For the legislative and political week December 12-16
Welcome to the December 12-16 edition of the NFIB California Main Street Minute from your NFIB small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.
Fast-Food Referendum
- The big news of last week was the submitting of more than one million signatures to the secretary of state’s office to qualify a November 2024 ballot initiative overturning Assembly Bill 257, which seized control of all wage and workplace decisions at fast-food franchises and which was to have taken effect in a few weeks on January 1. That is now on hold until voters decide.
- NFIB supports the referendum and will campaign vigorously for franchisees to keep control of their enterprises. More information can be found on the Save Local Restaurants website.
New State Legislature
- Along with 19 of the 26 pro-small business candidates endorsed by NFIB California’s SAFE Trust PAC, a new State Legislature took the oath of office last Monday (December 5), then met in special session to consider Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to tax oil companies, and then went home for the rest of the month.
- The real work in the regular and special sessions commences when lawmakers return on January 4. Two other dates of note are January 10, when the governor must submit the state budget, and February 17, which is the last day to introduce bills.
State Budget
- The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported on November 16 that the state is facing a $24 billion deficit for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Last Wednesday (December 7), Assembly Democrats unveiled their budget blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year.
- “Although the Assembly Democrats’ blueprint emphasizes that California is better positioned to weather an economic downturn than it has been in the past — with $120 billion in available cash across all funds, including $37 billion budgeted in general fund and rainy day fund reserves — it also adopts some of the cautionary recommendations outlined last month by the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal advisor,” reports CalMatters.
- Nowhere in the 19-page budget blueprint do the words ‘small business’ appear, which is good and bad. But this line did sound a slight bit ominous, “Craft a modernized Gann Limit for voters to consider in 2024 to encourage building reserves and reducing debts.”
New Minimum-Wage Rate Starts January 1
- As a reminder to members, a new minimum-wage rate goes into effect on January 1.
- Reports the San Francisco Chronicle, “California’s $15 minimum wage will expand to nearly all employees, including those working for small businesses … It’s the final step in a seven-year plan to phase in a statewide $15 minimum wage, which extended to employees of larger businesses in 2022. Legislators approved the wage increases with SB3 in 2016, by then-Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. Many cities in the Bay Area have ordinances that require a higher base wage.”
Job Postings Will Now Require Pay Scales
- Also from the above Chronicle article, “California employers with more than 15 employees will need to start including pay scales in their job postings in 2023. SB1162 by Sen. Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, also requires employers to give workers the pay scale for their jobs and maintain job title and wage history data for each employee. That data will be subject to inspection by the state labor commissioner, who could impose fines of up to $10,000 for violations.
- NFIB opposed Senate Bill 1162, supporting Cal Chamber’s argument, “After only one year of this reporting requirement, SB 1162 seeks to publicize all of this data identifiable by individual companies under the pretense that it would reveal gender and race-based pay disparities … this data was never designed to show such disparities. Publicizing the data to target employers is a cynical and disingenuous manipulation of what the EEOC itself has acknowledged is not a reliable measure of pay disparities between similarly situated employees.”
No More Looking for Cops
- Meanwhile, another new law taking effect on the first decriminalizes jaywalking in almost all cases.
NFIB National
- The NFIB Legal Center filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in a California case, Erick Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc., at the California Supreme Court last week.
o “California has consistently been rated one of the worst states in the country for businesses,” said NFIB California State Director John Kabateck in this news release. “Litigation abuse, particularly related to the state’s labor code, is one of the main reasons businesses choose to leave California. This case is an opportunity for the Court to aid both small businesses and employees by welcoming alternatives to litigation in settling disputes.”
From Abigail Reno’s and Caitlin Lanzara’s weekly reports.
- FGR sent a letter to the House and Senate Leadership urging Congress to address NFIB’s four priorities for the remainder of the sitting-duck session, listed below:
— Reinstatement of the Employee Retention Tax Credit for the fourth quarter of 2021 – S. 3625 / H.R. 6161
— Repeal the anti-small business expanded tax reporting requirement – S. 3496 / H.R. 6913, the Stop the Nosy Obsession with Online Payments Act (SNOOP Act) of 2022 and H.R. 3425, the Saving Gig Economy Taxpayers Act.)
— Consider the Credit Card Competition Act of 2022 – S. 4674 / H.R. 8874
— Consider the American Innovation and Choice Online Act – S. 2992 / H.R. 3816
- On December 7, NFIB hosted a webinar titled, “Tax Tips for Small Business in 2023 and Retroactive ERC/ERTC Claims.” Watch it here.
- Tomorrow, December 13, the latest monthly Small Business Economic Trends report (aka the Optimism Index) will be released.
Next Main Street Minute December 19.
