Welcome to the June 2-6 edition of the Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.

Have You Acted on Senate Bill 310 Yet?
This bad for small business bill is one vote away from passing the Senate and moving over to the Assembly before the June 6 deadline for legislation to make it out of its house of origin.

By giving trial attorneys a new means of leveraging wage-and-hour cases against employers of every size for inflated settlements, SB 310 (Wiener) undermines the recent Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) reforms that NFIB labored long and hard for.

This bill is extremely problematic because it introduces a new pathway for trial attorneys to exploit penalties as leverage in meritless wage-and-hour cases.

Last week, NFIB joined 86 other business groups in sending a Floor Alert to the Senate and, separately, sent an Action Alert to its members, more about which can be found at this web story.

Stop making it easy for lawyers to effortlessly sue. If you haven’t already, please use your Action Alert to urge your state senator to vote against SB 310.

If you’ve lost or misplaced your Action Alert, please send an email to NFIB Grassroots Manager Elizabeth Bassett, elizabeth.bassett@nfib.org, requesting another one.

Checking in on the Rest of the Big 9 Bills
In addition to Senate Bill 310 above, here is the progress of eight other measures NFIB has singled out for greater support or opposition from its list of 47 measures it’s monitoring in the 2025 session.

The ones NFIB is supporting and their status

— Assembly Bill 265 (Caloza) “would establish the Small Business Recovery Fund Act and would appropriate ($100,000,000) from the General Fund to the Small Business Recovery Fund, which would be created by the bill … for purposes of a small business recovery grant program.” NFIB’s letter of support can be read here.
One floor vote away from passage to the Senate.

— Assembly Bill 609 (Wicks) “… would exempt from the requirements of CEQA a housing development project, as defined, that meets certain conditions.”
Folded into the state budget for expeditious approval.

— Senate Bill 2 (Jones) “… would void specified amendments to the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard regulations adopted by the state board on November 8, 2024. Californians need immediate relief from unnecessarily high gasoline prices that will be driven even higher by recent amendments to the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard regulations.” NFIB letter of support here.
Effectively dead for the year.

— Senate Bill 84 (Niello) “… would provide that a defendant is not liable for statutory damages, plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, or costs for an alleged violation that is corrected within 120 days of service of a letter alleging the violation.” NFIB and its coalition partners’ letter of support can be read here.
One floor vote away from passage to the Assembly.

— Senate Bill 607 (Wiener) “Existing law requires the lead agency to determine whether a project may have a significant effect on the environment based on substantial evidence in light of the whole record, as provided. This bill would instead require a lead agency to determine whether a project is more likely than not to have a significant effect on the environment based on substantial evidence in light of the whole record, and would require an EIR to be prepared if the lead agency determines that it is more likely than not that a project will have a significant effect on the environment, as specified.”
Folded into the state budget for expeditious approval.

The ones NFIB is opposing and their status

— Assembly Bill 446 (Ward) “… would prohibit a person from setting a price offered to a consumer based, in whole or in part, upon personally identifiable information, as defined, gathered through an electronic surveillance technology, as defined, including electronic shelving labels.” NFIB and its coalition partners’ letter of opposition can be read here.
Passed the Assembly, now in the Senate.

— Senate Bill 222 (Wiener) “… would authorize a person to bring a civil action, if specified criteria are met, including damages of $10,000 or more, against a party responsible for a climate disaster or extreme weather or other events attributable to climate change due to the responsible party’s misleading and deceptive practices or the provision of misinformation or disinformation about the connection between its fossil fuel products and climate change and extreme weather or other events attributable to climate change.” NFIB and its coalition partners’ letter of opposition can be read here.
Effectively dead for the year.

— Senate Bill 799 (Allen) “This bill would instead apply the False Claims Act to claims, records, obligations, or statements made under the Revenue and Taxation Code if the damages pleaded in the action exceed $200,000, or the taxable income, gross receipts, or total sales of the individual or entity against whom the action is brought, as specified, exceeds $500,000 per taxable year.” NFIB and its coalition partners’ letter of opposition can be read here.
Effectively dead for the year.

Above bill descriptions taken from the Legislative Council.

Echoes of California?
“It’s hard to feel sorry for the ultra-wealthy. But the reality is we need them, because Britain is dangerously dependent on its highest income earners. … If just one of them leaves, replacing them would require the earnings of 1,300 average taxpayers.

“Since 2016, almost 13,000 millionaires have left Britain—an outflow unmatched in the developed world. … Last year, the government had to borrow nearly £15 billion more than expected thanks to lower tax revenues.” – The rich are fleeing – what next? The Spectator, May 17, 2025.

Congratulations, Cambria
“The quiet coastal community just south of Big Sur off Highway 1 was the only California destination to make the U.S. News and World Report’s list of the country’s 26 best underrated travel destinations this month,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Calendar

— 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.

— August 26, NFIB California’s Leadership Day

— September 12, 2025-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 Webinar: S Corp – Is it Right for Your LLC?  Wednesday, June 4, 12 p.m. Eastern. Click here to register.

— Jeff Brabant, NFIB’s vice president for federal government relations, discussed the One Big Beautiful Act on the Money with Mottek Show on KABC-AM in Los Angeles.

— House and Senate return to work this week.

Next Main Street Minute, June 9. All Main Streets Minutes can be found on the NFIB website here. Pull down the California tab in the upper-right-hand corner.