Eleventh-hour deals and last-minute votes

Welcome back to Capitol Confidential!

The list of measures and initiatives that will appear before voters in November is finally taking shape, and it looks like California voters are in for another hefty ballot this year, with at least a dozen to consider. 

The process has felt like a game of Whack-a-Mole leading up to Thursday, the last day for initiatives to be pulled from the ballot. Where some new measures popped up to qualify for November, others were pulled — a handful through eleventh-hour negotiations in the Legislature. 

The billionaire tax, arguably the most controversial proposal so far, will appear before voters this fall, after backers of the bill announced Thursday evening they will not withdraw the measure. If passed by voters, it would impose a one-time 5% tax on residents of the state whose net worth exceeds $1 billion, using those funds to backfill federal cuts to the state’s Medicaid system.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has long opposed the billionaire tax and, in a Substack post this morning, he laid out his own proposals for narrowing the growing wealth gap, including a new federal tax on people making more than $100 million. Go here to read more on the rest of his proposals from Chronicle reporter Sophia Bollag.

One of the deals, led by state Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, and Assembly Member Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, avoids a ballot fight between Uber and Consumer Attorneys of California, which represents thousands of the state’s trial lawyers. 

The legislative deal, SB623, would impose limits on how much attorneys can recover for medical expenses from lien-based medical providers in automobile accident cases involving ride-shares like Uber. It would also make it illegal for attorneys to have a personal or financial stake in medical offices that provide these services. Recoveries will be capped at 70% of the cost of the medical service, calculated off an independent database tracking medical claim costs, to prevent overcharging. 

Several Democratic lawmakers applauded the legislation for enacting guardrails to protect Californians from overcharges in the wake of auto accidents — and expressed relief that the costly TV ad war between Uber and the trial attorneys group will end. 

“I wanna thank both sides for reaching this compromise,” Assembly Member Blanca Pacheco, D-Downey, said in a June 23 committee hearing. “I think now we can stop seeing all the commercials from both sides.”

A group of the state’s influential labor unions announced they struck a deal with the California Hospital Association, pulling dueling ballot measures that would have capped health care executive pay and limited political spending by large health care unions.

The California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO and SEIU-UHW withdrew their measure, which would have prohibited certain hospitals and medical entities from paying executives, managers and administrators more than $450,000 in total annual compensation. 

The California Hospital Association pulled their measure to limit union spending on state or local ballot measures and to require unions to inform their members of annual political spending amounts. 

As several measures met their end on Thursday, others were passed to appear on the ballot. 

They include ACA20, which would double the state’s mandated “rainy day fund” from 10% to 20%. Newsom has endorsed the measure as “common sense” — a sentiment echoed by Democratic lawmakers in both Assembly and Senate floor debates, and panned by several Republican members. 

Also heading to ballots: SB417, an $11.25 billion bond measure to fund veteran’s home ownership and affordable housing programs. 

Yet the Thursday deadline does not mean lawmakers are in the homestretch — they’re still facing down a Saturday cutoff to get all budget bills finalized in time for a vote next week, though Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino told reporters Wednesday he hoped they would wrap up those negotiations by Friday.

California lawmakers on both the state and federal level are pushing for tighter controls over the sale of nitrous oxide canisters, aiming to cut down on illegal, recreational use of the gas commonly known as whippets. 

In both Sacramento and Washington, D.C., California lawmakers have introduced bills that would place new limitations on the substance that has long been authorized for use in dentists’ offices for pain relief (think laughing gas), and in whipped cream canisters. Though illegal for recreational use in California, the gas is widely available in the state through a loophole that allows them to be sold in stores for “culinary use.”  

According to the Centers for Disease Control, repeated use can cause “severe” neurologic, cardiovascular and psychiatric issues, and the Food and Drug Administration has warned against inhaling the gas.  

In the nation’s capital, Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, has introduced the first bill in Congress to curb retail sales of nitrous oxide canisters. It would designate any consumer product containing nitrous oxide as a banned, hazardous product to be regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency that enforces bans on substances like lead paint and asbestos. But public health researchers question whether Mullin’s proposal, HR7945, would close that loophole, especially for online sales, as the Chronicle’s Brooke Park reported.

A few months prior to Mullin’s bill, State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, introduced SB936, which seeks to ban the public sale of nitrous oxide canisters larger than 8 grams, roughly the size needed for a refillable whipped cream canister. It would also make flavored iterations illegal to sell, with exceptions in place for culinary, medical and select manufacturing uses. 

While HR7945 has not yet been voted on in either chamber, Blakespear’s SB936 passed in the state Senate in May and is slated to come before the Assembly Committee on Public Safety on June 30.

Some similar legislation also working through the legislature: 

Among the changes coming are new rules impacting school restrooms, food labeling and restaurants, firearm sales and a minimum wage bump for scores of California workers.

While a majority of new laws have Jan. 1 implementation dates, dozens of pieces of legislation approved by the governor have a July 1 start date, coinciding with the beginning of a new fiscal year.

Some of the more noteworthy:

July 1 is also a critical date for staffers in the Legislature. After yearslong efforts to establish collective bargaining rights, the landmark AB1 kicks in on the first of the month. It’s been more than two years since the bill passed. The California Legislative Union website has a countdown clock at the top of their page, ticking down to “When We Can Unionize.”