Happy New Year. Welcome to the January 6-10 edition of the Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.

Please Vote Your State Member Ballot

Your NFIB California-member ballot for 2025 will be arriving  in your inbox very shortly. Please use it to express your opinion on four issues the State Legislature will be grappling with this year.

Unique among business associations, NFIB annually polls its members on state and federal issues vital to their ability to own, operate, and grow their enterprises. Results from the member ballots center NFIB’s lobbying position in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C. It’s because of this method that elected officials and other policymakers from coast to coast consider NFIB to be the true voice of small business.

The 2025 ballot asks four questions:

— Should employers be prohibited from contacting employees after normal business hours regarding a business scheduling matter?

— Should the right to unionize, predicated on safety and economic well-being, be enshrined in the California State Constitution?

— Should the California state government intervene in an attempt to drive down gasoline prices?

— Should business websites be regulated to ensure that they are ADA compliant?

The ballot contains background information and proponents’ and opponents’ comments on each of the issues. Please vote your ballot. The California State Legislature is already back in session and will be working on legislation until September 12.

Legislature Starts its Real Work Today

Although the 2025-2026 session of the California State Legislature officially convened on December 2, last month, that was only to start collecting a paycheck and to pose for snapshots with family members .

Today, January 6, is the real session kick-off date and already, it’s promising to be the noisiest year ever with a self-imposed crusade to “Trump-proof” the state, rid the world’s environment of fossil fuels, and promulgate ever more regulations, such as endless paid leave.

Pay off the state’s outstanding unemployment insurance loans, so small business owners don’t have to keep paying higher payroll taxes? Fat chance of that happening from a Legislature that still would have done nothing about retail theft until the people forced their hand with Proposition 36.

Enough editorializing. Anyone wanting an idea as to what this two-year session of the Legislature will come up with need only look at the 2023-2024 or the 2021-2022 sessions.

Reminder of Four New Laws Now in Effect

Many of the new laws that took effect last Wednesday, January 1, could be said to affect small businesses one way or another, but the following are three that most definitely do, and one that affects employees who fund SB 951.

— Minimum Wage
The state’s minimum-wage rate rose to $16.50 an hour. Exceptions: minimum-wage rates for fast-food workers and certain health-care employees increased to $20 and $25 respectively this year. Forty cities and counties also have higher minimum-wage rates than the state’s. Click here for a list of them.

— Paid Leave
“Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, workers who take paid family leave or disability will get more money: SB 951, authored by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, in 2022 increases the programs’ wage replacement rates from 60-70% to 70-90% in the new year,” reports The Sacramento Bee. “… Another new law, AB 2123 by Assemblymember Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, bans employers from requiring workers to use vacation time before taking paid family leave. Previously, they could require employees to take up to two weeks of earned but unused vacation before the employee could take paid family leave to care for a sick family member or bond with a new child.”

— Captive Audience
Also from The Bee in the same article above. “A new law bans employers from requiring workers to attend “captive audience” meetings which often have political, religious or anti-union messaging. Newsom signed the law, SB 399, by Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Hayward, earlier this year. It allows the California Labor Commissioner to fine companies up to $500 for “subjecting, or threatening to subject, an employee to discharge, discrimination, retaliation, or any other adverse action” if the employee does not attend a captive audience meeting.”

Side note: NFIB fought vigorously against three of the four bills, and in some cases, made them less severe where it could not defeat them outright. The passage of SB 399, however, is not the end of the story. In a letter of opposition, NFIB and its coalition partners, argued the bill “will effectively have a chilling effect on any speech related to political matters” and “both violates the First Amendment and is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).” NFIB will be at the center of this legal fight picked by the Legislature.

Another New Law
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and a great friend of NFIB California, writes in his Orange County Register column, “For property owners, several attempts to destroy your rights to protest new and higher water rates go into effect.” In the 2024 NFIB Tax Survey, 73% of member small-business owners owned the building or property where their business is located.

The Small City with a Big Influence in the Capitol

“California saw its biggest increase in registered lobbyists last session since at least 2011, when a change in the law caused the number to more than double,” reports CalMatters.

“There was a roughly 10% increase in the number of lobbyists who registered for the 2023-24 session compared to the previous one — for a record of 3,245 people, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

“What’s behind the jump? Longtime lobbyist Chris Micheli sees it as the result of high turnover in the Legislature — leading to an ‘exodus of legislative staff’ who went into advocacy.

“… Micheli said he has also seen a rise in state agency rule-making, which motivates those in support of or against regulations to lobby: ‘Some of these regulatory bodies, like the Air Resources Board — the number of regulations that they’re undertaking and their significance has been growing in recent years.’”

Are You Available?

NFIB California is recruiting small business leaders for 2025 legislative battles. How About You? Click here to learn more.

NFIB California in the News

Thanks to 2024 being an election year, State Director John Kabateck was in the news more often than he is during odd-numbered years, spreading the small business message. In fact, he clocked in with 319 mentions in 2024 for a publicity value of $2.1 million. Publicity value is what it would have cost if NFIB paid for the same space in publications and on the airwaves. Check out the NFIB California in the News 2024 story for a sample of the many media hits we received.

Calendar

— January 10, Gov. Gavin Newsom submits state budget to the Legislature. He may combine it with a state-of-the-state speech.

— January 24, last day to submit bill requests to the Office of Legislative Counsel. (Related: 5,000 bills too many. California Legislature sets new max on legislation)

Next Main Street Minute January 13.