Highlights from the First Week of the California Legislative Session

Monday was the first day of the California legislative session that will continue through September 2019. For a policy nerd like me, this might as well be Christmas!

An exciting number of our California Senators and Assemblymembers hit the ground running, introducing 130 bills that they had been developing over the legislative recess. Most of these bills aren’t fully fleshed out yet. Introducing a bill on the first day of the legislative session is a good way for a legislator to indicate their priorities for the year to the rest of the legislature, but it’s typical for these first bills to go through many rounds of amendments in the future.

Here’s a summary of some of the bills that stood out to me as ones to watch this legislative session.

Housing

I’ve summarized six of the most interesting housing bills proposed this week below. For a complete list of housing legislation proposed this week, you can read Louis Mirante’s newsletter.

SCA 1 — Repeal Article 34
Article 34 is a racist and classist artifact of the 1950’s which requires that cities can’t develop, construct, or acquire any low income housing without a majority vote of tax payers. Article 34 has made it virtually impossible for California to expand public housing in the past 60 years, and has been a massive inconvenience to affordable housing developers who currently most ensure that no more than 49% of their funding comes from a government source. The Los Angeles Times has reported that complying with Article 34 can add between $10K and $80K to the cost of constructing affordable housing.

Unfortunately, Article 34 is codified into the California constitution which means that repealing it is no easy task. Senators Ben Allen and Scott Wiener have proposed amendment SCA 1 to abolish Article 34. If this amendment passes, the measure would then have to be approved by a majority of Californian voters on the ballot in order to amend the constitution.

AB 36 — Rent Control
So far AB 36 is just an “intent bill”. In other words, it’s a single sentence that states author Assemblymember Richard Bloom’s intention to write a bill about rent control. This will likely be an attempt to reform the infamous Costa Hawkins to allow for the expansion of rent control following the failure of a complete repeal at the ballot in November. I’ll be eagerly watching this space.

SB 50 — “Equitable Communities Incentive”
SB 50 is a housing bill introduced by Senator Scott Wiener as well as an impressive 11 cosponsors meant to improve on last year’s contentious SB 827. SB 827 was framed as a transit oriented development bill. It would have allowed for denser development of apartments near existing public transit. The bill was intended as an environmentally friendly way to address California’s severe housing shortage, but was heavily criticized by equity groups for failing to consider the needs of gentrifying communities.

It appears Wiener’s team has taken steps to address these issues. The Senator has been cooperating with ACT-LA, a coalition of over 35 equity groups pushing for equal access to housing and transit that authored a letter of opposition to SB 827 last year. In response, SB 50 is no longer framed as a transit oriented development bill, but a bill providing an “equitable communities incentive” for housing development. In addition to transit-rich quarters SB 50 explicitly targets job-rich areas as well as high income communities with good public schools for housing development, an attempt to capture high income communities that have rejected transit. The bill also now includes a “sensitive communities” designation, which is intended to allow gentrifying communities the ability to opt out of using SB 50 and instead develop their own community plans.

To editorialize, I certainly think there’s a version of this bill that I would support. As I frequently write about, California remains largely segregated with low density rich white communities located only five miles from dense communities experiencing advanced gentrification. These communities will never choose to build apartments of their own accord, and therefore we need statewide solutions to truly address issues of equity in land use in California. That being said, these solutions should not be pushed through at the expense of gentrifying communities. Tenants and equity groups have so far taken a “wait and see” approach to SB 50, indicating that they would support the bill so long as it doesn’t take a one size fits all approach to gentrifying communities that have long been denied their own agency. I feel similarly, and I hope Wiener’s office continues to prioritize these voices.

AB 10 — Expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit
The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is a government program intended to encourage the construction of low income housing in a capitalist economy. As subsidized housing developments bring in less revenue in rent, investors would prefer to invest in market rate developments where they can make more money. To address this, state and federal governments offer tax write-offs for investors who put money forward for affordable housing. States only have a certain amount of money to spend on the LIHTC, so sponsors of low income housing developments enter a lottery in hopes of receiving some of this additional money.

AB 10 from David Chiu would allocate an additional $500M to the state-level LIHTC so that more affordable housing projects could receive this money. The expansion of the state program would be an especially smart investment, because for every $1 that California dedicates to constructing low income housing, the federal government will chip in $3. With these matching funds, AB 10 would allocate an addition $2B to affordable housing annually. I have some gripes with how the LIHTC is structured. I would prefer that we tax the rich directly for affordable housing instead of continuing to let them get richer off of its construction. That being said, increased funding for affordable housing in California is desperately needed, so within the constraints of our current economic system, this bill is probably a good thing.

