, the abstentions were enough to kill Min’s bill.

At its April 16 hearing, Democratic Sens. Bill Dodd of Napa and Angelique Ashby from Sacramento questioned whether the legislation would help consumers since lobbying costs represent a small fraction of a utility’s expenses. In the end, they both declined to vote.

Joining them were fellow Democrats Josh Newman, Anna Caballero, Susan Rubio and the committee’s chairperson, Steven Bradford. Dodd’s office was the only one to respond to CalMatters’ interview request.

“I respect the author and his intent with the bill, but there were unanswered questions about the impact it would have on grants for fire prevention activities,” Dodd said in an emailed statement. “So I reserved voting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ until those questions were answered.”

Not voting on ‘Paneragate’ bill

Several legislators who helped kill the bill banning NDAs from legislative negotiations were also present during that hearing.

The four Democratic Assemblymembers on the elections committee who declined to vote on the NDA ban are Marc Berman of Cupertino, Steve Bennett of Oxnard, Akilah Weber of La Mesa and Matt Haney of San Francisco. Evan Low of Cupertino, who’s running for Congress, was absent for the hearing. The absence is recorded on the Legislature’s tally of votes the same as the lawmakers who stayed silent. None of them responded to interview requests.

It was a controversial bill in part because it dealt with a scandal about the governor that broke in February when Bloomberg News reported that the Panera Bread chain appeared to be exempt from a new law that raised the state’s minimum wage to $20 for fast food workers. In the Bloomberg investigation, sources said the Newsom administration sought the exemption to benefit a billionaire Panera Bread franchise owner who is a major Newsom donor.

After KCRA revealed that negotiators working on the minimum wage bill were required to sign NDAs, Republican Assemblymember Vince Fong introduced the bill to ban the practice for legislative negotiations. Labor groups opposed the bill, and business groups were split. Fong, who is running for Congress, didn’t return a request for comment.

During the hearing, Assemblymembers Berman and Weber spoke with the bill’s author, but still declined to vote.

“This is an extremely important bill that deals with a very important issue,” Weber said in the hearing. She also suggested the bill was drafted too quickly and she had questions about “whether or not the bill was too broad.”

Gatto, a former Democratic Assemblymember, said it was especially galling that lawmakers refused to vote on the non-disclosure agreement bill, given the legislation “itself involves the sanctity of the (legislative) process.”

“It just feels dirtier somehow,” Gatto said.

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — a nearly 1-acre structure expected to reconnect areas used by SoCal’s wild animals — will open to wildlife on Dec. 2 after years of planning and construction.

Construction began on Earth Day in 2022. Once completed, the bridge will allow all forms of wildlife to safely cross the busy 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, from mountain lions and bobcats to birds and butterflies.

Beth Pratt, regional executive director at the California Regional Center with the National Wildlife Federation, said the crossing is unlike any other wildlife crossing in the country.

“This project is four projects in one, and it is of a complexity, coordination and magnitude that is off the charts,” Pratt said. “The Santa Monica Mountains are one of 36 biodiversity hot spots in the world, and we designed this for an array of wildlife so that all wildlife in this region would have a future.”

The project’s cost is around $90 million to $100 million, and is considered one of the most expensive wildlife crossings in the world.

Officials with the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing announced Wednesday that SoCal animals will be able to traverse the crossing on Dec. 2, 2026.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why it matters 

Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist with the National Park Service, told LAist that the mountain lion population is small and isolated in the Santa Monica Mountains, and the 101 Freeway is a major barrier for movement.

“We don't have many lines from north of the freeway crossing south, so that can lead to very low genetic diversity. We have documented inbreeding fathers breeding with daughters and granddaughters,” Sikich said. “It's not a numbers problem in the Santa Monica Mountains here … It's a genetic diversity issue.”

Vehicle strikes are the leading cause of death for this mountain lion population, Sikich added. The bridge will allow animals born in the Santa Monica Mountains, especially those with diverse genetics, a safe way to leave.

