Welcome to the 14-18 edition of the NFIB California Main Street Minute from your small-business advocacy team in Sacramento.

Lawyers, Environmentalists Handed Big Loss on SB 222

Thank you to those NFIB members who took the time to use their Action Alert on Senate Bill 222, one of the more lawsuit-rich pieces of legislation to ever come around. You helped derail the measure.

On April 9, SB 222 could only muster five votes from the 13-member Senate Judiciary Committee, far short of what was needed for passage. What is additionally remarkable is the legislation proved even too much for generally reliable supporters of all the things lawyers and environmentalists want.

“I wish I liked this bill better,” said Sen. Anna Caballero, D- Merced. … While it’s “great for attorneys, it doesn’t solve the issue.” Ditto, Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento, “Too much money spent on lawyers and courts. I’m not going to support the bill today.”

Both senators’ quotes come from this editorial in The Sacramento Bee, which also took a dim view of SB 222. “It’s probably a good thing Senate Bill 222 by Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, lost. … With SB 222, Wiener sought to create a new genre of litigation against oil companies, allowing any Californian with $10,000 in weather-related damage to sue for fossil fuel’s role in climate change. … It’s a concern, to say the least, that the agenda of the party in power isn’t maturing into real-world solutions as these problems get worse. An early death of SB 222 gives Democrats most of this session to do better.”

A new dawn in Lawsuit Land?

That’s the headline in the latest Kabatext from NFIB State Director John Kabateck, who also commented on SB 222’s stunning setback and on two proposals that he likes.

“Another two legislative proposals, however, are refreshing for what they’re not trying to do, which is build and sustain an economy with never-ending regulations and bulging Superior Court dockets.

“One is the recently introduced Assembly Bill 609 (Wicks), which would begin to unlock the many manacles the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has shackled job creators and local governments alike with. It would prohibit environmental lawsuits over proposed apartment buildings, disallow legislative debates over which projects should be exempted from CEQA, and stop environmental justice advocates, construction unions and anti-development neighborhood groups from using CEQA to delay development.

“Another legislative proposal, Senate Bill 690 (Caballero), aims to head off potential invasion-of-privacy  lawsuits by clarifying when the processing of personal information for commercial business purposes is acceptable.

So, small businesses were hit with a wallop of good news last week. A lot to digest and wonder about. It’s good timing on the part of the legislative calendar that lawmakers started their Spring Break last Thursday and will return April 21.

Calendar

— April 10-21: Spring Break. Legislature not in session.

— May: Big month of bill deadlines for fiscal and policy committees. Check legislative calendar here.

— May: State budget revise issued by governor’s office.

— May 26: Memorial Day. Legislature not in session.

— June 6: Last Day for Senate and Assembly to pass bills introduced in their chambers.

— June 15: Budget bill must be passed by midnight.

— July 4: Independence Day. Legislature not in session.

— July 18-August 17 Summer recess.

— September 12-January 5, 2026: Interim recess of the 2025-2026 session of the California State Legislature.

— October 15: Last day for governor sign or veto bills passed before September 12.

National

— NFIB Special Webinar, Tariffs 101 and the Latest Updates, Wed., Apr. 16, 2025, 12 p.m., ET. Register here. Presented by: Holly Wade, Director, NFIB Research Center, and Elizabeth Milito, Executive Director, NFIB Small Business Legal Center.

— In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, NFIB thanked the administration for narrowing the scope of the Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting requirements so that they apply exclusively to foreign reporting companies and not America’s small businesses. The letter also asked for additional steps to provide permanent relief to small businesses nationwide by deleting the data that has been collected under the previous BOI reporting requirements.

For five years, NFIB has fought against the Corporate Transparency Act and BOI reporting regulations in Congress, executive branch agencies, and in the courts. NFIB’s lawsuit challenging the Corporate Transparency Act is still ongoing. News release here.

— NFIB Research Center Executive Director Holly Wade joined Alix Steel and Romaine Bostick on Bloomberg: The Close to discuss this month’s Small Business Optimism Index and the top issues impacting small businesses nationwide.

Next Main Street Minute, April 21. All Main Streets Minutes can be found on the NFIB website here. Pull down the California tab in the upper-right-hand corner.