Last week California lawmakers made a final push to get their bills passed in their houses of origin. More than a thousand bills made it through votes on the state Senate and Assembly floors.
We highlighted key bills by San Diego lawmakers last week, including legislation to tackle homelessness, coastal issues, artificial intelligence, sexually violent predator placement, gun control and a new and improved plastic bag ban.
Here’s what comes next. After passing floor votes by all members of either the Assembly or Senate, bills go to policy committees in the opposite legislative body, where they’ll be reviewed and possibly amended. After that they go to the appropriations committee for that house, which controls spending.
Then it all goes on hold for a month. The legislature leaves on recess for a month starting July 3, and returns on Aug. 5 to wrap up this year’s legislative session.
Once the legislature returns, most bills have to make it through floor votes of the opposite house by midnight Aug. 31, amid a coffee-fueled blitz that one legislative staffer described as “finals week for adults.”
As part of this back and forth process, any bills that get significant amendments in the second house return to their house of origin, where lawmakers sign off on the changes in a concurrence vote.
The following month, bills face their final hurdle. Legislation that makes it through both houses lands on the governor’s desk, where he must sign or veto bills by Sept. 30, determining which ones ultimately become law.
In the meantime, legislators are poring over the budget, which they have to approve by June 15. It’s a tough call this year, with the state facing a projected deficit that requires cuts and postponements to many programs.
The depth of the gap has been a moving target. Back in March, Gov. Gavin Newsom estimated the deficit would be about $38 billion. But the legislative analyst’s office, which crunches numbers for the state, projected it would be nearly twice that, at $73 billion.
Newsom’s second draft, called the May Revision, proposed to cut costs by peeling back spending on education, healthcare, homeless services, climate action and other state services and programs. Those reductions, plus some postponed spending, would knock the budget deficit down to about $27.6 billion for the next fiscal year, he said.
Newsom also sparked protests from advocates for the homeless with a plan to eliminate $1 billion per year to the state Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Grant Program, known as HHAP.
But his belt-tightening seemed to move the numbers toward a balanced budget. In a report last week the Legislative Analyst concluded that the revised spending plan “puts the state on better fiscal footing and makes substantial progress toward structural balance.”
On Thursday, the Assembly and Senate released a joint legislative budget proposal that they said will balance the budget, restore funds for housing and education, reinstate the HHAP fund and reject other social service cuts.
They’ll hold rounds of budget committee hearings over the next two weeks, to approve a spending plan by the June 15 deadline.
It doesn’t end there, though. The legislature can continue to pass trailer bills that tack new provisions onto the budget. These bills can introduce not only spending adjustments but also policy changes, which often fly under the radar in the rush to finalize the state budget.
Pride Month Bill Roundup
Pride Month kicks off Saturday, so here are some of the bills that the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus identified as top legislative priorities. Each of these bills passed their house of origin and will go onto the next steps this summer.
- SB 990 by state Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, would require the California Office of Emergency Services to consult with LGBTQ+ organizations and community advocates when creating the state disaster plan.
- AB 1979 by Assemblymembers Chris Ward, D-San Diego, and Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Davis, would allow victims of doxing – the malicious release of personal information online – to take civil action and get restitution for damage they suffer.
- AB 1899, by Sabrina Cervantes, D-Corona, would require the Judicial Council to create a template juror questionnaire that’s inclusive of gender expression and identity, including questions on prospective jurors’ gender identity and pronouns.
- AB 3031, by Assemblymembers Alex Lee, D-Milpitas and Evan Low, D-Cupertino, would create a statewide LGBTQ+ Commission to advise the legislature and governor on policies affecting California’s LGBTQ+ community and its members.
- SB 959, by state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, D-Los Angeles, would create a state website for transgender, gender diverse, and intersex people and their families to get information about access to trans-inclusive health care.
What It Takes to Buy a Home in San Diego
There’s no shortage of discouraging news on the housing front, and this month delivered as expected.
San Diego’s median home price rose to $880,000, in April, up from an earlier record high of $860,000 the previous month, Philip Molnar with the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Thursday.
The county’s median is now up 9.3 percent in a year. That’s because there are so few homes for sale, as sellers hold onto existing homes to lock in low mortgage rates, he reported.
Earlier this month another report found that the household income needed to buy a home in San Diego soared over $250,000, the Times of San Diego reported.
That’s double the national median income needed for home purchases, and above even San Francisco’s astronomical home market. Median household income in San Diego is just under $97,000, so just over a third of what’s needed to buy a home.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday and is part of a partnership with CalMatters. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.