For the legislative and political week October 31-November 4
Welcome to the October 31-November 4 edition of the NFIB California Main Street Minute from your NFIB small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.
Fast Food Fight Intensifying
- When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 257 into law, which removes wage and workplace decisions from fast-food franchisees and gives them to a new state agency to decide, a coalition led by the International Franchise Association and the National Restaurant Association wasted no time in filing a referendum with the California Secretary of State’s office, delaying the law from taking effect until voters decide in 2024.
- The coalition has until December 5 of this year to come up with 623,000 valid signatures for the referendum to be placed on the November 2024 ballot. Last week, a coalition supporting AB 257 asked Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber to investigate the tactics being used to gather the signatures. Are voters being willfully misled? Heaven forbid the success the pro-referendum coalition is having in gathering signatures be attributed to a lot of people seeing this only-in-California power grab for what it is.
- NFIB California supports the referendum, calling it “the battleground for the future of free enterprise” and urging its members to act in this Talking Points Memorandum. Additional information can be found at Save Local Restaurants.com.
Cue the Jaws Movie Music, CARB Circling
- The other big news for small business is last week’s hearing on one part of the California Air Resources Board’s 2022 Scoping Plan. The final hearing on the entire plan is November 17 and 18.
- Last Thursday (October 27), CARB took comments on the Scoping Plan’s component banning the sale of new gas-powered big rigs and other trucks by 2040. Don’t think there is a liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat cleave to this, as reported by CalMatters, the issues are, “Contentious enough to divide Democrats in the state Legislature, who weighed in Thursday in the first of two public hearings hosted by the California Air Resources Board ahead of a vote scheduled for the spring. Some Democratic lawmakers sided with environmental justice advocates, urging the board to adopt more aggressive rules that would require 100% zero-emissions sales by 2036. But another group of Democrats sided with the trucking industry, citing concerns that the proposed rules would harm small businesses and strain the state’s already overburdened electric grid.”
- Perhaps the best summation of the hearing came from Madera-based trucking company owner Jeff Cox, “Obviously we all want cleaner air, but this would be catastrophic to the industry. … Getting the cart before the horse isn’t going to help matters by forcing the purchase of a vehicle that doesn’t exist today. This is both impractical and impossible to comply with.”
- NFIB California sounded the alarm early about the scoping plan, so much so that high CARB officials reached out to it for its thoughts on the impact on small businesses.
NFIB California one of the “Motley Crew of Critics”
- Although not mentioned by name in the article, NFIB California must fess up to being a member of what The Economist magazine called the “motley crew of critics” against Proposition 30.
- After all, it’s as frequent as the appearance of Halley’s Comet when NFIB, Governor Newsom, the California Republican Party, the California Teachers Association, and the Los Angeles Times editorial board, just to name a few of the crew, are aligned on the same issue. NFIB expressed its opposition in this news release sent to the media statewide.
- But wait! The proposition raises taxes only on those making more than $2 million a year, hardly a group loaded with small-business owners. Not so fast, warns Matt Rodriguez, who discusses the harm to small businesses Prop. 30 would cause, in a special NFIB California podcast to be posted this week. Catch up with all the podcasts at www.nfib.com/ca/podicasts.
NFIB California in the News
- The Vista Press notes local State Senator Brian Jones’s 100% pro-small-business voting record given to him by NFIB. The 2021-2022 Voting Record for the entire California State Legislature can be read here.
- Speaking of media, NFIB is having quite a successful year broadcasting the small-business message throughout the state. Click here for a sample of the media hits in 2022.
NFIB National
- Congress was off last week and will not return until after the election.
- Inclusion of the Small Business Deduction (Sec. 199A) in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was one of NFIB’s greater lobbying accomplishments. When the Act was being shaped, small businesses were not even a consideration until NFIB went national with its threat to withhold support of its passage. Having Main Street up in arms was not something Congress dare test. The deduction has been an unqualified benefit for small-business owners, but in 2025, it is set to expire.
— Just as it led the fight to insert the deduction into the TCJA, NFIB is now leading the fight to make the Small Business Deduction permanent. Last week, it released this video of members telling how important it is. Click here for a one-page explanation about the deduction.
- Speaking of NFIB victories, check out this page of information on what NFIB helped stop in the original Build Back Better Act, which later became the Inflation Reduction Act.
Next Main Street Minute November 7.
