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

News Conference, CARB Meeting, Bill Lobbying

It was a busy week for small business advocacy on a couple of fronts.

On Wednesday (June 9), NFIB California Senior Legislative Director Tim Taylor participated in a news conference in favor of Senate Bill 84, which would give businesses 120 days to correct violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which has been misused for shakedown lawsuits. The news conference included an impressive bipartisan group of legislators. Sacramento radio station KFBK 1530-AM conducted this interview with Sen. Roger Niello, SB 84’s primary author.

The next day (June 10), in an NFIB-arranged meeting, NFIB member Jeff Pardini, owner of Hills Flat Lumber in Grass Valley (Nevada County), State Director John Kabateck, Legislative Director Tim Taylor, and representatives from other business and ethnic groups met with Dr. Steven Cliff, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), to discuss how CARB regulations, such as its 2022 Scoping Plan for Achieving Carbon Neutrality and Low Carbon Fuel Standard, among other CARB rules and programs, are concerning small businesses.

As a result of the meeting, the CARB executive office resolved to convene more frequent meetings, giving small business owners more opportunities to engage. Stay tuned for upcoming opportunities for you to be heard. As previous Main Street Minutes have pointed out, regulations promulgated by state agencies such as CARB are off limits to changes the Legislature and governor might want to make. Having a seat at the table is everything.

NFIB members have been decisive on energy, environment, and transportation issues. Click here for the state ballot results from the past 10 years.

Regular lobbying activities on behalf of small business also kept the NFIB team hopping in advance of this Friday’s (July 18) deadline for policy committees to act on legislation. Failure of bills to advance or get a hearing date set make them effectively dead for the year.

Speaking of Energy and the Environment …

With the Trump administration having firmly planted a foot on the Superman’s cape of California’s energy regulations, which 17 other states were following, Senate Bill 237 is seeking to be an antidote to the federal kryptonite, or at least a couple of aspirins.

It “would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission), in conjunction with the state [Air Resources] board, to conduct outreach to the western states to explore the development of a gasoline specification that could be used in a western region, including California, as an alternative to the California-specific specification established by the state [Air Resources] board regulations to stabilize the petroleum market and petroleum prices in the western region.”

NFIB is currently taking a neutral position on SB 237.

Legislation Update

NFIB’s adding of SB 237 to its list of measures to monitor, fight, or support, brings to 51 the number of bills we are working for, against, or watching. Fifteen of 21 bills good for small business are effectively dead for the year, a number not surprising considering the ideological hegemony progressives have over the Legislature. On the other side of the ledger, nine bills bad for small business are dead, but 20 are still alive.

These numbers will change after Friday’s policy deadline mentioned above. After Friday’s work, the Legislature will take a month off for summer vacation.

Congratulations to Assemblyman Heath Flora

If past is prologue, small business owners will have a good friend and valuable ally in Assemblymember Heath Flora, who was named the new leader of the Assembly Republican Caucus for 2026 last week.

The farmer, firefighter, and business owner from Ripon (San Joaquin County) had a 100% voting record with NFIB on our last scorecard (2023-2024). Additionally, he’s also a member of the California Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of senators and assembly members seeking to find common ground and consensus on the issues affecting all Californians.

According to The Sacramento Bee, the Problem Solvers Caucus “meets every two weeks to discuss ‘unglamorous’ issues members want to learn more about: infrastructure, homelessness and, most recently, immigration. Since starting up during the pandemic, membership has swelled to 26 lawmakers, 13 from each side of the aisle.”

On the need for a different approach to getting things done, Flora told The Bee, ‘It’s hard to ask someone for their support when you’ve been punching them in the face all day.’”

Congratulations, Assembly Leader-elect Flora!

NFIB California in the News

Last Tuesday (July 8), NFIB issued a news release with comment from State Director John Kabateck on the latest Small Business Optimism Index, which was picked up by Golden State Today, among other media, and shared with the 73 media outlets under its umbrella.

Calendar

— July 18: Last day for policy committees to hear and report bills

— July 18: Summer recess begins upon adjournment

— July 24: 1 p.m. meeting with Assemblymember Juan Alanis for Stanislaus and Merced county-area NFIB members. Location to come.

— August 18: Legislature reconvenes from summer recess

— August 26: NFIB California’s Leadership Day at the Capitol

— August 29: Last day for fiscal committees to hear and report bills to the floor

— September 1: Labor Day. Legislature not in session

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

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

National

On July 10, NFIB members were treated to a special briefing by Jeff Brabant, NFIB’s vice president for federal government relations, on “The One Big Beautiful Act: What’s in it and why should small business owners care.”

The crowing achievement of the Act for small businesses, and the one NFIB lobbied long and hard for, was the 20% Small Business Deduction, which was made permanent. It was scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

But as Brabant showed in these informational slides, there was much more to the Act than just the Small Business Deduction, including changes to: the estate tax, Section 179 expensing (threshold was doubled), 1099k reporting (Paypal and Venmo reporting issues), 1099 NEC reporting, 1099 miscellaneous, bonus depreciation, new American manufacturing incentives, research and development full expensing, state and local tax deduction, alternative minimum tax, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, methane tax repeal, car loan interest (a new write-off), employer provided child care credit, and new health savings account expensing.

Click here to watch Brabant’s half-hour presentation.

NFIB’s Legal Center team was also busy getting valuable information out to the members. On July 5, it produced a webinar on the five most common HR mistakes. Outdated policies and inadequate documentation can cause even the most organized small business owner to stumble when it comes to human resources issues. The webinar covered the most common mistakes and provided tips to minimize liability, including discussion about employee handbooks, best practices for hiring and termination, and Form I-9 compliance. In case you missed it, you can watch it here.

NFIB also released Episode 65 of the “Small Business Rundown” podcast, featuring Small Business Legal Center Vice President and Executive Director Beth Milito and guest cybersecurity expert Scott Augenbaum discussing how small businesses can protect themselves from cybercriminals.

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