Officials with the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing announced Wednesday that SoCal animals will be able to traverse the crossing on Dec. 2, 2026.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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What’s next? 

Construction of the first structure is complete, and crews are now building the second half over Agoura Road. That second structure is expected to go up over the summer.

Robert Rock of Rock Design Associates said crews are using methods to reduce effects to drivers who rely on the 101 Freeway.

“We had precast box girders that were built at a facility in Perris, California, that were all essentially giant concrete Legos that came and got placed,” Rock said. “That reduction in impact to the traveling public was a key deciding factor that motivated how we changed the design.”

Next, crews will move three million cubic feet of soil to regrade the land surrounding the site.

A lot of the work on the second structure has been happening 60 to 100 feet underground, Rock added.

“As we get to the end of the summer, I think people will start to see how much transformation actually is occurring on the site because we'll have met that moment in the schedule where all that work is coming back up to the point where you'll be able to see it from the freeway again,” he said.

As worsening climate-related disasters like fires and floods drive up insurance costs in California, state Sen. Scott Wiener and fire survivors are pushing for a bill that could give the state a way to force oil companies to pay for their role.

SB 982, a streamlined version of a bill that did not pass last year in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles-area fires, aims to blunt rising insurance costs by allowing the state attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies for damages connected to a climate disaster such as a wildfire, heat wave, drought or storm.

In a hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, supporters and opponents shared their thoughts on the bill with lawmakers.

Gayle Ali and her husband, Rasheed, said they were celebrating their 43rd wedding anniversary when the Eaton Fire destroyed their house in Altadena, where they have lived for 30 years. The fire took her photo studio, her husband’s music studio, furniture, cars and family photos.

“A life erased,” she said.

They’re rebuilding with the help of their community and crowdfunding grants, but they don’t know if insurance will be available or how much it will cost in the future.

The Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed more than 16,000 structures around Los Angeles.

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Ryan Kellman

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“What truly angers me is knowing that this wasn’t just bad luck,” Ali said. “I’ve since learned that back in the ’80s, years before we bought our home, Exxon’s own scientists warned the effects of their products would be catastrophic. They chose to hide the truth and spend millions on PR campaigns that are still running today. They keep profiting while putting our communities in danger.”

Oil companies such as ExxonMobil had their own internal research decades ago showing that burning fossil fuel would contribute to global warming, which intensifies extreme disasters like fires and floods. Publicly, however, they sought to undermine the science and cast doubt on the effects of human-caused climate change. Meanwhile, they have continued to rake in large profits year after year.

“While so much of our community has lost everything — I mean everything — and so many families can barely afford food, let alone rebuild, the five largest oil corporations made nearly $400 billion in profit over the last three years,” Ali said.

Yet right now, taxpayers and disaster survivors are the only ones paying for climate change, she said.

“We have to ask, who’s not paying?” Wiener said while speaking in support of his bill. “We know that the victims, the survivors, are paying in profound ways. Taxpayers are paying. And of course, policyholders are paying with much higher premiums. Who’s not paying? The answer is the fossil fuel industry, the corporations whose products fueled this crisis by fueling climate change.”

The bill’s current version is simplified from the proposal that Wiener and a colleague introduced last year, which would have allowed disaster survivors or insurance companies themselves to sue for damages.

“We heard the feedback [from last year],” Wiener said. “This bill is profoundly narrower.”

In the bill’s current version, the amount of damages sought in a civil action filed by the attorney general would be in proportion to a company’s market share. Any payouts would go to a newly created Attorney General Climate Disaster Fund and be distributed to policyholders; the California FAIR plan, which is the state’s insurer of last resort; the California Safe Homes grant program, which provides funding for fire-hardening work in high-risk areas; and to cover litigation costs.

Industry opponents say the bill would raise gas prices and kill jobs. A report released this month by the California Center for Jobs and the Economy details concerns ranging from higher premiums to less tax revenue.

