Happy Fourth of July. Welcome to the June 29-July 3 edition of the Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.

New November Ballot Dynamics

The November ballot initiative NFIB and small businesses cared about most will not be on the November ballot.

The Local Taxpayer Protection Act (LTPA), which sought to protect Proposition 13 from local government taxing abuse, qualified for the November ballot, but after negotiations last week with all interested parties, a deal was struck to remove it.

NFIB was an early backer of the LTPA and has never wavered in its support of Proposition 13, the property tax limitation initiative passed in 1978. Seventy-three percent of NFIB members own the building or property where their business is located. NFIB is comfortable with the deal to remove the LTPA from this November’s ballot was for the right reasons.

As reported by Politico, “Under the new terms, legislators will advance a constitutional amendment restoring a two-thirds vote threshold for local taxes — a pillar of the ballot measure that [Jon] Coupal refused to pull. … But that threshold would not apply retroactively, unlike the measure currently on the ballot. That would preserve billions of dollars in revenue already authorized by voters in a major relief for labor unions and local governments.”

The other ballot measures

“The billionaire tax is headed to the ballot after all,” reports CalMatters. “It’s one of 14 propositions that will go to voters in November. The deadline to make the ballot passed Thursday night [June 25], and saw a couple 11th hour deals that persuaded interest groups to pull initiatives from the election.”

Would you like to learn more about this year’s ballot initiates?

Tom Ross and Tino Rossi of Swing Strategies, two California’s premier ballot initiative experts, are hosting a free webinar, tomorrow, June 30, at 11 a.m. They will discuss what just happened after the June 25 deadline to remove ballot initiatives passed and then look ahead to November. Register here.

New Minimum Wage Rates on July 1

New minimum-wage rates take effect in some cities throughout California on July 1. The state rate will remain the same, $16.90 an hour, $20 for fast-food workers. The minimum-wage rate for select health-care workers jumps to $25 on July 1. Complete information here.

California allows cities and counties to set their own rates, as long as they’re higher – not lower – than the state rate.

Some of California’s bigger cities will see spikes on July 1. Los Angeles’ will increase to $18.42 an hour, San Francisco’s to $19.61 an hour. To see if your municipality’s minimum-wage rate is increasing, the UC Berkeley Labor Center publishes this list. Make sure you scroll past the January 1 section down to the California City and County Minimum Wages, July 1, 2026, section.

CalMatters’ Dan Walters points out, “A new report from the Virginia-based Employment Policies Institute reveals that California is the most active state in setting new and higher wages for specific economic sectors. It has 8 of the nation’s 10 largest local minimum wage increases taking in effect in July.

“The Los Angeles City Council set a $30 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers on the theory that travelers from elsewhere would bear the costs, but last month postponed implementation until after the 2028 Olympics. In return, the business community canceled a ballot measure to eliminate the city’s gross receipts tax, a major city revenue source.”

NFIB Background: Minimum Wage Hikes Impact Small Business Most. Opinion piece explores how minimum wage increases have unintended consequences for small business.

Welcome to California
Drive Safely, If You Can Drive at All

“On July 1, California’s gas taxes are set to go up by 2.2 cents per gallon because of a state law that automatically increases those taxes annually to help pay for the state’s road infrastructure,” opines The Orange County Register.

“That means state taxes of 63.4 cents a gallon … Diesel taxes will go up by 1.6 cents to 48.2 cents per gallon. These boosts aren’t particularly large, but they are a reminder of the root causes of our intractably high gas prices: state government policy. … Yet Californians seem remarkably tolerant of our self-imposed situation where we pay around $1.80 a gallon more than the national average.

“Our higher costs aren’t only tied to state gas taxes. California mandates a special fuels formulation that makes us a gasoline island, as we can’t simply ramp up supplies from neighboring states. Thanks to state lawsuits and other policies, the oil industry is reducing its refining capacity here, thus reducing supply and driving up prices. Our cap-and-trade program and other regulations also raise prices, with estimates suggesting climate programs add 42 cents a gallon.

