For the legislative and political week August 17-21
Welcome to the August 17 issue of the NFIB California Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento. This was updated on August 19.`
- So, why introduce a bill with three weeks of session left and no plan to move it? Strategy, reports veteran observers of the Legislature. To lay down a marker and claim the issue for next year, in what is certain to be a very, very complicated and demanding session.
- Normally, a major policy reveal is accompanied by assertions of commitment and success. Not so with AB 2088, about which the author stated, “…this bill is not going to have a hearing and is not going to move through the process.” The issue: a so-called wealth tax.
- Given that a wealth tax (like any other tax) requires a 2/3rd vote, that sound you hear is a sigh of relief from moderate Democrats recognizing a need to do something to avoid painful cuts next year, but dreading to vote on a tax increase immediately prior to an election.
- Meanwhile, five other bills are a clear and present danger to small-business owners. A brief description of them can be read in NFIB California’s chief legislative advocate’s full report.
- For the second week in a row, NFIB California State Director John Kabateck met with top aides to Gov. Gavin Newsom over the issues of business re-openings.
- On August 18, Kabateck testified against Assembly Bill 3262 in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If passed, it would create new liability for businesses, many of them small businesses, that unknowingly sell defective products online. There are already strict laws holding manufacturers of such products accountable – this law, a gimme to plaintiffs’ attorneys, will expand that liability to any and all businesses that sell or distribute those products to consumers online.
- On August 13, NFIB released one of its most highly regarded research reports, the quadrennial Small Business Problems & Priorities survey. Every four years since 1982, NFIB ranks in order of importance 75 issues of concern to small-business owners. The cost of health care has ranked first since 1986, but other issues slide up and down.
- California is one of only four states segmented out in the Small Business Problems & Priorities report, and starting on Page 82, you can see how the Golden State varies from the national positioning of the 75 issues. This year’s report also offers comparisons by gender, size of business, industry, and others. Check out NFIB California’s news release on the survey.
Nationally
- Go, Golden State!
- There were 108 Californians who signed up to participate in this week’s NFIB virtual Fly-In, second only to Texas’ 110. Nationally, 1,595 have joined in.
NFIB California Main Street Minutes are published every Monday on the NFIB California webpage. Two additional updates are published the first and third Thursday of each month for inclusion in the bi-monthly newsletters to the membership. Next California Main Street Minute is August 24.
