| | | | |  | | By Dustin Gardiner | Presented by Connected Commerce Council | | 
An apartment complex under construction in Sacramento. One California bill would make it easier to build apartment buildings in cities that haven’t added enough housing to satisfy state mandates. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo | PROGRAMMING NOTE: Thanks for reading California Playbook PM. We are taking a break for Labor Day, but will be back in your inboxes Tuesday. LAST CALL: Bottleneck. Gauntlet. Buzzsaw. There’s a reason California Capitol insiders await the suspense file — a twice-annual Appropriations Committee ritual — with a sense of dread. The Senate and Assembly appropriations committees on Friday decide the fate of hundreds of bills, all with zero public debate. To help you keep tabs on the action, we’ve compiled a list of nine high-profile bills in play (in no particular order):
- Human trafficking (Senate Bill 14, Shannon Grove): This highly controversial measure would expand the state’s Three-Strikes Law to include human trafficking of a minor. It has growing bipartisan support — 64 coauthors at last count — but progressive justice-reform advocates still hope to kill it.
- Legislative staff union (Assembly Bill 1, Tina McKinnor): Could this year be the year? After numerous failed attempts, legislative staffers are advocating a bill that would allow them to collectively bargain over working conditions and compensation. The pressure on labor-aligned Democrats to support the bill has only intensified in recent years, particularly in the wake of the #MeToo movement and issues involving the Legislature’s Workplace Conduct Unit.
- Housing fight (SB423, Scott Wiener): This has easily been the most contentious housing measure of the year as it would make it easier for developers to construct multi-family buildings in cities that haven’t built enough housing to satisfy state mandates. It would even remove an exemption for the coastal zone.
- Tenant protections (SB 567, Maria Elena Durazo): Housing advocates say some landlords are circumventing a 2019 tenant-protection law and unjustly evicting people using tactics like owner move-ins, withdrawing property from the rental market and remodeling projects. The bill aims to close those loopholes, though a similar measure died last year amid opposition from the California Apartment Association and other business groups.
- Minimum wage for health care workers (SB 525, Durazo): Since barely making it out of the Senate in May, advocates and opponents alike have been quiet about this union-backed proposal to raise the minimum wages of workers in certain health care settings to $25 per hour by 2025. The opposition mainly comes from hospitals that say it will be too expensive and from registered nurses who say it will hurt their position at the bargaining table.
- Conservatorships (SB 43, Susan Eggman): This yearslong push to make it easier to get people into conservatorships has long been the target of civil and disability rights' activists. It also comes when the state is trying to compel more people into treatment through CARE Courts. Eggman's proposal would expedite the path to conservatorship for people with severe mental and physical health problems.
- Psychedelics (SB58, Wiener): The bill would decriminalize the use of some psychedelic drugs, such as hallucinogenic mushrooms and DMT, or dimethyltryptamine. Wiener has tried to pass a similar bill twice before, but the proposal has more momentum this year — in part because it would apply to fewer types of drugs than his previous bill, which included LSD and ecstasy.
- Self-driving trucks (AB 316, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry): Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has signaled he might veto this Teamsters-backed bill requiring safety drivers on board autonomous trucks to protect California’s reputation as a hub for Big Tech innovation. Still, Aguiar-Curry and labor groups are pushing her measure, citing concerns about job losses and public safety.
- Speed cameras (AB645, Laura Friedman): Here’s another perennial legislative fight: using cameras to ticket speeding motorists. Friedman’s bill would allow a pilot program for cameras to enforce speed limit laws in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Glendale and Long Beach. Attempts to pass similar legislation have failed the last two years, though traffic accidents have surged — San Francisco had 39 traffic fatalities last year, its worst total since its “Vision Zero” plan began in 2014, and Los Angeles last year recorded its highest death toll from traffic crashes in 20 years.
— with help from Rachel Bluth and Eric He HAPPY THURSDAY AFTERNOON! Welcome to California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check of California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to dgardiner@politico.com or send a shout on Twitter. DMs are open!
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Hollywood writers' strike demonstration | Mario Tama/Getty Images | PAID TO PICKET: A late labor ask is on the move as striking actors and writers look to Sacramento for relief. Newly rewritten legislation extending unemployment insurance to workers on the picket line had its first hearing and vote this afternoon, clearing the Assembly Insurance Committee as proponents look to rush the bill to Newsom in the legislative culmination of a summer of labor activism. Senate Bill 799 has earned endorsements from the three House Democrats running to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein, statewide elected officials, and a labor panoply that includes unions like the Writers Guild of America West and SAG-AFTRA — both of whose officials testified for the bill. “We are in an existential fight for our profession,” the WGA’s Meredith Stiehm said, accusing studios of having “preyed upon our members’ economic anxiety” by trying to wait out financially pinched workers. On the other side stands an industry coalition that warns the bill would strain a fund that’s already more than $18 billion in the red — a debt that will be paid by employers — while undermining the basic premise of labor stoppages. “We view being on strike as fundamentally different than being unemployed,” the California Chamber of Commerce’s Robert Moutrie said. “Someone on strike has a job and chooses not to work to create economic pressure on their employer.” — Jeremy B. White
| | | | A message from Connected Commerce Council:   | | | | | On The Beats | | PAY DAY: White men still dominate the upper echelons of California’s workforce, according to data disclosed today that illuminates persistent pay inequities. The California Civil Rights Department released an annual report showing that, at California’s large private firms, men make up two-thirds of the state’s top earners — a category that is also majority-white — while women are a majority of the workers who earn less than $32,239 a year. Californians of color compose a majority in every pay cohort other than the top one ($144,560 and over). We have that information thanks to a 2020 bill that overcame substantial business opposition en route to Newsom’s desk. First partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who has championed pay equity, said the data shows “we still have work to do” and urged more businesses to sign an equal-pay pledge. — Jeremy B. White A DEGREE OF DIFFERENCE: Newsom today directed California’s hiring agency to periodically reconsider whether state jobs require a college degree. His new executive order will require CalHR employees to justify the need for a degree when they review and rewrite job classifications — a move intended to make hiring more flexible across state agencies. The decision comes from a Democratic administration that is watchful of Republican officials’ embrace of career technical education, and is eager to prove itself as supportive of career pathways outside college. — Blake Jones
| | | | GROWING IN THE GOLDEN STATE: POLITICO California is growing, reinforcing our role as the indispensable insider source for reporting on politics, policy and power. From the corridors of power in Sacramento and Los Angeles to the players and innovation hubs in Silicon Valley, we're your go-to for navigating the political landscape across the state. Exclusive scoops, essential daily newsletters, unmatched policy reporting and insights — POLITICO California is your key to unlocking Golden State politics. LEARN MORE. | | | | | | | AROUND CALIFORNIA | | — CALL OF THE WILD: California has four new packs of gray wolves, and eight since 2015, as the endangered species finds habitable environments in remote parts of the state. — HARD TIME: Solitary confinement would be restricted to 15 consecutive days, or 45 total days in a six-month span, across California’s prisons and jails under legislation by Assemblymember Chris Holden, a Pasadena Democrat, who seeks to make conditions more humane. — BLUE LAGOON: Those cool blue bioluminescent waves have returned to Southern California, including Newport Beach, Oxnard and Malibu, thanks to the presence of dinoflagellate algae.
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