NFIB California Main Street Minute, July 8-12

July 8, 2024

NFIB California Main Street Minute, July 8-12

Welcome to the July 8-12 edition of the Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento Legislature on Summer Recess until August 5

With a state budget done and ballot initiatives in place, lawmakers will return to work August 5 and finish up their 2023-2024 session August 31, the deadline for bills to pass the Legislature. Legislators begin their final recess upon adjournment that day. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have until September 30 to sign bills.

November General Election Ballot Measures Finalized

The big news of last week was the governor’s last-minute withdrawal of his retail theft initiative from the November ballot. With it now gone, the field is clear for The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act to finally, if voters approve, make some badly needed reforms to Proposition 47 and to finally – ten years after Prop. 47’s passage – combat the rampant retail theft it created in a big and serious way.

Last Wednesday (July 3), Secretary of State Shirley Weber assigned the 10 ballot measures their numbers. The Retail Theft Act above is Proposition 36. Two other measures of big NFIB interest are Proposition 32 on the minimum wage and Proposition 33, dealing with rent control.

Because it can, the Legislature threw two bond measures worth $10 billion each on the November ballot shortly before the July 3 deadline. One deals with education financing (Proposition 2) and the other is the richly titled Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond of 2024 (Proposition 4).

Keen readers of past Main Street Minutes will note that prior editions had reported the number of November ballot measures to be nine. If the Legislature just added two more, that would make it 11, so where does the 10 come from?

Because they can, legislators yanked Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13 off the ballot, which was put on in a fit of pique over the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPGA) having made the ballot. When the Supreme Court of California tossed the TPGA, rather than also yank ACA 13 off the ballot, lawmakers simply put it on the 2026 ballot. Why waste a good opportunity to tell voters not to pull something like this again.

The Legislature

Even though only a month will remain when legislators return from summer recess, it will be a busy one. A lot of non-monetary policy matters will need debating and NFIB will need our members to keep their eyes out for calls to action.

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