Wiener rebutted these concerns, saying that gas is a global commodity, with prices set by worldwide market forces and not “the threat of hypothetical litigation,” and that the analyses ignore the benefits of payments to disaster survivors.

Louise Bedsworth, executive director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment, spoke in support of the bill and pointed out that by the end of the century, the average area burned by wildfire in the state is projected to increase by 77% if emissions continue to rise.

As Santa Ana reckons with a $16 million budget shortfall, the police and city officials on Tuesday reported that around $500,000 was spent responding to anti-ICE protests last summer — and that legal claims filed by protesters could push that cost even higher.

Around $400,000 of that amount was spent over four days last year — June 9, 10, 11 and 14 — when residents descended on the downtown area to protest ramped up immigration enforcement actions under the Trump administration.

City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said during Tuesday’s City Council meeting that the city has received four claims and one lawsuit stemming from the police department’s actions during the protests.

It’s unclear how much the claims could end up costing the city.

Call from the DOJ

Robert Rodriguez, Santa Ana’s police chief, said officers were sent out during the first day of protests after Carvalho received a call from the Department of Justice.

 ”It wasn't in a threatening manner, but it was basically if your department cannot provide the security that we need, then we're going to bring in federal resources,” she said. “We had a discussion about what that might look like in terms of safety for our community and what that would mean to people in our community.”

That’s when the police department made the decision to send in officers.

Rodriguez said the department was “ trying to create some distance between our community and the federal officers.”

How we got here

Last June, protesters took to the streets across Southern California calling out the ramped up immigration sweeps across the region. This prompted the Trump administration to send in the military and the National Guard, further inflaming tensions.

But the ensuing local police response during the protests also drew the ire of residents and community members, particularly in Los Angeles and Santa Ana.

One councilmember in Santa Ana, Johnathan Ryan Hernandez, said during a council meeting last year that police officers shot at him using rubber bullets during anti-ICE protests.

California's secretary of state announced Tuesday that a tax-chopping proposition — one backers have spent years trying to put before voters — is now officially eligible for the November ballot. Come fall, anti-tax advocates and real estate developers may have reason to rejoice; city governments, public sector unions and the city of Los Angeles could have reason to worry.

The qualification announcement for a real estate-oriented constitutional amendment also gives California's Democratic lawmakers reason to start frantically negotiating toward a deal to keep the measure off the ballot entirely, even though the measure’s backers publicly say they aren’t interested.

Branded the “Local Taxpayer Protection Act” by its sponsor, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the newly eligible measure would both sharply cap municipal transfer taxes — fees slapped on real estate sales — and make it harder for voter-sponsored campaigns to raise taxes in local elections.

The measure would hit cities like Berkeley, San Mateo and Alameda — which rely on transfer taxes for a significant share of their funding — especially hard. According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, it would cost local governments “a couple of billion dollars” per year, with taxpayers collectively saving just as much.

Why this is also a fight about Los Angeles

But the focus of the debate, and arguably the primary target of the proposition, is Los Angeles and its controversial “mansion tax,” known as Measure ULA.

Since becoming law in 2023, the voter-backed policy has levied a 4% tax on real estate sales over $5 million and 5.5% on those above $10 million — thresholds that have since inched up to match inflation. The tax has raised more than $1 billion in three years. Last week, the city announced a $360 million award for future affordable housing projects.

But real estate interests, some elected officials in Los Angeles and a growing number of academics say the tax has triggered a sharp slowdown in new construction, including of affordable housing, across the city, compared to neighboring cities. The levy falls not just on mansions, but apartments, condos, multi-use and commercial developments, too.

The resulting ire among developers, investors and business groups over the Los Angeles tax fueled the statewide proposition campaign, said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a conservative group best known for its landmark property tax limiting measure Proposition 13. “I think ULA was not just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the redwood tree that broke the camel’s back,” he said.

