California budget deficit sidelines more bills

On their first day back from summer recess, California lawmakers made clear that the budget crunch isn’t over.

The Senate appropriations committee sent dozens upon dozens of bills — that have a price tag of at least $50,000 to $150,000 and that may also be politically dicey — to the dreaded suspense file, where many could die quickly on Aug. 15.

CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn reports that many of the bills were also opposed by the governor’s Department of Finance, including ones that cost relatively little in California terms. Among them:

• Assembly Bill 3172 (price tag of $400,000 a year) to apply civil penalties to social media companies if courts find that they violated rules meant to protect minors.
• AB 3027 (cost estimate of $660,000 a year) to halt the attempts of foreign governments to target dissidents living in the U.S.
• AB 2925 (tens of thousands per campus) to require anti-bias training at California colleges and universities, a proposal supported by numerous Jewish groups and the California State University. 

The Assembly appropriations committee meets Wednesday. The two committees culled hundreds of bills in May’s suspense file hearings, also due to the deficit. To balance the 2024-25 budget, lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom had to make widespread cuts and dip into reserves.

One reason for state spending increases: crucial contracts with employee unions.

On Saturday, the union representing state scientists said that it has reached a tentative labor agreement with the Newsom administration, after a four-year fight for better pay and benefits. Assemblymember Liz Ortega, a Hayward Democrat and chairperson of the labor committee, said a contract was “long overdue.”

If the deal is ratified later this month by the nearly 5,000 members of the California Association of Professional Scientists, they will get a retroactive salary bump of at least 9.2% and as much as 23% over the next three years. The union at one point sought raises of up to 43%. It walked out last November (considered the state’s first civil servant strike), then rejected an offer in December to increase pay by as much as 10%. One major reason for the holdout: The pay inequities between the 5,600 scientists, about half of them women, and state engineers, who are mostly men. In 2022, the engineers union won a contract with a 7.5% raise over three years.

Amid the state budget crunch, state lawmakers are still collecting freebies. As they were considering a bill this year to loosen Ticketmaster’s stranglehold on the ticketing and live concert industries, some lawmakers were receiving free tickets themselves, reports Politico.

The bill, which followed Ticketmaster’s mishandling of ticket sales for pop singer Taylor Swift’s tour, ended up getting so watered down that its initial backers withdrew their support. According to Politico, the committee chairperson on privacy and consumer protection, Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan of San Ramon, received concert tickets at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara the day Taylor Swift was scheduled to perform.

As part of its analysis into legislators’ 2023 financial disclosures, Politico found that Assemblymember Mike Fong of Monterey Park and Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa, both Democrats, received the most in free tickets.

You can check out CalMatters’ own deep dives into these records as they relate to free trips lawmakers take and what properties they own.

CalMatters covers the Capitol: We have guides and stories to keep track of bills and your lawmakers, find out how well legislators are representing you, explore the Legislature’s record diversity and make your voice heard.

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