“We have the nation’s highest electric-vehicle take rate, and EV owners don’t pay gas taxes — only a modest extra registration fee. That provides more pressure to raise gas taxes on everyone else, although the state is considering a mileage-based road charge to deal with that disparity.”

What Others Are Saying

“’Any developer will tell you that the transfer tax is the single most important problem in the city.’ Of all the things the city is doing to incentivize new housing, he argued, this would have been the most helpful.”
— From UC Davis professor Chris Elmendorf in a San Francisco Chronicle editorial, Will the AI IPO boom make S.F. richer, or wipe out what’s left of its middle class?

Property Database Updated

The San Francisco Chronicle has updated its statewide database of who owns almost every building in California, just type in an address. It also provides a way you can have your name removed if you don’t want it in the newspaper’s database.

The Regulatory World

Highlights from Nielsen Merksamer

— June 24, the California Air Resources Board announced it withdrew its Corporate Greenhouse Gas Reporting rulemaking from OAL review and plans to publish a 15-day modification in the coming weeks to further clarify the proposed rule. The Board also announced that the modification will move businesses’ SB 253 reporting deadline from August 10 to November 10. Note, litigation is still ongoing challenging the constitutionality of SB 253 and SB 261 and is currently under review with the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

— June 22, 17 states and the National Association of Wholesaler‑Distributors sued the Department challenging its SB 54 rules in the U.S. District Court. This is now the second lawsuit on these rules; on June 4 several California environmental groups filed suit in California Superior Court arguing the rules fail to meet the requirements of the program’s underlying legislation.

— June 23, the California Attorney General joined a multistate coalition opposing a U.S. Department of Labor proposed rule that would narrow joint employer liability. Joint employer liability holds two or more independent businesses liable for employment law violations when those businesses share control over the same employees.
[Main Street Minute Note: NFIB supports the rollback of Biden-era labor and employment standards and the Trump administrations new one, according to this web post. “Under the new standard, an employer will be considered a joint employer only if it ‘shares or codetermines the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment’ with another employer. This determination looks to whether an employer ‘posses[es] and exercise[s] such substantial direct and immediate control over one or more essential terms or conditions’ of employment. The ‘essential terms or conditions’ of employment include wages, benefits, hours of work, hiring, discharge, discipline, supervision, and direction. For each term and condition of employment, the inquiry focuses on an employer’s actual control and exercise of that control. This new standard will offer greater clarity and predictability for employers. To better understand the new standard, see NLRB New Joint Employer Standard.”

Calendar

— July 2-August 3: Legislature on Summer Recess

— August 31: Legislature adjourns its 2026 session

— September 30: Last day for governor to sign or veto bills sent to him.

— November 3: Election Day

National

NFIB Webinar: Avoiding ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuits, Wednesday, July 1, Noon, Eastern. Register here.

Highlights from Federal Government Relations Principal Louis Bertolotti’s weekly report

— NFIB sent a press release following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Pung v. Isabella County. Beth Milito said, “By holding that only the surplus proceeds from the sale are owed to the property owner, the Court’s decision permits local governments to artificially depreciate the value of a property in order to force a quick sale, which benefits the government’s coffers but deprives the property owner of the property’s real value.”

— NFIB Director of Federal Government Relations Dylan Rosnick published an op-ed in the Washington Reporter urging Congress and the Administration to protect small businesses from invasive federal temperature mandates: “Dramatically increasing government involvement in everyday operations only serves as a recipe for stagnant job growth and reversal of the confidence owners are feeling due to last year’s tax certainty and regulatory relief.”

— NFIB released Episode 89 of the “Small Business Rundown”, featuring NFIB member Vince Wondra and SBLC Senior Attorney Rob Smith sharing advice for small businesses on how to create a user-friendly website. The 90th episode was also released, discussing NFIB’s annual Fly-In. Vice President of Federal Government Relations and Grassroots Elizabeth Parks led a panel discussion featuring NFIB members Michael Ervin (WV) and Clara Osterhage (OH).

Next Main Street Minute: July 6. All Main Street Minutes can be found on the NFIB website here. Pull down the California tab in the upper-right-hand corner or go right to it here.