AB 11 & SB 5 — Bring Back Redevelopment
Redevelopment is a government program that existed in California until 2011. The idea behind redevelopment was that the state would identify communities in need of “revitalization” and separate out a portion of the community’s property taxes to a local redevelopment agency. The money from this agency could then be used for road and infrastructure repairs and affordable housing development. The program was controversial because although it was intended to reinvest in low income communities it was subject to widespread abuse. In San Francisco in particular, the 1970’s administrator of the local redevelopment agency used state money to evict thousands of Black San Franciscans and tear down their homes, only to rebuild fewer, more expensive homes in their place.

Despite past abuse, several legislators are calling for the reinstatement of redevelopment due to the money it allocated towards affordable housing. Until 2011 redevelopment was the largest single source of funding for affordable housing in California. Since redevelopment has been eliminated, spending on affordable housing in California has shrunk significantly despite increasing need. There are already several competing proposals in the legislature to bring back redevelopment. SB 5 from Senator Mike McGuire and Senator James Beall and AB 11 from Assemblymember David Chiu are both intended to bring back redevelopment, though they differ in their proposed budgets, guidelines for administration, and the percent of money they allocate towards affordable housing development.

AB 53 — “Ban the Box” on Rental Applications
I honestly couldn’t believe it when I read that it’s still legal to deny an apartment to someone because they have been in prison. In a tight housing market like the Bay Area’s, I truly can’t imagine how anyone facing this hurdle would ever find housing. This long overdue bill would prohibit questions about applicants’ criminal history on rental applications.

Criminal Justice

AB 32 & AB 33 — End Contracts with Private Prisons
This is huge! AB 32 would end all state contracts with private for-profit prisons, and AB 33 would forbid public money from ever being used for future contracts with private prisons. Private prisons have long been criticized for substandard living conditions, exploitation of prisoners, and for providing an incentive for mass incarceration.

AB 45 — Eliminate Copays for Medical Visits in Prison
It’s currently legal for prisons to charge up to $5 per medical visit, despite the fact that prisoners make between $0.08 and $0.95 an hour. This bill would eliminate these copays and allow for greater medical access.

Education

AB 2 — Expand Free Community College
Last year, the California legislature passed a bill that would make the first year of community college free for all new and full-time students. AB 2 would expand this law to offer free community college for two years.

AB 123 — Expand Free Preschool
The state of California currently offers free preschool options for over 125,000 children living in poverty. AB 123 would expand the number of children who have access to this program. Studies have shown that attending preschool can have a dramatic effect on students’ wellbeing and performance later in life, so I would love to see the state of California one day offer public preschool to all children. AB 123 is a good step in the right direction!

Healthcare

SB 24 — Require Colleges to Stock the Abortion Pill
This bill passed both the Senate and the Assembly in the last legislative session, only to be vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. There are whispers that Governor-elect Gavin Newsom would be more likely to support increased abortion access, so Senator Connie Levya is trying again.

AB 31 — Ban Taxes on Menstrual Products
California currently exempts a number of medical items, including Viagra, from sales tax, with the rationale that they are essential items. Shockingly, menstrual products such as tampons and sanitary pads are not among these items. AB 31 would change that!

AB 4 & SB 29 — Extend Medi-Cal to Undocumented Immigrants
Medi-Cal is California’s low income health care program, that covers children and adults who make less than 138% of the federal poverty level. Medi-Cal is currently available to all children living in poverty, regardless of immigration status, but these benefits do not extend to undocumented adults. Both AB 4 and SB 29 would extend Medi-Cal to all eligible Californians, regardless of immigration status.

Miscellaneous

AB 5 — Crack Down on Contracted Employees
Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court issued the groundbreaking Dynamex decision, which cracked down on companies’ use of independent contractors. Large companies including Uber, Lyft, and Google have been accused of hiring independent contractors instead of full employees in order to avoid providing full benefits. In the Dynamex decision, the court required that a company must prove three criteria dubbed the “ABC test” to justify hiring someone as an independent contractor rather than a full employee. AB 5, sponsored by the California Labor Federation, aims to extend labor rights by codifying these rules into law.

AB 56 — Study Municipal Energy
There has been a renewed call for municipal (publicly-owned) energy after news broke that the devastating California wildfires in Butte County that took 85 lives and over 15,000 homes were once again started by PG&E’s equipment. Right now PG&E is owned by investors and operated for profit. Like other corporations, this means that executives must justify all their decisions to the board financially and they won’t invest in measures that don’t make money. A report from the California Public Utilities Commission in 2012 found that PG&E had recklessly moved money intended for safety to shareholder profits and executive bonuses. This pattern has continued, and despite last year’s devastating wildfires that burned down over 1500 homes, CEO Geisha Williams received more than a 100% raise in 2017 for a total compensation package of $8.6M. In response to these protests, AB 56 would require that the state issue a report on the feasibility of municipal energy.

You can explore the bills that have been introduced so far on the legislature’s website. If you’d like to write your representatives in support of any of these bills, you can find your representatives and their contact information online.