The statewide proposition would trim transfer taxes to just one-twentieth of 1% of a real estate sale’s value. Measure ULA’s top rate is 100 times higher. It would also require some voter-initiated tax measures to clear a two-thirds threshold rather than a simple majority. In Los Angeles, measure ULA passed with 58%.

If the tax-chopping proposition passes, Measure ULA is first on the block.

But that’s a big “if.” More than 57% of likely voters, including a majority of Republicans, opposed the initiative when shown its title as it would appear on the ballot, according to a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

On your mark, get set … haggle!

There’s also a chance the measure won’t even make it onto the ballot.

Under California election law, sponsors can still yank a measure back after gathering enough valid signatures before the official qualification deadline of June 25. In prior election cycles, that window has become a bonanza of backroom dealing in Sacramento as Democratic lawmakers scramble to muscle unwanted measures off the upcoming ballot and deal-hungry interest groups line up to extract concessions.

A notable example: In 2018, the soda industry funded a ballot measure that would have made it harder for local governments across the state to raise taxes. They pulled it at the last minute, but only after lawmakers begrudgingly agreed to pass a 13-year ban on new soda taxes.

At the end of last year’s legislative session, a group of Southern California Democrats, working alongside Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and former state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, launched a last-minute effort to exempt new apartment developments from the L.A. tax, while adding some new flexibility on how the money could be spent. The bill had a broader purpose too: It would have only taken effect if the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association removed its measure.

In the face of pushback from both business groups on one side and arch defenders of Measure ULA on the other, the effort fizzled. But now that the Howard Jarvis measure is officially headed for the ballot, Sacramento legislators may feel newly inspired to deal. Even if the electoral odds are ultimately stacked against the proposition, Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning campaign funders would be happy to avoid a costly defensive campaign.

Let’s make a deal?

In the meantime, changes may be coming out of Los Angeles itself.

Earlier this year, Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is hoping to unseat Bass as mayor, introduced a measure that would have put a series of Measure ULA changes on the June ballot. By exempting new development, it reflected many of the changes proposed in last year’s unsuccessful state bill. But a majority of the council punted.

The council instead delegated the question to a select committee chaired by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, tasking it with recommending changes to the tax. Some of those changes would require voter approval and could go before voters in November, on the same ballot as the Howard Jarvis proposition.

The committee will also consider a set of tweaks to the law proposed by city staff that would clarify that nonprofit affordable developers are exempt from the tax, while making it easier for developers to pair ULA funds with other sources of funding. City staff say those changes could happen without going back to voters.

Tenant rights groups, some affordable housing developers and trade unions support those changes, but are urging the committee to otherwise leave the tax alone. A coalition of developers, “Yes in My Backyard” advocates and unionized carpenters has popped up to urge the city to consider a broad “fix” — before state lawmakers or anti-tax advocates do that work for them.

“We think it's really important to show that we can drive reform locally,” said Sarah Dusseault, a former city homelessness official who is now co-leading the “Mend It, Don’t End It” campaign. Making those changes locally “will go a long way to prevent more drastic measures.”

Measure ULA’s defenders counter that nothing the city or the state does will be enough to convince the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to pull its measure.

“We’ve tried to negotiate with the funders of the measure and, both publicly and privately, they’ve been consistent that they have no intention to pull the measure,” said Joe Donlin, director of the United to House L.A. coalition. “They don't want to change taxes, they want to eliminate them.”

Coupal, from Howard Jarvis, agreed that the proposition is not a bargaining chip. “The folks on our side cannot envision any kind of deal that would give us the kind of solace that we would need,” he said.

But campaigns are expensive. Though the proposition campaign has been led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, much of the funding has come from the California Business Roundtable, a coalition of major businesses in California, along with a smattering of commercial real estate companies, developers and landlord groups in Los Angeles. For now, the business roundtable says this dispute should be settled by voters. In the coming months, would any of them be willing to cut a deal with desperate Democrats in exchange for dropping their support?

Some legislators in both Sacramento and Los Angeles are eager to find out.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.