Lawmakers returned to Sacramento this week to gavel in for the final five weeks of the legislative session with more than 1,600 bills still in play.
Getting ahead of those critical floor debates, agricultural lobbyists are racing through meetings with legislators this week to voice their positions on critical measures impacting farmers and ranchers.
The latest bill creating anxiety among business lobbyists is the resurrection of a controversial labor bill first championed in 2019 by then-Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, a lawmaker often celebrated in the Capitol for enacting the state’s overtime law for agricultural workers.
Gonzalez sought to provide unemployment pay to union workers on strike during labor disputes. The Senate, however, blocked her measure, Assembly Bill 1066. A toned-down version moved the following year but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. At the time, state revenues were steadily increasing, compared to a budget deficit of more than $30 billion this year.
Amid a parade of union strikes in Southern California, Burbank Sen. Anthony Portantino, along with several co-authors, is reviving the original legislation, according to multiple sources. Matthew Allen, vice president of state government affairs at the Western Growers Association, said he is worried about the financial cost the bill could impose on employers at a time when the state’s unemployment insurance fund is “upside down.”
Republicans have criticized Newsom for not paying down the insurance debt when the state was flush with budget surpluses. Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones of San Diego has argued the inaction “leaves small businesses to bear the brunt of the state’s failures.”
California currently owes the federal government about $18 billion to pay off a federal loan for the UI fund after millions of residents lost work during the pandemic and the state depleted the fund. Employers have been paying a higher federal tax to pay off the loan, and the state spent more than $300 million this year to cover its annual interest.
Matthew Allen, Western GrowersAllen told Agri-Pulse that such a massive debt leaves the state vulnerable to political volatility in Washington, D.C. To gain unemployment benefits under federal guidelines, Californians who are out of work must demonstrate they are able to take a job and are seeking work. Yet workers on strike already have jobs and are choosing not to work. A presidential administration with a more conservative approach to labor issues could view Portantino’s legislation as violating federal law and rescind California’s insurance loan — at a time when the state is relying on those funds to keep the program functioning. According to Allen, the state would be forced to fall back on taxpayer dollars from its general fund to fill the hole.
“I'm sure the Legislature has other ideas for the general fund than wanting to fund the UI program wholly on their own,” said Allen.
Portantino and his colleagues have yet to craft the language of the bill and Allen expects to see the measure in print in the coming weeks, along with a companion bill in the Assembly. Allen said the legislation has consumed his entire focus lately, particularly since many of the current lawmakers were not in office during the AB 1066 battle. The California Chamber of Commerce is gearing up to lead a broad business coalition in opposition to the legislation.
“These tax increases will hit all California employers — regardless of size — serving as a deterrent to hiring and future investment in the California economy,” CalChamber policy advocate Robert Moutrie said in a statement, “It is irresponsible and unfair to increase taxes on every California employer, including those without any involvement in any strikes, to subsidize the striking workers in other industries.”
Moutrie pointed out that UI taxes increase by $21 per employee each year, rising as high as $434.
Another measure on the labor front to watch is Senate Bill 616 by Sen. Lena Gonzalez from Long Beach. Under the proposal, paid sick leave would expand to a full week, or 56 hours, from the current requirement of three days, which was established in 2013. SB 616 would also require employers to calculate the payment as a weekly average, rather than from the base pay. That means farmworkers on a piece rate plan during peak harvest could bring home their highest pay while on strike for a week. The employer would also pay for another worker to cover the lost time or pay for overtime.
Agricultural employers are already grappling with a workforce shortage and, according to some lobbyists, entire crews have been calling in sick during major holidays, when more lucrative seasonal work is available elsewhere. Lobbyists working closely on the legislation argue the bill offers no way of policing such abuses.
Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil of Modesto authored a competing bill offering five days of paid sick leave at base pay while requiring a doctor’s note after three days. But the bill failed to pass out of committee.
Employers are also worried about another bump in the state’s minimum wage to account for inflation. The rate is set to rise another 50 cents in January to $16 per hour, according to the California Department of Finance. The minimum wage grew the same amount at the start of 2023.
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California Farm Bureau lobbyist Chris Reardon pointed out the 2016 legislation that enacted the inflation multiplier policy had not been put to the test until this year. He expects to see some discussion in the Legislature on potentially capping the increases.
“You want to be careful that it doesn't spike too much,” he told Agri-Pulse.
The shift in focus to labor issues at the Capitol marks a critical movement away from the fierce battles over reforming water rights that began the session. Two controversial bills that proposed to ramp up enforcement powers and curtailment authority for the State Water Resources Control Board have been sidelined for the year. A third would have placed more scrutiny on senior rights, but the author has taken significant amendments to alleviate many of agriculture’s concerns. Reardon anticipates several opponents will soon move to neutral on the measure.
The last major water bill to watch is AB 560, which would require parties involved in groundwater adjudications to submit their settlement agreements to the Department of Water Resources before final approval. Asm. Steve Bennett of Ventura argues that would prevent powerful corporate agribusinesses from sidestepping the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
Farm lobbyists have also taken an interest recently in AB 399, which would erect a new hurdle for two agricultural districts in San Diego County that are seeking to shift to a cheaper water supplier. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, a former assemblymember, is worked with a former colleague to draft the legislation, which would prevent an increase in water fees for his constituents.
Chris Reardon, California Farm BureauAgriculture has also stepped into a fight over watering decorative lawns. AB 1573 would replace decorative turf grass along commercial and public properties with native plants. Asm. Laura Friedman of Glendale argues her bill would save water, promote biodiversity and support pollinators. But Reardon contended DWR already has a program for this and mandating nurseries to incorporate native plants into at least 25% of their landscaping would be excessively expensive. The Home Depot and other retailers are now lobbying against the legislation, since they already struggle to sell native plants to consumers, he said. He also raised ethical concerns over the fact that Friedman’s husband is a landscape designer who deploys drought-tolerant native plants in his work.
Reardon, who previously spent a decade working at the Department of Pesticide Regulation, was critical of a measure to establish an environmental justice advisory committee at the department. He argued CalEPA and its departments have been convening regular outreach sessions across the state on environmental justice for nearly 20 years.
“Why do we need to reinvent the wheel?” he asked.
Other lobbyists worried about siphoning resources from a departmental budget that is already structurally unbalanced and creating a mechanism for expressing advocate interests for select groups.
Western Growers and other agriculture groups have recently registered their opposition to another bill related to environmental justice. AB 849 would expand an emissions reduction program housed at the California Air Resources Board to other agencies to promulgate and enforce regulations.
The state transportation department, CalTrans, for example, would be responsible for regulating medium- and heavy-duty trucks on routes that pass through communities vulnerable to the emission impacts. Critics also worry that local governments could enact new ordinances to expand buffer zones around schools during pesticide applications. The bill is one in a series of recent measures that have targeted the local air district for the San Joaquin Valley.
The next major hurdle for many of these bills will come at the end of August, when lawmakers face a fiscal deadline for passing legislation out of appropriations committees. Action in the floor hearings will steadily ramp up until the final day of session on Sept. 14, which will trigger a one-month countdown for Newsom to either sign or veto any measures that make it to his desk.
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