Allison Olson, CFRW Advocate
Capitol Update
Saturday, October 12, 2019
California Federation of Republican Women
Sue Blair, President
Governor Newsom’s Bill Action
It was a tough week for Californians in the north state. With PG&E initiating the largest blackouts in California history, many Californians are remembering the recall of Governor Gray Davis and the events leading up to that. But the PG&E crisis didn’t stop Governor Newsom from taking action on many bills still left on his desk. The Governor still has until October 15th to either sign bills or veto them. Bills with no action by the Governor also become laws. Here is what has been signed or vetoed over the last two weeks-
AB 5- SIGNED: This bills severly hampers our growing gig-economy in our state, by mandating millions of independent contractors be considered employees, according to the Dynamex Decision equation. But, if you were one of over 30 industries with the money to lobby the Democrat legislative majority to exclude your business, they happliy complied. Except for Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, and other major gig-economy players. This is because the Democrats in the legislature do not like the inability to regulate and make money for the state off these giant businesses. But who really gets hurt is the worker, but the Democrats don’t seem to mind that. People working as independent contractors for businesses like Uber and Lyft need these second, sometimes third jobs just to make ends meet and afford to live in California- another failing of 40 years of Democrat Legislative rule.
AB 310- SIGNED: Thanks to Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, felons will now be allowed to serve on our juries.
AB 392- SIGNED: Our law enforcement officers are already under deep pressure and scrunity in this new era, but AB 392 puts their safety and ours at risk by changing the “use of force” law from reasonable to necessary. Officers need to make tough, split second decisions everyday to keep us and our communities safe. This law only makes it more difficult for officers to decide what is necessary and allows the suspects to flee, making the public potential targets in the process of escape.
AB 792-VETOED: This bill would have imposed civil penalties on beverage companies if their plastic bottles do not comply with post-consumer recycled plastic regulations mandated by 2030. Beverage companies would have been mandated to produce at least 50% of recycled plastic containers or face big fines.
AB 891-VETOED: This bill would have allowed people to sleep and live out of their cars in cities of populations over 300,000 in specified, mandated areas. Called, “The Safe Parking Program”, which actually just sounded like a public safety nightmare.
AB 1482-SIGNED: Even though voters struck down the rent control proposition last election, Governor Newsom and Legislative Democrats think they know better than the voters, so they passed this version of rent control anyway. Now, yearly rent increases will be limited to 5% over the next decade.
AB 1505- SIGNED: This bill inhibits a charter school’s ability to appeal decisions made by the county boards of education to establish or renew a school’s charter.
SB 1- VETOED: SB 1 would have rolled back Trump Administrations EPA regulation easements to the Obama Administration. This would have severly undermined the work of farmers, water districts, and environmentalists, who had previously reached voluntary agreements, particularly in the Central Valley. Luckily Governor Newsom, who worked to facilitate some of those agreements, vetoed this blatant attack on President Trump’s environmental regulation cutbacks.
SB 24- SIGNED: Now abortifacients are readily available on all California public college campuses.
SB 127- VETOED: This bill would have diverted even more highway rehabilitation funds from our roads and use it for bike paths, pedestrian walk-ways, and transit upgrades. Luckily the Governor didn’t want yet another gas tax fraud on his hands and vetoed this bill.
CFRW Biennial Convention Next Weekend!
We are so excited to converge on Bakersfield next weekend for our CFRW Biennial Convention! We have incredible speakers joining us, including Ken Starr, Republican Assembly Leader Shannon Grove, AND our California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Patterson! Jessica has been such a rockstar for the Federation, speaking at many clubs across the state. Read more about that HERE. Click HERE for more information on convention.
