As Sacramento gears up for their race to the finish line of another 2 year session, our Legislators decided you and I needed another 2,000+ bills aimed at regulating, taxing or otherwise running our lives. That’s on top of the 2,200 bills they introduced last year bringing the grand total for this session to over 4,200 new laws, rules, regulations and taxes they believe we won’t be safe or happy without. For the record, Sacramento passes and implements into law about 1,000 new bills every year. Some years are a few less, some years are quite a few more.
That means since Jerry Brown was last our Governor in 1983, our state has added more than 30,000 new laws to the books. Can you honestly say your life is better today for all that? Is it easier to do business in California today than it was 30 years ago? Do we have more auto manufacturers or furniture manufacturers or manufacturers in general than we did 30 years ago? Are we exploring for natural resources more, are we still home to 5 of the top 7 oil companies in the country or 3 of the 4 largest banks in the nation? Nope, nope and nope.
But does Sacramento ‘get it’? Have they decided to quit attacking businesses and make it easier for companies to start up and grow in California? Have they taken steps to ease onerous and costly CEQA regulations, reduce the cost of compliance with OSHA, Workers Comp or healthcare mandates or even attempted to provide a centralized resource for employers seeking information on the myriad of issues they need to deal with in this Golden State? Unfortunately, nope, nope and nope.
The Southwest California Legislative Council is a business advocacy coalition of the Temecula Valley, Murrieta, Wildomar, Lake Elsinore Valley and Menifee Valley Chambers of Commerce representing some 2,800 local employers dedicated to promoting job growth, economic expansion, and preserving the overall global competitiveness of California. Council members are selected from the sponsoring chambers and meet monthly to discuss, debate and adopt positions on a variety of bills that will have some impact on your local business. So far this year we’ve taken positions on nearly 20 bills, supporting a few that would ease costs and regulations on your business and opposing many, including 7 bills that represent a direct attack on Prop 13.
We’ve recently opposed a bill that would grant employees sick time after working just 7 days (AB 1522 Gonzalez), a bill that would add a costly double jeopardy situation for employers simply alleged to have an OSHA violation (AB 1634 Skinner) and another bill which would implement costly, duplicative and burdensome reporting duties on companies manufacturing food items (SB 747 DeSaulnier).
At the same time, we have supported a bill that would exempt start-up companies from the minimum franchise tax for their first five years of operation (AB 2495 Melendez), another bill that would shield an employer from liability if they rely on a state agency for information and that information turns out to be wrong or is later determined to be incorrect by a court (AB 2688 Brown), and another bill that would exempt manufacturers from costly and time consuming CEQA requirements if they’re simply going to modernize an existing facility (SB 834 Huff).
There are legislators in Sacramento who understand what you’re going through and are trying to help. We could use your help in supporting their efforts. And if you have bills pending that would be either detrimental or helpful to your industry or business, please notify us at GAD@SWCalAdvocacy.com. We also welcome you to attend our meetings held the 3rd Monday of each month at the Realtor House, 26529 Jefferson Avenue in Murrieta. Together we can get California working again.