Sacramento Report Countdown
39 days until the November election
With just days before his end-of-the-month deadline to sign or veto bills, Gov. Gavin Newsom gave the proverbial thumbs down to a measure to tighten environmental rules for factories near homes. The move rebuffed a key legislative priority for Encinitas state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat who faces a competitive re-election campaign this November. But she could still gain something from the governor’s veto.
Senate Bill 954 sought to tighten environmental rules by rolling back an earlier exemption given to industrial plants to spur manufacturing development. In practice, it would have reversed some of the carveouts factories were given from under the California Environmental Quality Act in last year’s budget, and was in response to an Orange County chemical tank scare earlier this year. It was backed by nearly every environmental group under the sun and equally opposed by a slew of business interests.
Newsom cited the environmental law reforms the Legislature enacted last year for his veto, stating in his veto message that signing it into law would amount to “preemptively rolling back our progress” on building.
But Blakespear, chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, thinks the governor’s actions were more about the current political climate.
“I think what’s happening is this bigger clash between a desire for the abundance movement to be successful,” and adequately protecting the environment, Blakespear told Voice of San Diego. “It’s a whole range of reasons why things get delayed, and it’s easier to blame CEQA.”
With a rolodex of business groups lined up against it, the odds were very much not in the bill’s political favor.
But is there a point to introducing legislation you know is likely to be dead in the water?
Dead Proposals Aren’t for Naught
Bills, even doomed ones, give lawmakers something tangible to show their constituents that they’re working for them, UC Riverside political scientist Shaun Bowler said.
“It gives them a product because voters are going to ask, ‘What are you doing for me?’” he said.
It can be more important for legislators facing re-election to say that they’ve introduced legislation about a particular issue than having it actually succeed, he said. That’s even more true for lawmakers in competitive elections.
Blakespear’s Senate district is one of few pick up opportunities for Republicans this year, although voters have trended toward Democrats in recent years. Laura Bassett, a small business owner, is her GOP challenger who she’s outspent about six times over.
All that spending might be for good reason. Despite leaving office four years ago, Blakespear’s tenure as Encinitas mayor looms large in the minds of the affluent coastal city of 60,000. Her push to get the city in compliance with state housing laws left a trail of critics who viewed her as too pro-development.
Early in her term at a 2023 housing conference hosted by Casita Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group, Blakespear described herself as being “pro-housing” and said her ideals clashed with “a community that was honestly very NIMBY.” She said she supported policies to boost housing density by making it easier to build accessory dwelling units in Encinitas’ suburban expanse.
Just a few years later, she found herself at odds with the pro-housing movement’s most cherished goals. She didn’t vote for the state’s big housing budget bill last year to exempt most new apartments from CEQA, which can create lengthy environmental lawsuits that slow or block projects altogether. She also didn’t vote for Senate Bill 79, which makes it easier to build apartments near transit. They were lauded as major victories for housing advocates in 2025.
Newsom’s support for those laws was in line with him killing her bill, Blakespear said.
“I think what’s happened is scapegoating environmental laws,” she said. “I think my CEQA cleanup bill got tied up in that concern that somehow this was going to be stopping what was passed the year before.”
And dead bills especially mean something for the politicos watching, donating and strategizing on officials’ campaigns.
Legislation, successful or otherwise, allows lawmakers to signal to constituents that they’re shifting their politics, Bowler said, and protect themselves from opponents eager to use their voting records against them.
“It’s kind of inoculating themselves against missteps on the campaign trail,” he said.
Lawmakers often highlight the legislation that’s useful to their districts in campaigns, said UC Irvine political science professor Danielle Thomsen.
“Party leaders are also mindful of members who have tougher elections, and it is helpful for those in competitive districts to have policy successes they can point to,” she said in an email.
Those successes and failures are also useful to donors and special interests groups, which can influence what bills lawmakers introduce, Bowler said.
“They’ve usually got money and endorsements that are things that the Legislature wants, so the Legislature is probably responding to those as much as they’re responding to voters,” Bowler said of political donors.
Blakespear has a 100 percent ranking with the Sierra Club and California Environmental Voters, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database. By comparison, Chula Vista Assemblymember David Alvarez, a more YIMBY-aligned Democrat, has a ranking of 40 percent with the Sierra Club and 71 percent with California Environmental Voters.
In Other News
Starting next year, community colleges can offer more four-year degree programs after Newsom signed two proposals despite yearslong opposition from California’s university systems over fears the programs would compete with their courses.
Senate Bill 960 and Assembly Bill 2694 by Napa state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon and Alvarez, respectively, allow campuses across the state to add more bachelor’s degrees.
It is a victory for community colleges and for Alvarez who for years have argued that blocking campuses from offering more four-year programs was unfair to low-income students who couldn’t afford or live too far away from one of the state’s 31 public University of California and California State University campuses..
Meanwhile, for the second time, Newsom punted an attempt to let students without legal status work on college campuses despite a groundswell of support from labor, immigrants rights groups and the Democratic Party. Roughly 60,000 undocumented students would have been affected by Assembly Bill 713, which Alvarez also backed.
It always faced an uphill battle. Proponents were relying on a novel legal theory to argue that a 1980s federal law banning people without federal work authorization from working didn’t apply to state governments.
Newsom noted as much in his veto message, arguing that the bill would have made California’s campuses ripe for retaliation from the Trump administration.
“Given the gravity of this bill’s consequences — including potential criminal and civil liability for state employees — the federal courts must resolve the legality of the novel legal theory behind this legislation before we proceed,” he wrote.
Your Ballot Questions Answered
I’ll be moderating a session at Voice of San Diego’s Politifest with CalMatters’ Angel Rodriguez where we’ll break down, analyze and answer your burning questions about the propositions on your ballot this election. Our conversation centers around CalMatters’ latest edition of its definitive Voter Guide. Politifest is on Saturday, Oct. 3.
What I’m Reading Now
Clap for the mountain yellow-legged frog, which, thanks to biologists at the Aquarium of the Pacific, have been brought back from the brink of extinction, the Long Beach Post reports.
Eight service members on the San Diego-based USS Abraham Lincoln attempted to take their lives during their 10-month deployment, CNN breaks.
To zoom out or zoom in? The candidates in San Diego’s closely watched congressional race want you to focus on national and local politics and little in between, The San Diego Union Tribune writes.
Thanks for reading this week’s report! Please reach me at nadia@voiceofsandiego.org for any questions or comments.