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NFIB California Main Street Minute, December 18-22

NFIB California Main Street Minute, December 18-22

December 18, 2023

NFIB California Main Street Minute, December 18-22

Welcome to the December 18-22 edition of the NFIB California Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento. Heads Up!
  • Either later this afternoon (Monday, December 18) or a day after, NFIB will have posted on its California webpage the most consequential podcast of the year. Long-time labor and employment attorney Ben Ebbink in a discussion with NFIB California Legislative Director Tim Taylor outlines the four new compliance headaches small business owners must deal with in 2024.
  • Three of the new laws begin January 1, the fourth on July 1. But it is that fourth new law, dealing with workplace violence, that, according to Ebbink, is the most onerous. He suggests small business owners use the next six months to learn about it and prepare to comply with it. It’s not simple and no website is offering free and easy help.
Retail Theft Committee Begins Work
  • It remains to be seen whether it will eventually turn out to have been nothing more than an all-hat-no-cattle show or not, but for now, NFIB California is encouraged and hopeful that the new Assembly Select Committee on Retail Theft, which holds its first meeting tomorrow (Tuesday, December 19), can produce something substantive on the mainly urban epidemic of retail theft.
  • If it does, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who created the committee,  and committee Chairman Rick Chavez Zbur will deserve justifiable credit. A click on the above hyperlink gives the names of the 11 committee members, but nothing under its ‘staff’ and ‘additional information’ sections, so tomorrow’s meeting is expected to be mainly a housekeeping one.
  • Some ideas, however, are predicted to surface in the scheduled four-hour meeting, which begins at 1 p.m. in the Capitol Annex Swing Space, 1021 O St., Room 1100, Sacramento. As reported by The Sacramento Bee:
    • “An uproar over retail theft across the state has grown in recent months as videos of ‘smash-and-grab robberies’ have gone viral on social media. Law enforcement, including Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, have repeatedly pointed to Proposition 47 as a reason behind an increase in property crime.”
  • The media, however, remain to be sold, as this recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Time to defend California’s hard-won criminal justice reforms from lawmakers. Again, shows. Perhaps wanting to hedge its bets ever so slightly, the last paragraph in the editorial says, “If Proposition 47 is found to be among the causes of rising retail theft, then we should address the problem. If not, as studies have repeatedly demonstrated, let’s accept the facts — again — and move on.”
  • Recent comments made by NFIB California State Director John Kabateck, however, would seem to disagree with the Times. In an interview with GV Wire in Fresno, “Criminals will continue to thumb their nose at the law and prey on our uncertain, frightened Main Street businesses. That’s why it’s nice to see the California Legislature finally taking this issue seriously, and I give some credit to new Speaker Robert Rivas for finally tackling something previous Capitol leaders seemingly wanted nothing to do with. Unless and until the state addresses this problem comprehensively, we will continually be confronted with the challenges posed by retail crime.”
  • As a wise observer of state politics countered, “People know what they are seeing in their communities day after day, even if there aren’t perfect metrics to capture it.” NFIB California will have as one of its higher priorities the monitoring of committee activities.
  • Meanwhile …
  • The Legislature this year requested the Little Hoover Commission, the state’s top oversight agency of governmental operations, to look into retail theft. The commission held the second of three public hearings last Thursday, December 14. The first was on November 16 and the next will be on January 25, 2024. A few weeks later, on February 8, an Advisory Committee Roundtable on Retail Theft will be held.
  • Reported The Sacramento Bee, “Among those scheduled to testify Thursday are Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, who will provide a sheriff’s perspective on enforcing the law, and Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, who will discuss trying to curb retail theft through legislation.
  • “Expect both Cooper, a Democrat, and Niello, a Republican, to contend that Proposition 47 (2014) was responsible for an increase in shoplifting in the state. That initiative made shoplifting a misdemeanor, defining it as the theft of commercial goods valued at $950 or less.”
Sales Tax on Services?
  • “Anything that costs money is going to have a huge uphill path this coming year,” said Jesse Gabriel, the new chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, to The Sacramento Bee last week. “People really need to recalibrate their expectations and understand the gravity of the moment that we’re in, the gravity of the challenges that we’re facing.”
  • That gravity was brought home by the December 7 release of the Legislative Analyst’s Office latest forecast of California’s revenue, showing a budget deficit of $68 billion. A possibly endless deficit outlook that has even legislative spenders talking cuts – in the short run.
  • Long run? Talk is back on increasing revenues by extending the sales tax to services. Also back is the word ‘volatility’ in stories about California’s need to stop its over-reliance on income taxes to fund everything.
  • “When volatility first became a major problem during the Great Recession, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders created a commission to suggest remedies,” wrote columnist Dan Walters in The Orange County Register. “ Chaired by businessman Gerald Parsky, the commission held months of hearings and finally, on a divided vote, recommended the state reduce its dependence on income taxes and shift to a revised form of sales tax.’
    • “The report was buried as soon as it reached the Legislature. When Jerry Brown returned to the governorship in 2011, he persuaded voters to create a ‘rainy day fund’ that would absorb some revenues during boom times and cushion the impact of future downturns.”
  • Walters’ fellow long-time political columnist, George Skelton, pointed out in the Los Angeles Times, “A big reason the sales tax has diminished in importance is that we’ve become less of a retail economy and more of a service economy. But we’re one of the few states that don’t tax services. Our tax system is stuck in the mid-20th century and should be modernized. What’s needed is to reduce income tax rates at all levels and extend the sales tax to services.”
  • NFIB members are not only not sold, they’re also emphatically against extending the sales tax to include services, voting 98% in opposition to the idea on their 2019 state ballot.
In Case You Missed It
  • “If the 600-page draft code is approved next year, California would be the first state to require broken A/C units be replaced with heat pumps or more efficient systems,” according to The Sacramento Bee story. 600 pages!
Calendar
  • December 28, certified list of candidates in the March 5 Primary Election released.
  • January 3, 2024, the California State Legislature reconvenes.
  • January 10, deadline for Gov. Gavin Newsom to unveil his 2024-2025 budget plan.
  • February 5, counties begin mailing ballots to voters.
  • February 20, last day to register for the March Primary Election
  • March 5, Primary Election Day
  • More deadlines here.
National Highlights from NFIB Legislative Program Manager Caitlan Lanzara’s weekly report
  • On December 11, NFIB Key Voted in support of H.R. 5378, the Lower Costs More Transparency Act, and it passed 320-71. This bipartisan package represents an important step towards increasing transparency and competition in our healthcare system and lowering costs for small business owners and their employees. The bill:
    • Promotes healthcare price transparency and certainty and lowers costs for small business owners and patients.
    • Makes community pharmacists more competitive by exposing anticompetitive Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) practices.
    • Provides employers with more choice and control over their healthcare costs.
  • On December 11, NFIB sent a letter in support of H.J.Res 98, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the National Labor Relations Board, relating to “Standard for Determining Joint Employer Status.” This resolution will restore the independence of small business owners by repealing the NLRB’s harmful new Joint Employer standard. The bill:
    • Preserves the independence of franchisees by repealing the regulation which would let their workers collectively bargain with a franchisor.
    • Shields small businesses from new liabilities for labor law violations by the second party in the joint employment relationship.
  • On December 14, NFIB released the 24th episode of the “Small Business Rundown” podcast. The episode features the NFIB Federal Government Relations Team: Jeff Brabant, Josselin Castillo, and Josh McLeod, who discuss the top federal advocacy priorities for small businesses in 2023. They also look ahead at proposed rules and implications for small business owners in 2024. Listen here.
Next Main Street Minute December 25.    
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